Privacy Statement

Cairns Regional Council collects personal information from you, including information about your name, email address, address, telephone number, commentary or opinion.  We collect this information to carry out our statutory and legal responsibilities and to deliver our services. We will only use your information for this purpose. It will otherwise not be used or disclosed unless authorised or required by law. Your personal information will be handled in accordance with the Information Privacy Act 2009.

This Privacy Statement forms part of the Terms & Conditions of Use for Cairns Regional Council's websites and mobile applications (apps). By accessing Council's website and mobile apps you agree to these Terms & Conditions of Use.

Information collected

When you use our websites or apps, we collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our service to you.

Personal data

While using our service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information. We will only do this:

• to meet your needs (eg answer a question, provide a service)
• to meet our needs (eg demographic analysis)
• if required by law.

Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

• Email address
• First name and last name
• Address
• Activity tracking and usage data

You agree that any personal data entered by you using the website or apps must be true, accurate and complete. You must not enter any data that:

• is or is likely to be defamatory of any person;
• is or is likely to be obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory;
• promotes sexually explicit or violent material;
• promotes discrimination including based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
• infringes any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person;
• is or is likely to deceive any person;
• is or is likely to be in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence;
• promotes any illegal or unlawful activity or advocates, promotes or assists any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse;
• threatens, abuses or invades another's privacy;
• causes annoyance, inconvenience, nuisance or needless anxiety;
• is likely to or does harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person;
• impersonates any person, or misrepresents your identity or affiliation with any person;
• gives the impression that any of the above emanates from us (if this is not the case); and
• is or is likely to bring Cairns Regional Council into disrepute including as a result of your acts or omissions.

My Cairns app user data

Data collected when the application is run

A Logical Device Identifier is assigned on first execution.

• This enables Council to associate your device for preferences and notifications.
• This also enables Council to track the number of unique visits to each feature within the app.

This on its own does not directly or indirectly identify an individual user.

Notification preferences

• This allows Council to select which Notification topics this device requires.

This on its own does not directly or indirectly identify an individual user.

Device Operating System, Application Level, Phone model (crash reporting, issue logging)

• This information is captured in the event of an error condition being reported; this enables us to investigate issues with the app and attempt to reproduce them on similar devices or software levels.

This on its own does not directly or indirectly identify an individual user.

Optional data that can be provided by the user

An address

• This allows Council to associate your device with an address for location-related notifications such as bin collection dates.

A Name and Email address

• Requested on the Report a Problem and Feedback screens. This allows Council to investigate and reply to you about any problem or feedback raised.

A Location, optional Pictures and optional Phone number

• Requested on the Report a Problem screen. This allows Council to investigate the problem and reply to you.

You are able to access information held by Council about you under the Right to Information Act. If you have questions or concerns regarding Council's treatment of your information please contact our Customer Service Centre on 1300 69 22 47 or email council@cairns.qld.gov.au. Please note that some records (eg, land records etc) are open to public inspection under current legislation.

Website usage data

When you visit Council's website, our web measurement tool and internet service providers automatically record anonymous information on website activity for statistical purposes only, including the number of users who visit the web site, the date and time of the visits, the number of pages viewed, the type of browser and operating system used, and navigation patterns. This information on its own does not identify an individual but it does provide us with statistics that we can use to analyse and improve our website.

We may also collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our service or when you access the service by or through a mobile device ("usage data").

This usage data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

When you access the service by or through a mobile device, this usage data may include information such as the type of mobile device you use, your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser you use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

Tracking & cookies data

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our service and hold certain information.

Cookies are files with small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyse our service.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our service.

Examples of cookies we use:

• Session Cookies. We use Session Cookies to operate our service.
• Preference Cookies. We use Preference Cookies to remember your preferences and various settings.
• Security Cookies. We use Security Cookies for security purposes.

Transactional services available from our website or mobile apps may use cookies to track business processes. Please read the particular service's privacy and security statement before beginning a transaction.

You are able to access information held by Council about you under the Right to Information Act. If you have questions or concerns regarding Council's treatment of your information please contact our Customer Service Centre on 1300 69 22 47 or email council@cairns.qld.gov.au. Please note that some records (eg, land records etc) are open to public inspection under current legislation.

Use of information collected

Any personal information you choose to provide will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided and will not be disclosed to any other person or organisation unless one of the following reasons applies:

• You have given Council consent to do so
• Council is required by law or authorised to do so under a law
• There are grounds to believe disclosure will prevent a threat to life or health
• That person or organisation is providing a service to Council and is required to maintain the same or similar privacy legislation principles
• Council is of the opinion that it is unable to assist with your request and that another government agency or authority is more capable of assisting, or has the appropriate jurisdiction to assist with your request.

Cairns Regional Council uses the collected data for various purposes:

• To provide and maintain the service
• To notify you about changes to our service
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service when you choose to do so
• To provide customer care and support
• To provide analysis or valuable information so that we can improve the service
• To monitor the usage of the service
• To detect, prevent and address technical issues

Should you send us any information via the website or apps, Council will take reasonable steps to ensure it is kept secure. However, Council accepts no responsibility for any unauthorised access to that information during its transmission to us.

You should be aware that there are risks in transmitting information across the Internet. However, Cairns Regional Council takes reasonable steps to protect any personal information from unauthorised access once that personal information comes into its possession.  Council monitors transmissions sent to and from us for quality control and systems administration and strive to protect your personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access.

If you believe Council may have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, complaints can be made in writing or to Council's customer service office by email council@cairns.qld.gov.au.

Website analytics

We may use third-party service providers to monitor and analyse the use of our service.

• Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.  For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Privacy and third-party sites

Our website and mobile apps may contain links to other websites and resources that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit.

Some pages within our website use plugins from third-party suppliers, including but not limited to YouTube (operated by Google), Google Maps and Facebook. We use these plugins to make our website more appealing and to provide additional functionality.  If you visit one of our pages featuring a third-party plugin, your browser makes a direct connection to the supplier's server; cookies may be set and information may be transmitted to and stored by the host. Cairns Regional Council does not control these actions.

We also use third-party online tools MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and Zinio to create, send and manage email marketing newsletters (e-newsletters). These tools may collect personal information, such as distribution lists that contain email addresses, and other information relating to those email addresses. We will only use this information to create, send and manage e-newsletters relating to Council responsibilities and services; and to measure e-newsletter campaign performance.

These third-party e-newsletter tools are based in the United States of America (USA). The information collected by these tools may be transmitted and stored securely in the USA and accessed by Council in accordance with each party's relevant privacy policy. By subscribing to our e-newsletters, you consent to your personal information being collected, used, disclosed and stored offshore.  Australian Privacy Principle 8.1 contained in Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act will not apply. You understand and acknowledge that these e-newsletter tools are not subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and you will not be able to seek redress under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) but will need to seek redress under the laws of the USA.

You may decline to provide your personal information by choosing not to subscribe to our e-newsletter mailing service. If you have consented but later wish to opt out, simply choose the ‘unsubscribe’ service included in every e-newsletter or contact Council.

For information about user data and privacy, consult the privacy policies of these third-party suppliers.  Please be aware that the privacy policy provided on social media and third-party websites that are not a part of the cairns.qld.gov.au domain may not be the same as the privacy policy described here.  Council does not endorse any embedded code or take responsibility for any supplier's compliance or lack thereof with any law, regulation or policy.