Introduction

LMW Quantity Surveyors recognises the importance of protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information collected about our customers. For the purposes of this Privacy Statement, the word customer includes visitors to our web sites, subscribers to and users of our services, purchasers of our products and advertising customers.

We are bound by the National Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) in relation to the handling of personal information. Where appropriate we will handle personal information relying on the media exemption (but complying with the Australian Press Council Privacy Standards), related bodies corporate exemption and the employee exemption in the Privacy Act.

Personal Information

We collect personal information when we provide our services to you. Generally we will tell you why we are collecting information when we collect it and how we plan to use it or these things will be obvious when we collect the information.

We usually collect personal information directly from you although sometimes we may use agents or service providers to do this for us. We may also acquire lists from other sources, both from other companies and from other public documents.

Use of Information

We usually collect personal information such as your name, address, telephone numbers, and in some instances, your financial details. When you are online, we collect information regarding the pages within our network, which you visit, and what you click on. As a general rule we do not collect sensitive information. However, if we do, it will usually be for the purposes of providing our goods or services and if the law requires us to, we will seek your consent to collect it.

We use your information to provide our services to you, to fulfill administrative functions associated with these services, for example billing, to enter into contracts with you or third parties and for marketing and client relationship purposes.

We may share your information with other companies that are related to LMW Quantity Surveyors. They or we may also use your personally identifiable information to assist us in improving our products and services and any of us might be in touch to let you know about goods, services, or promotions that may interest you.

Use by Third Parties

LMW Quantity Surveyors may disclose your information to its service providers and contractors from time to time to help us to provide and market our goods and services to you.

Use of Aggregate Data

We may collect certain non-personal information to optimise our goods and services including our Web pages for your computer (e.g., the identity of your Internet browser, the type of operating system you use, your IP address and the domain name of your Internet service provider). We may use such non-personal information for internal purposes, including but not limited to improving the content of our sites.

LMW Quantity Surveyors may use personally identifiable information in aggregate form to improve our goods and services including our Web sites and make them more responsive to the needs of our customers. This statistical compilation and analysis of information may also be used by LMW Quantity Surveyors or provided to others as a summary report for marketing, advertising or research purposes.

Security

LMW Quantity Surveyors strives to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personally identifiable information of our customers. We use a variety of physical and electronic security measures including restricting physical access to our offices and firewalls and secure databases to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised use or disclosure.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secured.

Access to Personal Information

Privacy laws give you rights to seek access to the personal information we hold about you.

You can seek access by writing to our Privacy Officer (see contact details at the contact section below). Generally, we should be able to provide you with access within a month of your request, although we may need more time if your request is complicated. Ordinarily, the LandMark White Group will not charge you for the cost of providing access to your personal information. However, if we do propose to charge you, we will advise you of the relevant charge before we provide you with access.

We try to ensure that all the personal information that we hold about you is accurate, complete and up-to-date. However, we rely on you to help us with this. If you wish to update or correct the personal information we hold about you, please write to our Privacy Officer. We will contact you if there is any issue about amending the record of personal information we hold about you.

If you wish to discuss our method of providing access or correction to personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer with your query.

Public Information

Any information posted on bulletin boards and/or communicated in chat areas becomes public information. While LMW Quantity Surveyors strives to protect and respect your privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose in a chat room or bulletin board.

Cookies

Cookies are data that a Web site transfers to an individual's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies can facilitate a user's ongoing access to and use of a site. They allow us to track usage patterns and to compile data that can help us improve our content and target advertising. If you do not want information collected through the use of Cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the Cookie feature. But you should note that Cookies may be necessary to provide you with features such as merchandise transactions or registered services.

Online Links to Third Party and Co-Branded Sites

LMW Quantity Surveyors may establish relationships with business partners that allow visitors to our Internet sites to link directly to sites operated by these partners. Some of these sites may be "co-branded" with our logo; however, these sites may not be operated or maintained by or on our behalf. These sites may collect personal information from you that may be shared with us. This Privacy Statement will apply to any personal information we obtain in this manner.

LMW Quantity Surveyors is not responsible for the content or practices of Web sites operated by third parties that are linked to our sites. These links are meant for the user's convenience only. Links to third party sites do not constitute sponsorship, endorsement or approval by LMW Quantity Surveyors of the content, policies or practices of those third party sites. Once you have left our site via such a link, you should check the applicable privacy policy of the third party site.

What else you should know about privacy on the Internet.

Remember to close your browser when you have finished your user session. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet café. You as an individual are responsible for the security of and access to your own computer.

Whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information over the Internet that this information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information in publicly accessible online forums, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return. Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your username and passwords and any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are using the Internet.

Contact details

If you have any queries or concerns about privacy or this Privacy Policy, you can contact our Privacy Officer as follows;

• by letter: Privacy Officer, LandMark White, Level 11/ 52 Phillip St, Sydney NSW, 2000;
• by telephone: (02) 9247 6699; or
• by email to privacy@lmw.net.au

This Privacy Policy applies to the LandMark White Group, its subsidiaries, employees and contractors.
The LandMark White Group may change its Privacy Policy at any time.

This Privacy Policy was last updated in April 2007.