Privacy Policy

Reviewed Jun 2020, Updated Nov 2020, Reviewed Dec 2020, Jun 2021, Dec 2021, Updated Jun 2022, Reviewed Jul 2023, Dec 2023

Privacy Policy Statement

ACCM College through the application of its Privacy Policy will:

  • Respect the privacy of students, potential students, parents and guardians of students, website browsers and clients (all parties) and not intrude to an unreasonable extent upon the personal affairs of the parties.
  • Only collect the personal information of the parties that is necessary for the conduct of our business.
  • Use that information appropriately and only for the purposes and in the manner for which it was intended.
  • Not collect personal information by unlawful or unfair means.
  • If the collection of the information is authorised or required by or under law advise the parties of this fact and with whom it will be shared.
  • Allow the parties to apply for and receive copies of or on-line access to all information we hold on them.
  • Store that information securely against unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, against other misuse and loss.
  • Limit access to only those who have a legal reason to have access to that information, or whom the parties have given permission, or to verify the authenticity of Testamurs, Transcripts and Statements of Attainment.
  • Ensure that any party provided the personal information has in place equivalent privacy policies and procedures that will prevent unauthorised use or disclosure of information.
  • Comply with our legal requirements including the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988 and Clause 23 of Schedule 1A of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 in relation to the collection of information relating to all students and the Student Identifiers Act 2014.

Privacy Policy Key Details

  • Collection of Personal Information - Privacy Act

    1.1 Most personal information is provided to ACCM College by students enrolling in a course with the College, by an “Electronic/On-line Enrolment Form. Personal information is also collected when a student or client completes a survey, questionnaire or application form, and when prospective students and clients make enquiries about our services.

    1.2 Generally, you are not obligated to provide any information requested by ACCM College that you do not wish to provide, except where it is needed by ACCM College to facilitate your enrolment and other compliance obligations.

    a) If you choose to apply to enrol into an accredited course with ACCM College then you must provide the personal and statistical information requested on the Enrolment Form. If you do not provide this information accurately, including your official name and matching data such as your date of birth, your enrolment cannot proceed and any enrolment fees will be refunded, less the Administration Fee.

    b) You must also provide ACCM College with your Unique Student Identifier which matches your official name and your date of birth. If a matching USI is not provided, you cannot be issued a Statement of Attainment or Testamur, and your enrolment may be cancelled with any applicable fee refund being subject to the Administration Fee.

    c) If you are applying to enrol into a non-accredited course, you will need to provide your official name and other suitable matching data such as your date of birth.  If you are unable to provide this information, your application to enrol cannot proceed and your course fees will be refunded, less the Administration Fee.

    d) Sufficient information/documentation referred to above is needed to verify your identify satisfactorily. This is because, as a provider of nationally recognised qualifications, ACCM College has obligations to determine your identity, eligibility to any funded courses and obtain appropriate contact details to enable the provision of our student support services, and in respect to non-accredited courses to issue a Statement of Participation.

    1.3 In respect of the Website, information may also be automatically collected through the use of a 'cookie'.

    Cookies are used on the Website to remember your login details, to track web traffic on an aggregate basis and to keep session information to assist your use of the Website, such as your last search (however this information is disposed of every time you close your web browser).

    ACCM College may use the information contained in Cookies to make assumptions about you and to provide you with focused course information that ACCM College believes may be of interest to you.

    Cookies and tracking may also be placed on our website at the request of training authorities for the purposes of tracking if people come to the ACCM website as a result of visiting their website or viewing their marketing activities.

    You may configure your browser so that you are notified before a Cookie is downloaded or so that your browser does not accept Cookies. However, Cookies allow you to take full advantage of the Website and we recommend that you leave them turned on.

    1.4 Where information is needed to facilitate your employment or school related enrolment  eg a traineeship or employer funded program or school based traineeship, ACCM College will request this information from your employer. Group Training Company. host employer or apprenticeship centre or school. You consent to those parties providing ACCM College with that information.

  • Use and Disclosure of Personal Information - Privacy Act

    2.1 ACCM College may use information collected from you to:

    (a) Provide you with information about suitable and similar courses.

    (b) Personalise and customise your experience on the Website and Webclass.

    (c) Communicate with you in order to support your enrolment and business relationship or respond to any queries you may have. 

    (d) Give you the opportunity, from time to time, to receive information about ACCM College news, events, promotions, competitions or services such as emails or 'e-newsletters'. You will of course be able to unsubscribe from such communications.

    (e) Facilitate the administration of your student records, including confirming and sharing information with government agencies (eg for funded and unfunded programs), employers (for employer programs), Australian apprenticeship network providers (for traineeship programs) and also verifying authenticity of any qualifications purported to be issued by ACCM College.

    (f) Facilitate the provision of information to government agencies to assist them in determining the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns for funded training programs.

    2.2 ACCM College does not sell either student or client information to third parties.

    2.3 Student and prospective student information will not be provided to anyone unless ACCM College has permission from the student, or is specifically allowed or required to provide the information by law.

    In providing your consent to this Privacy Policy at Enrolment you are agreeing to the provision of your personal information and sensitive personal information to the following parties where required:

    • Commonwealth and State Departments of Education (State Training Authorities)
    • Employers where the student is a Trainee or the employer has paid for their course
    • Apprenticeship Centres where the student is a Trainee
    • ASQA the National RTO Registering Body
    • The National Centre for Vocational Research (NCVER)
    • Student Identifiers Registrar - The Unique Student Identifier Registry (USI)
    • Third party providers such as ANZ and Ezidebit to process credit card and direct debit information
    • Collections agents in the event of outstanding payments;
    • A Tuition Assurance Scheme
    • Authorised surveying agencies as appointed or undertaken by any of these bodies
    • Where we have no current contact details with a student or are getting no response and make efforts to trace their contact details by other reasonable means
    • Where the student has approved it eg an authorisation to release details included in an Enrolment Form that authorises access
    • Where the disclosure is reasonably necessary for the enforcement of the criminal law or of a law imposing a pecuniary penalty, or for the protection of the public revenue
    • Where we believe on reasonable grounds that the disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of the student or of another person.

    ACCM College will maintain records of the provision of any such information.

    2.4 ACCM College will ensure that a party provided the personal information has in place equivalent privacy policies and procedures that will prevent unauthorised use or disclosure of information and they will not use or disclose the information for a purpose other than the purpose for which the information was given to that party. 

    2.5 All employer information obtained will be treated as “commercial in confidence” whether so marked or not. This means it will not be revealed to others without the employer’s permission.

    2.6 To protect the integrity of nationally recognised qualifications ACCM College will confirm the authenticity of any ACCM College Qualification Testamurs and Statements of Attainment purported to be issued by ACCM College without the permission of the student named on that qualification.

    2.7 The timing of phone and other interactions with students and clients will be stored, along with brief notes on the discussion points. Recording of the content of such interactions may however only be conducted for training purposes, and only with the express permission of the person being recorded.

  • Access to your Personal Information - Privacy Act

    3.1 ACCM College will confirm to students and clients the Enrolment data and personal information that it has collected. Any errors will be corrected once notified.

    3.2 Students may access all their records at any time by simply logging on to Webclass. For information not available on Webclass they can simply ask for copies of what they require. Fees (at cost recovery for time involved based on current published fee rate) may apply.

    3.3 If you request that ACCM College stop using your information and stop contacting you, ACCM College will comply with that request, except where you are a student enrolled under a government funded course, and such contact is a contract requirement; or where in the view of the ACCM College that this contact is necessary to progress course completion.

  • Data Security, Records and Staff Training - The Privacy Act

    4.1 ACCM College protects the personal information which it holds from misuse, loss or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure by various means including firewalls, virus protection, strong password access, and secure servers.

    4.2 ACCM College On-line Enrolment uses TLS v1.2 (RSA Public Key 2048 Bits) software which encrypts information you input when you enrol on-line and the Payment Page uses encryption of credit card transactions.

    4.3 ACCM College will maintain procedural documents setting out:

    • The nature of the records of personal information kept
    • The purpose for which each type of record is kept
    • The classes of individuals about whom records are kept
    • The period for which each type of record is kept
    • The persons who are entitled to have access to personal information contained in the records and the conditions under which they are entitled to have that access
    • The steps that should be taken by persons wishing to obtain access to that information.

     

    4.4 The College will ensure that its staff are suitably trained in relation to Privacy laws and the College obligations, Policy and procedures.

     4.5 Any hard copy records that are no longer required are shredded in-house or securely destroyed using a reputable document security destruction facility.

  • Marketing Activities and Use of Your Personal Information

    5.1 ACCM College will undertake direct marketing activities to student, clients and prospective clients using information provided in the enquiry process, enrolment process, web browsing activities or from business referrals.

    5.2 To opt out of direct marketing activities follow the instructions in the direct marketing item or email ACCM College with subject line: "Stop Direct Marketing" and in the email body include name, address and email details.

    5.3 Opting out of direct marketing activities will not stop news items and administrative notices being issued.

  • NCVER Privacy Policy

    NCVER and your Personal Information

    It is a requirement that portions of your personal information is provided to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

    You can learn more about NCVER here: National Centre for Vocational Education Research

    Why we collect your personal information

    As a registered training organisation (RTO), we collect your personal information so we can process and manage your enrolment in a vocational education and training (VET) course with us.

    How we use your personal information

    We use your personal information to enable us to deliver VET courses to you, and otherwise, as needed, to comply with our obligations as an RTO.

    How we disclose your personal information

    We are required by law (under the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (Cth) (NVETR Act)) to disclose the personal information we collect about you to the National VET Data Collection kept by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research Ltd (NCVER). The NCVER is responsible for collecting, managing, analysing and communicating research and statistics about the Australian VET sector.

    We are also authorised by law (under the NVETR Act) to disclose your personal information to the relevant state or territory training authority.

    How the NCVER and other bodies handle your personal information

    The NCVER will collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with the law, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the NVETR Act. Your personal information may be used and disclosed by NCVER for purposes that include populating authenticated VET transcripts; administration of VET; facilitation of statistics and research relating to education, including surveys and data linkage; and understanding the VET market.

    The NCVER is authorised to disclose information to the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE), Commonwealth authorities, State and Territory authorities (other than registered training organisations) that deal with matters relating to VET and VET regulators for the purposes of those bodies, including to enable:

    • Administration of VET, including program administration, regulation, monitoring and evaluation
    • Facilitation of statistics and research relating to education, including surveys and data linkage
    • Understanding how the VET market operates, for policy, workforce planning and consumer information.

    The NCVER may also disclose personal information to persons engaged by NCVER to conduct research on NCVER’s behalf.

    The NCVER does not intend to disclose your personal information to any overseas recipients.

    For more information about how the NCVER will handle your personal information please refer to the NCVER’s Privacy Policy at www.ncver.edu.au/privacy.

    If you would like to seek access to or correct your information, in the first instance, please contact your RTO using the contact details listed below.

    DESE is authorised by law, including the Privacy Act and the NVETR Act, to collect, use and disclose your personal information to fulfil specified functions and activities. For more information about how the DESE will handle your personal information, please refer to the DESE VET Privacy Notice at https://www.dese.gov.au/national-vet-data/vet-privacy-notice.

    Surveys

    You may receive a student survey which may be run by a government department or an NCVER employee, agent, third-party contractor or another authorised agency. Please note you may opt out of the survey at the time of being contacted.

    Contact information

    At any time, you may contact ACCM to:

    • Request access to your personal information
    • Correct your personal information
    • Make a complaint about how your personal information has been handled
    • Ask a question about this Privacy Notice

     

    Just send your request to: contact@accm.edu.au

     

  • Contacting the College Privacy Officer

    6.1 If you have any enquiries regarding this privacy policy or wish to provide feedback, please contact Chris Czarnosz, CEO and Privacy Officer.

    6.2 To make a complaint or raise a formal grievances about breach of this Policy please refer to the Complaints, Grievance and Consumer Protection Policy.