Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Policy Statement and Purpose

Mindroom Institute is committed to upholding privacy and ensuring the confidentiality and security of information provided. Mindroom Institute will only collect personal information by fair and lawful means, as necessary for the functions of the college. In collecting personal information, Mindroom Institute will comply with the privacy requirements of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) set out in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012.

Scope

This policy applies to the personal information of students and people making enquiries about services and learning opportunities with Mindroom Institute.

Definitions and Abbreviations

Personal Information
The Privacy Act defines personal information as information or an opinion, whether true or not and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

Sensitive Information
Information or opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin; political orientation; membership of a political association; religious beliefs or affiliations; philosophical beliefs; membership of a professional or trade association; membership of a trade union; sexual preferences or practices; or criminal record that is also personal information.

Policy Provisions and Procedures

Information is collected on the enrolment application form and during student enrolment in order for Mindroom Institute to meet its obligations under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Domestic students), ESOS Act 2000 and the National Code 2018 (Overseas students).
Furthermore, to ensure student compliance with the conditions of their visas and obligations under Australian immigration laws generally.

The authority to collect this information is contained in the:
• Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000
• Education Services for Overseas Students Regulations 2001
• National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018
At the time information is collected, students will be advised if they are required by a specific law to supply the information requested.

Why we collect your personal information
As a registered training organisation (RTO), we collect your personal information so that 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.

Students are asked to supply information to Mindroom Institute when applying for enrolment, at orientation sessions and during periods of study. Generally, this information includes name, address, telephone number(s), email addresses(s), date of birth, country of birth, nationality, citizenship country, passport details, academic and English language attainments and test results, disabilities, health information, including illnesses, allergies and dietary Information. Mindroom Institute may also collect information regarding payment of fees. Any official Mindroom Institute form will require the student to provide a number of identifying details as well.

Personal information is collected directly from students, except in special circumstances where information about them may be obtained from third parties, such as agents when the student has indicated that an agent is representing him/her.

Personal information supplied by individuals will be used to provide information about study opportunities, course administration, academic information and to maintain academic records. If an individual chooses not to give Mindroom Institute certain information, then Mindroom Institute may be unable to enroll the individual in a course or supply them with appropriate information.

Mindroom Institute will collect sensitive information from an individual only if the individual concerned consents to the collection.

With regard to each of your visits to the Mindroom Institute website/s, we may automatically collect the following information:
• technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet,
• your login information,
• browser type and version,
• time zone setting,
• browser plug‐in types and versions,
• operating system, and
• platform.

We may also collect information about your visit, including:
• the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time);
• products you viewed or searched for;
• page response times,
• download errors,
• length of visits to certain pages,
• page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse‐overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.

We may also collect information about your activities on our eLearning platform, including:
• dates and session times
• activities
• pages visited
• activity duration
• IP Address

Information collected about individuals on the enrolment application form and during enrolment can be provided, in certain circumstances, to the Australian Government and designated authorities and, if relevant, Mindroom Institute’s domestic student tuition assurance scheme or the Tuition Protection Service. This information includes personal and contact details, course enrolment details and changes, and the circumstance of any suspected breach of a student visa condition.

Mindroom Institute will not disclose an individual’s personal information to another person or organisation unless:
• the individual concerned has given written consent to the disclosure;
• Mindroom Institute believes on reasonable grounds that the disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of the individual concerned or of another person;
• the disclosure is required or authorised by or under law; or
• 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.

In such circumstances, Mindroom will include in the records containing that information a note of the disclosure. Any person or organisation to whom personal information is disclosed as described in this procedure must not use or disclose the information for a purpose other than the purpose for which the information was supplied to them.

Before Mindroom Institute discloses personal information to an overseas recipient, it will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the APPs in relation to that information.

Personal information may be collected to assess an individual’s entitlement to Commonwealth assistance under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and to allocate a Commonwealth Higher Education Student Support Number (CHESSN). Mindroom Institute will disclose this information to the Department of Education and Training (DET) for these purposes. The DET will store the information securely and may disclose information to the Australian Taxation Office. Personal information gathered for these purposes will not otherwise be disclosed without the individual’s consent unless required or authorised by law.
All students enrolled in an Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) course must apply for a Unique Student Identifier (USI) from the USI Registrar. If Mindroom applies for a USI on the student behalf, it will provide some items of personal information about the student to the USI Registrar.

Mindroom will take all reasonable steps to ensure any personal information collected is relevant to the purpose for which it was collected, is accurate, up‐to‐date, complete and not misleading.
Mindroom will securely store all records containing personal information. Mindroom will take all reasonable security measures to protect personal information collected from unauthorised access, misuse or disclosure.

Individuals have the right to access or obtain a copy of the personal information that Mindroom Institute holds about them. If an individual considers their personal information to be incorrect, incomplete, out of date or misleading, they can request that the information be amended.

Where a record is found to be inaccurate, a correction will be made. Where a student requests that a record be amended because it is inaccurate, but the record is found to be accurate, the details of the request for amendment will be noted on the record.

Our website and LMS (eLearning platform) use cookies to distinguish you from other users. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you visit and also allows us to improve our platforms. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that are stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

Students can submit a request for information kept about them, by sending an email to the student registrar. Students may be required to verify their identity when requesting access to information.

If a student has a complaint or an appeal regarding privacy and personal information, the Mindroom Institute Complaints and Appeals Policy and Procedure will apply.

The student registrar is responsible for responding to requests for personal information.

• Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988
• Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000
• Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012.
• Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000
• Education Services for Overseas Students Regulations 2001
• National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018
• Higher Education Support Act 2003
• SGA Student Complaints and Appeals Policy and Procedures

Problems or Questions

Mindroom takes privacy matters seriously. If you have questions, concerns, or wish to make a complaint about how your information is handled, please contact us.

For further information about privacy in Australia, visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner here

We welcome your comments and feedback.