̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal website and governs data collection and usage. By using ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

Collection of your Personal Information

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal collects personally identifiable information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address or telephone number. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal also collects anonymous demographic information, which is not unique to you, such as your post code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites.

There is also information about your computer hardware and software that is automatically collected by ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used by ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal website.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others. Please also note, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal does not read any of your private online communications.

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal and ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal family of websites.

Use of your Personal Information

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal collects and uses your personal information to operate ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal website and deliver the services you have requested. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal also uses your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services available from ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal and its affiliates. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered.

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party. In addition, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal may share data with trusted partners to help us perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal does not use or disclose sensitive personal information, such as race, religion, or political affiliations, without your explicit consent.

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal keeps track of the websites and pages our customers visit within ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal, in order to determine what ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal services are the most popular. This data is used to deliver customized content and advertising within ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal to customers whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal Web sites will disclose your personal information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal; and, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal, or the public.

Use of Cookies

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal website use 'cookies' to help you personalise your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a webpage server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalise ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal pages, or register with ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal site or services, a cookie helps ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal features that you customised.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal services or websites you visit.

Security of your Personal Information

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal secures your personal information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

Changes to this Statement

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal is protecting your information.

Contact Information

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal welcomes your comments regarding this Statement of Privacy. If you believe that ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Portal has not adhered to this Statement, please contact ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ at servicedesk@thelakes.qld.edu.au. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.