Privacy Policy

Privacy at the Committee for Melbourne

We are committed to ensuring the privacy and security of all personal information collected from members, customers, suppliers, and other parties that make contact with us. We collect different types of personal information depending on the nature the relationship we have with you, from a number of different sources including:

• Directly from you;
• When you use our products or services including our online services, website and applications;
• When you enquire about or take out a membership with us; and
• From third parties.

The primary purpose for which we collect personal information from you is to offer and provide you with membership entitlements, events, training and professional services and to best manage our relationship with you. We also collect your personal information for reasons associated with these primary purposes. 

From time to time, we review whether we still need to retain your personal information. If it is no longer required for the purpose for which we originally collected it, then we will delete your information from our database or ensure the information is de-identified.

To access or update your personal information, make a complaint, or if you would like to obtain further information in relation to the Committee for Melbourne’s Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer by email at datasecurity@victorianchamber.com.au or GPO Box 4352, Melbourne Victoria 3001.

This a summary only. For more detail about how we manage your personal information, please refer to our Privacy Policy below.

Committee for Melbourne Privacy Policy

Last updated February 2026

This Privacy Policy applies to the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Incorporated (ABN 37 650 959 904) (Victorian Chamber, Committee for Melbourne, VCCI, CfM, we, us, or our) and describes how we collect, handle and protect the privacy of your personal information.

We are committed to treating the personal information we collect in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable laws, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under that Act. This Privacy Policy sets out how we handle personal information, but it is not intended to cover categories of information that are not covered under the Privacy Act.

We may modify or amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, as we alter the way we use information, new features are added to our website or applications, or applicable laws change. To let you know when we make change to this Privacy Policy, we will amend the revision date at the top of our Privacy Policy. Therefore, we encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to be informed about how we are protecting your personal information.

Our Privacy Policy covers the following sections:

1. Personal information that we collect
2. Collecting personal information
3. How we use information
4. Marketing communications
5. Sharing personal information
6. Visiting our website and online
7. Access to personal information
8. Complaints
9. How to contact us

If you would like a free hardcopy of this Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer.

1. Personal information that we collect

The type of information we collect about you depends on our relationship with you. Examples of personal information we collect include the following:

• General identification information such as names, job title, employment status, occupation, date of birth, country of residence, citizenship, place of work and gender;
• Contact details such as address, email address, phone and mobile number and internet protocol (IP) address;
• Relevant company, business and financial information;
• Usernames and passwords;
• Educational qualifications, employment history, salary and references;
• Payment details including group certificates, pay slips, and other income earning information;
• Information contained in identification documents such as passports and driver’s licences;
• Government-issued identification numbers such as tax file numbers;
• Financial information such as credit card and bank account details;
• Details of superannuation and insurance arrangements; and
• Visa or work permit status, immigration status and related information.

In some circumstances it is necessary for us to collect some forms of sensitive information about you. Examples of sensitive information we collect includes information relating to your:

• Racial or ethnic origin;
• Gender diversity;
• Disabilities;
• Membership of a professional, trade or political association or union (including voting preferences on our Enterprise Agreement voting platform) ;
• Criminal history; and
• Health information.

We will only collect and use sensitive information with your consent or otherwise, in accordance with the Privacy Act. If you would like us to provide you with access to training or programs funded by the Victorian and/or Commonwealth Governments, you agree that we can provide your sensitive information to the relevant government department or agency. With respect to such training and programs we may use government related identifiers to identify you (for example, your personal income tax number, passport or driver’s licence).

For the purposes of our Enterprise Agreement voting platform, we will only collect and use your name, employment status (permanent, full-time, part-time, casual), and voting preference. This information will not be shared with your employer.

When you are simply enquiring about membership, training, events, services or products, you have the option of not identifying yourself or alternatively you can use a pseudonym. However, not supplying your name or contact details might make it difficult for us to provide you with the information you need.

2. Collecting personal information

We collect and hold personal information from clients, members, customers, employees, job applicants, contractors, suppliers, event registrants and attendees and other individuals. We collect and hold this information for our business purposes. We collect most personal information from you directly, for example when we deal with you over the phone or in person, when you send us correspondence (including via email), when you use our website or applications, when you use our social media, when you complete a form, questionnaire, or survey, part of projects and initiatives we are conducting (including those we conduct with other organisations), when you attend our events and are photographed, filmed or recorded, when you use our Enterprise Agreement voting platform, or when you subscribe to our publications. If you contact us, we will keep a record of that contact.

Sometimes we will collect your information from third parties. These can include our members, clients or partners, paid customers, other national and international chambers of commerce that we partner with, marketing mailing lists and other public information (including public posts to social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter) and commercially available personal, identity, geographic and demographic information. When this occurs, we rely on the person or entity providing us with that personal information having the right to do so.

We may hold personal information in hardcopy and/or electronic formats. We take reasonable steps (including a range of physical, operational, and technological security measures) to protect your personal information from misuse, interference or loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Such measures include:

• Providing education and training to our employees and contractors on our Privacy Policy and how to protect your personal information;
• Administrative and technical controls to restrict access to personal information to those who need access;
• Technological security measures, including firewalls, encryption and end protection software; and
• Physical security measures such as security pass access to our head office, locked storage cabinets, secure destruct bins and use of secure offsite storage facilities (operated by third parties).

From time to time, we review whether we still need to retain your personal information. If it is no longer required for its purpose for which we originally collected it, we will delete your information from our database or ensure the information is de-identified.

We understand the importance of protecting children’s privacy. Our websites are not designed for, or intentionally targeted at, children under the age of 13. It is our policy not to knowingly collect or maintain information about any person under the age of 13.

3. How we use information

The main purposes for which we collect, hold and use personal information are:

• To offer and provide membership entitlements, events and training;
• To organise and register you for our events or our partner event;
• To verify your identity and provide relevant services (including visa applications and registering your vote on our Enterprise Agreement voting platform);
• To provide our products and services;
• To respond to individual requests or queries;
• To communicate and maintain contact with clients, members and other contacts (including previous clients and members);
• For marketing purposes (including to send marketing communications);
• For administrative purposes, including:
  
  • Processing payment transactions;
  • Charging and billing;
  • Detecting or preventing fraud; and
  • Identifying breaches of our membership or consulting terms and conditions;
• For purposes related to recruitment and the employment of our personnel and contractors including:
  • Contacting referees, processing applications, assessment for suitability for future positions, background checks and ongoing analytic purposes ensuring we are reaching a diverse range of candidates; and
  • Providing internal services or benefits to our employees;
• To improve and manage our products and services including:
  • Developing new products;
  • Verifying your identity;
  • Conducting surveys and questionaries; and
  • Seeking your feedback;
• For development and analytics purposes to develop of expertise and know how, including:
  • Development of expertise and know-how;
  • Benchmarking purposes;
  • Development, analytics and business intelligence functions including website trends and performance analysis;
  • Quality assurance and thought leadership;
  • Development of analytical trend reporting;
  • Other purposes related to our business; and
• Where we are required to or authorised to do so by legislation, regulations, rules, professional standards or industry code.

We also use your personal information for other purposes which you would reasonably expect, for example, for data analytics, research, staff training, policy development, planning and submissions and promotional purposes.

Any personal information entered into our Enterprise Agreement voting platform for the purposes of voting on a relevant Enterprise Agreement will be kept confidential and will not be shared with your employer, including how you voted.

4. Marketing communications

From time to time, with your consent, we may send you promotional material, including information about our products and services (including training and events), or the products and services of our third party partners, that we think you might be interested in and other helpful information. We hope that you find this information informative and useful. These communications may be sent in various ways, including by email, SMS or other electronic means.

However, should you choose to not receive them at the time of either joining or renewing your membership with us, registering for an event or account with us or at some other time, you can do so by following the link provided on the email, selecting the relevant button on our website, ticking the box provided on forms or by advising our staff who are relevant to your contact with us.

If you do not consent to receive, or unsubscribe from receiving marketing communications from us, we may still contact you for the other purposes described in the ‘How we use information’ section above.

We will not contact you with marketing communications when you register to vote on our Enterprise Agreement voting platform unless you consent for us to do so.

5. Sharing personal information

We may share your personal information with other parties including:

• Your authorised representatives, advisors, your employer or employees and referees;
• Personnel within the Victorian Chamber (including contractors) and our professional advisors;
• Credit managers, debt collecting agencies, third party clearing houses or mercantile agents for account settlement;
• Experts or other third parties contracted as part the provision of services by us to you;
• Our third party service providers, including IT, marketing and technology service providers;
• Other members or employees of members for the purpose of facilitating networking and introductions;
• Event sponsors;
• Our professional advisers (such as lawyers, accountants or auditors) and insurers;
• Relevant government departments where you are applying to access a government funded program or enrolling for a qualification that is being subsidised by a government department;
• The national or international chamber or federation of which you are a member;
• Other international chambers of commerce, federations or organisations that we partner with, including the International Chamber of Commerce; and
• Other parties when you ask us to do so or when you consent to that disclosure.

Where you are a customer, an employee, a contractor, or supplier of services to one of our clients, then we may disclose your personal information as part of providing services to that client.

We enter into agreements with third parties for their direct marketing of their products and services which we believe may be of interest to you. We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information to third parties for other marketing purposes.

From time to time, we may use your data in an aggregated, de-identified format to provide analytical trend reports to third party customers as a paid service to them. In this form, data is no longer personal information.

Unless otherwise prohibited by law or our contractual obligations, we will disclose your personal information to another party if required to do so by law, court order or as requested by a governmental or law enforcement authority, or in the good faith that disclosure is otherwise necessary or advisable. Such situations include: to perform, maintain or enforce contracts with our users or suppliers; to protect our rights or properties, our business affiliates, our users, or others; or when we have reason to believe that disclosing the information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who is causing, or who is threatening to cause, interference with or damage to our rights or properties, whether intentionally or otherwise; or when anyone else could be harmed by such activities.

In some cases, the third parties we may disclose your personal information to may be based outside of Australia, including in Switzerland, the United States of America, United Kingdom, the European Union and Singapore. 

6. Visiting our website and online

This Privacy Policy also applies to any personal information we collect via our websites (including victorianchamber.com.au) and applications (including mobile applications) in addition to personal information you provide us directly, including when you make a request or complete an online form. If you are a member of ours, you will be identified by a username, password and/or MFA code or some other single sign-on provider (i.e. Facebook) when you log into our websites or applications. The information we collect about members’ use of our website is used for measuring use and performance and in assisting to resolve any technical difficulties.

We use cookies, web beacons and other technologies on some of our websites and through email to automatically collect certain types of information. The collection of this information allows us to personalise your online experience (including tailoring our online presence) and enhancing your future online experience. We also use this information for development and analytic purposes. You can manage and control the use of cookies through your browser, including removing cookies by deleting them from your ‘browser history’ when you leave the site. In most instances, you can refuse a cookie and still navigate our websites.

We use analytics tools, including: 

• Google Analytics, you have the ability to opt out using the following link https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout;
• Braze, you have the ability to unsubscribe from emails which are sent to you. Braze is designed to respect browser-based Do Not Track (DNT) requests. If a user enables DNT in their browser, Braze tracking for that user is disabled.
• Microsoft Clarity, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/clarity/faq#how-can-i-prevent-clarity-from-gathering-data-on-my-page-views-when-i-visit-websites-that-use-clarity- ;
• Microsoft Universal Event Tracking (UET). UET is designed to respect browser-based Do Not Track (DNT) requests. If a user enables DNT in their browser, UET tracking for that user is disabled.
• Qualtrics, you have the ability to unsubscribe from the emails that are sent to you;
• Hotjar, you have the ability to opt out using the following link https://www.hotjar.com/policies/do-not-track/; 
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram), you have the ability to opt out using the following link https://www.facebook.com/help/1224342157705160
• LinkedIn, you have the ability to opt out using the following links  https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1397243 or https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/guest-controls
• TikTok, you have the ability to opt out using the following link https://support.tiktok.com/en/account-and-privacy/personalized-ads-and-data/control-your-off-tiktok-data

From time to time, we may use other analytic tools to monitor users of our websites. These help us gain an understanding of how our websites are being used.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to other websites of third parties which are linked to our website, including access to our Connect Member Benefits Program. We encourage you to review each website’s privacy policy, especially if you intend to disclose any personal information via that site. Other websites or programs hosted or operated by us (on domain names other than via victorianchamber.com.au) may contain specific privacy statements and disclosures which are specific to that website or program. You should review all such privacy policies before using those websites or services. 

7. Access to, and correction of your personal information

It is important that you make sure the personal information we hold about you is accurate, up to date and complete. If your details change or you believe that any personal information we hold about you is incorrect, you can contact us and we will take reasonable steps to correct it in accordance with the requirements under the Privacy Act.

You can request access to your personal information that we hold about you. When you make a request to access your personal information, we may require you to provide some form of identification (such a driver’s licence or passport) so we can verify that you are the person to whom the information relates. In some cases, where permitted under the Privacy Act, we may also request an administrative fee to cover the cost of providing access.

To the extent permitted under the Privacy Act, we will not provide you access to your information in certain circumstances, such as where your request for access is frivolous or vexatious, or the information relates to legal proceedings between us and you and would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings. To make a request, please contact us.  We will respond to your request within a reasonable period (usually within 30 days).

You may seek access to and request the correction or deletion of your personal information while the requested information remains identifiable. Once your information is de-identified, VCCI will not be able to action your request for deletion as we will be unable to identify your information.

Any personal information provided to VCCI through our Enterprise Agreement voting platform will be automatically deleted after 90 days of it first being provided.

8. Complaints

You can make a complaint in relation to our handling of your personal information. In the first instance, we request that you make your complaint in writing directly to our Privacy Officer. We will investigate your complaint and prepare a response to you in writing within a reasonable period of time.

We take all complaints we receive seriously. If you are not satisfied with our response or the manner in which we have dealt with your complaint, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) (contact details at www.oaic.gov.au).

9. How to contact us

If you have any concerns or queries about this Privacy Policy or our handling of your personal information you can contact our Privacy Officer by email at datasecurity@victorianchamber.com.au or at:

Privacy Officer
Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
GPO Box 4352
MELBOURNE VIC 3001

For more information about privacy and the protection of personal information, visit the OAIC's website www.oaic.gov.au.