Draft Privacy Policy

March 2003

As at March 2003, this policy had not been adopted by the MSTS and should be considered as a guide only.

The MSTS is conscious of the privacy concerns of its members and the people with whom it deals. MSTS is an organisation that relies on accurate personal information about its members and other people with whom we deal in order to meet its goals. We have systems and procedures in place to protect your privacy whenever we collect, store, use or disclose your personal information.

How we collect your personal information

Most personal information is sourced from Engineers Australia, who handle membership applications. Some is collected directly from members. Engineers Australia provides personal information sourced from MSTS membership applications and from its own records. The type of personal information we collect includes official and preferred names, titles, postnominals, personal awards, private and business address details, telephone and facsimile contact details both private and business, email addresses, date of birth, gender, qualifications, and employer information.

Use and disclosure of your personal information

We collect your personal information to provide you with a particular product or service and to contact you about matters pertaining to membership. We may use or disclose your personal information for purposes related or ancillary to the main reason we collect it, such as: ·

Internal accounting and administration·
Regulatory reporting and compliance·
Helping us to identify and inform you about other services that may be of benefit to you

Disclosure within the MSTS is on a “need to know” basis only; personal details are not routinely provided to any MSTS officer or member unless they are performing a tasks for the MSTS that requires those details.We treat all personal information we hold about you as confidential. This applies except where disclosure of your personal information is:·

Compelled by law - e.g. disclosure to courts under subpoena·
In the public interest - e.g. where a complaint is made against you and disclosure is justified·
With your consent

Disclosure to third parties

MSTS does not sell personal information to commercial providers. We may contract out some of our functions and activities. For example, we may disclose information to allow printing of renewal invoices, membership cards, and arrears notices. We may also provide names and addresses to a mailing house to mail information to you. In these situations, we prohibit the third parties from using personal information about you except for the specific purpose for which we supply it.

With a member’s permission, we may add a member to a publicly-available list of persons with a particular attribute. For example, members who have an interest in a particular area, or who have a particular skill.

We keep your personal information up to date

If we have accurate personal information about you, it enables us to provide you with the best possible service. We take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date whenever we collect or use it. We will correct personal information. If you find that current personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date please contact us immediately and we will correct it.

You can access your information

On request, we will provide you with information about you which is readily accessible and which may lawfully be provided. Your request to provide information will be dealt with in a reasonable time.

We store your personal information securely

We protect any personal information that we hold about you from misuse and loss. We protect your privacy by restricting access to your personal information to those staff who need it, either to process information or to provide you with the services you have asked for. Your personal information may be stored in hardcopy documents, as electronic data, or in MSTS software or systems. We maintain physical security over our paper and electronic data stores and premises. We also maintain computer and network security.

Resolving your concerns

If you believe that the privacy of your personal information has been compromised, you are entitled to complain.

If you have a complaint your first point of contact should be to the Secretary of the Society.

If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, forward a written complaint to:

The Chairman
Mine Subsidence Technological Society
PO Box 208
The Junction NSW 2291

A written complaint must include a return address, and identify the conduct that is the basis for the complaint. There are no fees for lodging a complaint.