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).
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.
ABC Program Material is not subject to the Privacy Act; it is governed by the ABC Code of Practice and ABC Editorial Policies.
You can find the date of the most recent review of this policy at the end of this document.
The kinds of personal information we collect about you may include:
Some of the personal information we collect about you may be sensitive information, including information about your race or ethnicity, political opinions or affiliations, religious beliefs or affiliations, physical or mental health and sexuality. The ABC will not ask for sensitive information about you when you create an ABC Account.
Depending on the circumstances of collection, it may be possible for you to provide information to the ABC in a pseudonymous way so that your identity is not revealed. For example, you may wish to sign up for an ABC Account by using an email address that does not include your name and by providing a nickname rather than your actual name. The same applies in relation to any profiles you create on ABC iview.
In some circumstances however this may not be practicable, for example where a person must disclose their identity before being granted entry to the ABC studio as an audience member.
We also collect information about your use of our digital services. The kinds of information we collect about you in this context are described in section 1.2(c) below. Such information may, depending on the circumstances, constitute personal information.
The main circumstances in which the ABC collects personal information about you are:
If you register as a user of ABC digital services, by creating an ABC Account, you will provide information to us as part of your registration. You may also give us information when you make a purchase from us such as ABC merchandise, sign up to receive ABC newsletters or enter competitions, contribute user generated content, participate in research or surveys or otherwise participate in ABC functions or activities. For information about our collection and retention of payment information see below.
Sometimes someone else such as a parent, carer or friend might provide us with information about you so that we can provide you with products or services. For example, someone else may provide us with information about you when creating a profile for you on ABC iview.
In some circumstances, we may also collect information about you from our ABC online store fulfilment partners. Other times we may collect personal information about you from publicly available sources, including social media sites, or when you sign up for an ABC Account via another account.
For more information about our practices in relation to children, see below.
We also collect information about your use of our digital services through the use of technologies like cookies, beacons, device identifiers and local storage.
When you use our websites, mobile sites, mobile applications, email newsletters or applications on any other devices such as Apple TV, Chromecast or PlayStation, these technologies may be used to improve your user experience and our digital services. If you opt-in to the use of marketing cookies, or the use of device identifiers for marketing purposes, they may also be used to show you promotions for ABC content on third party digital services, such as Google and Facebook.
If you are a registered ABC Account holder, we may link the information collected about you to your account, and your newsletter subscription. If a profile is created under your account on ABC iview, we may link the information about the profile to your account.
If you are not a registered ABC Account holder, and you do not have a profile on ABC iview, then we will track this information by reference to digital information such as an IP address, or an identifier for your device or browser, 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 reading, viewing or listening experience.
The purposes for which we collect, use and disclose personal information include:
(a) communicating with you, including providing information about activities, products, services and events which we consider may be of interest to you (this includes promotions for ABC content on third party digital services and on ABC digital services);
(b) billing you for any products or services that we charge for;
(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) otherwise offering you assistance, including, by providing technical support;
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 an ABC Account holder or customer of the ABC.
We may disclose your personal information that we collect to our:
As described above in the section on “Cookies, beacons, device identifiers and other technologies used by third parties”, we may also allow some of our analytics and ratings service providers to collect information about your use of ABC digital services along with identifiers for your device or browser. If you have opted into the use of device identifiers for marketing purposes, we may share your device identifier with Facebook and Google for marketing purposes. If you have opted-in to the use of marketing cookies we may allow Facebook and Google to collect information about your use of ABC digital services along with identifiers for your browser for marketing purposes.
Some third parties may be able to match information about your use of our digital services with personal information they already have about you.
From November 2021, if you are a registered ABC Account holder, we may disclose a hashed version of your email address to Google and Facebook, via a technology service provider called Tealium, to show you promotions for ABC content likely to be of interest to you on those platforms.
You will be able to opt out of the disclosure of a hashed version of your email address to those Google and Facebook in your ABC Account settings. If your ABC Account is associated with the use of an ABC app on Apple’s iOS or tvOS software, we will not disclose a hashed version of your email address to Google and Facebook, and therefore the opt out function will not be available to you.
If you are not a registered ABC Account holder, or you are accessing an ABC digital platform while not logged into your ABC Account, we may disclose the identifier for your device or browser to Google and Facebook, via Tealium, for the same purpose, but only if you have opted in for the purpose of marketing.
If you don’t want to see promotional information on Facebook and Google platforms that is informed by your use of ABC digital services, as well as accessing the ABC’s privacy controls, you can also access the privacy controls via the account settings on those platforms. You can also visit Your Online Choices and do a blanket opt out for the organisations who signed up to Your Online Choices.
The third parties we disclose information to, or allow to collect information about you, may be located in Australia or outside Australia, including but not limited to New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, India, Canada and the USA.
We require that our service providers have appropriate controls to protect your personal information and that they only use your personal information for authorised purposes. 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. You may choose to access those links. 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.
We will sometimes give you an option to use products or services which are provided in conjunction with other entities such as social media platforms. If we do this, you should 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. For example, the triple j app offers a function that accesses YouTube API services. The YouTube Terms of Service are available here. 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.
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, or to make a request for the deletion of your personal information please contact the ABC Privacy Officer, whose details are below. Deletion requests are subject to the ABC’s record-keeping obligations, including the Archives Act 1983 (Cth).
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.
If you wish to contact our privacy officer, please use the following contact details:
ABC Privacy Officer
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
GPO Box 9994
Your State or Territory
This policy should be read in conjunction with the following related documents:
If you have any questions about this policy, please contact the ABC Privacy Officer, [email protected]
April 2022