In handling your personal information, The Singh Group is committed to complying with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.

What personal information we collect about you and why we collect it

In the course of our activities, we collect and hold personal information about you. Your personal information is collected for the purpose of providing you with the product (s) and service(s) you have requested. We will only collect personal information from you that is necessary for one or more of our functions and activities. The nature of personal information we collect from you will depend on what you have requested and provided us with. Generally, the type of personal information we collect includes your name, your mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth, marital status, your partner’s name and date of birth, income and other financial details, employment details and credit history.

When we arrange finance on your behalf, we ask you for the information we need to guide and assist you about your finance needs and your borrowing capacity.  We provide any information that the lenders to whom we apply on your behalf require to enable them to decide whether to lend to you and on what terms.

We collect most personal information about you, directly from you. We will only collect personal information from you by lawful and fair means, without being unreasonably intrusive.

At or before the time we collect personal information from you, we will take reasonable steps to inform you why we are collecting that personal information, who else we might disclose that personal information to and what will happen if you do not provide personal information to us. Wherever it is lawful and practicable, we will give you the option of not identifying yourself or not providing personal information when dealing with us. However, failure to provide full and complete information we request may mean that we are unable to provide you with the services you have requested completely and properly.

We also use your information to enable us to manage your ongoing requirements i.e. refinancing and our relationship with you i.e. invoicing, client surveys etc. We may do so by mail or electronically unless you tell us that you do not wish to receive electronic communications.

We may occasionally notify you about new services and special offers, events, or articles we think will be of interest to you. We may send you regular updates by email or by post on finance matters. If you would rather not receive this information, please email, or write to us.

We may also use your information internally to help us improve our services and help resolve any problems.

Providing Your Personal Information to Other Organisations  

In providing products and services to you it may be necessary for us to provide your personal information to other organisations with which we conduct business.

This includes outsource Financial Pty Ltd (ACN 131 090 705) which is our mortgage aggregator.

Other such organisations include related entities, mortgage managers, lenders, solicitors and legal advisers, accountants  and auditors, printers and mailing services, insurers, collection agents, conveyancers and government agencies which  regulate our products and services.

Your personal information is only provided to those entities to the extent necessary to enable us to provide our products and services to you.

What if you do not provide some information to us?

We can only fully assist you with your borrowing capacity and the suitability of a loan if we have all relevant information.

How do we hold and protect your information?

We strive to maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness, and currency of the personal information we hold and to protect its privacy and security. We keep personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with any applicable legal or ethical reporting or document retention requirements.

This information may be held by us in electronic form on our secure servers and may also be held in paper form. We may use cloud storage or other types of networked or electronic storage to store the information we hold about you.  As electronic or networked storage can be accessed from various countries via an internet connection, it is not always practicable to know in which country your information may be held. If your information is stored in this way, disclosures may occur in countries other than those listed.

Overseas organisations may be required to disclose information we share with them under a foreign law.  We are not responsible for such disclosure.

We may hold your credit information in paper or electronically on our secure servers.  Cloud storage may also be used to hold your credit information.

Disclosure of personal information overseas

We may hold or process your information on servers located overseas for filtering, hosting or storage purposes, reporting and analytical purposes and for system development testing purposes. If we do this, we make sure that such organisations have the appropriate data handling and security arrangements in place to ensure compliance with this Privacy Policy.

While these entities are subject to confidentiality or privacy obligations, they may not always follow the particular requirements of Australian privacy laws.

Where your information is sent overseas it is likely to be to one of the following countries:

United States, Singapore, Serbia, Philippines

Your rights

The Privacy Act gives you rights to access the personal information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct the information if it is inaccurate.  You can gain access to the information we hold about you by contacting us at 1300 584 885 or outsource Financial Pty Ltd on 1300 781 481.

Your consent

By asking us to assist with your finance needs, you consent to the collection and use of the information you have provided to us for the purposes described above.

Notifiable Data Breaches and how we deal with breaches

The Privacy Act 1988 includes a new Notifiable Data Breaches (‘NDB’) scheme (as from 2018) which necessitates us to notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (‘OAIC’) and you of certain data breaches and suggest actions you can take to reduce the impacts of a breach.

The scheme obliges us to notify about a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm to individuals who are affected. Where we have taken appropriate remedial action that removes the risk of serious harm we are not required to notify.

If we do need to notify you, we will notify you and OAIC as soon as practicable about the breach, how you can reduce the impact to your privacy and the steps we are taking.

We will deal with Breaches in an appropriate and timely manner. There may be internal and external actions that need to be taken. In taking any action, we will be guided by steps as suggested by the OAIC on responding to a Breach (whether it is actual or suspected):

Step 1: Contain the Breach and do a preliminary assessment

Step 2: Evaluate the risks associated with the Breach

Step 3: Notification

Step 4: Prevent future Breaches

If you believe that any personal information we hold about you has been impacted by a data breach, you can contact us at info@thesinghgroup.com.au

A copy of the OAIC’s “Data Breach Notification – a guide to handling personal information security breaches” can be accessed at https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-guidance-for-organisations-and-government-agencies/preventing-preparing-for-and-responding-to-data-breaches/data-breach-preparation-and-response/part-3-responding-to-data-breaches-four-key-steps