Privacy Policy

BNR Business Accountants Pty Ltd

  1. WHY DOES BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS PTY LTD HAVE A PRIVACY POLICY?
  2. BNR Business Accountants Pty Ltd (ABN 95 618 922 893) (“BNR Business Accountants”, “we”, “us” or “our”) understands
    the importance of protecting the privacy of an individual’s personal information. Accordingly, BNR Business Accountants is committed to complying with the 13 Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”)
    established under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”) and to protecting the privacy of any
    personal information which is collected, used, stored or otherwise handled by us in the course of
    conducting our business. This Privacy Policy explains in general terms how we manage personal
    information that we obtain from you and explains your right to request access to information
    that we hold about you. However, please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any
    third-party websites, platforms or applications that may be linked to the BNR Business Accountants website.
    We are not responsible for the privacy practices of the owners of such third-party websites,
    platforms or applications and we recommend that you review the privacy policy of any thirdparty website, platform or application that asks you to provide your personal information.
  3. HOW DOES BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
    BNR Business Accountants only collects personal information that is necessary for our business functions or
    activities (as outlined further at item 4 below) and we will usually collect this information before
    or during the course of providing our services to you. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy
    “personal information” has the meaning set out in the Privacy Act and, in general terms, means
    information or an opinion about an identified, or reasonably identifiable, individual, whether
    true or otherwise. We collect personal information only by lawful and fair means and not in an
    unreasonably intrusive manner. Such information may be collected as part of our processes in
    providing you with services (for example, when you complete a form or document and provide it
    to us). Generally, BNR Business Accountants will only collect personal information which you have voluntarily
    provided to us. Further, we will generally collect your personal information from you directly, for
    example, when we deal with you in person or over the phone, when you send us
    correspondence, when you complete questionnaires or forms or when you subscribe to our
    publications. We may also collect information about you from other people or organisations
    where you have consented to this (for example, from your other professional advisors or
    consultants). Where we collect your personal information from a third party, such personal
    information will be held, used and disclosed by us in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Note
    that we will only collect personal information such as your name, contact details, qualifications,
    resume, employment history, training records and contact details of referees. BNR Business Accountants may
    also collect personal information automatically through your use of our website (for example,
    where you make an inquiry in relation to our services via our website, complete any of our online
    forms or if you register for any of our services or subscribe to any of our firm publications). B
    Ready Books may also obtain personal information from other sources in some circumstances,
    including personal information that you have made publicly available on social media or similar
    sites, or from government or regulatory bodies as permitted by law. If we receive personal
    information that we have not requested and determine that such information is not reasonably
    necessary to provide our services, we will take all reasonable steps to de-identify and destroy
    such information.
  4. WHAT TYPES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION DOES BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS COLLECT?
    The types of personal information we collect from you will depend on the type of dealings you
    have with us. Generally, the kinds of personal information that BNR Business Accountants collects from you
    may include (but is not limited to):
  • Names, email addresses, postal or residential addresses, phone numbers, facsimile numbers
    and job title;
  • Date of birth and gender;
  • Tax file number (TFN), Australian Business Number (ABN) and other identification numbers
    such as a Medicare number;
  • Bank account details, shareholdings and details of investments;
  • Financial information including, amongst other things, information about your assets, liabilities,
    income, expenditure and other finances;
  • Personal information about your spouse and dependents and other family relationships; •
    Information and documents which are used to verify your identity such as a passport or driver’s
    licence;
  • Details of superannuation and insurance arrangements;
  • Educational qualifications, employment history and salary;
  • Visa or work permit status; and
  • Sensitive information (with your consent or otherwise in accordance with the Privacy Act) such
    as health information or membership details of professional or trade associations or political
    parties.
    We note that you are under no obligation to provide any of the above personal information to
    BNR Business Accountants. However, we may not be able to provide certain services to you in
    the absence of such information. Where you have provided us with personal information, BNR Business Accountants may contact you from time to time to ensure the completeness and currency of
    your personal information.
  1. WHY DOES BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS NEED YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
    BNR Business Accountants collects, holds, uses and discloses your personal information where it is
    reasonably necessary for our business functions or activities. In particular, we collect and use
    your personal information for the following purposes:
  • To provide you, or an entity with which you are connected, with tax and accounting compliance
    and advisory services as well as any associated services;
  • For our own internal accounting and administrative purposes;
  • To establish and maintain a professional relationship with you or an entity with which you are
    connected;
  • To determine your eligibility and suitability to be employed by us;
  • To invite you to attend events, functions or training seminars conducted by us;
  • To interact with you via our website;
  • To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; and to exercise our legal rights;
  • To confirm your Identity;
  • To informing you of other services that we may provide, or relevant developments that may be
    of interest to you; and
  • for marketing purposes (except where you have ‘opted out’ – see further information at item 6
    below), (the “Primary Purposes”).
    By submitting your personal information to us, you consent to us using or disclosing your
    personal information for the Primary Purposes set out above, as well as any purpose related to
    the Primary Purposes that could reasonably be anticipated at the time your personal information
    was collected.
  1. TO WHOM CAN BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
    We may use or disclose your personal information so that we can provide you with tax and
    accounting compliance and advisory services and for the Primary Purposes as set out in item 4 of
    this Privacy Policy. This may include the disclosure of your personal information to third parties
    where this is necessary in order for us to provide you with the services you have requested or
    where you have otherwise authorised us to do so. For example, we may disclose your personal
    information to specialist tax advisors, bookkeepers, accountants, insurers, lawyers, auditors and
    other professional advisers. Disclosure to such third parties is always made on a confidential
    basis.
    We may also use or disclose your personal information:
  • Where we are authorised or required to do so by law;
  • To our third party service providers who work with us in our business (for example, website
    hosting providers, payment processors, security service providers);
  • Where reasonably necessary to assist a law enforcement agency; and
  • Otherwise as permitted under the APPs.
  1. WHEN WILL BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS USE PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR DIRECT MARKETING?
    BNR Business Accountants may also use your personal information for the purposes of directly marketing our
    services and/ or products to you. BNR Business Accountants will only provide these direct marketing
    communications to you after you have opted in to receive them, and we will provide you with
    the opportunity to opt out of receiving such communications at any time. Opt-out procedures
    are set out in our electronic marketing communications and on our website (see the unsubscribe
    function in the contact section of our website). All requests to opt out of receiving our marketing
    communications will be respected by us at all times.
  2. WHEN WOULD YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION BE DISCLOSED TO OVERSEAS RECIPIENTS?
    BNR Business Accountants store, process and backup your personal information on servers that are located
    locally in Australia (including through third-party service providers). In some circumstances, B
    Ready Books may also use third party IT service providers located overseas to carry out its
    functions and provide relevant services (including digital providers of accounting services such as
    Xero or MYOB). We may also, from time to time, use third party contractors to perform some of
    the services we are engaged to provide to you. In this case, personal information may be
    disclosed to overseas recipients located in the Philippines for this purpose. We note that the
    privacy laws in other jurisdictions might not be the same as those that apply in Australia. By
    providing your personal information to BNR Business Accountants, you consent to the disclosure
    of personal information outside of Australia. In providing this consent, you agree that BNR Business Accountants will not be accountable for any breach of your privacy by any overseas recipient and that
    you will not be able to seek redress for any breach of privacy by the overseas recipient under the
    Privacy Act. Of course, where we do disclose your personal information to an overseas recipient,
    we will take reasonable steps to ensure that your information is handled and stored in
    accordance with the APPs. Note that we are not required to take such steps if we reasonably
    believe that the overseas recipient is already bound by a substantially similar privacy scheme
    that has the effect of protecting personal information in a substantially similar way to the Privacy
    Act.
  3. HOW DOES BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS ENSURE THE SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
    BNR Business Accountants takes your privacy and the security of your personal information very seriously.
    We take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information held by us is protected from
    misuse, interference or loss, unauthorised access, modification or unauthorised disclosure. B
    Ready Books holds personal information predominantly in electronic form in secure databases.
    Some limited information is also retained in hard copy format but care is exercised as all times to
    ensure the privacy of such information which is held in secured premises. Our security
    procedures for both hardcopy and digital information are periodically reviewed and updated
    where required. We will also take reasonable steps to de-identify or responsibly destroy the
    personal information we hold about you where it is no longer required for the purpose for which
    we collected it (except where BNR Business Accountants is otherwise required or authorised by law to retain
    that information). Our security procedures have been adopted with a view to protecting personal
    information held by us. However, it is important to understand that the transmission of data over
    the internet or other mediums is never guaranteed to be fully secure. It is therefore possible that
    third parties not under the control of BNR Business Accountants may be able to access or intercept
    transmissions or private communications without our permission or knowledge. Accordingly,
    whilst BNR Business Accountants will take all reasonable steps in these circumstances to protect your
    personal information it cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted to
    us via the internet or other electronic mediums. You should also ensure that your personal
    computer is protected adequately from a security perspective.
  4. WHEN WILL BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS ADOPT A GOVERNMENT IDENTIFIER IN RESPECT OF YOUR
    CIRCUMSTANCES?
    BNR Business Accountants will not adopt, use or disclose government agency identifiers, for example, tax file
    numbers, as a primary means of identifying you unless it is required or authorised by law, or an
    order of any court or tribunal
  5. WHEN CAN YOU ACCESS PERSONAL INFORMATION HELD BY BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS?
    You may at any time request access to personal information that BNR Business Accountants holds about you
    by contacting our privacy officer whose details are provided at item 12 below. Following receipt
    of a request, we may allow you to inspect your personal information in person, or provide you
    with copies of personal information we hold about you (or a summary of such information),
    depending on what we consider most appropriate in the circumstances. Usually, we will provide
    you with a summary of your personal information free of charge. However, in some cases we
    may charge a reasonable administrative fee for providing access. Such fee will be notified to you
    in advance and will ordinarily only be levied where we need to retrieve such information from
    non- current records. We will seek to respond to your request to access your personal
    information within a reasonable period (but not more than 30 days) after the request is made. If
    we need more time, we will seek to agree a longer period of time with you. If you do not agree,
    we may not be able to address your request. All requests to access personal information must be
    made in writing to our privacy officer. BNR Business Accountants will require you to have proof of identity to
    ensure that personal information is only provided to the correct individual. We further note that
    a request to access personal information may be denied if the request is frivolous, unreasonably
    repetitive, or where allowing access would pose a threat to health and public safety,
    unreasonably interfere with another person’s privacy or be a breach of the law. If we refuse
    access, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal and provide details of complaint
    mechanisms available to you.
  6. WHEN WILL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION BE CORRECTED BY BNR BUSINESS
    ACCOUNTANTS?
    Where we hold personal information about you and we become aware that such information is
    inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading we will take reasonable steps to
    correct such information. Similarly, we will take reasonable steps to correct or update your
    personal information if you request us to do so. All such requests must be forwarded in writing
    to our privacy officer (see details at item 12 below) who will respond to such a request within a
    reasonable period after the request is made and, in any case, within 30 days unless we agree a
    longer time period with you. No fee will be charged where you request the correction or
    updating of such personal information. If we refuse to make a correction or update, we will let
    you know why and the complaint mechanisms available to you.
  7. HOW DO YOU CONTACT THE PRIVACY OFFICER AT BNR BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS?
    Any queries regarding your personal information which is held by BNR Business Accountants should be
    addressed to the firm’s privacy officer whose contact details are set out below.
    Privacy Officer, BNR Business Accountants, PO Box 324 Frankston Vic 3199 T: (03) 9785 2395.
  8. WHAT COMPLAINTS RESOLUTION PROCESSES ARE AVAILABLE TO YOU?
    BNR Business Accountants is committed to providing a fair and reasonable system in relation to the handling
    of complaints from individuals whose personal information it holds. All such complaints should
    be made in writing and forwarded to our privacy officer at the address set out in item 12. We will
    address any concerns you have through our complaints handling process and inform you of the
    outcome of your complaint within a reasonable period of time. We request that you cooperate
    with us during this process and provide us with any relevant information that we may need. We
    will ensure that all such complaints are treated seriously, confidentially and promptly, and notify
    you of the outcome of any investigation into the complaint. However, if you have made a privacy
    complaint and believe that BNR Business Accountants has not adequately handled your complaint, you may
    also complain to the Office of the Australian information Commissioner at the following address.
    Office of the Australian Information Commissioner GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001 P: 1300 363
    992 E: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
  9. WHAT IF THE PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES?
    BNR Business Accountants may vary this Privacy Policy from time to time so we encourage you to review this
    Privacy Policy at regular intervals. We will publish any updated version of our Privacy Policy on
    the BNR Business Accountants website or otherwise make a copy available to you upon written request. By
    continuing to use or services, you will be deemed to have accepted any changes to our Privacy
    Policy.