Privacy Statement

Wilson Pateras Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy sets out the personal information handling practices of Wilson Pateras Accounting Pty Ltd ACN 606 714 354, Wilson Pateras Financial Planning ACN 644 195 344 and Wilson Pateras Lending and Finance Pty Ltd ABN 76 155 724 600, WPFP Group Pty Ltd ACN 623 340 698 (“we“, “us” or “our“) current as at 25 October 2023.

We recognise the importance of privacy, and we are committed to ensuring the privacy of your personal information. We are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and the Health Privacy Principles contained in the Victorian Health Records Act 2001 in respect of our handling of personal information and health information respectively. In this Privacy Policy, “personal information” includes any information about an identified or reasonably identifiable individual, and “health information” includes any information about the health of an individual that is also personal information.

By providing us with your personal information you consent to us handling it in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you provide us with any personal information about another individual, then we rely upon you to inform that individual of the details contained in this Privacy Policy.

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we do so, we will publish the amended Privacy Policy on our website and via an electronic client newsletter.

1.       How and why we collect, store, use and disclose personal information

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect personal information directly from you in person and from your communication with us, including by telephone, email, form, letter, facsimile or other means. For example, we may collect your personal information directly from you when:

• you request us to provide you with our products or services;
• you attend our events;
• you request us to provide you with information about our products, services or events;
• you complete a survey or provide feedback in respect of our products or services; or
• you subscribe to receive news or other information about our products or services.

We may also collect your personal information from a third party or publicly available source for the purpose of providing our services to you.

Why we collect personal information

We collect, store, use, and disclose personal information for purposes relating to our accounting, financial, and lending functions and activities. For example, we may collect, store, use, or disclose your personal information for one or more of the following purposes:

• providing you with our products or services;
• inviting you to attend our events;
• managing our client relationship with you;
• providing you with information about our products, services or events;
• sending you publications that may be of interest to you, invitations to events and product information alerts; and
• carrying out our accounting, financial or lending functions and activities; and
• complying with our legal or regulatory obligations.

2.       What personal information do we collect?

The types of personal information that we collect and store about you depends on the type of product or service that we are providing to you.

The personal information that we collect and store about you may include:

• name, address and contact details, including email addresses;
• date of birth, age and your intended plans for retirement;
• marital status and information regarding any previous relationships;
• financial goals, needs, objectives and circumstances;
• details of your dependents and beneficiaries;
• financial information (for the purposes of preparing a tailored financial plan and/or statement of advice);
• your employment details (including your occupation, details of your employer, the nature of your employment and salary);
• details of any corporate structure which may be used by you to own and/or operate your business (and details of the relevant corporate entities);
• your Australian Tax File Number and Australian Business Number (where you have provided those to us);
• in some cases, insurance claim information;
• details of your assets, or assets in which you wish to invest;
• details of your health insurance provider (and relevant membership numbers);
• legal documents to which you are a party (including your will); and
• documentation which verifies your identity (which, in some cases, we are required to collect by the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth)).

We do not collect sensitive information about you unless required by law, or if you have consented to it. Sensitive information includes information relating to:

• racial or ethnic origin;
• political opinions or associations;
• religious or philosophical beliefs;
• trade union membership or associations;
• sexual orientation or practices;
• criminal record;
• health or genetic information; or
• some aspects of biometric information.

We may collect your health information with your consent, where it is relevant to provide our services including obtaining insurance for you.

If you choose not to provide information to us, we may not be able to provide you with our products or services.

3.       How do we securely store personal information?

We are committed to keeping your personal information secure. We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. We store your personal information in different ways, including in paper and electronic format. The measures we take to protect the security of your personal information include electronic and physical security measures, such as:

• securing our premises, by requiring security passes to enter our offices;
• placing passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access and protect electronic information;
• the use of Firewalls, virtual private networks, encryption, passwords and digital certificates;
• providing locked cabinets and rooms for the storage of physical records; and
• requiring our staff to undertake ongoing privacy and data protection training.

Where the information we collect is no longer required, we will delete the information or permanently de-identify it.

4.       When we may disclose personal information

We may disclose your personal information to third parties for the purpose of providing our services including the following third parties:

• your authorised representatives in connection with providing you with our products or services;
• other professional advisors such as accountants, auditors, lawyers and financial planners;
• software providers including cloud storage programs;
• document providers;
• service providers that assist us to carry out our accounting, financial or lending functions and activities and process client work (“Service Providers”);
• insurance companies;
• financial institutions, including for the purpose of procuring finance for your investments where you have requested us to do so;
• organisations offering products and services you wish to invest in or obtain; and
• regulatory and government bodies.

Some of our Service Providers and third parties, to whom we may disclose your personal information, may be located overseas. We conduct suitable due diligence and risk assessments, including data security, of all third parties prior to engaging them or using their services.

We do not sell personal information to third parties.

We may additionally use or disclose personal information where authorised or required by law.

Direct marketing

We may use your personal information to send you publications that may be of interest to you (such as newsletters containing industry knowledge and changes to legislation), invitations to events and product information alerts. If you do not want to receive marketing communications from us, you can contact us as detailed at the end of this Privacy Policy (see ‘Contact us about Privacy’). In each direct marketing communication we send you, we will give you the opportunity to ‘opt out’ or unsubscribe from receiving marketing communications in the future.

5.       Access to personal information

Under the Australian Privacy Principles and Health Privacy Principles you have rights to access personal information and health information respectively that we store about you, except as set out below. If you wish to access the information, please contact our Privacy Officer at compliance@wilsonpateras.com.au.

In some circumstances, we may refuse to give you access to your personal information or health information. Those circumstances are set out in the Australian Privacy Principles and Health Privacy Principles respectively and include situations when your request may unreasonably impact on another person’s right to privacy and frivolous or vexatious requests. If we are entitled under the Australian Privacy Principles or Health Privacy Principles, to refuse to give you access to your personal information or health information respectively, we will tell you and provide reasons for our decision.

We reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for fulfilling your request for access to your personal information or health information.

6.       Data Breach Procedure

In the event of a significant data breach, under the Notifiable Data Breaches (“NDB”) scheme we may be required to notify individuals who are likely to suffer serious harm as a result of an eligible data breach. We must also notify the Privacy Commissioner.

7.       Our website

If you access our website, we may collect additional information about you in the form of your IP address or domain name.

Our website uses ‘Cookies’. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer when you first visit the site and are used on some parts of our website. Most browsers now recognise when a cookie is offered and permit you to refuse or accept it. If you are not sure whether your browser has this capability, you should check with the software manufacturer, your company’s IT help desk or your Internet service provider. We sometimes use cookies to analyse statistical data such as the date and time that you accessed the site and the internet address of the site that linked you to our site. We do not and are not able to use cookies to gain personal information.

Wilson Pateras uses remarketing to advertise online. Third-party vendors, including Google, show our ads on sites across the internet. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your past visits to this website. Visitors can opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Ads Preference Manager or visitors can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of linked websites and any linked websites are not subject to our privacy policies and procedures. These third party websites are not under our control and we do not accept any responsibility for the conduct or operation of third party websites. Before disclosing information on any other website you should examine the terms and conditions and privacy policy of that website.

8.       Third Party Websites

We may, from time to time, provide you with links to websites owned or operated by unrelated third parties. These websites are not under our control and we are not responsible for their respective privacy handling policies. We suggest that you read theses websites’ privacy policies before disclosing personal information to them.

9.       Contact us about privacy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or would like to contact us for any reason about privacy, then we ask that you contact our Privacy Officer in writing by emailing compliance@wilsonpateras.com.au

If you have a complaint, we will respond and advise whether we agree with your complaint.  If we do not agree, we will provide reasons.  If we do agree, we will advise what (if any) action we consider appropriate to take in response.  If you are still not satisfied after having contacted us, then if your complaint relates to our handling of your personal information you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or, alternatively, if your complaint relates to our handling of your health information, you may contact the Office of the Health Services Commissioner.

You may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by:

Phone: 1300 363 992
Post: GPO Box 5218, Sydney, NSW 2001
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

You may contact the Office of the Health Services Commissioner by:

Phone: 1300 582 113
Post: Level 26, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000
Email: hsc@health.vic.gov.au