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                    Website privacy statement

                    This privacy statement applies to the City of Melbourne website.

                    For information about the broader collection and use of personal information by the City of Melbourne, please refer to our Information Privacy Policy.

                    Links

                    This website privacy statement does not apply to other websites we may link to. We recommend you read the privacy statement when you access another site.

                    Anonymous access to our site

                    You can access the City of Melbourne home page and browse our web site anonymously, without disclosing your personal information.

                    Collection and use of personal data

                    The City of Melbourne website only collects or records personal information you choose to provide through our Contact us section, subscription to various eNewsletters, initiatives or programs updates and financial transactions. As part of our commitment to customer service, we may periodically invite you to provide feedback about your experience via a survey. Any survey is voluntary and you do not have to participate.

                    Where possible, you have the option of not identifying yourself when entering into a transaction with the City of Melbourne. However, there may be instances where this is not feasible. For example, there is no requirement for an individual to identify themselves if they just want to report an incident (e.g. a toilet block maintained by City of Melbourne requires cleaning). However, if an individual contacts the City of Melbourne because they want a new rubbish bin – we are unable to provide the new bin without knowing the person’s name and address.

                    City of Melbourne staff use personal information collected from social media sites, email and survey sources to respond to individuals and discuss their particular enquiries. Feedback and survey results may also be shared with actioning areas within the organisation to evaluate and improve the customer service experience.

                    Email addresses and any other contact details you provide will not be added to mailing lists without your consent.

                    Disclosure of personal information

                    City of Melbourne will take all necessary measures to prevent unauthorised access to, or disclosure of, your personal information.

                    External organisations to which personal information is disclosed include City of Melbourne’s contracted Service Providers who perform various services for and on behalf of City of Melbourne. These contractors have agreed to be bound by the provisions of the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (VIC). Information provided to these contractors is limited to contact details provided by you whilst contacting us.

                    We will also ensure that your personal information is not disclosed to other individuals, institutions and authorities outside Council except if required or authorised by law or explicitly permitted by you. For example, in the event of an investigation into suspected unlawful or improper activity, a law enforcement agency or government agency may exercise its legal authority to inspect the web server's records (e.g. in relation to hacking or abusive messages).

                    Agencies and businesses that we may need to forward your contact details to include but are not limited to:

                    • CitiPower
                    • City of Stonnington
                    • Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
                    • Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions
                    • Department of Transport
                    • Federation Square
                    • Jemena
                    • Port Phillip City Council
                    • Public Records Office Victoria
                    • Victoria Police
                    • VicRoads
                    • Yarra City Council.

                    All above mentioned agencies and councils are subject to privacy legislation.

                    Access and correction

                    Requests for access to documents containing personal information and held by the City of Melbourne are handled under the Freedom of Information Act 1982. For further details, refer to our Freedom of Information page.

                    Collection and use of site visit data

                    Cookies are used on our site, but they do not collect any personal information. For the most part they are sessional and just contain system-generated values to identify the user's session for statistical and system administration purposes only.

                    Clickstream data refers to visitor logs and statistics that provide useful information about users’ online experience without identifying individuals. We collect the following clickstream data for statistical and system administration purposes:

                    • your server (or IP) address
                    • the day and time you visited the site
                    • the pages you visited on our site
                    • the address of the last page you visited
                    • the operating system you are using
                    • rough geographic location (down to the city)
                    • internet service provider (e.g. Telstra)
                    • the type of browser and version you are using.

                    To the extent that this data could make you identifiable, we will not attempt to identify individuals from the clickstream data unless required by law or to investigate improper activity in relation to this website.

                    Security of your personal data

                    This website uses secure transmission facilities when appropriate (e.g. financial transactions). You should be aware that there are risks in transmitting information across the Internet. If you are concerned about conveying sensitive material to City of Melbourne over the Internet, you might prefer to contact us by telephone or mail.

                    Social media collection statement

                    Information regarding your Social Networking Services (“SNS”)

                    If you use your Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking sites ("SNS") account information to log in and/or authenticate with a City of Melbourne website (“CoM”), we will collect and store a unique user ID provided by your SNS.

                    As a CoM website user, you can choose to log in and/or authenticate with a SNSs, such as Facebook. To do so, you must use your account credentials (typically username and password) for your SNS. Your SNS will provide CoM will a unique user ID which CoM can use to identify you on CoM websites. CoM will retain this user ID, keep it private and use it to identify you and enable your access to features on CoM websites.

                    Our use of SNS sometimes involves listening to social trends and issues that relate to City of Melbourne services and events. We use various tools to view public social media and website commentary in which City of Melbourne’s accounts may not necessarily be tagged – and engage directly with you to provide information or a better level of customer service. In doing so, we may temporarily collect and store your personal information.

                    To protect your own privacy and the privacy of others, we suggest that personal information including phone numbers and email addresses are not shared on SNS.

                    Please note that each social networking service will also handle your personal information for its own purposes. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and other statements of the SNSs you use.

                    Collection statement for Queen Victoria Market Precinct Renewal email updates

                    The City of Melbourne is committed to protecting your privacy. The personal information requested on this newsletter sign-up form is being collected by City of Melbourne to provide subscribers with project and construction updates as part of the Queen Victoria Market Precinct Renewal and any relevant sites, including the Munro site. It will not be disclosed to any other external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law. If the personal information is not collected, you will not be able to receive information updates via email. 

                    If you wish to alter any of the personal information you have supplied to City of Melbourne, please contact the QVM Precinct Renewal team via telephone 9658 9658 or email. Read more about how City of Melbourne uses and discloses the personal information it collects.

                    Collection statement for Homelessness email updates

                    ​The City of Melbourne is committed to protecting your privacy. The personal information requested on this sign-up form is being collected by City of Melbourne for the purpose of sending you communications, marketing and information about City of Melbourne fundraising campaigns or any other directly related purpose. It will not be disclosed to any other external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law. 

                    If you wish to alter any of the personal information you have supplied to City of Melbourne, please contact Council via telephone 9658 9658 or email citypeople@melbourne.vic.gov.au.

                    Collection statement for City of Melbourne Services account creation

                    The City of Melbourne requests personal information when you create an account through City of Melbourne Services. A City of Melbourne account gives you access to our services through City of Melbourne Services. We may disclose your personal information to Council’s contracted service providers when they are engaged to perform a service on Council’s behalf. Our service providers may use your personal information to contact you in relation to your request. When assessing permits depending on the type of permit sought Council may provide your permit application and/or the permit granted to affected stakeholders to notify them of works or obtain their approval where required to assess your application. To find out more about the types of stakeholders to whom Council may provide your permit application please contact Council at the details set out below.

                    A new feature of Council’s permit application system is that it now enables you to share your application with another external individual or entity specified by you. The third party with whom you share your application will have full access including the ability to view, edit and share the application with other interested parties. We will not disclose your personal information to any other external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law. While the Council will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the third party with whom you share your application does not share the application outside its organisation without your consent, to help ensure the protection of your information from unauthorised access or disclosure as far as possible, you are strongly encouraged to review and revoke any third party access to the application once there is no longer any need for the third party to have access to the application.

                    If you are a third party with whom an applicant has elected to share their application, you must not disclose the application to anyone external to you or your organisation without the consent of the applicant. In addition you must not make a copy of the application in any form including by taking photos or screenshots of the application on your computer or device. By continuing to create an account you agree to comply with the terms of this notice.

                    Supporting documents are required for some applications and some of these may contain health or sensitive information. Unless we need to confirm your supporting documents, or are required or authorised by law, we will not disclose the information in these documents with any other third parties.

                    To ensure you have a smooth, streamlined service, we’re updating the way we use and collect your personal information. In the past, we created a separate customer contact record each time you interacted with one of our services. For example, you may have one customer record with the City of Melbourne’s library service, another with our recreation centre and another on our rates database.

                    The City of Melbourne will now assign a unique customer number to you to consolidate all of these individual customer records into a central customer record. The personal information you provide on City of Melbourne Services will be added to your central City of Melbourne customer record. This process involves the migration of any customer records that the Council currently holds from your previous interactions into a central storage location maintained by a third party cloud service provider with datacentres located in Sydney, Australia. The data migrated includes your first and last name, email address, phone number, mailing address and organisation/company data if applicable. The data on your central customer record will be linked to the different Council services that you have requested and/or utilised including waste, parking permits, pet registrations, libraries, gyms and more. Any customer records from your interactions will undergo regular updating across our different systems to ensure the details on your central customer record are accurate and current.

                    The information on your central customer record will be made available to relevant City of Melbourne officers and our contracted service providers (including Citywide, Serco, Spotless and Calcorp) only where necessary to respond to your request for service or any other directly-related purpose.

                    We’ll use the information in your central customer record including the customer number to contact you regarding this or any other requests or enquiries you lodge with the City of Melbourne. The customer number is for internal City of Melbourne use only and you are not expected to provide this number when contacting us. If you don’t want a central City of Melbourne customer record, you can opt out by calling 9658 9658 or via our Contact us page

                    If you want to alter any of the personal information you have supplied to City of Melbourne, please log in to City of Melbourne Services  or contact Council via telephone on 9658 9658 or via our contact us page.

                    For more information about  how City of Melbourne of Melbourne uses your personal information. Please refer to our privacy statement.

                    Collection statement for City of Melbourne Services application submissions

                    The personal information requested on City of Melbourne Services is being collected by City of Melbourne for the purpose of responding to your request for a service or any other directly-related purpose. Your personal information may be disclosed to Council’s contracted service providers when they are engaged to carry out a service on Council’s behalf. Our service providers may use your personal information to contact you in relation to your request. Your personal information will not be disclosed to any other external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law.

                    A new feature of Council’s permit application system is that it now enables you to share your application with another external individual or entity specified by you. The third party with whom you share your application will have full access including the ability to view, edit and share the application with other interested parties. We will not disclose your personal information to any other external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law. While the Council will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the third party with whom you share your application does not share the application outside its organisation without your consent, to help ensure the protection of your information from unauthorised access or disclosure as far as possible, you are strongly encouraged to review and revoke any third party access to the application once there is no longer any need for the third party to have access to the application.

                    Supporting documents are required for some requests and some of these may contain health or sensitive information. Unless we need to confirm your supporting documents, or are required or authorised by law, we will not disclose the information in these documents with any other third parties.

                    To ensure our customers have a smooth, streamlined service, we’re updating the way we use and collect your personal information. Traditionally, a separate customer contact record is created each time you interact with one of our services. For example you may have one customer record with the City of Melbourne’s library service, another with our recreation centre and another on our rates database.

                    In 2019, we will start to consolidate all of these individual customer records into a central customer record. The personal information you provide on City of Melbourne Services will be added to your central City of Melbourne customer record.

                    The information contained in your central customer record will be used to contact you regarding this or any other requests or enquiries you lodge with the City of Melbourne. If you do not want a central City of Melbourne customer record, you can opt-out by calling 9658 9658 or via our contact us page.

                    If you wish to remain anonymous, please submit your request using our online enquiry form. If you choose to remain anonymous, in some instances we may not be able to complete your request or tell you its outcome.

                    If you want to alter any of the personal information you have supplied to City of Melbourne, please log in to City of Melbourne Services or contact Council via telephone on 9658 9658 or via our contact us page.

                    For more information about how City of Melbourne of Melbourne uses your personal information. Please refer to our privacy statement

                    Contact us

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