Your privacy

OES Privacy Policy and Privacy Statement (UK/EU & Australia)

Effective as from: 16 August 2018

1. Introduction
   1. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of individuals (“you”, “your”) whose “personal data” (also called “personal information” under Australian laws) we collect and use. In this Privacy Policy and Privacy Statement “Privacy Statement”, we explain how we handle your personal data. For example, what personal data we collect and how, what we do with it and who we share it with. It also describes your privacy rights and controls such as your choices regarding use, access and correction of your personal data.
   2. Our Privacy Statement is part of, and is subject to, our Cookies Policy https://www.oes.com/cookies/ and our Website Terms https://www.oes.com/terms/. By accessing or using https://www.oes.com/ (“Website”), you confirm that you accept the terms of this OES Privacy Statement.
2. About OES
   1. OES has offices in Australia and the United Kingdom (“UK”). Our Websites https://www.oes.com/
   2. and https://oes.edu.au/ are owned and operated by Online Education Services Pty Limited ABN 75 148 177 959 (“OES Australia”).   References to “OES” (or “we”, “us” or “our”) in this Privacy Statement apply to both OES Australia and OES UK where applicable.
   3. If you have any questions about anything to do with this Privacy Statement, our data processes and practices or simply to exercise your privacy rights, please contact OES Australia or OES UK using the contact details below.
3. How to contact OES Australia
   1. OES Australia is an Australian registered company with its registered office and principal place of business at Level 6, 600 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3004. You can contact OES Australia’s Privacy Officer by (a) post, to Level 6, 600 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, (b) using the Australian Website contact form, (c) telephone, on +61 (0)3 9956 0800, or (d) email, using the following email address: dataprivacy@oes.com
4. How to contact OES UK
   1. OES UK is a company registered in England and Wales. Our registered office and principal place of business is at 14 Gray’s Inn Road, London, United Kingdom, WC1X 8HN. You can contact us by (a) post, to 14 Gray’s Inn Road, London, United Kingdom, WC1X 8HN, (b) using our Website contact form, (c) telephone, on +44 (0)20 3890 6910, or (d) email, using the following email address: dataprivacy@oes.com
5. Why does OES collect personal data?
   1. Personal data is information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. OES collects personal data so that we can:
      • properly identify you and conduct applicable checks;
      • understand your requirements to provide you with our services;
      • set up, administer and manage our services;
      • gather and aggregate information for statistical, prudential, reporting and research purposes;
      • manage, train and develop our staff;
      • get a better understanding of you and your needs so that we can effectively deliver services to you.
6. What if OES can’t collect your personal data?
   1. If OES can’t collect your personal data from you (or from other people or organisations in some cases), OES may not be able to provide you with any, all or some of the services we provide, process your application for employment, fulfil our contractual obligations to you or others, fulfil our reporting obligations and or our legal compliance obligations to government agencies.
7. Your privacy rights and making a complaint (Australia)
   1. OES Australia – You can obtain a copy of the  OES Privacy Policy via the contact details above.  We have summarised your privacy rights below:
   2. You have the right to request access to the Personal Information we hold about you except where we cannot reasonably co-operate with the request because of the following:
      • (i) It might pose a threat to life, health or safety;
      • (ii) It may unreasonably impact the privacy of others;
      • (iii) The request is frivolous or vexatious;
      • iv) It relates to legal proceedings and would not be available via legal discovery in the proceedings;
      • (v) It would prejudice ongoing negotiations with the individual;
      • (vi) It would be unlawful;
      • (vii) Denying access is authorised by law or a court order;
      • (viii) We reasonably believe that there is, or may be, unlawful activity or serious misconduct related to its functions or activities and providing access to the Personal Information is likely to prejudice appropriate action being taken in relation to the matter;
      • (ix) Providing access would likely prejudice any legal enforcement activities; or
      • (x) Providing access may reveal commercially sensitive decision-making information generated within the OES.
   3. You may request us to correct your Personal Information and we must reasonable steps, within a reasonable period, to correct Personal Information that we hold which is (a) inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading; or that you have notified us that the Personal Information requires correction.
   4. If you require more information about your privacy rights, or if you have complained to us about treatment of your privacy data and we have not been able to resolve the complaint within 30 business days, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”) at oaic.gov.au or at GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001 (complaints must be in writing).
8. Your privacy rights (UK/EU)
   1. We have summarised below your privacy rights. Some of these rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries below.
   2. For more information on your privacy rights under GDPR, you should read the applicable data protection laws and guidance from the UK Information Commissioner for a fuller explanation of these rights. You can do so by using this link https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/.
   3. You may exercise any of your rights below in relation to your personal data by contacting the OES UK Data Protection Officer using the contact details above .
   4. Your principal rights under the applicable data protection laws are:
      • the right to access;
      • the right to rectification;
      • the right to erasure;
      • the right to restrict processing;
      • the right to object to processing;
      • the right to data portability;
      • the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner; and
      • the right to withdraw consent.
   5. Right to access: You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.
   6. Right to rectification: You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed. You can ask us to make any necessary changes to ensure that your personal data is accurate and kept up to date.
   7. Right to erasure: In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data has been unlawfully processed. However, there are certain general exclusions of the right to erasure. Those general exclusions include where processing is necessary for: exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; compliance with a legal obligation; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. The consequences of erasing your personal data could include the inability to provide academic record of attendance, results or employment history as the case may be.
   8. Right to restrict processing: In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful, but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another individual or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.
   9. Right to object to processing: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
   10. Right to object to processing (direct marketing): You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including, for example, profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose. You may exercise this right at any time by (a) hitting the unsubscribe button in the email footer of the newsletter we send you, or (b) by contacting us in writing using the following email address: dataprivacy@oes.com.
   11. Right to object to processing (scientific, historical research or statistics): You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your particular situation, unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.
   12. Right to data portability: To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is consent, and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
   13. Right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner: If you consider that our processing of your personal data infringes the applicable data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner (ico.org.uk) which is the UK data protection regulatory body.
   14. Right to withdraw consent: To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
9. Changes to the OES Privacy Statement
   1. We may update the OES Privacy Statement from time to time in our sole discretion by publishing a new version on our Website. If we make updates to this Privacy Statement, all updates will be effective immediately upon our posting of the modifications on this Website. Please return periodically to review this Privacy Statement.
   2. If we make changes that materially alter your privacy rights, we will provide additional notice, such as via email.
   3. If you continue accessing and/or using of our Website, receiving our communications, contacting us, and/or signing up /attending our events etc. this will constitute acceptance of the revised Privacy Statement.
10. What personal data OES collects
    1. We use many different kinds of personal data. They are grouped together as in the table below. The groups are all listed here so that you can see what we may know about you. We don’t use all this personal data in the same way. Some of it is useful for marketing, or for providing services to you etc.

11. How OES collects you personal data – We collect your personal data from various sources. These are as follows:
    1. Data you provide us about you: We collect your personal data that you provide us when you do the following:
       • fill a contact webform on our Website;
       • get in touch with us by email, telephone, letter, and/or some other means;
       • subscribe to receive marketing communications from us such as newsletters informing you of our news, events etc.;
       • apply for a job with your name and contact details (e.g. on a business card) at (a) an event or webinar we have organised and/or attended, and/or (b) pitching events; and
       • participate in a survey, market research etc.
    2. Data we collect about you automatically: We collect your personal data automatically when you access and/or use our Website and through the use of cookies (see our Cookies Policy https://www.oes.com/cookies/). The types of personal data we will collect include, for example:
       • name and address;
       • demographic data;
       • the originating IP address;
       • the site that you visited immediately prior to visiting our Website;
       • the type of browser and operating system used (if provided by the browser);
       • URL of the referring page (if provided by the browser);
       • the specific actions that you take on our Website, including, for example, the pages that you visit; and
       • the time, frequency and duration of your visits to our Website.
    3. Data we collect about you from others: We also collect personal data about you from others such as (for example):
       • online through social media we use and the internet in general;
       • employers (if you apply for a job with OES and we contact your employer).
       • companies and or individuals (e.g. your colleagues or associates) that introduce you to us or recommend you to us.
       • Lead generation companies
       • Events organising companies
       • Our parent company and other companies in our corporate group

12. How OES uses your personal data – UK and EU
    1. OES may use and disclose your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it as well as for related purposes, where you would reasonably expect us to do so. Below, you find a list of the ways that we may use your data and which of the legal reasons we rely on to do so.

13. OES’ obligations regarding its collection of your Personal Information – Australia
    1. OES collects your Personal Information only where it is reasonably necessary or directly related to OES’ functions or activities.
    2. With respect to Personal Information that is Sensitive Information (eg medical information), OES will not collect this information unless you consent or an exception under the Australian Privacy Principles applies.
14. OES may provide your personal data to others
    1. Group Companies: We may disclose your personal data to any member of our group of companies to help us administer, operate and/or manage our business, software platform, Website, and services, perform a contract between you and us, or perform a contract on behalf of a third party
    2. Third-party service providers: We may disclose your personal data such as your name and contact details to our third-party service providers (e.g. Salesforce, Amazon etc.) to help us administer, operate and manage our business provide services related to us, our Website and/or software platform. Service providers may be located inside or outside of the EEA. For example, service providers may help us provide customer service, hosting, storage, payment processing, marketing etc. These service providers have limited access to your personal data to perform these tasks on our behalf and are contractually obligated to use it consistently with this Privacy Statement.
    3. Aggregated Data: We may also share aggregated information (information about our individuals that we combine together so that it no longer identifies or references an individual) and non-personally identifiable information for industry and market analysis, demographic profiling, marketing and advertising, and other business purposes.
    4. Sale/Investment: If there is (a) a sale or an asset transfer to a third party of, and/or (b) an investment in OES, part of that sale, asset transfer and/or investment may include your personal data. Purchasers, investors and/or their advisers may have access to your personal data as part of the corporate due diligence they perform as part of the (a) sale or asset transfer, and/or (b) the investment. However, use of your personal data will remain subject to this Privacy Statement.
    5. Insolvency: Your personal data may be passed on to a successor in interest as part of a corporate re-organisation or in the unlikely event of an insolvency event such as a liquidation, insolvency, bankruptcy or administration. In the case of an insolvency event, our customer database may be sold separately from the rest of the business, in whole or in a number of parts. It could be that the purchaser’s business is different from ours too.
    6. Our insurers & professional advisers: We may disclose your personal data to our insurers and/or professional advisers insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of obtaining and maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, obtaining professional advice and/or managing legal disputes.
    7. Legal compliance: In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 9, we may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another individual.
15. OES Marketing
    1. You can sign up to receive our newsletters and choose whether you wish to receive promotional communications (e.g. offers, invitations to promotional activities such as events, webinars etc.) from us by email, that may be of interest to you based on your preferences.
    2. You can opt-out of receiving our newsletters and promotional communications by following the unsubscribe instructions included in our newsletters and promotional communications or by emailing us at dataprivacy@oes.com.
    3. We do not and will not sell to third parties or deal in your personal data or customer information generally.
    4. We also work with partners to try and promote the reach of our adverts and use analytics and retargeting for this reason. We may use information we or others collect about you from cookies and similar tracking technologies to deliver relevant online advertising (e.g. Google Adwords), including via websites and social media (e.g. Facebook).
16. OES’ use of social media
    1. We use social media accounts and pages in different ways. For example:
       • to promote, market, advertise and communicate. We use social media to promote, market and advertise our brand, software platform and services. We also use social media to communicate with each other.
       • to generate leads for our business: If you connect with us through your social media account and/or communicate with us through that account, the information you choose to share with us may include the basic personal data available in your social media profile and also the information you provide to us when you communicate with us e.g. name, your contact details (e.g. email address, phone number) etc. We may also add your name and contact details to the CRM, sales and marketing software we use to generate leads for our business.
       • We have also integrated social media features and plugins on our Website. These features and plugins may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Also, when you click on one of the social buttons, you will be re-directed to our social media account page on the relevant social media. If at our account page, you are logged and you click on one of the buttons (such as Facebook’s ‘Like’ button) certain information is shared with these social media providers. Your social media provider may relate this information to your social media account and possibly present your actions on your social media profile to be shared with others in your network. These social media features and plugins are governed by the privacy policies of the social media providers and not our Privacy Statement.
17. International transfers of your personal data by OES
    1. OES Australia may transfer personal data we collect outside Australia for the same purposes as in “Why does OES collect personal data” (above). The hosting facilities for our Website and software platforms are situated in Australia, Japan and the US. From time to time, OES Australia may need to disclose your personal data to, and collect personal data from, other countries not on this list, but OES Australia will do so in accordance with privacy laws.
    2. OES UK may transfer personal data we collect to countries outside the EEA. This may happen as follows:
       • We and our other group companies have offices and facilities in Australia. Transfers to Australia will be protected by appropriate safeguards, namely the use of standard data protection clauses adopted or approved by the European Commission;
       • The hosting facilities for our Website and software platform are situated in Australia and/or Japan. Transfers to Australia and/or Japan will be protected by appropriate safeguards, which include (but are not limited to) (a) the use of standard protection clauses adopted or approved by the European Commission, and/or (b) the use of binding corporate rules.
       • We use a number of providers to facilitate the dissemination and sharing of online course materials, other content and examinations. These providers are situated in countries including Australia, Japan, UK and the US.
    3. You acknowledge and agree that if you submit personal data for publication through our Website or social media accounts, this data may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.
18. OES’ security of personal data
    1. We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of your personal data. We strive to do that by maintaining administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect your personal data provided to us. We periodically review these safeguards and may update them from time to time in light of the current state of technology.
    2. While no system or process is full-proof (e.g. may be prone to hacking), we believe the measures implemented reduce our vulnerability to security problems to a level appropriate to the type of personal data involved and the current state of technology.
19. OES protecting confidentiality
    1. We will use all reasonable means to protect the confidentiality of your personal data while in our possession or control. We will not knowingly share any of your personal data with any third party other than in the ways described in this Privacy Statement e.g. our service providers who assist us in providing the information and/or services we are providing to you.
    2. Any non-personal data, communications and material you submit to an OES Website or to us by email, or which we obtain from third parties that is not subject to obligations of confidentiality, may be kept, used and disclosed by us on a non-confidential basis. We are free to use and reproduce any such information freely, and for any purpose whatsoever. Specifically, we will be free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques contained in such information for any purpose, including developing, manufacturing or marketing products.
20. OES retaining and deleting personal data
    1. We have data retention policies and procedures in place, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.
    2. Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
    3. In some cases, it is not possible for us to specify in advance the periods for which your personal data will be retained. In such cases, we will determine the period of retention based on the following criteria: the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements e.g. whether (and for how long) we are required by law to retain your personal data.
    4. However, we may retain your personal data
       • where such retention is necessary for (a) the performance of a contract we have with you, (b) the compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, and/or (c) or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and/ or
       • in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another.
21. OES links to Third Party websites
    1. Our Website may contain links to third party websites. Please note that if you follow a link to any such website, we do not accept any liability and/or responsibility, because these websites have their own terms & conditions and Privacy Policies.
    2. These links are meant for your convenience only. Links to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship, endorsement and/or approval of these websites.
    3. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites. We encourage our users to be aware, when they leave our Website, to read the privacy policies of each and every website that collects their personal data identifiable information. This Privacy Statement applies solely to information collected by this Website.