Privacy

In many of your dealings with Yarra Trams, you may choose to remain anonymous or use a pseudonym. However, this may restrict our ability to effectively respond to your enquires and requests. We will need to know your identity if:

(a) it is impracticable for us to deal with you unless we can identify you; or

(b) we are required or authorised by an Australian law or court/tribunal order, to only deal with identified individuals. For example, pursuant to the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983 (Vic), an Authorised Officer can obtain your name, address and evidence of identification where they have reasonable grounds to believe an offence has occurred.

Personal Information means any information or opinion (that may not be true) about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information is recorded in a material form or not.  Examples of personal information include your name, address, phone number, email or certain social media details.

As the operator of the Melbourne metropolitan tram network, Yarra Trams routinely collects the following types of personal information:

• Name, contact details and other information submitted to or obtained by our customer service department or tram depots as part of customer complaints, feedback, lost and found, or other communications ("Customer Service information");
• Name, contact details, opinions and answers to questions or surveys, social media details as part of our marketing and competition activities ("Marketing Information");
• Name, date of birth, contact details, professional memberships, criminal record, tax file numbers, bank account details and other information as part of the employee or contractor or consultant recruitment ("Recruitment Information");
• Name, contact details, vehicle registration number, government related identifiers such as your licence number and other information of drivers and witnesses involved in collisions with or accidents in or around our trams ("Collision details");
• Name, address, myki card number, government related identifiers such as your drivers licence number and/or passport number and other passport details, CCTV or surveillance activities or other identifying information ("Infringement Information").

While the collection of some types of personal information is required to meet our legal obligations, we do attempt to keep our collection of your personal information to what is strictly necessary for the purpose of your dealings with Yarra Trams.

Sensitive information is a subset of personal information that is afforded a higher level of privacy protection under the privacy laws.  It includes health information and personal information about an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political, professional or trade association or trade union, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual preferences or criminal record.

Unless we are required or permitted by law to do so, or by you providing us with your consent, Yarra Trams generally does not collect sensitive information. Yarra Trams may collect sensitive information in the course of complying with legislation, responding to feedback and/or improving our customer services.

Some of the information we collect as described above may also be used for other purposes permitted by law.

If you provide us with personal information about another person then we ask that you inform that person about this Privacy Policy. Further, Yarra Trams will determine, within a reasonable period of time, whether or not it would be permitted to collect the information under legislation. If it would not be permitted, Yarra Trams will destroy the personal information you have provided about another person or ensure it is de-identified as soon as practicable.

Yarra Trams generally collects the kinds of personal information described above in the following ways:

(a)       Customer Service Information - including when:

• you contact one of our tram depots directly and provide your personal informationto our depot manager or other representative;
• you contact Public Transport Victoria's call centre and agree for your personal informationto be provided to us as a public transport operator for the purpose of responding to your complaint or feedback;
• you communicate with our customer feedback division or our staff members via telephone, email or letter and provide your personal information;
• you send written correspondence to our head office or other location;
• you post information on or directed to any of our social media platforms, including our Facebook page, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts;
• your authorised representative, a family member or other third party provides us with your personal information.

(b)       Marketing Information - when you or your authorised representative enter a competition or promotion on our website, or answer questions and provide information to our corporate affairs, marketing or other departmental representatives. 

(c)       Recruitment Information - during the recruitment process when we receive applications from individuals or deal with contractors or consultants, and from third parties (eg, police background checks). 

(d)      Collision Information- when a collision occurs, information obtained by our drivers, other Yarra Trams’ employees, via CCTV monitoring and/or the police.

(e)        Infringement Information - when an infringement occurs, by Authorised Officers, drivers or other staff members. 

Yarra Trams ensures that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, up-to-date, complete and relevant.  To help us do this, we ask that you please notify us of any changes to your personal information.  We will correct your personal information if we receive a correction request from you, or we are otherwise satisfied your personal information should be corrected.

We also protect your personal information and keep it secure. Personal information we collect is held in secure and restricted access systems located in Australia, with the exception of information collected via social media which is held on the servers of that network.  Access to these systems or files is restricted to certain Yarra Trams employees who require access to properly perform their work functions.

We also take reasonable steps to protect and keep secure your personal information by:

• imposing access rights and restrictions;
• using confidentiality agreements;
• enforcing internal policies;
• utilising secured site facilities; and
• utilising computer generated security tools such as firewalls and data encryption.

We cannot however guarantee that data transmission to or from us over the internet will be totally secure and information sent via the internet may be intercepted by a third party. Yarra Trams has established reasonable security measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised use, access or disclosure and uses reasonable efforts to ensure that any personal information is kept secure.

Subject to legal requirements, when we no longer require your personal information for any permitted purposes, we take reasonable steps to either destroy or de-identify your personal information.  For example, upon completing a marketing competition, all personal information is deleted from our files, with any relevant aggregated de-identified information retained for research and analysis purposes within our business if needed.

Yarra Trams collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information for purposes that are reasonably necessary for our operations, activities and functions.  These purposes include:

• to undertake and operate our franchise in line with our Franchise Agreement with the State Government;
• to undertake customer service functions including answering enquiries and complaints and improving our operational and customer service functions;
• to promote our business, provide information to customers, users and the public;
• to undertake research and development activities aimed at better understanding and improving our operations and services;
• to provide report and other information to, or respond to enquiries from, government departments;
• to investigate and take action in relation to suspected serious unlawful activity or misconduct and to prepare for and engage in dispute resolution activity including those arising from, collisions, other accidents or infringements and to deal with drive and insurance agents;
• to protect the safety of our passengers, drivers and other employees and to enable us to respond to emergencies;
• to evaluate applications, make recommendations, and manage and administer the engagement of contractors and consultants;
• for enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body;
• as required or authorised by law; and
• for any other purpose for which your consent is obtained,  such as website competitions.

If all or part of the information we seek to collect is not provided, Yarra Trams may be unable to undertake one or more of the tasks identified in the above list.

Unless otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy or required by Australian law or court/tribunal order, Yarra Trams does not, in its normal course of business, disclose personal information to overseas recipients. Our systems that store and process personal information are located within Australia. In the event that any personal information is disclosed to overseas recipients, Yarra Trams does so in accordance with its privacy obligations. By providing Yarra Trams with your personal information, you consent to this disclosure of your personal information.

Any information shared with our related body corporate entities is generally de-identified and aggregated.  However, some contractor information and other limited personal information may be shared with our related body corporate entities in the course of our business operations and functions.

In the course of its business functions and activities, and where otherwise required or authorised by Australian law or court/tribunal order, Yarra Trams may disclose your personal information to third parties, including to:

• your authorised representatives;
• your insurance agents and representatives;
• Our related bodies corporate and shareholders;
• the Head, Transport for Victoria (ABN 97 481 088 949), a body corporate established under the Transport Integration Act 2010 (formerly Public Transport Development Authority (operating as Public Transport Victoria)) ;
• Department of Transport and Planning;
• Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator;
• Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources;
• Victoria Police;
• Debt collection agencies;
• Public Transport Ombudsman;
• Transport Accident Commission;
• Competition prize providers;
• Staff, referees, recruitment agents and any other third parties who may assist with the Yarra Tram recruitment process for any job for which you may have applied;
• Other service providers such as V/Line Pty Ltd and Metro Trains Melbourne Pty Ltd; and
• Other third parties to whom you have consented.

Yarra Trams website and mobile applications may include links to other Web sites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Yarra Trams. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by those privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any Web site you visit.

You may request access to personal information we hold about you. To do so, please contact our Privacy Officer - see details under Contact Us section below.

We will endeavour to respond to your request generally within 30 days.  We will provide you with access to the information in the manner you have requested where possible. However, we will not provide access in circumstances where: 

• access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals;
• the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings with you;
• denying access is required or authorised by an Australian law or court/tribunal order;
• access may prejudice enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body; or
• other circumstances prescribed by law.

If we do refuse access, we will provide you with written notice of our refusal, explaining why we have made the decision to refuse access, and information on how you can make a complaint if you are not satisfied with our decision.

While we will not charge you for an access request, we may charge you for our reasonable costs in providing access (such as photocopying and postage). We will notify you of any applicable charges prior to processing your request.

You may ask us to correct the personal information we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer - see details under Contact Us section below. We will respond to your request generally within 30 days. We will take reasonable steps to correct the information if it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading having regard to the purpose for which we hold it. In some circumstances we may require further information from you to support your correction request. If we refuse your correction request, we will provide you with written notice of our refusal, explaining why we have made the decision to refuse to correct your information, and details on how you can make a complaint if you are not satisfied with our decision.

We may collect information through Cookies about our services that you use and how you use them, such as when you visit our website. Cookies do not contain personal information because they do not reveal the identity of an individual, and you may set your browser in a manner so your computer does not accept Cookies.

Any reviews, including usernames and account details, posted on Google Play, Apple App Store or similar application store, are hosted on the servers of that specific application store.

User data which helps us to improve the performance of a Yarra Trams mobile application is collected anonymously, with no data kept to identify a specific end user. Information that is retained, may include the model of mobile phone used to access a Yarra Trams mobile application and its current operating system.

Yarra Trams actively uses social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

While all data is kept on the servers of the respective social networks, there may be times where Yarra Trams will contact a user and ask them to voluntarily provide contact details for reasons including but not limited to answering customer feedback and sending competition prizes.

Any personal information collected in this manner by us will be handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy and relevant law.

From time-to-time Yarra Trams may use other forms of social media. The above principles will apply to such other forms of social media.

To make a complaint about our handling of your personal information, please submit your complaint in writing to our Privacy Officer - see details under Contact Us section below. Your complaint must include sufficient details to enable us to respond and will be treated in confidence.

Once we have received your written complaint, we will investigate your complaint and provide you with a response within a reasonable time after receipt of your complaint, generally within 30 days. We may also contact you to discuss the issues and potential options to resolve your complaint.

If you are not satisfied with our response or proposed resolution, you may make a complaint to the relevant State or Commonwealth privacy office, whose contact details are listed below.

As a guide, if your privacy complaint relates to our management of your personal information in the course of carrying out passenger services on behalf of the State Government of Victoria, then you should direct your complaint to Office of the Commissioner for Privacy and Data Protection.  If you are unsure, you may contact us or the Office of the Commissioner for Privacy and Data Protection who will assist in where to direct your complaint.

Office of the Commissioner for Privacy and Data Protection

Post:
PO Box 24274
Melbourne VIC 3001

Telephone:
Local call within Australia: 1300 006 842
From outside Australia: +61 03 86847565.

Email: enquiries@ovic.vic.gov.au

OR

Office of the Australian Information Commission - see the OAIC privacy complaints page for more information on the lodging your complaint.

Please direct any questions concerning our Privacy Policy, any access or correction requests or privacy complaints in relation to your personal information, to our Privacy Officer as follows:

Privacy Officer
Yarra Trams
GPO Box 5231
MELBOURNE VIC 3001
Tel:  (03) 96193200

Email:  Privacy.Officer@yarratrams.com.au

Yarra Trams may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time.  Any amendments will be effective on the date the revised Privacy Policy is posted on our website.