The ABC (“we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy when you interact with us, our content, products, or services. We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
Purpose of this Policy
This policy explains our personal information handling practices. It describes how we may collect, use, and disclose information about you or your use of our content, products, or services. This policy is for the benefit of members of the Australian community who use our products, services or ABC Shop Online.
If we make changes to this policy, we will post those changes on the privacy page of the ABC’s website. You can find the date of the most recent review at the end of this document.
1. Collection of Personal Information
1.1 How we collect personal information
The main circumstances in which the ABC collects personal information about you are:
(a) when you provide it to us
If you register as a user of ABC digital services, you will provide information to us as part of your registration. You may also give us information when you buy from ABC Shop Online, enter competitions or otherwise participate in ABC functions or activities. For information about our collection and retention of payment information see below.
Your credit card details are only stored and transmitted in encrypted form. Unencrypted credit card information is not stored on our servers. Online credit card payments are currently processed using a third-party payment gateway service provider run by eWay. This provider delivers a PCI-DSS (plastic card industry data security scheme) compliant payment gateway service to ABC Shop Online that is used to securely process customer payments. For more information, you can read the eWay Privacy Policy here.
If you use PayPal or Afterpay to complete your transaction, your personal information (including credit card information) will be collected and used by PayPal and Afterpay. For more information, you can read the PayPal Privacy Policy here and the Afterpay Privacy Policy here.
If you use your credit card and the transaction is manual rather than electronic, the imprinted record will be stored by ABC Shop Online for the period that financial records are required to be retained.
(b) when someone else provides it to us on your behalf
Sometimes someone else such as a carer (including a parent) or friend might provide us with information about you so that we can provide you with products or services. Other times we may collect personal information about you from publicly available sources.
For more information about our practices in relation to children, see below.
Some digital services provided by the ABC are specifically designed for children; ABC KIDS for pre-school children and ABC ME for older children. The online protection of children is a shared responsibility between the ABC, the parent or carer, and the child. We strongly encourage parents and carers to monitor and participate in their children’s use of the ABC’s digital services.
The ABC aims to ensure that children and young people who engage with our online spaces understand the possible risks they face and how to minimise them. ABC digital spaces designed for children are subject to House Rules which guide participation and are designed to maintain safe and appropriate behaviour. House Rules include restrictions on the types of personal information the ABC allows children to communicate publicly. Content submitted to ABC children’s sites is largely pre-moderated in order to enforce the House Rules and protect children.
If your child is participating in online community activities, we recommend you read the House Rules for that space with your child and explain anything to them that they may not understand.
The ABC policy in relation to Cookies, Beacons, Local Storage and Other technologies described below apply to all ABC properties, including those specifically designed for children. Parents and carers should be aware that if their children are using social media sites that were not designed for their age group, they will be exposed to the various tracking and analytic technologies applied by third parties when they access or share ABC content on or via those sites.
(c) when we collect it in relation to your use of digital services
We also collect information about your use of our digital services including our websites and apps. This is mainly to improve your experience and our digital services. The ABC uses technologies like cookies, web beacons and local storage as part of its digital services. When you use our websites, mobile sites, mobile applications, or applications on any other devices such as Apple TV, Chromecast or PlayStation, these technologies may be used to make our digital services easier to use and more relevant including by customising your user experience. For further information about these technologies and our practices, see here.
If you are a registered ABC online user, we may link the information collected about you to your account.
If you are not a registered ABC online user, then we will track this information by reference to digital information such as an IP address and will not seek to identify you.
If we do not collect information about you or your use of our digital services, we may not be able to provide you with certain digital services, or we may not be able to tailor or enhance your viewing or listening experience of our digital services.
What are these technologies?
A “cookie” is a small data file downloaded to your computer or device which lets our digital service gather and store information. Your web browser then sends these cookies back to the website or application on each subsequent visit so they can recognise you and remember things such as your personalised settings or preferences.
A “web beacon” is a small amount of code on a web page, application or in an email notification that allows the site to record simple actions of the user such as whether they have viewed a piece of content. These requests can gather information from a website such as: the IP address of your computer, the time the material was viewed, the type of browser used, and the existence of cookies previously set by that server. This is information that is available to any web server you visit and these beacons represent a convenient method of gathering simple statistics and managing cookies.
“Local storage” is a technology that allows a website or application to store information locally on your computer or device.
Why do we use these technologies?
The ABC uses these technologies in a variety of ways to deliver, measure and improve our services and products. These uses generally fall into one of the following categories:
Site and application functionality: To enable interactive features such as forums, voting, some games, and online shopping at the ABC Shop Online website. For instance, cookies allow our servers to keep track of your customer details between visits to the ABC Shop Online website. Credit card information is never stored in a cookie. The information stored by the cookie includes data that is provided during online registration processes. They can allow us to remember your place in a video so you can pick up where you left off or remember your preferences and settings so you get your local weather or preferred radio station.
Promotional targeting: Placing cookies on your device also means we can serve you promotional information that you might be more interested in. The promotional information can appear on third party digital services as well as ABC digital services. It also allows us to control the number of times you see that promotional information and measure how effective the campaign has been.
Audience analytics: The aggregate information gathered from these technologies helps us to improve our products and understand how people use our services. For more information see Section 3 below.
Personalised content and services: Information about what content is viewed allows us to customize our services with more relevant content like tailored trends or recommendations. For example, by knowing what articles you have already read, cookies can help us make smarter and more relevant suggestions about what new content you might enjoy or find useful.
More information about these technologies is available on the ABC’s website here.
Audience analytics that DO NOT identify you
The analytics systems used by the ABC are cookies, web beacons, local storage, and other technologies which are used to gather information regarding visitor activity on the ABC’s digital services. This is not used to identify personal details but to evaluate and improve our services or to offer improved services based on aggregated visitor trends.
Generally, these services are provided to the ABC by third parties. For instance, ABC uses Facebook and Google Analytics. More information about how Google uses information from sites or apps can be found here.
The ABC also engages independent measurement companies such as Nielsen as part of the industry body Interactive Advertising Body (IAB). Nielsen provides its privacy information here. Some of the ABC’s digital applications may include a tag owned by Nielsen which will enable Nielsen to collect non-personal information for market research or audience ratings services. Information about Nielsen’s measurement software and user options are available here.
Controlling and deleting cookies
Popular browsers will usually give users a level of control over cookies.
You can set your browsers to accept or reject all, or certain, cookies. You can also set your browser to prompt you each time a cookie is offered.
Most cookies are easy to delete, and the ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how. Some digital services may not load properly or function as intended if cookies are disabled, however it is up to you to determine the balance of convenience and computer privacy that you are comfortable with.
Some browsers offer ‘Do Not Track’ (DNT) cookies, which send an additional piece of information when a cookie is downloaded that the user does not wish to be tracked. There are no legal or technical requirements regarding the use of a DNT cookie. The ABC’s digital properties do not recognise DNT cookies.
The ABC uses web beacons in combination with cookies to track activity. Turning off a browser’s cookies will prevent web beacons from tracking your specific activity. The web beacon will still record your visit anonymously, however your unique information will not be recorded. If you turn off cookies then we will not be able to personalise or customise content for you, which will affect your user experience.
Cookies used by the ABC
The ABC uses the following types of cookies:
Session Computer Browser Cookies – Session cookies let you move from page to page without the need to repeatedly sign in. For instance, these cookies are used by the ABC Shop Online website to keep track of things such as what you put in your shopping cart. A session browser cookie is stored in the browser and deleted when the browser shuts down.
Persistent Cookies – Persistent cookies are used to help us monitor the performance of our digital services by recording your browsing behaviour within the particular digital service. These browser cookies can only be read by the company that places the cookies on the computer. Persistent cookies are saved to the hard drive until they expire. Unlike session browser cookies, they are not deleted when the browser is shut down.
Flash Cookies – also known as Local Shared Objects, are used to track activity in applications that are running in Adobe Flash Player. Designed for usability, they allow user’s custom settings to remain in place between visits.
Third party cookies, beacons, and other technologies
The ABC uses a number of suppliers who also set cookies, use beacons, or other technology, on our digital services on our behalf in order to deliver the services that they are providing.
Such third parties may include social media providers, video / audio sharing services or digital advertising agencies and include Google and Facebook.
For instance, if we embed photos and video content from third parties such as Facebook and YouTube, those third parties may have set cookies relating to that content. If you then “share” that content, another third-party cookie may be set by the service you have chosen to share content through.
The ABC cannot control these cookies, and does not block cookies set by third parties in these ways.
Audience analytics that identify you
If you have registered for an ABC Account and have consented to us doing so, we may combine information from your registration with the data we get from digital content discovery technologies. This is done in order to analyse how you and other people use our digital products and services in detail and, where you have opted to receive such communications, to send you email and other communications that might be of interest to you. This information may also be used to provide personalised services or content suggestions based on your previous use of our digital services. The combined information may include information that is collected by these technologies while you are not signed in, and information that was collected using cookies and similar technologies before you registered or signed in. You will be asked to agree to this use when you register for an ABC Account. Where the combined information can be used to identify you, we may use and disclose it in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
1.2 Purposes for which we collect, use, and disclose personal information
ABC Audiences and Customers
The purposes for which we collect, use and disclose personal information include:
to provide our products and services to you (including physical delivery);
to improve our products and services, including conducting surveys;
to tailor and enhance your viewing or listening experience;
to manage our relationship with you, including:
(a) communicating with you about our products or services, including providing information about products or services which we consider may be of interest to you;
(b) billing you for any products or services that we charge for such as ABC Shops;
(c) investigating any complaints made by or about you;
(d) managing any request by you to return or exchange a product at a later date; and
(e) to otherwise offer you assistance, including, by providing technical support;
to conduct competitions or promotions on behalf of the ABC or industry third parties we have entered into agreements with;
for statistical and research purposes;
to obtain professional services as required including legal, accounting or insurance services;
if permitted or required by law;
otherwise with your consent; or
for purposes directly related to any one or more of the above.
We will not send you unsolicited direct marketing emails, without your prior consent, unless we are permitted to do so by law. We will always give you the option to opt out of further communications. We may send you electronic communications for account administration purposes for so long as you are a registered user or customer of the ABC.
1.3 Disclosure of personal information
We may disclose your personal information that we collect to our:
technology service providers, including, internet service providers, app service providers, cloud hosting service providers, software suppliers, and maintenance and support service providers and security services on a confidential basis so that they can provide services to us;
ABC Shop Online fulfilment partners such as Australia Post, product distributors, third party suppliers, third party vendors, gift card suppliers and loyalty program suppliers;
marketing, promotions and ratings service providers;
analytics service providers including Facebook and Google Analytics (for more information, you can read the Google Analytics Terms of Service here); and
subscription service providers and their mailing houses.
These third parties may be located in Australia or outside Australia, including but not limited to New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, India, and the USA.
The ABC has a statutory obligation to take contractual measures to ensure that its contracted service providers do not do an act or engage in a practice that would breach an Australian Privacy Principle if done or engaged in by the ABC.
The ABC will not sell or receive payment for licensing or disclosing your personal information.
The ABC may include links to third party content on its website and in other electronic communications. The ABC does not have any control over the privacy practices of those third parties. Please check the website of each relevant third party for details of their privacy policies. The ABC does not control who links to the ABC’s site.
1.4 Options to enter into additional privacy terms
We will sometimes give you an option to use products or services which are provided in conjunction with other entities such as social media networks. If we do this, you will be given privacy information before being asked to consent to the terms and conditions of that service. You should read the privacy policy and terms and conditions of each service very carefully before deciding whether to accept them. You should also be careful to ensure that you only post information online if you are happy for it to be and to remain publicly available.
2. Seeking access to, and updating, information we hold about you
You have the right to request access to personal information that is held by the ABC about you. Requests for access will be dealt with by the ABC in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) or Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
You also have the right to request the correction of any of your personal information that the ABC holds. The ABC will take reasonable steps to make appropriate corrections to personal information so that it is accurate, complete and up-to-date. To seek access to, or correction of, your personal information please contact the ABC Privacy Officer, whose details are below.
Personal information that you have provided to ABC Shop Online (such as your name, invoice and delivery addresses, phone number, or email address) is accessible by you by registering with ABC Shop Online. If you register with ABC Shop Online you will need to retain a username and password. The ABC recommends that you update your personal information if your details change so that our records are accurate, complete and up-to-date.
3. Making a complaint
The ABC welcomes feedback about privacy issues and will attend to all questions and complaints promptly. Please contact our Privacy Officer using the details below if you would like to make a complaint. If the ABC takes more than 30 days to respond to your privacy complaint, or if you are dissatisfied with the outcome, you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The OAIC can be contacted on 1300 363 992 or at www.oaic.gov.au
4. Privacy contact officer contact details
If you wish to contact our privacy officer, please use the following contact details:
