Privacy Statement

Integral Energy Australia ("Integral Energy") is a NSW Government-owned electricity distributor and retailer. We also supply or promote other products and services that we believe will benefit our customers.

Integral Energy is bound by the National Privacy Principles and complies with them as required by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). Where Integral Energy collects health information, it is also bound by the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW).

 

Collection, use and disclosure
If you are a customer of Integral Energy, we need to collect personal information such as your name, address, other contact details, previous address, occupation information and personal identification so that we can supply you with electricity and to do anything associated with providing this service. We collect this by telephone, in person, in writing or online. Some of the information is needed so we can protect ourselves from possible non-payment and to protect your privacy should you contact us about your account.

We also collect information from individuals when we are asked to provide a quote or in response to promotional offers we may make. We use this information to prepare quotations or to enable provision of electricity or any other services (including electrical construction work) which are requested.

We use contractors to help us do our work and may need to disclose personal information to our contractors to enable them to carry out this work, which may be to supply you with electricity or other services that you have requested, including construction, connection or maintenance work. We might also use contractors to carry out other business activities on our behalf such as our marketing to you and disclose personal information to those contractors for that purpose.

The Government has said customers can choose between electricity suppliers regardless of where they live. If you have moved from another supplier to Integral Energy, or if you leave us, the law might require the transfer of your personal information between us and the other supplier to enable this to occur.

We might also have to disclose your personal information under energy laws, for other legal reasons, to law enforcement agencies or in emergencies.

In certain circumstances we might collect information that is sensitive information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and/or health information under the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW). For instance, we need to know some information about a customer’s health status in relation to the provision of electricity and rebates for life support systems. We will seek your consent before collecting this information from you.

We may randomly record calls to Integral Energy for training purposes. We do not disclose these to anyone outside Integral Energy and delete them when no longer necessary, usually after 45 days. Occasionally we might monitor calls for customer service reasons. Calls to and from some sections of our business, such as our energy trading area, are recorded to serve as records of the transaction.

Unless you tell us otherwise, we might use your personal information and disclose it to our contractors to inform you about other offers or goods and services available to Integral Energy customers. If you do not wish to be contacted about these offers you may call 131002.

Information we receive for employment applications will be retained securely by us and may be disclosed to our agents or contractors for the purposes of considering your application.
Information we receive for applications for accreditation as service providers will be retained securely by us and may be disclosed as described on any application form or as provided by law.

If you contact us on any other matter, such as a compliment or complaint, or seeking information, we will use the information you give us for the purpose for which you provided it. This may include replying to you and forwarding your information to employees within Integral Energy or to contractors providing services to Integral Energy so that we can respond to you. We might also need to access our existing records of your account, or previous information you have provided to us if it assists in responding to your matter. Personal details you send to us in these circumstances will not be added to a mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent.

Security
Integral Energy will take reasonable steps to protect personal information we hold from misuse and loss from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

 

Access and correction
You are entitled to access your personal information on request, unless exceptional circumstances specified in the Privacy Act apply (for example where access would unreasonably interfere with the privacy of others). In some circumstances, we may ask you to apply in writing. We will need to confirm your identity before we can provide you with access to personal information we hold about you. If exceptional circumstances apply and we are entitled to refuse to give you access, we will explain this to you. We encourage you to let us know if you believe any personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. Unless we disagree with you we will update our records. If we disagree with you, and you request us to do so, we may include a statement to the effect that you claim the information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date with our records.

Further information
If you have any queries, would like further information or have a complaint concerning your privacy, you may telephone our call centre on 131002, or write to the Manager Customer Care, Integral Energy, PO Box 6366 Blacktown NSW Australia 2148, 51 Huntingwood Drive Huntingwood NSW 2148. If you are viewing this Privacy Statement on our website you may email us at integral@integral.com.au. Alternatively, you may wish to fill out our online feedback form.

Dealing with Integral Energy over the Internet
Our website is owned by Integral Energy Australia, a NSW Government-owned electricity distributor and is operated by our contracted Internet Service Provider. We also supply other energy products and services and, occasionally, offer other products and services in conjunction with other suppliers.

This section of our privacy statement sets out how we handle information provided by you online so that you can decide whether you wish to continue using our website.

The transmission of information to us over the internet is not secure. Other people may be able to intercept or view and collect the information you send over the internet. We will not know if this has happened and cannot guarantee security.

Information collected

Log files
When you view our website, our Internet Service Provider, automatically makes a record of your visit and logs the following information for statistical purposes:

• your server address;
• your top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc);
• the date and time of your visit to the site;
• the pages you accessed and documents downloaded;
• the previous site you have visited; and
• the type of browser you are using.

Integral Energy will not attempt to identify you from these statistics. The information may be used to allow us to improve our services by learning about the parts of our website that are more frequently visited, general patterns of visiting and technologies used. However, a law enforcement agency or other government agency may exercise its legal authority to inspect our Internet Service Provider's logs in certain cases.

Cookies
Cookies can be either "persistent" or "session" based. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer, contain an expiry date, and may be used to track your usage history of the issuing website. This enhances your use of the website by, for instance, fast-tracking you to the part of the website you most frequently use. Session cookies are used for temporary in-memory storage such as remembering the items currently in your shopping cart. They are short-lived, are used only during a browsing session and expire when you quit your browser.

Integral Energy use session cookies to provide enhanced navigation through our website. We do not gather or store any personal information from session cookies.

Integral Energy use persistent cookies to remember your activities on our website for the sole purpose of enhancing your experience on our website (via increased functionality such as fast-tracking you to the part of the website you most frequently use.) We do not use persistent cookies to identify you personally, or to correlate you personally with your activities on our website.

Integral Energy does not knowingly allow advertisers or any third parties to use any cookies to monitor your use of our website.

You can set your browser to delete or reject cookies. If you do, you might not be able to use our website effectively.

Feedback/email
If you use our feedback form, or email us from our website, we will record the information you give us. If you use our feedback form, or send us an email, the information you give us will only be used for the purpose for which you provided it. This may include replying to you and forwarding your email to employees within Integral Energy or to contractors providing services to Integral Energy so that we can respond to your email or feedback. We might also need to access our existing records of your account, or previous information you have provided to us if it assists in responding to your matter.

Your email address and other personal details you send to this site will not be added to a mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent.

Online forms
We provide online forms for you to connect with Integral Energy or simply obtain a quote. We require certain personal information to do this. We also give you the option to provide other information that might later be used to tell you about different products and services. Our online forms give you the option to decline to receive such offers.

 

Applying for employment
Our website provides an online form for applying for employment with Integral Energy. The transmission of information to us over the internet is not secure. Other people may be able to intercept or view and collect the information you send over the internet. We will not know if this has
happened and cannot guarantee security. Information we receive for employment applications will be retained securely by us and may be disclosed to our agents or contractors for the purposes of considering your application.

Special offers, competitions or other activities
From time to time we may offer on our website promotions which invite you to register your name and contact details. If you do not provide this information you will not be able to take up the offer or participate in the competition. We will give you the option to decline to allow us to use your information for subsequent marketing purposes should we intend to do so.

Changes to this Policy
From time to time we may review and change this policy. If so, we will post an amended version of this policy on our website. We recommend you review our online privacy policy whenever you visit our website to ensure you are aware of our current practices concerning the handling of personal information.

December 2007