Privacy policy

Privacy Policy for Rent.com.au (Operations) Pty Ltd, ACN 091 233 680 and its related entities, 'rent.com.au'. Please Read Carefully

Preface

This is the online Privacy Policy for rent.com.au (also referred to as 'we', 'our' and 'us' in this Privacy Policy) and it applies to all personal information collected by rent.com.au. This policy explains how and why we collect your personal information, how we use it, and what controls you have over our use of it. By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy of rent.com.au, which is set out below.

If you do not agree with this Policy, do not access or use our services or interact with any other aspect of rent.com.au.

Certain services available through rent.com.au may be subject to additional privacy policies, for example RentCheck, RentBond, RentConnect, finance broking services and our Investor Centre. Some of these services are provided by third parties, so the additional policies may relate to those parties.

Collection of information

Some information provided to us by clients, customers, contractors and other third parties, including but not limited to real estate agents, real estate industry professionals, trades and service providers, is personal information as it relates to identifiable individuals. Without these details we would not be able to carry on our business and provide our services to you.

In particular, personal information is collected from people in the following situations by rent.com.au:

  • If you contact rent.com.au, we may keep a record of that correspondence;
  • When you submit your email address to our web site mailing list; and
  • When you request any one of the services provided on the web site.

We collect both current and historical personal information which may include information about:

  • your name, contact details, date of birth, identification, payment details, organisation, interests, preferences, opinions and enquiry/complaint details;
  • your property details including location, price, features, description and rental status;
  • your use of our products and services and your other dealings with us, including records of any contact we have with you by telephone, email or online;
  • your tenancy database history, court records, missed rent payments and bankruptcy status; and
  • your linked social media accounts.

We collect personal information directly from you as well as from third parties including tenants, landlords, real estate agents, public sources, our related companies, your organisation, your representatives, information service providers, social media and the parties with whom we exchange information as described here. For example, we may collect information from:

  • the Equifax National Tenancy Database (NTD), government records, court documents, ASIC, and other public databases if you or someone else conducts a RentCheck about you; and
  • your account with a third party service (such as your social media profile) when you use that account to login or connect with us.

Where you provide us with personal information about someone else you must have their consent to provide their personal information to us based on this Privacy Policy.

At or before the time the personal information is collected by us we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of who we are, the fact that you are able to gain access to the information held about you, the purpose of the collection, the type(s) of organisations to which we usually disclose the information collected about you, any laws requiring the collection of the information and the main consequences for you if all or part of the information is not collected.

Use of information collected and disclosure of personal information to others

We use the information we collect from and about you to provide services and features to you, including:

  • To measure and improve those Company Services and features;
  • To improve your experience with both our online and off-line services and features by delivering content we believe you are likely to find relevant and interesting, including advertising and marketing messages;
  • To allow you to comment on content, and participate in games, competitions, or rewards programs;
  • To provide you with customer support and to respond to your enquiries.

When you are not reasonably identifiable in relation to the information collected from or about you it is not personal information and we may use that information for any purpose or share it with third parties. We may also de-identify the information we collect about you so that we can use and disclose it without using or revealing any personal information about you.

We use the information we collect from and about you for these additional purposes:

To provide our services. We use the information we collect from and about you to provide our services to you, to fulfil administrative functions associated with these services (for example billing, credit, record management and account management), to enter into contracts with you or third parties and for marketing and client relationship purposes. Where your information is contained within an advertisement which rent.com.au publishes for you, we may also use your information for publication of that same advertisement on other sites or in other media, in accordance with the terms and conditions applicable to the initial publication of the advertisement. We may also use your information to improve our services including through research and data analysis by us and our service providers. Where your personal information is contained in a user generated post on our site or in social media, we may publish your name and suburb to identify you as the author of the comment/correspondence if we choose to publish comment/correspondence in any media. We may use and disclose your personal information in other ways expressly disclosed at the point of collection. If you are a competition winner we may disclose your information to relevant regulatory authorities and publish your details in accordance with the competition terms.

To allow service and content providers to assist us in providing and managing our services and features. rent.com.au may make your information available to certain third party service and content providers, such as providers of data cloud services, website hosting service providers, debt collection services and direct marketing services, who help us manage or provide our services or provide us with related services. These third parties may be located in a range of different countries including the United Kingdom, United States of America and Singapore. rent.com.au generally requires these service and content providers to comply with relevant privacy laws and not to use personal information which we provide for any purpose other than the specific service they are providing to you and/or us.

To allow social sharing functionality. If you log in with or connect a social media service account with our services, we may share your user name, picture, tweets and likes, as well as your activities and comments with other rent.com.au service users and with your friends associated with your social media service. We may also share the same information with the social media service provider. By logging in with or connecting your rent.com.au services account with a social media service, you are authorising us to share information we collect from and about you with the social media service provider, other users and your friends and you understand that the social media service’s use of the shared information will be governed by the social media service’s privacy policy. If you do not want your personal information shared in this way, please do not connect your social media service account with your rent.com.au services account and do not participate in social sharing on rent.com.au services.

In connection with co-branded and rebranded services and features. We may offer co-branded and rebranded services or features, such as competitions or other promotions together with a third party ("Co-Branded and Rebranded Services"). These include RentCheck, RentBond, RentConnect and finance broking services. These Co-Branded and Rebranded Services may be hosted on rent.com.au services or on the third party’s service. By virtue of these relationships, we may share the information you submit in connection with the Co-Branded or Rebranded Service with the third party. The third party’s use of your information will be governed by the third party’s privacy policy. We will advise you when this is occurring or obtain your express consent to share your personal information in these circumstances.

To deliver relevant advertisements and content. We and our advertisers may use the information we collect from and about you to deliver relevant ads and content to you when you use the rent.com.au services or another service.

To contact you. rent.com.au may periodically send promotional materials or notifications which it believes might be of interest to you. Promotional materials may include invitations to participate in various activities (such as customer surveys) or special offers.

To share with business partners. Where you have expressly consented to this, we may share your information with business partners to permit them to send you marketing communications consistent with your choices.

To protect the rights of rent.com.au and others. There may be instances when we may disclose your information, including situations where we are authorised by law or we have a good faith belief that such disclosure is necessary in order to:

  • Protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of rent.com.au, our related companies or their employees, agents and contractors (including enforcement of our agreements and our terms of use);
  • Protect the safety, privacy, and security of users of the rent.com.au services or members of the public;
  • Protect against fraud or for risk management purposes;
  • Comply with the law or legal process in any country; or
  • Respond to requests from public and government authorities.

To complete a merger or sale of assets. If rent.com.au sells all or part of its business or makes a sale or transfer of its assets or is otherwise involved in a merger or transfer of all or a material part of its business, we may transfer or disclose your information to the party or parties involved in the transaction as part of that transaction and as part of any due diligence processes which take place in contemplation of a potential transaction.

Links

Our web site may contain links to other web sites and those third party web sites may collect personal information about you. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other businesses or the content of web sites that are linked to our web site. rent.com.au encourages users to be aware when they leave the site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information.

Security and storage

rent.com.au places importance on the security of all information associated with our customers, clients and partners, whether stored in physical or electronic form. We will maintain all reasonable security measures to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal information under our control.

Information stored within our computer systems can only be accessed by those entrusted with authority and computer network password sanctions.

No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100 per cent secure. As a result, while we strive to protect user’s personal information, rent.com.au cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted to it or from its online products or services, and users do so at their own risk. Once rent.com.au receives your transmission, it makes every effort to ensure it is security on its systems.

Personal and financial information is deleted or destroyed securely when no longer required by us.

rent.com.au retains the information you provide to us including your contact and credit card details to enable us to verify transactions and customer details and to retain adequate records for legal and accounting purposes.

Note that documents loaded to the website, and public facing information displayed such of property address and details including contact phone numbers may be indexed and stored on other websites and search engines such as Google. If any information loaded to the site by you site and is requested to be removed, the removal from other websites and search engines may only be updated or removed once the site has been re-cached by the site or search engine. Whilst every endeavour will be taken by rent.com.au to have this information removed, this is not the responsibility of rent.com.au as this is beyond our control.

Your Password

You are solely responsible for keeping your passwords and/or account information secret. You should be careful and responsible whenever you are online.

Access to and correction of personal information

rent.com.au is committed to maintaining accurate, timely, relevant and appropriate information about our customers, clients and web–site users.

So long as your request for your personal information is in accordance with applicable law (e.g. the Australian Privacy Principles), then we will give you access to that information.

Inaccurate information will be corrected upon receiving advice to this effect from you. To ensure confidentiality, details of your personal information will be passed on to you only if we are satisfied that the information relates to you.

If we refuse to provide you with access or correct the personal information held about you by us, then we will provide reasons for such refusal.

Deleting your personal information

You may request that we delete information that we hold about you, or that we delete your account, by contacting [email protected]. We will respond to your request within 5 business days.

You can delete your Rent.com.au account by following these steps:

Via the Website

  1. Log into your Rent.com.au account using your email and password.
  2. Click on the ‘my dashboard’ button in the top right corner of the page.
  3. Click on the account settings tab on the left side of the page.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the delete account button.

Via the Rent.com.au App

  1. Log into the App.
  2. Click on the ‘Me’ icon at the bottom.
  3. Click the Settings (cog) at the top left.
  4. Select ‘Delete my account’ option.

Please note that deleting your Rent.com.au account will permanently remove all of your account information, including any saved searches, favourite listings, and application history.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about our Privacy Policy or the collection, use or safe disposal or destruction of your personal information, your complaint should be directed in the first instance to us at [email protected]

We will investigate your complaint and attempt to resolve any breach that might have occurred in relation to the collection, use or destruction of personal information held by us about you in accordance with the Commonwealth Privacy legislation. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of this procedure then you may request that an independent person (usually the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) investigate your complaint.

Transfer of information overseas

Pursuant to the Australian Privacy Principles we may transfer personal information we have collected about you to someone other than you in a foreign country only if such transfer is permitted by the Australian Privacy Principles.

Cookies and device identifiers

rent.com.au collects information from the site using cookies and "web server logs".

When you visit the rent.com.au site to read, browse or download information, our system will record/log your IP address (the address which identifies your computer on the internet and which is automatically recognised by our web server), date and time of your visit to our site, the pages viewed and any information downloaded. This information will only be used for the purpose of site analysis and to help us offer you improved online service. We may automatically collect non–personal information about you such as the type of Internet browsers you use or the site from which you linked to our Web Sites. You cannot be identified from this information and it is only used to assist us in providing an effective service on our Web Sites.

Like many other websites, our site may use "cookies" from time to time. A cookie is a piece of information that allows our system to identify and interact more effectively with your browser. The cookie helps us to maintain the continuity of your browsing session and remember your details and preferences when you return. You can configure your web browser software to reject cookies (use your browser’s help function for information on how to turn off cookies) however some parts of our site may not have full functionality in that case.

Our site may use Google services such as Google Analytics from time to time. For more about how Google collects and processes data, please see Google’s privacy policy and their information at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

Application for Credit by Agent

Any individual applying to become a "Professional Subscriber" user of the website, hereafter referred to as (The Agent), agrees that rent.com.au may:

1. Collect, hold, use and disclose any type of credit-related personal information about The Agent as permitted under the Privacy Act, which may include:

  • Identity particulars including The Agent’s name, sex, address (and the previous two addresses), date of birth, name of employer, and driver’s licence number;
  • The Agent’s application for commercial credit – the fact that The Agent has applied for commercial credit and the amount and credit limit;
  • The fact that rent.com.au is a current credit provider to The Agent;
  • payment default information;
  • details of any previous credit applications, including the amount and type of credit and the credit limit;
  • details of The Agent’s current and previous credit arrangements, including credit providers, type of credit, start and end dates and certain terms or conditions;
  • confirmation of previous information requests about The Agent to credit reporting bodies made by other credit providers and credit insurers;
  • information about adverse court judgements against The Agent;
  • certain personal insolvency information;
  • publicly available information about The Agent’s credit worthiness; and
  • any credit score or credit risk assessment indicating a credit reporting body’s or credit provider’s analysis of The Agent’s eligibility for credit.

The credit-related personal information collected by rent.com.au may include information about arrangements The Agent has with other credit providers as well as with rent.com.au.

2. Disclose credit-related personal information about The Agent to a credit reporting body or other credit bureau to allow that body or bureau to maintain information about The Agent to provide to credit providers and other permitted parties for credit assessments.

3. Obtain a commercial or consumer credit report or both containing information about The Agent from a credit reporting body or other credit bureau for the following purposes:

  • Assessing The Agent’s application for commercial credit;
  • Collecting overdue payments owed by The Agent;
  • producing rent.com.au’s own assessments and ratings in respect of The Agent’s credit worthiness;
  • managing The Agent’s credit with rent.com.au;
  • assigning debts; and
  • any other purpose permitted by law.

4. Exchange information about The Agent with other credit providers for purposes including:

  • To assess an application by The Agent for commercial or consumer credit or both;
  • To notify other credit providers of a default by The Agent;
  • To exchange information with other credit providers as to the status of this Professional Subscription where The Agent is in default with other credit providers; or
  • To assess The Agents commercial or consumer credit worthiness or both; and/or
  • Give to a person who is currently a guarantor, or whom The Agent have indicated is considering becoming a guarantor, a commercial or consumer credit report or both concerning information about me/us for the purpose of the prospective guarantor deciding whether to act as guarantor, or to keep the existing guarantor informed about the guarantee.

The Agent understands that the information given, obtained, used or exchanged can include anything about The Agent’s credit worthiness, credit standing, credit history or credit capacity (commercial or consumer or both) that credit providers are allowed to exchange under the Privacy Act, or as otherwise permitted at law.

The Agent certifies that any information The Agent provides to rent.com.au will be wholly true, accurate and not misleading and agrees that rent.com.au will rely on that information in dealing with The Agent’s credit application. Any information may be given, obtained, used or exchanged before, during or after the provision of credit.

The credit reporting bodies rent.com.au uses may include:

  • Equifax, PO Box 964 North Sydney 2059, www.mycreditfile.com.au, 1300 762 207
  • Experian, GPO Box 1969, North Sydney NSW 2060, www.experian.com.au, 1300 784 134
  • Illion, PO Box 7405 St Kilda Rd Melbourne VIC 3004, www.illion.com.au, 1300 734 806
  • Tasmanian Collection Service, 29 Argyle Street, Hobart, www.tascol.com.au [email protected], (03) 6213 5555

Individuals have the right to request that credit reporting bodies do not:

  • use their credit-related personal information to determine their eligibility to receive direct marketing from credit providers; and
  • use or disclose their credit-related personal information if the individual has been or is likely to be a victim of fraud.
General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)

Rent.com.au does not directly target any of our products or services towards customers in the European Economic Area (EEA). If you do access our services from the EEA, you consent to the collection of personal data under this Privacy Policy. You may also have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the UK GPDR (as applicable), in respect of any of your personal data that we obtain such as, in particular circumstances:

  • You may be entitled for us to provide you with a copy of the Personal Information we hold about you in a portable and machine-readable form; or
  • You may also have a right to:
    • have that data rectified or deleted;
    • restrict our processing of that data;
    • stop unauthorised transfers of your personal data to a third party;
    • in some circumstances, share your Personal Information with a nominated third party; and
    • lodge a complaint in relation to our processing of your personal data with a local supervisory authority.
  • You may withdraw your consent to our collection of data at any time. If you object to the processing of your personal data, or choose to withdraw consent, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations. However, please be aware that:
    • such objection or withdrawal of consent could mean that we are unable to provide our services to you, and could unduly prevent us from legitimately providing our services to other clients subject to appropriate confidentiality protections; and
    • even after you have chosen to withdraw your consent, we may be able to continue to keep and process your personal data to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law, in particular:
      • to pursue our legitimate interests in a way that might reasonably be expected as part of running our business, and which does not materially impact on your rights, freedoms or interests; and
      • in exercising and defending our legal rights and meeting our legal and regulatory obligations.

If you believe the GDPR may apply to your personal data and you wish to exercise any of your data subject rights, please contact us as per the ‘Contacting Us’ section of this Policy.

California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”)

Under CCPA, Californian residents have the right to declare their preferences on the sale of data for advertising and marketing purposes. If you wish to change your preferences, click this link to launch our preference portal:

You are outside the CCPA jurisdiction.

Californian residents also have the right to access and/or delete collected data about them. If you wish to invoke either right, please see this link.

We use a third-party to provide monetisation technologies for our site. You can review their privacy and cookie policy here.

Changes to Privacy Policy

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to modify or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. We recommend that this Privacy Policy should be reviewed periodically so that you are updated on any changes. Please remember to refer back to this Privacy Policy regularly to review any amendments.

Contacting us

If you require further information regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer as follows:

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 1300 736 810

Address: GPO Box 2543, Perth, WA 6001

Should you wish to read more information on privacy legislation or the Australian Privacy Principles we recommend that you visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website at www.oaic.gov.au