Privacy Policy

As part of our business operations, we may collect your personal information. This privacy policy explains how we collect personal information and how we maintain, use and disclose that information. It also provides some detail about your privacy rights along with our general rights and obligations and our policy in relation to the personal information we keep on record. This privacy policy does not apply to parties that may be linked or associated with our website and to whom you may disclose personal information. Those parties are responsible for the privacy of the information they collect and should be contacted directly for details of their privacy policies. We are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which are contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act). If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, please contact us using the contact details below.

Your privacy is important to us

We recognise that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control your personal information. Personal information is information or an opinion about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained. It includes all personal information, regardless of its source. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. The following sections set out how we handle and protect your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

Collection Statement

Loan Comparison Genius, the business name of Loan Comparison Genius Pty Ltd (ABN 17 719 332 325) Credit Representative number 528539 is authorised under Australian Credit Licence 384704 will collect, store, use and disclose the personal information you have provided to us pursuant to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

The primary purpose for which we collect your personal information is to provide you with the services you request, including comparing products, providing you with information about products, facilitating a quick contact or application with a financial institution or fulfilling your request to have another service provider such as a broker contact you.
Usually, we collect your personal information directly from you, for example where you complete an online form or other tool on our website. We may also collect your personal information from third parties such as:

  • anyone who refers you to us,
  • a credit reporting body, where we verify your identity,
  • a credit reporting body, where you authorise us to obtain your credit score; and
  • your computer when you interact with various parts of our website (we collect your IP address).
  • other advertising medium.

We may also collect your personal information for other purposes including to:

  • respond to your requests;
  • provide information, products and services to you;
  • review your dealings with us, including the products and services you use, your potential needs, and new products that might be of interest to you or other customers;
  • personalise your online experience and collect statistical information about the use of our website;
  • send information, hints and tips via email;
  • occasionally send marketing and promotional material about our products and/or services (or the products and/or services of our related companies) that we believe you may be interested in;
  • conduct competitions or promotions including for selected third parties; and
  • for purposes otherwise required/permitted by law (including the Privacy Act).

If you do not provide us with the personal information we ask for or the information provided is incorrect or incomplete, we may not be able to provide you with our services or our services may not be accurate (for example, information we give you about loans may not be accurate if you do not give us accurate information).

What information do we collect?

The types of information we keep on record will depend on the type of product or service requested by you. Generally, we keep a record of the following types of information about you:

  • information that identifies you, such as your name and address and other information provided by you;
  • if you use a comparison tool, calculator, contact form, online survey or other tool (“Website Tool”) on our website, the information that you enter into the Website Tool. This could include information like your name and contact details, employment status and income, financial situation, date of birth, gender and drivers licence number;
  • your IP address or unique device number for your interaction with various parts of our website. Your IP address and/or device number is an identifier for your computer or mobile device when you are using the internet;
  • your credit score and credit report information, where you authorise us to obtain it from a credit reporting body.

We do not seek to collect sensitive information (for example health information or information about your racial or ethnic origin or any criminal record), unless it is necessary for our business purposes. If we do have to collect sensitive information, we will do so in accordance with the APPs. During our dealings with you, we may gather information about you relating to all products and services that we or our business partners provide to you. This information is used to help us decide how we can improve our service delivery to you. We collect and hold information about you when you:

  • complete an online form or use a Website Tool;
  • provide us with your email address and/or any other identifying information you provide such as a name or phone number; or
  • access and use our services through our website or via our advertising on another site.

We also collect some statistical information about visitors to our website (for example, the number of visitors, pages viewed, types of transactions conducted, time online and documents downloaded). Some of this statistical information is collected by using cookies, but none of the statistical information we collect allows us to identify a visitor. We use this information to evaluate our website performance and continually improve our services. We may disclose this information in an aggregated form to third parties including advertisers or potential advertisers. We allow third-party companies to collect certain anonymous information when you visit our website. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information during your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or a third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioural advertising practice, you can visit IAB Australia. Other than statistical information, we do not collect any information about you through our website unless you provide the information to us.

You need not give us any of the personal information about you or any other person which may be requested in our communications with you. However, without that information, we may not be able to fulfil your request or provide you with an appropriate level of service.

How do we use your personal information?

We use your personal information to:

  • provide you with our services (including comparing or providing you information about products):
  • respond to your requests;
  • display content and advertising that are better filtered to your interests, preferences and experiences;
  • communicate with you, including by email, mail or telephone;
  • review your dealings with us, including the products and services you use, your potential needs, and new products that might be of interest to you or other customers;
  • investigate any complaints about or made by you, or if we have reason to suspect that you are in breach of any of our Terms of Use or that you are or have been otherwise engaged in any unlawful activity;
  • provide you with news and information about our products and services (including newsletters, product surveys and special offers);
  • provide you with more effective customer service;
  • enable us to conduct customer research;
  • perform research and analysis aimed at improving our products, services and technologies;
  • conduct competitions, promotions or scholarships on behalf of Loan Comparison Genius and selected third parties;
  • ensure that our internal business operations are running smoothly which may include fulfilling legal requirements and conducting confidential systems maintenance and testing; and/or
  • using personal information as otherwise required or permitted by any law (including the Privacy Act).

 

Who do we disclose personal information to?

We may disclose your personal information to the following organisations for the purposes described above (as well as otherwise permitted or required under Australian law):

  • any organisation which you request us to, including a financial institution, a credit provider, credit bureau, broker, solicitor, or accountant;
  • other organisations, service providers or business partners who we refer you to;
  • organisations who help us verify your identity;
  • our agents and other third-party service providers who carry out functions on our behalf (including, but not limited to, marketing and data storage providers and IT service providers);
  • organisations wishing to acquire an interest in any part of our business for assessing or implementing any such acquisition;
  • third party clients/partners of ours or other organisations whom you have expressly opted-in to allowing us to disclose your personal information to;
  • our external service providers (some of which may be located overseas) for the purposes of our business, for example IT service providers. Information is only disclosed in accordance with Australian Privacy Principles;
  • product and services providers for operational purposes, and also because from time to time they may choose to provide you with information about their products and services. You may opt-out of receipt of such marketing at any time by contacting directly those organisations which have obtained your information. If you do not have their details, you can request them from us on the details below;
  • our related companies and other organisations where reasonable to do so in relation to the operation of our business;
  • if we consider it necessary to do so in order to enforce or apply the terms of any of our agreements with you;
  • contractors providing licensed collections services, credit card payment processing and CRM services, who comply with our privacy and security policies;
  • if we sell our business or part of it to a third party;
  • in extreme circumstances to protect the personal safety of our customers, website users, staff or the public; and
  • law enforcement, regulatory and government bodies, government agencies and courts, if we are required to by law to do so.

We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. By accepting this Privacy Policy, you consent to us disclosing your personal information to overseas recipients.

How do we store personal information?

Data security is important to us when you use our online products and services. Access to information stored electronically is restricted to staff whose job purpose requires access. We use secure methods to destroy or de-identify any personal information as soon as the law permits, provided the information is no longer needed by us for any purpose.
If there is a suspected or an actual data breach which may compromise personal information, Loan Comparison Genius will promptly undertake an assessment of the incident. Where relevant, immediate steps will be taken to contain the breach. These steps may include limiting any further access or distribution of the affected personal information, or the possible compromise of other personal information.

If the unauthorised access, disclosure or loss of personal information is likely to cause serious harm to one or more individuals and the likely risk of serious harm has not been prevented by remedial action, Loan Comparison Genius will notify the affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as soon as practicable. The notification will include Loan Comparison Genius’ identity and contact details, a description of the incident, the kind/s of information concerned and any recommended steps for affected individuals.

Following any data breach incident, Loan Comparison Genius will undertake a review process to help prevent future breaches.

How do we contact you?

Our primary means of contacting you is electronic, such as via email and SMS, and phone (where you have provided a phone number). As a business with services that are provided online, we have inferred your consent to communicate electronically. You can withdraw this consent by using the unsubscribe facility in these messages or by providing us with written notice.

Our use of cookies

A “cookie” is a small text file that is placed on your computer by a Web server. Cookies contain information that can later be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

How we use cookies

We use cookies to enable you to sign into our services and to help personalise your online experience. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to store your preferences and other information in order to save you time by eliminating the need to repeatedly enter the same information and to display your personalised content.

Declining cookies

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to use other interactive features of our website and services that depend on cookies, and some advertising preferences that are dependent on cookies may not be able to be respected. If you choose to accept cookies, you also have the ability to later delete cookies that you have accepted. If you chose to delete cookies, any settings and preferences, including advertising preferences, controlled by those cookies will be deleted and may need to be recreated.

Use of web beacons

Our websites or partners’ websites may contain electronic images known as “web beacons” – sometimes called single-pixel gifs – that may be used to assist in delivering cookies on our sites and allow us to count users who have visited those pages and to deliver other services.

How we use web beacons

We may include web beacons on all webpages on Loan Comparison Genius or our partners in order to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon. We may also employ web beacons from third parties in order to help us compile aggregated statistics regarding the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns or other operations of our websites.
Finally, we may work with other companies that advertise on our website to place their web beacons on our sites in order to allow us to gather statistics and better target advertisements on our website that may result in a purchase or other action on the advertiser’s site.

Amendment of this policy

We may amend this policy from time to time. Not all changes to our privacy policy will require your consent, for example where office security procedures are changed. We will notify you of any change to our information handling policy that requires your consent before being implemented. If you do not wish to receive information about our products and services, then please tell us. You can do this at any time by writing to us or telephoning us at the contact details listed below.

Access to your information

You can request access at any time to personal information we hold about you by using the contact details below. We will process your request within a reasonable time, usually 14 days for a straightforward request. More time may be needed, depending on the nature of the request. There is no fee for requesting access to your information, however, we may charge you the reasonable cost of processing your request. Sometimes we are not required to provide you with access – for example if the law says we can deny access. If we refuse you access to your personal information, we will tell you the reason why.

Correction of information

We try to ensure that all information we hold about you which we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. You may ask us at any time to correct personal information held by us about you, which you believe is incorrect or out of date. We will deal with your request within a reasonable time. In this policy, reference to “we/us” means Loan Comparison Genius, the business name of Loan Comparison Genius Pty Ltd (ABN 17 719 332 325) Credit Representative number 528539 and is authorised under Australian Credit Licence 384704.

Contact details and complaints

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about whether we have complied with the Privacy Act, the Australian Privacy Principles, or this Privacy Policy, please contact us on: 0412 605 675, 9am – 5pm on business days or email contact@loancomparisongenius.com.au. We will try to answer any questions you may have, correct any error on our part or resolve any complaint that you may have about our information handling practices.

If we do not resolve a complaint to your satisfaction, you also have the right to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (1300 363 992 or enquiries@oaic.gov.au). You acknowledge and accept that your use of the Loan Comparison Genius website indicates your acceptance of the Loan Comparison Genius website Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

LongView Privacy Policy

Please follow this link to view LongView’s Privacy Policy.