Privacy Policy

Introduction

Sharp Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd ABN 40 003 039 405 (we, our, us) recognises the importance of protecting the privacy and the rights of individuals in relation to their personal information. This document is our privacy policy and it tells you how we collect and manage your personal information.

We respect your rights to privacy under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act) and we comply with all of the Act’s requirements in respect of the collection, management and disclosure of your personal information.

We may also collect credit related information. Our Credit Reporting Policy available on our website at www.sharp.net.au describes how we collect and manage such information.

What is your personal information?

When used in this privacy policy, the term “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Act. In general terms, it is any information that can be used to personally identify you. This may include your name, address, telephone number, email address and profession or occupation. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, the information will be considered personal information.

What personal information do we collect and hold?

We may collect the following types of personal information about you:

• your name and contact details (such as address, email address, telephone and facsimile numbers);
• your age or birth date;
• your profession, occupation or job title;
• Credit-Related Information from a Credit Reporting Body (please refer to our Credit Reporting Policy for more information);
• trade information from trade reference details provided by you at the time of submitting your application to us;
• details of the products and services you have acquired from us or which you have enquired about, together with any additional information necessary to deliver those services and to respond to your enquiries;
• any additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our website or indirectly through use of our website or online presence, through our representatives or otherwise; and
• information you provide to us through our service centre, customer surveys or visits by our representatives from time to time.

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else. For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys or aggregated information about how users use our website.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. When collecting personal information from you, we may collect in ways including:

• through your access and use of our website;
• during conversations between you and our representatives; or
• when you complete an application or purchaser order.

We may also collect personal information from third parties including:

• from third party companies such as law enforcement agencies and other government entities;
• from a Credit Reporting Body (please refer to our Credit Reporting Policy for more information); and
• from trade referees that you provided to us at the time of submitting your application to us.

What happens if we can’t collect your personal information?

If you do not provide us with the personal information described above, some or all of the following may happen:

• we may not be able to provide our products or services to you, either to the same standard or at all;
• we may not be able to provide you with information about products or services that you may want, including information about special promotions; or
• we may be unable to tailor the content of our website to your preferences and your experience of our website may not be as enjoyable or useful.

For what purposes do we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?

We collect personal information about you so that we can perform our business activities and functions and to provide best possible quality of customer service. We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

• to provide our products and services to you and to send communications requested by you;
• to consider and assess finance applications received by our finance department;
• to consider terms of trade for the supply of goods and services when we receive a credit application;
• to answer enquiries and provide information or advice about existing and new products or services;
• to provide you with access to protected areas of our website;
• to assess the performance of the website and to improve the operation of the website;
• to conduct business processing functions including providing personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors, service providers or other third parties;
• for the administrative, marketing (including direct marketing), planning, product or service development, quality control and research purposes of us and our related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;
• to provide your updated personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;
• to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;
• to process and respond to any complaint made by you; and
• to comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or in co-operation with any governmental authority.

Your personal information will not be shared, sold, rented or disclosed other than as described in this privacy policy.

Our Website

Our privacy policy also applies to our website at www.sharp.net.au

Cookies and website logs

When you access our website, we may send a “cookie” (which is a small summary file containing a unique ID number) to your computer. This enables us to recognise your computer each time you visit our website without bothering you with a request to register. It also enables us to keep track of products and services you view so that, if you consent, we can send you news about those services. We also use cookies to measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited and to measure transaction patterns in the aggregate. We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our website and online services. Our cookies do not collect personal information. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them. However, this may affect your experiences of certain parts of the website.

We may log IP addresses (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, track users movements, and gather broad demographic information.

Security

As our website is linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk. We will, however, take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information that is collected by our website is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Links

Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.

Who do we disclose your information to?

We may disclose your personal information to:

• our employees, related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers for the purposes of operation of our website or our business, fulfilling requests by you, and to otherwise provide products and services to you including, without limitation, web hosting providers, IT systems and network administrators, mailing houses, couriers, payment processors, data entry service providers, debt collectors, and professional advisors such as accountants, solicitors, business advisors and consultants;
• comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or in co-operation with any governmental authority;
• register our security in the Personal Property Security Register (where applicable);
• suppliers and other third parties with whom we have commercial relationships, for business, marketing, and related purposes; and
• any organisation for any authorised purpose with your express consent.

We may combine or share any information that we collect from you with information collected by any of our related bodies corporate (within Australia).

Direct marketing materials

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our products and services that we consider may be of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS, fax and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. In addition, at any time you may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us (see the details below) or by using opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications and we will then ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.

We generally do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing. However, we may disclose your personal information to our business partners for the purpose of communication. For example, we may disclosure personal information to our retail sales partners with respect to a promotion for our products that the retail sales partners sell.

Do we disclose your personal information to anyone outside Australia?

We may disclose personal information to our related bodies corporate and third party suppliers and service providers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipients of your personal information do not breach the privacy obligations relating to your personal information.

We may disclose your personal information to entities located outside of Australia, including the following:

• our related bodies corporate, located in Japan;
• our data hosting and other IT service providers, located in Japan; and
• other third parties located in Malaysia.

Security and data quality

We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We may hold your information in either electronic or hard copy form. Personal information is destroyed or de-identified when no longer needed or when we are no longer required by law to retain it (whichever is the later).

Data Security

Sharp Corporation of Australia does not store credit card “Card Holder” data electronically at any of our premises. Electronic cardholder data may be received and securely transmitted to a third party service provider (“payment gateway”) for the purpose of completing the transaction.

Where credit card data is physically recorded for the purpose of providing goods or services, those details are secured and kept in strict confidence and is only accessible by authorised persons for the purpose of completing the transaction. Once the transaction is finalised, cardholder data is securely disposed of within a reasonable time in a suitable manner as required by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

How can you access and correct your personal information?

You may request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see the details below). Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing it (for example, by mailing or emailing it to you). We may charge you a reasonable fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you (we will let you know at the time of the request). We will not charge for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information. As part of this request, we may need to verify your identity and provide this in writing to us.

There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, we will give you written reasons for any refusal.

If you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request us to amend it. We will consider if the information requires amendment. If we do not agree that there are grounds for amendment then we will add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.

What is the process for complaining about a breach of privacy?

If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact us using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it. We request that all complaints be made in writing, so that we can be sure about the details of the complaint. We will treat your complaint confidentially, investigate your complaint and aim to ensure that we contact you and your complaint is resolved within a reasonable time (and in any event within the time required by the Act, if applicable).

After we have completed our enquiries, we will contact you, usually in writing, to advise the outcome and invite a response to our conclusions about the complaint. If we receive a response from you, we will assess it and advise if we have changed our view.

If your complaint relates to our failure to provide access to or to correct any Credit-Related Information that we hold about you, please refer to our Credit Reporting Policy for the appropriate complaint process.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, any concerns or a complaint regarding the treatment of your privacy or a possible breach of your privacy, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details set out below. We will treat your requests or complaints confidentially. Our representative will contact you within a reasonable time after receipt of your complaint to discuss your concerns and outline options regarding how they may be resolved. We will aim to ensure that your complaint is resolved in timely and appropriate manner.

Please contact our Privacy Officer at:

• Post:
  Privacy Officer
  Sharp Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd
  PO Box 84
  Macquarie Park NSW 2113
• Email: privacy@sharp.net.au

Changes to our privacy policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. Any updated versions of this privacy policy will be posted on our website and will be effective from the date of posting. Although we intend to observe this policy at all times, it is not legally binding on us in any way. From time to time we may regard it as necessary or desirable to act outside the policy. If we do so, we will still comply with any statutory right that you may have under the Act or other applicable legislation.

This privacy policy was last updated on 15 January 2024.