Privacy policy

We respect your privacy

This privacy policy applies to the following entities:

• Aware Super Pty Ltd (ABN 11 118 202 672) as the trustee for Aware Super (ABN 53 226 460 365).
• Aware Financial Services Australia Limited (ABN 86 003 742 756) is wholly owned by Aware Super. Aware Financial Services Australia Limited provides financial planning advice to clients including Aware Super members and is also the responsible entity of the Aware Investment Funds;
• Aware Super Legal Pty Ltd (ABN 91 606 835 170) is wholly owned by Aware Super. Aware Super Legal Pty Ltd provides estate planning advice and legal services to clients including Aware Super members, Aware Financial Services Australia Limited clients, and members of the public;
• VicSuper Pty Ltd (ABN 69 087 619 412); and
• Aware Super Services Pty Ltd (ABN 67 633 384 059).

References to ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ throughout this document refer individually or collectively to the above entities.

Protecting your personal information has always been important to us. We take our obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and applicable state/territory privacy acts very seriously. These Acts require us to handle your personal and health information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and any relevant state/ territory health privacy principles.

Where you have provided us with a signed third-party authority or power of attorney, we will disclose information to only those named individuals you have authorised.

What is personal information?

Under the Privacy Act 1988, personal information is defined as 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. For example, an individual’s name, signature, address, phone number or date of birth.

Some personal information is further classified as ‘sensitive information’. This is personal information or an opinion about an individual’s health, ethnic or racial origin, political opinions, membership of political associations, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, professional or trade association membership, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record or biometric information that is to be used for certain purposes.

Why and how we collect your personal information

We collect your personal information to inform you and / or provide you with our products and services. Most of your personal information is collected directly from you or your employer, or other super funds when you roll your money in to our funds. We also collect personal information when you use our website or mobile applications, subscribe to newsletters, register for seminars, and use online forms. Your personal information may also be provided to us by lawyers, courts or government agencies and our related entities. We use social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate with the public. We may also use social networking services to collect your personal information to help us communicate with you.

To improve the user experience, we may use cookies to collect information on how you use our websites and mobile applications. A "cookie" is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user's computer by the user's web browser while the user is browsing. The information collected through cookies may include your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, date and time of your visit and overall website usage. This information is used for analytical purposes such as to customise web pages, save your site login information and present targeted marketing information to you about our products and services. For further information please refer to our Cookie Policy available on our website.

To provide you with appropriate products or services, on some occasions we may need to collect information about you which may be held by third parties such as a tax agent, accountant, or another super fund. In such situations we will only collect your information if you have provided a third-party authority to us.

In some cases, it might be necessary for us, to collect sensitive information, including health information about you from third parties such as your employer, doctors, or entities such as hospitals or other relevant persons.

Due to the nature of our business, it is difficult for us to deal with you anonymously and to do so may restrict the range of products and services we can offer you. On some occasions (such as participating in a market survey), you may have the option to deal with us anonymously or use a pseudonym.

If you choose not to provide the information, we may not be able to provide important services to you, for example determining your eligibility for a superannuation benefit.

What personal information do we collect and hold about you?

We may collect a range of personal information about you. This may include, but not limited to:

• name, address, date of birth and contact details;
• Tax File Number (TFN);
• employment details and employment history;
• financial information such as bank balance, superannuation balance, assets, liabilities, investments, insurance, income and expenditure;
• payment information including bank account and credit card details;
• information about your family corporate structure, such as entities or any trusts, including beneficiaries and settlors;
• information about your family commitments and social security eligibility and entitlements;
• details of your financial circumstances and objectives including your risk tolerance;
• information about your beneficiaries;
• details about your citizenship, residency or visa status; and
• educational details for those joining the Student Club.

Also, sensitive information (such as health information) may be obtained during the assessment of an application for insurance cover or to extend or vary cover that is in place, or for the assessment of an insurance claim. We will only collect personal information that is reasonably necessary for the provision of one or more of the functions or activities.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

• open, administer and maintain your membership/client account and records;
• establish and administer the financial and superannuation products and services (including insurance cover) that you acquire from or through us;
• assist employers in meeting their superannuation obligations;
• facilitate our internal review procedures;
• trace different superannuation accounts in your name and if necessary, use your TFN to match your accounts in Aware Super and consolidate them in line with our policy on consolidation;
• provide you with financial planning advice and related services, including the preparation of advice documents and implementation documents (i.e., to implement financial planning recommendations for you);
• provide you with estate planning services;
• provide you with promotional information and services about us;
• conduct identity verification;
• conduct pre and ongoing employment background checks;
• directly market our products and services to you; including through social media and other digital platforms;
• undertake market research, member/client satisfaction surveys and member/client data analysis;
• improve our products and services;
• deceased estate administration;
• provide Student Club membership benefits; and
• comply with all applicable laws.
  

If you apply for a job with us, we will collect your information for recruitment purposes, to manage your application and your ongoing employment.

Aware Super Legal Pty Ltd is required to collect the full name and address of its clients by the Solicitors Rules made under the Legal Profession Uniform Laws (NSW).

How we disclose your information

When we disclose your personal information to a third party who is providing services to us, we take reasonable steps to ensure the third party protects your information in accordance with privacy laws and treats it confidentially.

In certain instances, we may disclose your personal information to certain third parties so that they may use and disclose your personal information for any of the purposes referred to above. Such third parties may include:

• the fund administrators;
• insurers;
• legal advisers;
• auditors;
• mailing houses;
• financial institutions and clearing house;
• other superannuation funds;
• death benefit beneficiaries;
• our related entities;
• service providers and other advisers appointed by us;
• social media and other digital platform providers that we engage with to facilitate our direct marketing activities;
• affiliated organisations;
• employers and former employers (non-sensitive information only);
• government agencies (e.g., the ATO, Centrelink, Department of Veteran Affairs, ASIC, APRA, AUSTRAC, Office of State Revenue);
• international regulatory bodies (e.g., the U.S Internal Revenue Service) – refer ‘Retention and Security’ section for the list of possible overseas countries; and
• medical practitioners (e.g., in the case of an insurance claim).
  

In some situations, we may also be required under the law, if requested, to provide certain information about your interest in the fund to:

1. your spouse; or
2. a person who intends to enter an arrangement (e.g., a pre-nuptial agreement) with you about splitting your superannuation interests in the event of a marriage breakdown. We are obliged to comply with such requests and release certain information prescribed under the law such as Family Law Act and regulations without informing you.
   

When you request a transfer of your super benefits to a New Zealand KiwiSaver scheme, we would transfer your personal information with your express consent.

Direct Marketing

We may use your personal information to send you direct marketing communications and information about our services and products, in accordance with the Spam Act, Do Not Call Register Act and the Privacy Act. If we use or disclose your sensitive information for the purpose of direct marketing, we would only do so with your express consent. We engage third party service providers to assist us with delivering direct marketing via various channels, including through social media and other digital platforms. We take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected when disclosing information to such third parties.

Sometimes, we may de-identify your information before disclosing it to third parties to facilitate our marketing activities.

Members may opt-out of receiving direct marketing communications by contacting us using the details provided in the policy or by using the relevant opt-out facilities provided in each communication (e.g., an unsubscribe link).

Consumer Insights

We may collect, use, or disclose information about you to combine the information that we hold about you with information about you, collected from or held by other trusted partners or from public sources. We do this to enable the development of consumer insights about you so that we and other trusted companies can serve you better. This includes being able to better understand your preferences and interests, personalise your experience, enhance the products and services you receive, and to tell you about products and services. We may also use trusted service providers to undertake the process of creating these consumer insights. If you don’t want us to develop and use these insights about you, you must “Opt-out”. To do so, please contact us using the information provided in the contact details section below.

Relevance and accuracy of information

Before we use or disclose the information we collect, we endeavour to ensure it is accurate, up to date, complete and relevant. We encourage you to regularly update your information by advising us of changes to your personal details such as your address, telephone number and email address. You should also notify us if there are any incorrect details or omissions in your personal information.

Retention and security

We hold personal information in hard copy and electronic formats, including cloud storage. We aim to keep the personal information only for as long as we need it for business or legal reasons. In accordance with the law, you can withdraw your consent to us holding your personal information at any time.

We take security measures to protect the personal information we hold from misuse, interference, and loss and from unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. These include physical (for example, security passes to enter our offices and storage of files in lockable cabinets) and technology (for example, restriction of access, firewalls, the use of encryption, user logons, passwords, biometric authentication, and digital certificates) security measures. In some cases, we engage third parties to host electronic data (including data in relation to the services we provide) on our behalf. These data warehouses may be located overseas. The countries where these data warehouses are located can be viewed in our Privacy Policy Supplementary Document here. These data warehouses will have in place appropriate security and privacy protocols to comply with Australian Privacy Act and Australian Privacy Principles.

Online security

Members, clients, and employers have access to their accounts online and these details are held in a secure environment. If you visit an unsecured area of our public website, that does not require your log in details, we will not collect or retain your personal information. If you complete any forms on the public website, we will retain your contact information securely.

Users can play an important role in the security of their information by keeping their user logins and passwords to their online accounts and our mobile applications confidential and ensuring their biometric identifier for authentication used to access the mobile applications is the only identifier stored on their mobile devices. We encourage you to be vigilant about the protection of your own personal information when using third party digital services (such as social media platforms).

As far as reasonably practicable, we will make sure that our relationships with third parties include appropriate protection of your privacy.

Data breaches

We must report certain data breaches to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and where required, the impacted members.

Your rights to access and correct your information

You have rights under the Australian Privacy Principles to request access to and correction of information we hold about you. We will respond to a request for access to personal information within a reasonable time, after your request is received. We encourage you to advise us of any personal detail changes as they occur. Under the Australian Privacy Principles there are some circumstances in which requests to access or change your information may be denied. If this applies to you, we will provide our reasons for refusal in writing. If you disagree with our decision, you may lodge a complaint through our complaints process.

You should contact our Customer Service on 1300 650 873, or write to our Privacy Officer at:

PO Box R1827
Royal Exchange NSW 1225

Enquiries and complaints

If you have any questions about privacy or would like to enquire or make a complaint about a breach of your privacy, please contact our Privacy Officer at the above address. The following are the stages of complaints handling:

• Make your complaint in writing
• We will respond to you within 30 days of receipt of your enquiry or complaint.
• If you are not satisfied with the resolution of your complaint by our Privacy Officer, you can contact:
  Australian Financial Complaints Authority Post: GPO Box 3 Melbourne VIC 3001 Telephone: 1800 931 678
  Email: info@afca.org.au Web: www.afca.org.au Or
  OAIC
  Telephone: 1300 363 992 Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
  

Notification of changes

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Our up-to-date Privacy Policy is published on our website. All information about you which is held by us, will be governed by our most recent Privacy Policy. If you are unsure whether you are reading the most current version of this Privacy Policy, please contact us. We can provide a copy of the most current version of our Privacy Policy on request. Should you request our Privacy Policy in a particular form we will take steps to provide you with a copy in that form unless it is not reasonable to do so.

This document has been prepared and issued by Aware Super Pty Ltd (the trustee) ABN 11 118 202 672 AFSL 293340, the trustee of Aware Super ABN 53 226 460 365 (Aware Super). This document is effective May 2022.