Generally, personal information is any information or opinion that can be used to personally identify you or you are reasonably identifiable from it. This may include, for instance, your name, age, gender, contact details as well as financial information.

You are disclosing your personal information to the Hsing Yun Education Foundation Limited ACN 614 498 743. In this policy, whenever we refer to we, us, or our, we are referring to Hsing Yun Education Foundation Limited. 

We are a charity registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. Our charitable purpose is advancing education, community and social welfare and culture through the religion of Buddhist values and wisdom. It is in the process of carrying out functions or activities to advance our charitable purpose we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information. These functions and activities include:

• • as the trustee for the Hsing Yun Public Fund:
    • raising funds for Nan Tien Institute;
    • organising and hosting fundraising appeals and raising funds from the public; • administering donations from donors;
  • administering grants to beneficiaries;
  • investing our funds to grow our corpus;
  • communicating with the public, our supporters and the media including through websites and social media;
  • carrying out good governance practices and day-to-day business operations in support of the above.

The specific purpose for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information will depend on the nature of relationship you have with us and is explained below:

Generally, we collect and hold the following kinds of personal information:

• • name; 
  • mailing or street address;
  • email address;
  • telephone and other contact details; and
  • age or date of birth.

We may also collect and hold further personal information (which can include sensitive information) depending on your relationship with us. The kinds of personal information we collect and hold include but is not limited to the following:

We usually collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. We may collect your personal information in the following ways:

• • through interactions between you and us (e.g. in face-to-face meetings, mail, emails, telephone calls, via social media platforms, at events and, as trustee of the Hsing Yun Public Fund, fundraising activities); and 
  • through your registration, access and/or use of our website, app and/or other online presence platforms.

We may also collect your personal information from third parties. For instance, you may be a potential student referred to us for consideration of one of our scholarships by one of our state-based affiliate organisations, Buddhist’s Light International Association. Where we collect personal information from a third party, we will take reasonable steps to either notify or ensure you are aware that we have collected your personal information and the circumstances of the collection.

At all times, our collection of personal information is lawful and fair.

Sometimes we receive unsolicited personal information. It is our general practice that unsolicited personal information is destroyed or de-identified unless it is unlawful to do so.

Generally, we do not identify you personally when you are only browsing our website. However, certain information about your visit may be recorded by us, including (but not limited to):

• • the pages you visited;
  • when you visited; and
  • IP (Internet Protocol) address assigned to your computer.

Our website will also send your computer a ‘cookie’ – a small data file with unique ID. By doing so, we can collect information about your site usages and visits to help customise your website experience. You are welcome to disable cookies through your browser but this may affect your experience on our website.

We do collect your personal information through our website when you register and subscribe to our email newsletter.

We may use the information collected on our website to evaluate and improve user experience on our website as well as our online presence.

Our website does use Google Analytics. By using Google Analytics, we have a better understanding of our website traffic and usage. Google Analytics is a service which tracks and reports website traffic. In doing so, it transmits website traffic data to Google servers in the United States however it does not identify any individual users or associate an IP address with any other data held by Google.

By using our website, you consent to Google’s privacy policy and for the purposes outlined above. You can opt out of Google Analytics by disabling or refusing the cookie, disabling JavaScript or using the opt-out service provided by Google. You can read more about Google Analytics here.

Our website may contain links to third party owned and/or operated websites. These links are provided for your reference and convenience. We do not make any representations or warranties in relation to the contact and/or privacy practices of these websites. We encourage you to read their privacy policies (which may be substantially different to ours) prior to using their websites. We do not have any control or rights over these websites.

If you do not provide us with the requested personal information, we may not be able to fulfil:

• • the purpose for which you are in contact with us, for instance:
  • provide you with the information that you requested; 
  • process your donation;
  • progress your volunteer application;
  • consider engaging you as a contractor;
  • progress your complaint; and/or 
  • our legal or professional obligations.

Wherever it is lawful or practicable, we will give you the opportunity to not identify yourself when dealing with us. However, there are limited circumstances where you can deal with us anonymously or by pseudonym. Some of these circumstances include in an emergency, providing us feedback on our services, making a whistleblower alert, or where permitted or required by law.

In the process of carrying out our business functions and activities, we may disclose your personal information to:

• • our employees and related bodies corporate including our parent entity, being International Buddhist Association of Australia Co-operative Limited;
  • organisations affiliated with us including the various state-based Buddhist’s Light International Associations which assist us with our recruitment of volunteers and conducting fundraising events; 
  • Nan Tien Institute, a beneficiary of the Hsing Yun Public Fund; 
  • our volunteers; 
  • contractors, consultants and professional advisers, third party suppliers, service providers, dealers and agents (including website and information technology providers);
  • banking operator to receive donations (namely, Westpac) 
  • our existing or potential business partners; 
  • specific third parties authorised by you to receive information held by us; and/or 
  • other persons, including, without limitation, government agencies, regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies, or as required, authorised or permitted by law.

 We may send you direct marketing messages about us. The messages will be sent to you in the form of mail, email, text messages, social media or other forms of communication. In doing so, we will always comply with all applicable laws including the Spam Act. If you would like to opt-out of receiving direct marketing messages, please contact us using the details set out below or by using the designated opt-out facilities which usually is an unsubscribe link or responding ‘No’ to a text message.

We do not engage third parties to facilitate direct marketing activities for us.

We may hold your personal information in either electronic and/or hard copy form. We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information that we hold from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Specifically, we adopt a range of physical, administrative, personnel and technical mechanisms to protect your personal information. For instance, we: 

• • disclose personal information only on a need-to-know basis; 
  • have implemented locks to physical files containing personal information; 
  • have enabled password protect to electronic files containing personal information; 
  • conduct regular IT audits; 
  • monitor access to personal information; and
  • provide a copy of this privacy policy (and any updates) to our volunteers and contractors and provide training.

Further, we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify any personal information that is no longer needed unless otherwise required by law.

Please be advised that given the internet by its nature is insecure, we cannot provide assurance over adequate protection or security of personal information you communicate to us over the internet. If you have concerns about transmitting your personal information to us over the internet, you are welcome to contact us using the details below.

The kinds of sensitive information we may collect include personal information about your religion, philosophical beliefs, probity checks (if you are a volunteer or contractor on an as-needs basis). We collect your sensitive information only with your consent or in permitted situations.

We recognise sensitive information must be generally afforded a higher level of protection than other personal information as inappropriate management of sensitive information can have adverse consequences.

Accordingly, we will only use and disclose sensitive information in limited ways, namely: 

• • for the purpose it was provided;
  • with your consent; or 
  • where legally permitted.

 When you provide your personal information to us, you consent to the disclosure of your information outside of Australia and acknowledge that we are not required to ensure that overseas recipients handle that personal information in compliance with Australian privacy laws. You agree you cannot seek redress against us under the Australian privacy laws or otherwise (to the extent permitted by law) and do not require us to assist you in seeking redress overseas.

We also use social media platforms such as Facebook and WeChat to post updates about us and our events and volunteer opportunities. Please note that whatever you post on social media platforms may be visible to persons other than us. These services and platforms store information overseas in China, United States, Ireland and New Mexico. The privacy laws in these countries may not provide the same level of protection as Australian privacy laws. When you provide your personal information to us via these services and platforms, you consent to the disclosure, transfer and storage of your personal information outside of Australia and acknowledge that we are not required to ensure that these overseas recipients manage that personal information in compliance with Australian privacy laws. You agree you cannot seek redress against us under the Australian privacy laws or otherwise (to the extent permitted by law) and do not require us to assist you in seeking redress overseas. We will not be liable for any loss you or any other person may suffer arising from your actions and we cannot reasonably assist you or any other person in a claim or proceeding against these platforms for such loss.

If you require access to any personal information we hold about you, please contact us using the details below. We will consider your request and if appropriate, we will discuss with you a suitable way to give you access (for instance, by mailing, emailing it to you or inviting you to our offices to review the information to be accompanied by one of our representatives). We will respond to you within 30 days of receiving your request. A fee may apply to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing you access. If we do need to apply a fee, we will let you know beforehand. We will not charge you for simply making a request to access or correct your personal information.

Unfortunately, there may be times when we are not in a position to provide you access with all or some of your personal information. For instance, if giving you access will result in a breach of confidentiality or privacy of another person. We will give you written reasons if we are not in a position to provide you with access.

If you believe any personal information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, please contact us using the details below. We will respond to a request for correction within 30 days. If we believe we cannot comply with your request to amend your personal information, we will provide you with written reasons.

In both instances of requesting access and/or correcting your personal information, we will need to verify your identity.

We also take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where we believe the information is not correct or updated. From time to time, we will ask you to verify that your personal information held with us is updated.

We treat all complaints confidentially.

If you wish to make a complaint about the manner in which we have managed your personal information, please contact us by using the details below. So that we can fully consider your complaint, please provide us with: 

• • your name;
  • your relationship with us, for instance, whether you are a client, job applicant or otherwise 
  • your contact details; 
  • the nature of your complaint; and
  • a description of the incident which has occurred leading to your complaint.

On receipt of your complaint, we will send you a formal acknowledgement of your complaint. Within 30 days of receipt of your complaint, our representative will contact you to discuss your concerns and outline options on how your complaint may be resolved. Our objective is to resolve your complaint in a timely and appropriate manner.

If you are unhappy with our options, you may also contact the Office of Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). For more details, please visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 336 002.

We take privacy breaches seriously and we are committed to acting quickly to rectify and remedy any privacy breach including mitigating any harm that may be caused to an individual. We make notifications to any affected individual and the OAIC when: • there is unauthorised access to or unauthorised disclosure of personal information, or a loss of personal information, that we hold; 

• • this is likely to result in serious harm to one or more individuals; and 
  • we haven’t been able to prevent the likely risk of serious harm with remedial action.

For further information about this privacy policy or practices, or to access or correct your personal information, or make a complaint, please contact us using the details set out below. We also welcome any feedback you may have on this privacy policy.

Venerable Jue Fang
Email: ad***@hs********.au
Phone: +61-2-42720600
Website: www.hsingyunef.org.au
This privacy policy was last updated on 03/11/2020.

 Hsing Yun Education Foundation Limited ACN 614 498 743 collects personal information contained in this form pursuant to the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles. The information is collected from you to enable us to maintain a more meaningful relationship between you and the International Buddhist Association of Australia. You may choose to not provide this information to us. We disclose your information to our employees, consultants and other service providers in the course of managing our relationship with you. For more information about how we manage your personal information, including: how to access and correct it; how to make a complaint and how we handle complaints; and other useful information relating to our privacy practices, please refer to our privacy policy. By providing your personal information to us, you consent to the collection, use, disclosure and storage of that information as described in our privacy policy and this privacy collection notice. You may request a copy of the Foundation’s privacy policy from Venerable Jue Fang at ad***@hs********.au