Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how the Guild generally handles your personal information. We will also provide more specific information relating to particular products or services in our privacy collection notices.

In this Privacy Policy:

• “Related Companies” refers to all related companies, including subsidiaries of the Guild
• “the Guild”, “our”, “we” and “us” refers to The Pharmacy Guild of Australia (ABN 84 519 669 143) and includes the National Secretariat and each of the State and Territory Branches, and
• ‘You’ and ’your’ refers to anyone (including members to whom we provide services, and non-members) who provide us with personal information in their interactions with us

The types of personal information that we collect and hold

The types of personal information that the Guild collects about you will ultimately depend on the interactions that we have with you. The Guild typically collects some or all of the following information:

• General Information about you: your name, title, gender, date of birth.
• Contact details: address, contact phone number, email address.
• Employment details.
• Details of your Professional qualifications and (where applicable) your registration details with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
• Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Approval Number.
• Pharmacy Ownership details: name and registered address for any business entity (including sole trader) that owns the pharmacy with which you are associated, and details around the size, setup and scope of services offered at those pharmacies.
• Your training records.
• Pharmacist registration number (where applicable) of any authorised person for the pharmacy if that person is not also a pharmacy owner.
• Payment details: such as credit or debit card number and expiry date.
• Dietary requirements, and
• Our interactions with you: including any feedback, complaints, responses to surveys, records of correspondence and interactions with our staff (including in person, online, by telephone, email and via social media).

If you do not wish to provide us with particular information, we may not be able to respond to your query, provide you with our products or services or assess your membership application.

Sensitive Information: We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent (unless we are otherwise allowed or required by law to collect that information). Sensitive information includes information about your health, race, ethnic origin and religious beliefs.

How we collect your personal information

• Directly from youWe mainly collect your personal information directly from you, including when you use our website (through completion of online or physical forms) or social media, you call or write to us, we interact with you in person, when you access or engage with our products and services or at seminars, events and functions
• Indirectly
  We may also collect your personal information from other sources. For example, we may collect information about you from a publicly available source, social media or from a third party (including service providers and suppliers).
  
  If you provide us with personal information about other individuals, you are responsible for letting those individuals know that they can find a copy of this Privacy Policy on our website.
• Automatically
  Whenever you visit or interact with one of our websites or other online platforms (Platforms), we may use a variety of technologies (including cookies and pixels) that automatically record information about how the Platform is accessed and used (“Website Analytics Information”).
  
  Website Analytics Information collected by the Guild includes:
  • server and IP address (the electronic addresses of computers connected to the Internet)
  • top level domain name accessed (for example .com, .gov, .au)
  • the date and time of your visit to each of our websites
  • the duration of your visit to each of our websites
  • the webpages you accessed and documents downloaded during your visit
  • the previous website you visited
  • if you have visited our website before, and
  • the type of browser used.
  The Website Analytics Information is used to identify your generic behavioural patterns, analyse trends, to customise and improve user website experience, report statistics, track user movements, gather broad demographic information, website administration and maintenance purposes and to target and improve the quality of the Guild’s products and services. The Website Analytics Information collected by us is not personal information and the Guild does not use this information to personally identify any individual.
  
  We use Google Analytics and other media publishers to advertise our products and services online. Third party vendors use cookies to display relevant ads based on your past visits to our websites. Information and data collected through Google Analytics is stored by Google on servers in Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States of America. You can opt out of the collection of information via Google Analytics by downloading the Google Analytics Opt-out browser add on. You can also change the settings in your browser to control how your browser deals with cookies.
  
  However, in doing so, you may limit the functionality of each of our websites and be unable to access certain pages or content on our website.
  
  The Guild will, on occasion, use third party platforms to deliver information to Guild members, subscribers and stakeholders. These third-party platforms are websites hosted and managed by organisations other than the Guild. Before deciding if you want to contribute to any third-party website, please familiarise yourself with the relevant privacy collection notice and privacy policy in the first instance.

How we use your personal information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes.

• Membership: to administer, process and manage your membership application including where necessary, facilitating any complementary membership or introductions to our Related Companies.
• Elections: managing and coordinating Guild elections, referendums and other matters outlined in the Guild’s Constitution.
• Community Pharmacy Programs: to administer and manage corporate as well as State, Territory and Commonwealth Government programs relating to community pharmacy.
• Advocacy and policy advice: 
  • to advocate on behalf of members, issue guidance to members, research and analyse issued relating to the community pharmacy sector generally
  • to correspond with persons and stakeholders who have an interest in health policy and issues affecting the community pharmacy sector
  • to consult with members, non-members and stakeholders who the Guild reasonably believes would want to be consulted about an issue relating to the community pharmacy sector.
• Maintain Contact Lists: to maintain contact lists (including address, email and phone number) of individuals who may have an interest in community pharmacy, are involved in a pharmacy business and/or a media representative with an interest in the pharmacy sector.
• Marketing purposes: to provide you with updates and offers, if you have chosen to receive these including:
  • to inform you about, and operate, promotions, events, products and services offered by us
  • to inform you about Government policy affecting community pharmacy and the services available in community pharmacies
  • to promote and deliver training and community pharmacy related educational content
  • to distribute our communications and newsletters
  • marketing of products and services offered by Related Companies
    
    We will provide an option to unsubscribe or opt-out of any electronic marketing sent to you on our behalf. If you opt-out of receiving marketing material from us, we may still contact you in relation to our ongoing relationship with you.
• Customer support: to handle your enquiries, requests and complaints, and
• Research: to conduct market, consumer and other research to improve our products, services, marketing activities and website content.

How we disclosure your personal information

We may disclose your personal information to our Related Companies. Where this is the case, our Related Companies are only permitted to use your personal information for the purpose it was collected for, unless an exception applies. We may also disclose your personal information to third parties where necessary to complete a request from you or to perform our activities and functions, including:

• to financial institutions or payment processing platforms
• universities
• the Australian Electoral Commission
• our member benefits partners and sponsors
• your nominated emergency contact (where applicable)
• our third-party contractors including:
• event organisers
• information technology services and support
• marketing and communication agencies
• mailing houses, freight and courier services
• printers and distributors of direct marketing material, and
• external business advisers.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties where required or authorised by law.

We do not share your personal information with data resellers, social networks or advertising networks unless we have your consent or as otherwise required or authorised by or under law.

We do not give your personal information to other organisations, agencies, or individuals unless you (or your authorised representative) have consented for us to do so, or in our assessment may reasonably expect, that information of the kind provided will be given to a third party as a matter of standard practice.

Where reasonably practical, or where the provision of information to third parties is in our assessment outside the scope of the purposes outlined above, we will provide you with advance notification of, and obtain your informed consent to, the proposed disclosure.

How we hold and secure your personal information

Our websites are hosted on servers located in Australia.

We hold your personal information in a combination of hard copy and electronic files. The Guild takes reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is stored securely and protected from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, interference and misuse, regardless of whether that personal information is stored in electronic databases or physical form. These steps include:

• using and maintaining information security practices that are ISO-27001 compliant, including using applications that prevent unauthorised access or damage to electronically stored information (requiring identifies and passwords, firewalls, encryption and anti-virus software as appropriate) and maintaining physical security over physical records
• using third party secure payment gateways for the processing of payments
• using encryption technology to protect personal information when it is being transferred, and also once it is stored by us, and
• restricting access to your personal information only to personnel who need it to perform their functions.

While the Guild endeavours to protect the personal information and privacy of website users, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you disclose to us online. You disclose that information at your own risk. If you are concerned about sending your information to us over the internet you can contact the Guild.

If we have given you (or you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password secure and for complying with any other security procedures notified by us to you and not to disclose that password to anyone else.

Data Retention: Our retention periods for personal information are based on legal requirements. We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which the information was collected, and any other permissible, related purpose. When personal information is no longer needed, at our election, we either securely destroy it, or irreversibly de-identify that personal information

Disclosure of personal information overseas

In limited circumstances we may send your personal information to recipients that store your personal information overseas. Where this applies, we will inform you at the time of collecting your personal information. For example, in order to facilitate payment of membership fees for Queensland members of the Guild, the Queensland Branch may disclose your personal information to a contracted service provider that stores your personal information in the United States of America.

In circumstances where your personal information may be stored by a service provider in a country that has a lower standard of data protection than Australia, we will use all reasonable endeavours to safeguard your personal information as set out in this Privacy Policy

How to access, update and correct your personal information

You have the right to access, or correct, the personal information that we hold about you. If you would like to request access to, or correct your personal information, please contact us using the contact details set out below. The Guild will allow access or make the requested changes unless the Guild considers there is a sound reason under the Privacy Act or other relevant law to withhold the information, or not make the requested change.

If we refuse your access or correction request, we will provide you with a written notice setting out the reasons for our refusal and how you can make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Contact details for the Guild Branches