The Vocaltone Code of Fair Information Practices (the Code) spells out the commitments of the
Vocaltone Companies and the rights of customers regarding personal information. It fully complies
with the Privacy Act 1988(Cth) and details how we implement the principles of the Standards
Association of Australia.
These FAQs are meant to act as a reference tool for customers who have questions about the Code and
its application to personal customer information. The FAQs also include information about privacyrelated “hot topics” such as the use of “cookies” and the practice of “phishing”.
To read the full text of the Code of Fair Information Practices, please click here.
1. To whom does the Vocaltone Code of Fair Information Practices apply?
2. What is personal information?
3. What are the purposes for collecting personal information?
4. Do the Vocaltone Companies share personal information with each other?
5. Do the Vocaltone Companies share personal information with third parties?
6. Do the Vocaltone Companies record customer calls?
7. Do the Vocaltone Companies store customer information in other Jurisdictions?
8. How can I access my personal information kept by the Vocaltone Companies?
9. Why am I being asked to confirm personal information when I call the Vocaltone Companies?
10. What is Pre-texting and Phishing?
11. How do I know if an email is really from Vocaltone?
12. Does Vocaltone monitor my service?
13. Does Vocaltone block access to certain destinations?
14. What are Cookies and do the Vocaltone Companies use them?
15. Is vocaltone.com.au a secure Web site?
16. What is Spam Filtering?
17. How do the Vocaltone Companies ensure the protection of children on Vocaltone Internet sites?
18. What privacy enhancing services do the Vocaltone Companies offer?
The Vocaltone Code of Fair Information Practices applies to the Vocaltone Companies,
Vocaltone Networks Australia Pty. Ltd, Vocaltone Networks Australia. including its affiliated
companies.
Any time you do business with any of these companies, or with anyone acting as an agent on our
behalf, you are protected by the rights and safeguards contained in the Code.
The Code also governs the behaviour of our employees and agents acting on our behalf. All of
our employees who have access to personal information have been trained on handling such
information and new employees receive training on privacy as a fundamental part of their initial
company training. All of our employees must review and commit to the Vocaltone Code of Fair
Information Practices annually. Non-compliance with the Code may result in an employee’s
disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.
In addition to the Vocaltone Code of Fair Information Practices, the Vocaltone Companies may
also be subject to the requirements of applicable legislation, tariffs and regulations and the orders
of any court or other lawful authority.
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Personal Information is information about an identifiable individual. This includes information
about the products to which you subscribe such as your service usage, such as your personal
telephone records, long distance usage, as well as account information such as the status of your
account or your method of payment, including credit card or bank account numbers for those
customers on pre-authorized payments.
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The Vocaltone Companies collect information during the application process, when
communicating or transacting business with you, and when providing you with service. We also
collect information about you from third parties that have the right to disclose such information
to us.
The Vocaltone Companies collect information only for the following purposes:
- To establish and maintain responsible commercial relations with you and provide you
with on-going service;
For example, we may collect information to confirm your identify or to establish credit
worthiness.
- To understand your needs and preferences and to determine your eligibility for products
and services;
We retain records of your purchases and your use of Vocaltone products and services
and may ask you, from time to time, for additional information to serve you better such as
an eMail address to quickly send you help desk and user guide information.
- To recommend particular products & services to meet your needs;
We may periodically review your product and service profile in order to determine if
other Vocaltone products and services might better meet your needs.
For example, if you
currently subscribe to 2 or more Vocaltone lines of business, you may be eligible for
service bundle savings.
- To develop, enhance, market or provide our products and services;
We continually review and analyze customer use and purchase behaviour in order to
ensure that our products and services respond to customer needs and desires.
- To manage and develop Vocaltone’s business and operations, including personnel and
employment matters;
For example, we monitor usage volumes in order to plan and provision our
communications networks and product sales results and to determine the success of
features, promotions and pricing.
- To meet legal and regulatory requirements.
For example, we may be required to collect information by a court order or to
demonstrate compliance with a Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA)
requirement.
Your personal information will not be used for any other purpose without your consent.
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The Vocaltone Companies may share, from time to time, information with other Vocaltone
companies to help identify your information, communication and entertainment needs and
provide you with relevant information, advice, and solutions to meet those needs. Click here to
opt in.
If you don't want your information shared among the Vocaltone companies, click here, call 310-TONE (310-8663) from your Vocaltone Digital phone or 1 300 792 484 from any other phones
or contact us by email to "opt out."
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While our general policy is not to provide personal information to any party outside of the
Vocaltone Companies, there are limited circumstances in which it is necessary for us to do so.
When we provide personal information to third parties, we provide only that information that is
required under the particular circumstances. That information is used only for the purpose
stipulated and is subject to strict terms of confidentiality. Employees of the companies to whom
we may provide information must adhere to our privacy standards. These third parties may
include:
An agent acting on behalf of Vocaltone, such as a company hired to perform installation work on our
behalf;
Another communications service provider, in order to offer efficient and effective communications
services or as required by law;
A collection agency, for the express purpose of the collection of past due bills;
Email or Mail service providers, for the purpose of meialing or mailing important informations
The Vocaltone Companies may also collect, use or disclose personal information without
knowledge or consent if seeking the consent of the individual might defeat the purpose of
collecting the information, such as in the investigation of a breach of an agreement or a
contravention of a federal or provincial law, or to comply with a subpoena, warrant or other court
order.
The Vocaltone Companies may also use or disclose personal information without knowledge or
consent in the case of an emergency where the life, health or security of an individual is
threatened.
Please note that, pursuant to federal legislation, publicly available information, including a
directory listing of your name, address, telephone number and electronic address, may be
collected, used and disclosed without your consent. If you prefer not to have your listing
information provided to select organizations, contact us to have
your information removed from such lists or call 310-TONE (310-8663) from Vocaltone Digital
phone or 1 300 792 484 from any other phone.
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As Vocaltone is committed to continually improving its customer contact experience, some
customer calls may be recorded and used for the ongoing training and development of our
employees. Consistent with federal privacy legislation, customers are informed by a prerecorded
message that their call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes. After hearing
this message, should you decide to continue with the call, your consent to record the call is
implied. Otherwise, you may contact a Vocaltone Customer Service Representative by
email or by post to the folowing address.
Vocaltone Networks Australia Pty. Ltd
Bldg T2A, Nirimba Educational Precient
Eastern Road, Quakers HIll
NSW 2763
The Vocaltone Companies may also record outbound calls placed to our customers for similar
purposes.
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In some cases, personal information collected by the Vocaltone Companies may be stored and
processed outside of Australia, by agents acting on our behalf, for the purpose of providing you
with your service or to support the Vocaltone Companies’ operations. This information may
include account information, such as your billing details and preferred language, or product
information, such as the types of services to which you subscribe. The information is provided
pursuant to detailed contractual provisions and may only be used for the purposes of providing
the service in question and is safeguarded accordingly. The use of customer information in such circumstances continues to be governed by the Vocaltone Code of Fair Information Practices.
Personal information collected by the Vocaltone Companies may be stored and processed in
Australia or other jurisdictions and may be subject to the legal jurisdictions of these countries.
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As a customer, you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that the
Vocaltone Companies have collected about you. Such requests must be made in writing to the
Vocaltone Privacy Ombudsman at:
The Office of the Vocaltone Privacy Ombudsman
Bldg T2A, Nirimba Educational Precient
Eastern Road, Quakers HIll
NSW 2763
or by email to privacy@vocaltone.com.au
Please note that your right to access personal information is not unlimited. In particular, your
right to access is limited to your “personal information” which is defined as information about an
identifiable individual. Should you request access to your personal information and the
documents requested also contain non-personal information which does not pertain to you, that
information will be omitted from the original document. Such non-personal information may
include the Company’s internal practices, policies, organizational structure or network
architecture and operations, or personal information concerning a third party such as employee
numbers.
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In order to protect your personal information from being disclosed to an unauthorized third party,
you may be asked to confirm personal information already found on your account or to provide
information that only you, as the account holder, would know. Such information may include
details of your payment habits, service usage or identification that you would have previously
provided when originally requesting your service. We continually strive to strike the appropriate
balance between timely access your account information and the need to protect our customer’s
personal information from unauthorized disclosure. We therefore ask for your patience and
understanding when you are asked to confirm or provide such information as this process has
been established to protect your personal account information.
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Pre-texting, often referred to as “social engineering”, refers to the fraudulent and illegal practice
of misrepresenting who you are in order to obtain access to information. The Vocaltone
Companies are aware that pre-texting, although illegal, has been a practice employed by
unauthorized third parties trying to obtain access to personal information. The Vocaltone
Companies place great emphasis on the security of your personal information and have
safeguards in place to ensure that it is not disclosed to an unauthorized third party which is why,
when calling into any of the Vocaltone Companies, you will be asked to confirm certain personal
information regarding your account.
Phishing is the use of phoney email messages, pop-up windows and fraudulent Web sites
designed to trick people into divulging personal and financial information. Brands of wellknown
companies are often used to capture usernames, passwords, credit card and bank account
numbers, social insurance numbers, etc. Phishers have been known to circulate emails
containing forms and links to Web sites that look as though they belong to popular companies.
Phishing is a growing concern and the number of large-scale scams is on the rise. E-commerce
and online banking are generally safe and secure ways of doing business, but Web and email
users should be somewhat sceptical of unsolicited requests for personal information.
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Because Vocaltone communicates with customers through email regularly, we have rules about
requesting personal information as well as what we include in attachments. As a Vocaltone
customer, it is important that you are aware of the types of information our email might contain
or request so you can recognize a fraudulent message if you ever you receive one.
Genuine emails from the Vocaltone companies may include:
- Links to pages related to Vocaltone services
- Notification of changes to your service, and virus or security alerts. We’ll always refer
you to pages on www.vocaltone.com.au for more information
- Marketing and promotional offers, including contests
- Customer survey or a link to a customer survey site.
- A request for permission to send you information on Vocaltone products and services and
those of its third party business partners.
Our email will never include:
- Requests for personal information such as passwords, PIN numbers, banking or credit
card information (unless we are responding to an initial email or telephone inquiry from
you).
- Executable (.exe) file attachments (programs).
- Files you need to click to open, such as Microsoft Word documents or compressed (.zip)
files (unless we are responding to an initial email or telephone inquiry from you).
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Vocaltone does not proactively monitor your use of the Service or the destinations you call.
However, Vocaltone, similar to other telephone providers, reserves the right from time to time to
monitor the service electronically. In the normal course of business, Vocaltone may be required
to monitor certain aspects of your use of the Service, such as your average call duration, number
of calls per month in order to ensure the operation of the Service, or to ensure compliance with
other provisions of our Fair User Policy.
A copy of the Fair User Polcy can be found at the end of your service agreement. To view a
copy of your Vocaltone Service Agreement online, please click here.
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Vocaltone reserves the right to block certain destinations which are propritary to other telecom
providers or not allowed by Australian regulators. Vocaltone tries its best to identify and declare
numbers whenever they are found blocked by our providers or due to regulatory issues.
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During user interaction with one of our Internet sites, we may use a browser feature called a “cookie” to collect information anonymously and track user patterns on our web sites. A cookie
is a small text file containing a unique identification number that identifies your browser – but
not you – to our computers each time you visit one of our sites that uses cookies. Cookies tell us
which pages of our sites are visited and by how many people. This helps us to enhance the online
experience of visitors to our site.
Unless you specifically advise us, we will not know who you are, even though we may assign
your computer a cookie. We cannot use cookies, by themselves, to ascertain the individual
identity of any site user, and we never combine information gathered by a cookie with personally
identifiable information like your name, telephone number or even your email address without
your consent.
You will find that most major web sites use cookies and most major browsers are set up to accept
them. If you wish, you can reset your browser either to notify you when you have received a
cookie, or to refuse to accept cookies. You do no need cookies to visit Vocaltone sites.
However, if you refuse to accept cookies, you may not be able to use some of the features
available on our sites such as the personalization features.
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Yes! The vocaltonel.com.au Web site uses SSL encryption which protects your personal
identifiable information when it is being sent via the Internet. SSL encrypts the data between the
server and yourself so as to prevent anyone from reading the exchanged information.
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Spam refers to unsolicited bulk electronic messages. If you use email or other types of online
communications, there is a good chance that you receive spam. Apart from being annoying,
spam can potentially be dangerous to your computer and to your privacy. Most email programs
have built-in filters that can help you separate spam from regular email.
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As an added protection for children, on any of our commercial web sites or online services
directed to children under 13 years of age, we will obtain the permission of a parent or legal
guardian before collecting, using or disclosing any personally identifiable information about a
child (e.g., for participation in contests and promotions).
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The Vocaltone Companies offer a number of services to help balance the privacy interests of
customers and the people they call. You can find information about the Vocaltone services (e.g.,
Call Privacy, Call Display, Call Blocking, Private Name and Number) in user manual of
Vocaltone telephone service.
