Privacy Policy

Veterinary dental specialist Dr Kevin Ng preparing for a dental procedure.jpg

Introduction

The Australian Veterinary Association Ltd (AVA) supports good privacy practice, and aims to manage personal information in an open and transparent way.

This policy sets out how the AVA manages personal information and how the AVA aims to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APP’s) which came into force on 12 March 2014.

In this policy, the words ‘personal information’ have the meaning given to them in the Act, which is: ‘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’.

Kinds of personal information collected and held by the AVA

The AVA collects and holds personal information about members including names, addresses, email addresses, employer/practice details, telephone numbers, dates of birth, membership categories, professional qualifications, veterinary registration board numbers, details of products and services purchased from the AVA (Member Information).

The AVA also collects and holds personal information about persons who are not members, including veterinary surgeons and allied veterinary personnel (such as veterinary practice managers and veterinary nurses). This personal information may be of the same types as are held as member information (Non Member Information).

How the AVA collects and holds personal information

The AVA usually collects personal information directly from the individual or a person authorised by the individual via membership application or renewal forms, (both paper and online) member details updates (both paper and on line) or event registration forms (both paper and on line).

Sometimes, personal information may be collected by and from third parties contracted to provide goods or services to the AVA or its members, such as conference facility or event managers and conference suppliers (for example through conference or event registration processes).

In addition occasions may arise where information is collected by and from third parties who, in the ordinary course of business provide goods or services to the AVA or its members (or veterinary surgeons or allied veterinary personnel generally).

Personal information may also be collected from publicly available registers such as the Registers of Veterinary Surgeons maintained by the various Veterinary Practitioners Boards for the purpose of identifying persons who may be interested in learning about or joining the AVA, or participating in AVA conferences or events or other services offered by the AVA or AVA affiliates.

Personal information may be held by the AVA in either written format on paper files, or in electronic format, or both. Personal information is held on the AVA electronic accounting and financial reporting system, the AVA electronic conference and event registration system, and other internal AVA electronic systems including the member database.

Purposes for which the AVA collects, uses and discloses personal information

The AVA collects, uses and discloses personal Member Information for the purposes of:

maintaining registration and membership records (including holding an electronic database of members);
effective management and administration of the AVA;
communicating with members (including communications relating to AVA and AVA affiliates/business partners’ activities, products, services, publications, events, membership and governance);
providing services to members;
the organisation and management of AVA conferences and events;
the promotion of networking, discussion and collegiality among members and other persons in attendance at AVA conferences and events;
research and analysis in order to identify features, trends and characteristics of the AVA membership and the veterinary profession;
performing its function of representing members in relation to issues concerning the Australian veterinary profession;
the conduct of AVA elections of directors and other officeholders; and
responding to Australian government (and other statutory body) requests for information or assistance in relation to natural disaster, catastrophic environmental events or conditions or disease outbreak (whether actual or pending).

The AVA retains Member Information for a period of 10 years after a person ceases to be a member of the AVA.

Non Member Information about a former AVA member, or Non Member information about persons who are not, and who have never been a member of the AVA, is used and disclosed for the purposes of:

staying in contact with and communicating with former members and non-members (including communications relating to AVA and AVA affiliates/business partners' activities including AVA conferences and events, products, services, publications, events, membership and governance);
the organisation, promotion and management of AVA conferences and events, activities, products, services, publications and events.
the promotion of networking, discussion and collegiality among members and other persons in attendance at AVA conferences and events, and involved in the AVA's activities;
research and analysis in order to identify features, trends and characteristics of the veterinary profession beyond the AVA membership;
performing its function of representing members in in relation to issues concerning the Australian veterinary profession in general; and
responding to Australian government (and other statutory body) requests for information or assistance in relation to natural disaster, catastrophic environmental events or conditions or disease outbreak (whether actual or pending).

Disclosure of personal information

The AVA discloses personal information to:

AVA staff, officeholders and other AVA members conducting activities for the AVA to enable them to carry out their duties and responsibilities for the AVA;
other members and attendees at AVA conferences and events for the purposes of networking, discussion and collegiality amongst attendees;
external service providers (for the purposes of the function which the AVA has contracted out) such as:
- printing, publishing or mailing houses, or distributors of AVA publications (including the Australian Veterinary Journal and the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour);
- persons or entities engaged by the AVA to assist in the conduct of AVA elections whether by electronic or other means;
- IT and financial or accounting software professionals;
- research and analytic professionals;
the AVA’s professional advisers;
business partners and affiliates whose products, services or benefits may be supplied to members as part of their membership of the AVA (including information which verifies whether an individual is a member of the AVA);
business partners and affiliates whose products or services may be directly marketed to members and former members of the AVA following the consent to the same by a member;
government and regulatory bodies as set out in this policy or as required by law; and
insurance companies with which it has arrangements to provide professional insurance (at no charge) to students and to first, second and third year graduate graduates as a benefit by virtue of membership (note only personal information in relation to students and to first, second and third year graduates provided)
professional advisory firms providing human relations advice and related services to members as a benefit by virtue of membership.

By joining the AVA, members consent to the use of their personal information for the purposes of direct marketing by both the AVA and by business partners and affiliates (following disclosure of Member Information to such entities by the AVA) whose products, services or benefits may be of interest to members, while they are members and for the period of ten years after they cease to be a member of the AVA.

Disclosure of personal information to persons not in Australia or an external territory

The AVA is likely to disclose personal information to persons not in Australia or an external territory for the purposes only of the publication and mailing to members of the Australian Veterinary Journal (in which case the disclosure is to a recipient in Singapore) and the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour (in which case the disclosure is to a recipient in the United States of America).

Quality of personal information

The AVA aims to ensure that the personal information it collects and holds is accurate, up to date and complete. At each annual renewal of membership, members are asked to check that their personal information on the membership form is correct, and to modify that information if it is incorrect. In addition to this, members are able to update their personal details at any time by logging in to the secure membership area of the AVA’s website and updating their details electronically.

The AVA communicates with former members (and other non members) on a regular basis and in the course of that communication process the opportunity is made available to update personal information or have personal information removed from the electronic database of membership.

Security of personal information

The AVA takes reasonable steps to protect all information held by the AVA (including your personal information) from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. The AVA applies a range of technologies (including access control passwords and procedures differentiated according to authority, network firewalls, encryption and physical security) to protect your privacy. The AVA will destroy, or permanently de identify any of your information which is no longer needed.

Payment information

When you make any financial transactions through the website, we process these payments through a third-party payment processor. We don’t store your credit card details, and instead any payment you make on the website is done through the third-party payment processor, Braintree, to securely process your payment details. All relevant payment information is provided directly to our third-party payment processor Braintree and your relevant personal information is governed by Braintree’s security standards and privacy policy at https://www.braintreepayments.com/au/features/data-security.

Any online financial transactions on the website comply with Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards.

Social login

The website offers users the option of connecting their Facebook or Google social account for easier and faster login to ava.com.au. You can enable and disable your third-party social login at any time by visiting your My AVA account and selecting Social Accounts under the My Details menu.

If you choose to connect your My AVA account to the Facebook or Google social network, you may be sharing information with these social networks. For information on how these social networks use your personal information, visit the privacy policy and terms of use for the respective third-party social account.

Social media widgets

Our website includes social share buttons where you can choose to share a page to a given social media platform. This feature may collect information such as which page you are visiting from and will take you to that platform’s content sharing window, page or service. Your interaction with this share feature is governed by the privacy policy of that platform, and we recommend you view their privacy policy and how they use your information via their page.

Cookies policy

The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) ("us", "we", or "our") uses cookies on our websites https://www.vetvoice.com.au/ and https://www.ava.com.au/ (the "Service"). By using the Service, you consent to the use of cookies as described in this Cookie Policy. We may change this Cookie Policy at any time, and we recommend you look at the date it was last updated which is noted at the end of the Cookie Policy. If you have any questions, please contact feedback@ava.com.au.

Our Cookies policy explains what cookies are, how we use cookies and your choices regarding cookies.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data sent to your web browser by a website you visit. Cookie data is stored in your internet browser and allows the Service or a third-party to recognise you and make your next visit easier and the Service more useful to you.

Cookies can be "persistent" or "session" cookies. Persistent cookies stay on your device such as your computer, tablet or mobile when you go offline. Session cookies on the other hand are deleted when you close your web browser.

How the Australian Veterinary Association uses cookies

When you use and access the Service, the AVA may place a number of cookie files in your web browser.

We use cookies for the following purposes:

To enable certain functions of the Service
To provide analytics to understand user behaviour and traffic
To enable the delivery of advertisements

The cookies we use

We use different types of cookies to run the Service:

Analytics cookies. We may use analytics cookies to track information about how the Service is used so that we can make improvements. We may also use analytics cookies to test new advertisements, pages, features or new functionality of the Service to see how our users react to them.
Advertising cookies. These type of cookies are used to deliver advertisements on and through the Service and track the performance of these advertisements.
Persistent cookies: These cookies help the Service remember your login credentials whenever you access the website.When you login and select ‘Remember me for 14 days’, a persistent cookie will be stored and you will not be required to re-fill your login information again for 14 days unless you clear your browser cookie data.
Third-party cookies: In addition to our own cookies, we may also use cookies from third-parties to report usage statistics of the Service such as Google Analytics. Specifically, we may collect performance cookies to collect information about your use of the Site and help us improve the user experience. This information enables us to the usage of the site and identify whether there are any improvements we can make.

What are your choices regarding cookies?

If you'd like to delete cookies or instruct your web browser to delete or refuse cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser. You can always change your browser settings to let you know when a cookie is being set up or modified, or block them completely.

Please note that by blocking any or all cookies you may not have access to certain features, such as content personalisation available through the website.

For more information on cookies, you can also visit Your Online Choices: www.youronlinechoices.com.au.

How you may access personal information the AVA holds about you and seek its correction if necessary

Individuals are able to access personal information held about them and seek its correction if it is incomplete, inaccurate or out of date, by contacting the AVA in writing at the following address:

The Chief Executive Officer
The Australian Veterinary Association Ltd
Unit 40
6 Herbert Street
St Leonards
NSW 2065
E mail: ceo@ava.com.au

How you may complain about a breach of the APP’s by the AVA and how the AVA will deal with your complaint

Individuals are able to complain about a breach of the APP’s by the AVA by writing to the address set out in the paragraph above stating the nature of your complaint.

Upon receipt of your complaint, the AVA acknowledge receipt of the complaint in writing within 5 working days of receipt, respond to your complaint within a reasonable period of time, advise the Risk and Audit Committee of the board of directors of the receipt of your complaint and the response provided to you.