Privacy Policy

Introduction

Imagine Accounting (and its related entities referred to below as “us”, “we” or “our”) is committed to protecting your personal information and ensuring its privacy, accuracy and security.  We handle your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and store your personal information.  We may, from time to time, update this Policy if changes are required.  The Policy is displayed on our website for your periodic review.  By using our services, or giving us your personal information, you agree to your information being collected, stored, used and disclosed as set out in this policy. This privacy policy is based on transparency and openness.

Purpose

This privacy policy is a legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways Imagine Accounting gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a client’s data. It fulfils a legal requirement to protect a client’s privacy. On engagement with Imagine Accounting the Privacy Policy is outlined to the client via our letter of engagement which is signed by the client before commencement of any work.

Collection

Personal information includes, but is not limited to, contact details, dates of birth, gender, financial records or employment records.  We may also at times collect government identifiers such as Medicare numbers, drivers licence, passport, visa and work permit status.

In some circumstances we may collect personal and sensitive information from you relating to your employees, members, customers, third parties, your spouse and family to provide professional services.  If you provide us with someone else’s personal information, you should only do so if you have their authority or consent to provide us with their personal information. You should also take reasonable steps to inform them of the matters set out in this Privacy Policy.

We may obtain your personal information from a range of sources including from you, contractors, business partners and government agencies such as the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC).  We may also collect personal information that is publicly available.  Examples of how personal information may be collected, include but are not limited to, when you request or provide a product or service, apply for employment or communicate with us either by email, telephone, in writing or via our website (including our online client portal).

You may choose not to provide personal information, however, because of the nature of our business, this may limit the service we are able to provide and may jeopardise our ability to provide a complete, accurate and comprehensive service.

Holding

We hold your personal information in hard copy and electronic formats.  Imagine Accounting takes reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold about you from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.  We have in place technology and operational security of a reasonable commercial standard to protect the information we hold.

From time to time, our firm and our third party contractors may engage external IT service providers in relation to “cloud computing” services. These cloud computing systems store files on remote servers operated by third parties, including the use of hosting providers located in, but not limited to, Australia, the United States of America and in Singapore.

If we hold personal information about you and that information is no longer needed by us for business or legal purposes, we take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify the relevant information.

Use

We use your personal information only for the business purposes for which it was collected and to operate our business.  We may also, from time to time, use personal information to send you information that has not been explicitly requested such as a newsletter or other information relevant to you or your circumstances.  If at any time you receive material that you did not request and/or do not want to receive, please contact the director responsible for managing your affairs.

Personal information may also be used to protect our rights and that of our users and, where appropriate, to comply with legal process.

Disclosure

We may use and disclose personal information for the primary purpose for which it was collected, for reasonably expected secondary purposes which are related to the primary purpose and in other circumstances authorised by the Privacy Act.  You may also provide consent for us to provide personal information to third parties on your behalf.

In general, the types of organisations to which we would usually disclose personal information include the Australian Tax Office, financiers, other accountants and auditors, legal advisers and other professionals.

Access and correction

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. However, the accuracy of that information depends to a large extent on the information you provide. For this reason we recommend that you let us know if there are any errors in your personal information and keep us up to date with changes to your information.

Internet

Registration is not required for you to use our website. If you are merely a visitor, we do not collect any personal information about you.

Overseas Disclosures

We may from time-to-time outsource services to a professional services outsourcing company (PSO) located in India and the Philippines. We utilise these services to ensure the timely and cost effective provision of services to our clients. Should you wish us to refrain from providing your personal information to our PSO please advise us of such, however, be aware it may result in a delay of our ability to provide you with services. You can rest assured that any information provided to the LPO is treated with the strictest confidence to ensure the security of the information.

Cookies

Here is a list of cookies that we use. We’ve listed them here so you can choose if you want to opt-out of cookies or not.

_session_id, unique token, sessional, Allows Imagine Accounting to store information about your session (referrer, landing page, etc).

_lsite_visit, no data held, Persistent for 30 minutes from the last visit, Used by our website provider’s internal stats tracker to record the number of visits

_lsite_uniq, no data held, expires midnight (relative to the visitor) of the next day, Counts the number of visits to a store by a single customer.

cart, unique token, persistent for 2 weeks, Stores information about the contents of your cart.

_secure_session_id, unique token, sessional

storefront_digest, unique token, indefinite If the shop has a password, this is used to determine if the current visitor has access.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

If our business is acquired or merged with another company, your information may be transferred to the new owners so that we may continue to provide services to you.

Contacting us

If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy or complaints about the collection, storage or use of your personal information, please contact the director responsible for managing your affairs.

Appendix

Further information about Australian Privacy Principles can be viewed here

Imagine Accounting

P O Box 1575, Chatswood, NSW, 2057
Phone: 02 9884 7100
Email: info@www.imagineaccounting.com.au
Web: www.imagineaccounting.com.au

Dated
12 July 2018