Privacy Policy

Feature Real Estate is committed to respecting your right to privacy and protecting your personal information.

We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Act. We will ensure that all officers, employees and subcontractors are aware of and understand Feature Real Estate’s obligations as well as their own obligations under the Act. We will achieve this through the provision of training and through maintaining and implementing internal policies and procedures to prevent personal information from being collected, used, disclosed, retained, accessed or disposed of improperly.

This Policy applies to all your dealings with us, whether in person, or via telephone, email, correspondence or our website.

Privacy Policy Purpose

The purpose of this Policy is to:

• Give you a better and more complete understanding of the kinds of personal information we collect and hold;
• Clearly and concisely communicate how and when we collect, disclose, use, store and otherwise handle personal information;
• Inform you about the purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information;
• Provide you with information about how you may access your personal information, and seek correction of your personal information;
• Provide you with information about how you may make a complaint, and how we will deal with any such complaint;
• Advise you of the circumstances in which we are likely to disclose personal information to overseas recipients; and
• Enhance the transparency of our operations.

For the purpose of this Policy, the following terms will have the following meanings, as attributed to them by section 6 of the Act:

Health information means:

a)  Information or an opinion about:

• The health or disability (at any time) of an individual; or
• An individual’s expressed wishes about the future provision of health services to him or her; or
• A health service provided, or to be provided, to an individual;
• that is also personal information; or

b)  Other personal information collected to provide, or in providing, a health service;  or

c)  Genetic information about an individual in a form that is, or could be, predictive of the health of the individual or a genetic relative of the individual.

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not, and whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.

Sensitive information means:

a)  Information or an opinion about an individual’s:

• Racial or ethnic origin; or
• Political opinions; or
• Membership of a political association; or
• Religious beliefs or affiliations; or
• Philosophical beliefs; or
• Membership of a professional or trade association; or
• Membership of a trade union; or
• Sexual orientation or practices; or
• Criminal record

that is also personal information; or

b)  Health information about an individual; or

c)  Genetic information about an individual that is not otherwise health information; or

d)  Biometric information that is to be used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or biometric identification; or

e)  Biometric templates.

Collection of Personal Information

Whenever you deal with Feature Real Estate, we will collect personal information in order to provide or prospectively provide services and products to you. Such services and products include:

• Property appraisals;
• Property sales; and
• Assisting in property transactions.

We do not collect personal information unless it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of the services we provide or functions we carry out. The types of personal information we generally collect includes but is not limited to:

• Name.
• Date of birth.
• Residential address.
• Business address.
• Postal address.
• Email address.
• Home telephone number.
• Work telephone number.
• Mobile telephone number.
• Solicitor information.
• Property information such as (but not limited to) rates and body corporate fees.
• Financial information including names of banks or financial institutions.
• Bank account information.
• Proof of identity.
• Insurance related information.

We will not ordinarily ask you to provide sensitive information, however, information related to your services may fall within the definition of sensitive information. We will only collect sensitive information in circumstances where:

• It is reasonably necessary for one or more of the services we provide or functions we carry out; and
• You consent to the collection of the information; or
• We are required or authorised by law to collect the sensitive information.

We will, if it is reasonable or practicable to do so, collect your personal information directly from you. This may happen when you fill out a form or when you give us personal information in person, through your solicitor, or via telephone, email, correspondence or our website.

Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

Personal information collected by Feature Real Estate will ordinarily be used for the following purposes:

• Conducting real estate transactions.
• Marketing of products and services to you if requested.
• Facilitating property transactions.

In order to achieve the purposes described above, we may disclose your personal information (including sensitive information) to the persons/organisations described below:

• Other parties to a property transaction in which you are involved.
• Your Solicitor.
• The Solicitor representing other parties to a property transaction in which you are a party.

We will not disclose your personal information to government agencies, private sector organisations or any third parties unless one of the following applies:

• You have consented.
• You would reasonably expect, or you have been told, that information of that kind is usually passed to those individuals, bodies or agencies.
• It is otherwise required or authorised by law.
• It is reasonably necessary for enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body (eg. Police).

Like many other businesses in Australia, Feature Real Estate may rely on third party suppliers or contractors to provide specialised services such as web hosting, cloud computing technology and data storage services. If personal information is provided to these suppliers and contractors in order to enable them to perform the agreed tasks, we will make every effort to ensure that the supplier or contractor handles the personal information in accordance with the Act and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Marketing our products and services

Feature Real Estate may use your personal information to let you know about products and services in which you may be interested. You can contact us at any time if you no longer wish us to market our products and services to you (see the Contacting Us section for more information).

Non personally identifiable information

We sometimes collect data that, in and itself, does not directly identify you. We may collect, use, disclose and transfer this non personally identifiable information for any purpose. For example, we or our partners may collect information about your visits to our website, the links and advertisements that you click on and the URL that referred you to our website. We and/or such third parties with whom we may contract may use this information to serve you or like-minded customers with advertisements relating to other products, programs or services.

Accuracy of Personal Information

Feature Real Estate will take reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information it collects, uses or discloses is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you believe your personal information is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, please contact us (see the Contacting Us section for more information).

Security

Your personal information may be stored in hard copy documents or electronically. Feature Real Estate is committed to keeping your personal information secure and safe. Some of the ways we do this are:

• Requiring employees to enter into confidentiality agreements.
• Secure hard copy document storage (i.e. storing hard copy documents in a secure environment).
• Security measures for access to our computer systems.
• Providing a discreet environment for confidential discussions.

We will review and update our security measures from time to time. In addition, we will review the personal information and sensitive information held by us from time to time, ensuring that information which is no longer needed for a purpose for which it was initially collected is destroyed or de-identified.

Your Privacy on the Internet

Feature Real Estate takes care to ensure that the information you provide to us via our website is protected. You may be able to access external websites by clicking on links we have provided.  Those other websites are not subject to our privacy standards, policies and procedures. You will need to contact or review those websites directly to ascertain their privacy standards, policies and procedures.

Access to Personal Information

You may request access to personal information that Feature Real Estate holds about you (see the Contacting Us section for more information). We will acknowledge your request within 14 business days of the request being made.  Access will usually be granted within 14 business days of our acknowledgment or, if the request involves complex considerations or voluminous photocopying or scanning, we will contact you to provide an alternative timeframe based on the circumstances and anticipated work involved.
You will need to verify your identity before access to your personal information is granted. Whenever possible, we will endeavor to make the information available to you in the manner requested by you unless it is unreasonable for us to do so. 

If you are aware that we hold personal information about you that is no longer accurate, complete or up-to-date, please contact us (see the Contacting Us section for more information).

If you request access to your personal information, or if you request that we correct your personal information, we will allow access or make the correction unless we consider that there is a sound reason to withhold the information, or not make the correction.

Under the Act, we may refuse to grant access to personal information if:

• We believe that granting access would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or public safety.
• Granting access would have an unreasonable impact upon the privacy of other individuals.
• Denial of access is required or authorised by law or by a Court or Tribunal order.
• Giving access would be unlawful.
• The request for access is frivolous or vexatious.
• Legal proceedings are underway or anticipated and the information would not be accessible by way of the discovery process in those proceedings.
• Giving access would reveal our intentions in relation to negotiations between us and you in such a way as to prejudice those negotiations.
• Giving access is likely to prejudice enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body.
• Giving access is likely to prejudice action being taken or to be taken with respect to suspected unlawful activity or serious misconduct relating to our functions or activities.
• Giving access would reveal information in connection with a commercially sensitive decision making process.

If we do not agree to make a correction to your personal information, you may provide a statement about the requested corrections, and we will ensure that the statement is apparent to any users of the relevant personal information.

If we do not agree to provide access to your personal information or to correct your personal information, we will provide written reasons for the refusal and the mechanisms available to complain about the refusal (see the Complaints section for more information).

Contacting us

You may contact us by email or telephone as follows:

Phone: Mike Goodall 0499 561 063

Email: mikegoodall@featurere.com.au

Complaints

If you consider that there has been a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, you are entitled to complain to Feature Real Estate (see the Contacting Us section for more information). We will acknowledge receipt of a complaint within 2 business days.

We will investigate the complaint and attempt to resolve it within 20 business days after the complaint was received. Where it is anticipated that this time frame is not achievable, we will contact you to provide an estimate of how long it will take to investigate and respond to the complaint.

If you consider that we have not adequately dealt with a complaint, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on the below details:

Mail: Officer of the Australian Information Commissioner, GPO Box 5288, SYDNEY NSW 2001

Fax:  +61 2 6123 5145 

Online Form: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/lodge-a-privacy-complaint-with-us

Phone: 1300 363 992

Review

This policy is to be reviewed as follows:

• Annually as a minimum.
• Following an information security incident.
• Following significant changes to our systems.
• Following changes to the relevant State and Commonwealth legislation

Reviews are to examine the appropriateness of the policy taking into consideration corporate, system and compliance requirement changes since the last review was undertaken.

Privacy Policy Updates

Feature Real Estate reserves the right to change this Policy at any time and any amended Policy is effective upon posting to our website.  Last updated on 6th July2023