The Learning Group Pty Ltd ACN 657 388 988 (referred to as The Learning Group, we, us or our) has implemented this Privacy Policy to provide you with information about how we collect, hold and use Personal Information (defined below) collected about you from a third party or through:
(a) our website (thelearninggroup.com.au), and associated interfaces (such as mobile sites and through tablet applications) (Website); or
(b) any other means (including as a current or future student of The Learning Group, a participant in promotional activities conducted by The Learning Group, a supplier to us).
By providing your personal information to us directly or indirectly, you accept the terms of this Privacy Policy.
We are committed to the protection of your Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act (Privacy Principles).
To the extent we collect any health information, we will also comply with various state-based laws in respect of such information, to the extent applicable to us.
If you have any concerns or wish to make any inquiries regarding this Privacy Policy, you should contact us as specified in clause 14.
We may, from time to time, review and update this Privacy Policy including to take into account new laws, regulations and technology. All Personal Information collected by us will be governed by our most recent Privacy Policy, posted on our Website.
We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy to understand how your Personal Information is treated, and, to review our Privacy Policy periodically so that you are updated on any changes.
2. What is “Personal Information”?
“Personal Information” is information or an opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained.
Personal Information covers “sensitive information”, which includes information regarding ethnicity or racial origin, philosophical beliefs, criminal records and health information.
3. When and why we collect Personal Information
3.1 We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you. We collect it to manage our relationship with you and perform functions and activities relating to our business as further described in clause 4.
3.2 The type of information that we collect from you will depend on how you engage with us. We may collect Personal Information such as your name, email contact details, telephone numbers, residential and postal addresses, gender, residency status, date of birth, driver’s licence and/or passport details, employment and education history, occupational, educational and personal interests, banking and payment details, security question and answer, when you:
(a) access and use our Website, including by filling in a form or signing up to our email mailing list;
(b) make an enquiry about our products on our Website or on one of our partner websites, over the phone or through written communication;
(c) request or acquire a product or service from us or our learning platform;
(d) provide it directly to us or our agents or contractors;
(e) request technical support or assistance;
(f) apply for a payment plan;
(g) provide feedback to us;
(h) participate in any of our promotions or competitions;
(i) connect with us by telephone, email, through social media such as Facebook, post or in person;
(j) apply for a position with us, including as a Career Advisor, Student Support Advisor or Tutor; or
(k) you otherwise submit Personal Information about yourself, or someone else, to us or our Website.
3.3 If you apply for a scholarship, we may also collect information about your personal or financial hardship to assess the grant of your scholarship. This may include a copy of your Centrelink statement, Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card with your name listed or your current year’s tax assessment or payslips no older than three months.
3.4 The Learning Group also purchases information from third parties who obtain contact details of potential students through jobsites, social media and online or print advertising.
3.5 We will only collect your Personal Information from third parties if you give the third party your consent to provide the information to us or it would be reasonably expected.
3.6 If someone refers you to us, we may store your Personal Information in our database. If someone other than you provides us with Personal Information about you that we did not ask for, or you provide us with unsolicited Personal Information, we will only hold, use or disclose this information if we determine that we could have collected this information from you had we asked for it. In this circumstance we will take all reasonable steps to notify you of the collection of that information. If we could not have collected this Personal Information, we will lawfully de-identify or destroy that Personal Information
3.7 If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence. Information collected from our telephone providers includes phone numbers, time duration of the call and the call quality.
3.8 We may collect any other Personal Information that you submit to us, including via our Website.
3.9 We will only collect sensitive information if you consent and it is relevant to providing our services. We may collect health information from you, including disability information, to determine how we can best tailor our services to meet your needs, including if you are a potential student engaging in the enrolment process.
4. If you are under 18 years of age
If you are under 18 years of age you must ask your parent or legal guardian to approve your provision of personal information before you submit your personal details to us.
5. How we use the Personal Information we collect about you
5.1 This Privacy Policy deals with personal information of registered users, customers, service providers and other third parties.
5.2 We use the Personal Information we collect about you for our business functions and activities, which may include the following:
(a) to identify you, verify your identity and remind you of your password and username;
(b) to communicate with you and to provide you with information, products or services that you have requested;
(c) to provide our services to you, including: facilitating your enrolment in a course of study, facilitating your access to an online learning management system and obtaining payment for our services;
(d) to arrange for services to be provided by our service providers so that they can provide you with products or services you have requested, including contacting you in relation to such products or services;
(e) to customise your experiences on our Website and provide a better service or product to you, including automatically populating forms on our Website by which you make enquiries;
(f) to combine your Personal Information with information that we have collected from our service providers, third parties, cookies or web beacons in order to provide you with a better or more personalised experience and to improve the quality of our services;
(g) to contact you to obtain your feedback, to find out your level of satisfaction with our products and services and for other market research activities;
(h) to promote and market our products and services to you;
(i) to inform you about upcoming events, special promotions or offers which we believe may be of interest to you;
(j) for internal operations, such as record keeping and data analytics; and
(k) in the event that we enter into, or intend to enter into, a transaction that alters the structure of our business, such as a reorganisation, merger, acquisition by another company, sale of all or part of our business assets, joint venture, assignment, transfer, change of control, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock, for the purpose of facilitating and completing the transaction. In these circumstances, please note that your Personal Information may be among the assets transferred.
5.3 We may collect and use your Personal Information for other purposes not listed above. If we do so, we will make it known to you at the time we collect or use your Personal Information.
5.4 With your consent, we may also use sensitive information collected to assist you in conveniently and easily accessing the services that we offer, and to make sure your tutors are aware of any disability so that they can help you complete your chosen course. In the event that you have applied for a Learn for Life Scholarship, we may also use your sensitive information to determine your eligibility for a Scholarship.
5.5 We will only collect and use your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
5.6 If you choose not to provide your Personal Information to us for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, we may not be able to undertake certain activities for you such as providing you with requested information, products or services.
6. To whom we disclose your Personal Information
6.1 In order to carry out the above purposes, we may disclose your Personal Information to third parties that provide products and services to or through The Learning Group, our trainers and assessors, financial institutions, our professional advisers, and other parties to whom we are authorised or required by law to disclose information.
6.2 We also engage other education providers who offer products and services that we do not provide, such as ACS Distance Education. Your Personal Information may be passed on to these providers to enable your course to be delivered.
6.3 If you sign up to a payment plan with The Learning Group, we may provide our financial services partners (including MoneyMe, Square, Student Pay and StudyPay) with Personal Information such as your name, date of birth contact details and payment information. If you enter into a contract with us, you consent to us sharing your Personal Information with a debt collection agency if you miss or default on payments.
6.4 We may also disclose your Personal Information to:
(a) our Website host or software application providers (including Managed Services Australia, Out in the Clouds, Salesforce) in certain limited circumstances, for example when our Website experiences a technical problem or to ensure that it operates in an effective and secure manner;
(b) digital marketing and other service providers such as Salesforce and social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram; and
(c) data storage providers such as Equinix, Microsoft, Salesforce and Vultr (servers located in Australia and USA).
6.5 We may also disclose your Personal Information to:
(a) government and law enforcement agencies and regulators; and
(b) entities established to help identify illegal activities and prevent fraud where authorised by law.
6.6 You acknowledge that third parties are not covered by this Privacy Policy and may have their own terms and conditions and privacy policies. If you choose to access any third party sites, you do so at your own risk. The Learning Group is not responsible for, and will not be liable in respect of, the content or operation of those websites or any of the goods, services or content that they describe. The Learning Group is not responsible for, and will not be liable in respect of, any incorrect link to an external website.
6.7 We may also disclose your personal information to anyone authorised by you, or to whom you have provided your consent (either expressly or impliedly) or where another permitted general situation applies (as defined in Section 16A of the Privacy Act).
7. Does Personal Information leave Australia?
7.1 The nature of the Internet means that some of your Personal Information may be transferred, stored, processed or used overseas by us or by third party service providers. This may happen if we outsource certain activities overseas (in Europe or Asia) or if transactions, information, services or products have an overseas connection. These services typically include data-storage related services such as information being stored in the “cloud”.
7.2 To assist in providing our services we use:
(a) Managed Services Australia whose services are provided, supported and hosted in Australia; and
(b) Salesforce whose services are provided, supported and hosted in Australia and United States of America.
7.3 To the extent that the laws and rights of these countries are not equivalent to the laws of Australia, you agree to be bound by the laws and rights of the relevant extraterritorial jurisdiction. The United States of America has data protection laws that are not equivalent to the laws of Australia and you may not have equivalent rights of enforcement.
7.4 To the extent Personal Information is transferred, stored, processed or used overseas by us or by third party service providers you consent to the collection, use, storage, and processing of your Personal Information outside of Australia.
8. Marketing
8.1 We may use your Personal Information (other than sensitive information, which requires your consent to be used in this manner) to provide you with marketing material about us, our services, or products that we think may be of interest to you, including through emails, SMS, MMS, mobile push and other electronic messages, or by telephoning you. We do not disclose any personally identifiable information of our students to third party advertisers.
8.2 You may opt-out of receiving marketing information from us at any time by:
(a) clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link included in any marketing email, SMS, MMS, mobile push and other electronic message you receive from us; or
(b) where no “Unsubscribe” link is provided, contacting us as specified in clause 12. Please note that where there is no “Unsubscribe” link provided, we will draw your attention to the fact that you can request to opt out and will provide you with the details of how to do so.
8.3 You agree and acknowledge that even if you opt out of receiving information about future events or marketing material, we will still send you essential information that we are required to send you relating to the services we provide.
9. Information collected via our Website
Click Stream Data
9.1 When you visit and browse our Website, our Website host may collect information for statistical, reporting and maintenance purposes.
9.2 The information collected by our Website host will not be used to identify you. The information may include:
(a) the number of users visiting our Website and the number of pages viewed;
(b) the date, time and duration of a visit;
(c) the IP address of your computer; or
(d) the path taken through our Website.
9.3 Our Website host may use this information to administer and improve the performance of our Website.
Cookies
9.4 Cookies are small text files that are transferred to a user’s computer hard drive by a website for the purpose of storing information about a user’s identity, browser type or website visiting patterns. Cookies may be either “persistent” or “session” cookies. A persistent cookie will be stored on the user’s computer and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before then. A session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the internet browser is closed.
9.5 If you access our Website, a cookie may be downloaded onto your hard drive when you first log on to our Website. Our Website may use both session cookies and persistent cookies.
9.6 We may use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve the Site in order to tailor it to users’ needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes, after which the data is removed from the system. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better Website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
9.7 You can adjust your internet browser to disable cookies, or you can delete cookies already stored on your computer, however, we may not be able to provide you with all the service or functionality you require on our Website if you choose to do so.
10. Accessing your information and making a complaint
10.1 You are entitled to request access to the Personal Information that we hold about you. If you request access to your Personal Information, we will grant your request within a reasonable period of time and, where reasonable and practicable, give access to the information in the manner you request. This will be subject to any exemptions provided under the Privacy Act. If we refuse your request to access your Personal Information, we will provide you with reasons for the refusal.
10.2 Where it is practical to do so, when contacting us, you have the option to either not identify yourself or to use a pseudonym. However, this will not apply if we are required or authorised under Australian law (or a court or tribunal order) to only deal with individuals who have identified themselves.
11. Updating, storage and security of Personal Information held by us
11.1 We aim to keep your Personal Information secure and up to date. We use all reasonable endeavours to protect your Personal Information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. If you reasonably believe that there has been unauthorised use or disclosure of your Personal Information please contact us using the details below as specified in clause 14.
11.2 Any Personal Information which is held on our systems is protected by safeguards including physical, technical (e.g. firewalls, SSL encryptions etc) and procedural methods.
11.3 Personal Information that is held by us in hard copy is stored securely on our premises.
11.4 We also process payments using EFTPOS and online technologies. All transactions processed by us meet industry security standards to ensure payment details are protected.
11.5 You warrant that you will not act in a manner that results in us collecting, using or storing information that is in breach of our obligations at law.
11.6 Notwithstanding clauses 11.1, 11.3 and 11.4, The Learning Group can not, and does not, guarantee that our systems or the Website will not be the subject of any unauthorised access or use of Personal Information by third parties or to other information security risks. Where we identify, or are informed of, a notifiable data breach, we will undertake notification and rectification as required by the Privacy Act. In the event of a notifiable data breach, where your Personal Information is involved in the breach, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if the breach is likely to result in serious harm to you.
11.7 The Learning Group only retains Personal Information for as long as it is being used to provide services or information to you, or for the length of time necessary to comply with any regulatory requirements. We also maintain a register of all statements of attainments issued to students so that you can ask us for another copy.
11.8 If we find that we have no further need for your Personal Information, unless we are required under Australian law or a court or tribunal order to retain it, we will remove it from our systems and destroy all record of it or make that Personal Information anonymous.
12. Accuracy of your information
12.1 Before The Learning Group provides a product or service to you, or to a person connected with you, we may be required to collect your personal information to comply with customer identification obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) (AMLCTF Act).
12.2 The personal information we collect for this purpose typically includes identification information, such as name, residential address and date of birth. In some cases, we may need to collect information about the political activities and opinions of individuals to determine whether they are politically exposed persons for the purposes of the AMLCTF Act. If we ask for this information, and you provide it to us, we will infer your consent to use and disclose the information for this purpose.
12.3 In certain circumstances, we may need to clarify and/or update the personal information we previously collected for identity verification purposes, and/or collect further information, including financial information about individuals. Where this is necessary, we will collect the information directly from you and/or from third party sources.
12.4 As a part of our AMLCTF verification processes we may need to take copies of your personal identification documents in order to verify your identity in accordance with the requirements of that Act, or
12.5 The information obtained used by The Learning Group for an information match request to a relevant Official Record Holder and that a corresponding information match result will be provided via the use of third party systems and you provide The Learning Group and its related entities with express consent to do so.
13. Accuracy of your information
13.1 We take reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information held by us is accurate, complete and up to date. If you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate, please contact us using the below details as specified in clause 14 and we will take reasonable steps to correct it.
13.2 You can update your contact and Personal Information at any time by contacting us. We welcome notification of changes to your details so we can keep our records up to date. We may also contact you from time to time to ensure that Personal Information such as your contact details and address are still current.
14. What to do if you have a question, problem or complaint about our use of your Personal Information or this Privacy Policy
14.1 For any queries or communication in relation to this Privacy Policy, including to correct or access the information we hold about you or to make a complaint, please contact our Privacy Officer:
The Privacy Officer
Address: The Learning Group Pty Ltd, 1.02/615 Dandenong Road, Armadale VIC 3143
Email: privacy@thelearningroup.com.au
14.2 If you wish to make a complaint about a breach of the Privacy Act by us, you may do so by providing your complaint in writing to the contact details listed above. You may also make a complaint verbally. We will seek to respond to any complaint within a reasonable period of time. We may seek further information from you in order to provide a comprehensive and complete response.
14.3 A request for access or correction to your Personal Information can also be made by contacting the Privacy Officer as specified above.
14.4 You may also make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). You may contact the OAIC via telephone on 1300 363 992, by submitting a complaint or inquiry online at www.oaic.gov.au or by writing to the OAIC at GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001.