Privacy statement

FIRE RESCUE VICTORIA PRIVACY STATEMENT

Fire Rescue Victoria (‘FRV’) values and is committed to protecting your privacy.

We treat your personal information in accordance with the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) (PDP Act), Public Records Act 1973 (Vic), Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) and other applicable legislation.

This Privacy Statement applies to information collected through the frv.vic.gov.au website. For information about our broader collection, use, and disclosure of personal information, please email FRV's Privacy team.

We may update this privacy statement from time to time. Any changes to this privacy statement will be published on this website.

What information do we collect?

There are three main ways that we may collect personal information from or about you:

1. Requests to provide information
   In most circumstances, you will know if we are collecting personal information from you because you will be requested to provide it. For instance, if you submit a form to contact us through the website, we will ask you to provide your name and email address.
2. Automatic collection through the website
   Some personal information is automatically collected as a result of your visit to our website. This information is collected using software techniques such as web server log file analysis, cookies and web beacons.
3. Automatic collection by third party software vendors
   We use some third party software that collects information about your interaction with our website. When you visit our website, your web browser automatically sends certain information to these software providers.

This statement covers each of these instances of personal information collection in more detail below.

Requests to provide information

We may collect personal information that you choose to give us, or which may be required to access a particular service. This includes information collected via online forms when you contact us to give a compliment or provide feedback.

The information you provide by completing an online form on frv.vic.gov.au is collected by FRV’s CMS and is stored in Australia. There are teams within FRV that have processes in place to delete this data from the CMS on a regular basis.

Automatic collection through the website

Use of cookies

We use first-party cookies and JavaScript code to collect information about visitors to this website. We use these to track how our visitors interact with this website, including any referring sources, what they did on the site and whether they completed any activities on the site.

If you don't want to have cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your web browser. You will need to customise each web browser you use to turn off cookie tracking.

If you opt out of using cookies, you will still have access to all the information and resources provided by this website, although some features may not work as expected.

Automatic collection by third party software vendors

This website uses several online tools to measure website use, which are provided by third party software vendors. We use these tools to help us make our site better.

We use software by third parties, including:

• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager
• HotJar
• YouTube

For further information on how these third party software vendors handle your personal information, please review their privacy policies. Personal information may be provided to third parties when accessing this website. Information that may be shared to third parties includes:

• network location and IP address;
• the date and time of your visit to our website;
• the types of web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari) and operating system (e.g. Windows 10, Mac OS X etc.) you are using;
• Flash version, JavaScript support, screen resolution and screen colour processing ability;
• referring site details (such as the URL that you came through to arrive at our website);
• pages visited and the time spent on each page;
• documents downloaded and search terms used;
• the forms accessed on our website;
• your device’s unique device identifier;
• cookies and data about which page you visited;
• device information, hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage, debugging information, browser information;
• geo-location information (if enabled by you); and
• any unique user identifier we assign to you.

The information we disclose to some of our third party vendors may be transmitted outside Victoria. We take reasonable steps to ensure that when your personal information is transmitted outside Victoria, privacy protections are applied.

Third party software vendors may alter how they collect and handle personal information at any time.

Use and disclosure

Use of web analytics data

We use web analytics data for statistical purposes, such as to analyse, measure, and report on data about our website traffic and visits. This information helps us understand general user trends at an aggregate level, and improve our website, content, and user experience.

We may also use this information for security audits to protect against threats from hackers or for other security purposes.

We do not use this information to identify you or match it with any other personal information we may collect from you, unless required to do so as part of an internal investigation or for a law enforcement related purpose, in accordance with the PDP Act.

Your site visit data is collected by FRV in accordance with the obligations outlined in Information Privacy Principle 1.1 of the PDP Act for the purposes stated above.

Disclosure of web analytics data

In most circumstances, apart from the third party tools described in this Privacy Statement, we do not disclose your site visit data to any other third parties without your consent, unless we are required or authorised to do so by law.

Can I opt out of the collection of web analytics data?

You cannot opt out of the automatic collection of information that is used for analytical purposes using our website; however you may choose to disable cookies or delete any individual cookie from your device or take other steps to make your web browsing anonymous. If you choose to disable cookies, the website may not function fully and your ability to browse, read, and download information contained on our website may be impaired. If your experience is impaired, you may still access our services by contacting our office via other methods such as telephone, email, or mail.

Social media

We use FRV’s social media channels to communicate with the public about our work. We may collect any personal information that you provide us via these channels r under section 8C of the PDP Act, for the purposes of engaging and consulting with the public. Any personal information we collect via FRV social media will be handled appropriately and in line with this privacy statement.

Social media organisations may also collect your personal information for their own purposes. When you agree to their terms of service and privacy policies, you agree to your information being transferred outside Victoria. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not post any personal information (including phone numbers and email addresses) on your profile, in your comments, tweets, stories, or replies. Additionally, please do not share personal information about others via social media.

We use Sprout Social to manage FRV’s social media accounts. Information collected by Twitter and Facebook and Instagram is also shared with Sprout Social.

We have social media sharing links on this website. These are located on the right hand side of a webpage under the heading 'Share this'. By clicking these links you are given the option to share the webpage as a post on your social media account (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn). These social media networks may collect your personal information for their own purposes.

Links to non-vic.gov.au websites

This privacy statement does not apply to any external websites that are linked on the frv.vic.gov.au website.

The icon we provide to let you know when you are leaving frv.vic.gov.au and visiting an external website is displayed below.

This is what an external link looks like

We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of external websites. When you visit other websites, we recommend you read the privacy statements or policies of these websites before providing personal information.

Security of your personal information

Under the PDP Act, we have a responsibility to protect your personal information. We take reasonable steps to make sure that your personal information is protected from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Access to systems, applications, and the information that we collect is limited to authorised staff members only.

Further, any personal information that we collect and use for identifying user trends (for example, IP address) is aggregated and anonymised when generating reports.

Access and correction

You may request access to, or correction of, documents that contain your personal information which are in our possession. For information on how to make a request for access or correction, please contact us.

• By phone: 1300 367 617 and ask to speak to our Privacy Officer
• By mail: Privacy Officer, Fire Rescue Victoria, 456 Albert Street, East Melbourne, Victoria 3002
• By email.