The Esoteric Practitioners Association Pty Ltd and the associated organisation, EPA UK/EU are organisations that represent the highest integrity in professional work and practice, not only in health-care but across all professions. Protecting your privacy is a natural and necessary part of what we do. This policy sets out how we attend to privacy and data protection. It pertains to how we treat private information of our members and visitors to our website.

The Esoteric Practitioners Association Pty Ltd has its headquarters at 15 Blue Hills Avenue, Goonellabah NSW 2480, Australia. The EPA UK/EU operates from Frome, Somerset, UK. Contact details appear at the base of this document.  In this document we refer to both the Esoteric Practitioners Association Pty Ltd and EPA UK/EU as the “EPA” or “we”, “us” or “our”. We refer to you, our member or user of our website as “you”.

The EPA complies with the terms and conditions of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 1998 of the United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU) in respect of all members located in those countries/region.

We take the responsibility for managing the personal information our members provide to us through use of this website and through their membership with the EPA very seriously and we are committed to ensuring our members’ privacy is protected. For all members and users of our services located in the UK and/or EU, we adhere to the GDPR and data protection laws of the United Kingdom and European Union. For members and users of our services located in Australia and elsewhere (other than the UK and EU) we comply with Australian law and regulations including the Australian Privacy Principles and the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

This policy explains how, when and why we collect your personal information during the course of your use of this website and as a part of your relationship with the EPA.

By using our services you consent to the collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Summary

• We only collect personal information you have consented to provide, and you may withdraw your consent at any time. You can contact us at any time using the details provided below.

• We are committed to acting promptly and respectfully to any request you have to view, amend or delete any personal information we hold about you, and equally any request to join or withdraw from any mailing lists we manage.

• We will not sell your personal information to a third party and will only share your personal information without your consent in response to requests by law enforcement agencies.

• We will not send you marketing or service information material unless you have given us permission to do so.

• Any marketing and service information material we send to you (after you have consented to receiving it) will contain an opt out ‘unsubscribe’ option that you can select at any time you elect to be removed from our mailing list.

• We will protect your personal information. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place robust physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect both online and offline.

• We will retain your information for only as long as is necessary.

• We review our Privacy Policy regularly and any updates will be posted on this page. We encourage you to check back to this page to view amendments. We will post the date of release of the version of the policy at the top of this page.

Information we collect

We collect information provided to us by:

• EPA members about themselves for the purpose of maintaining membership details and administration, listing members’ details on the website (with their consent) and promoting members’ services and affiliation with the EPA (again, with their consent); and

• public users of this website who wish to contact an EPA member or subscribe to our newsletter.

EPA Members may provide us with:

• Contact information

• Their location

• Other information they consent to provide for the members’ listing pages

Members of the public may provide us with their:

• Email address

• Name

• Other information (of their choice) when they contact us via the Contact page on our website or by email.

Compliance with the law

We only will disclose your personal information without your consent where required to do so by law or subpoena or if we believe that such action is necessary to comply with the law or the reasonable requests of law enforcement in line with legislation.

How we use the information you provide us

Our use of your information may include the following:

• We will gather the information you provide us with in order to make your EPA member status known (if you are a member) or to enable you to contact an EPA member (if you are a member of the public).

• We may also use anonymised IP address information as part of website analytics (Google Analytics), however this is not traceable to an individual.

• In addition, we may use your information to allow you to purchase products or services and for us to deliver them, as well as to answer your enquiries, resolve complaints and communicate the same to you.

• We also may use your information to provide you with information about any product or service you may have purchased or registered for.

In addition, we may use the information provided to us by members for:

• Internal record keeping and membership administration

• Internal general administrative purposes

• Periodically sending emails (not of a marketing nature) to members or subscribers to our newsletter about news or developments with the EPA or related fields using the email address which you have provided.

We may use the information provided to us by non-members for:

• Internal record keeping and administration

• Sending periodic emails (not of a marketing nature) with information in relation to the EPA or newsletters as consented to as part of any subscription you make to our services

If you make a payment for any products or services and pay by credit card, your credit card information will be used only for payment processing and fraud prevention. This information is not used for any other purpose and not retained by us after processing any payment.

Website

When you access our website, anonymous technical information may be collected about your activities on the website. This may include information such as the type of browser used to access the website and the pages visited. This information is used by us to make decisions about maintaining and improving our websites and online services. This information remains anonymous and is not linked in any way to personal identification details.

The EPA does not store financial information such as credit card numbers.

Security

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is stored securely and is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We limit access to personal information to properly authorised staff within the organisation and ensure that those who do have access respect the privacy of personal information that they are handling. Authorised access to personal and sensitive information is conducted within a ‘need to know’ principle.

Personal/sensitive information is only accessed by those staff members who need it to carry out their duties. When you enter your details online, they may only be viewed by the staff who have authorised access to the database.

In line with our policy of ensuring a high level of care and protection for any personal information we may hold about you, the EPA has an ongoing commitment to periodically brief staff on their obligations and responsibilities with digital security and to ensure they are made aware of the best practices for use of common technologies like email and video conferencing. We provide a copy of this policy to staff and keep them updated on changes.

Retention of your information

We will retain the information you provide us only as long as is necessary to provide you with the services you requested from us and to comply with legal requirements.

If we no longer require your personal information for any purpose, including legal purposes, we will take reasonable steps to securely destroy or de-identify your personal information.

It is your responsibility to advise us should either your health situation or your personal details change so that your record is kept up to date (see ‘Correcting your personal information’, below).

If you unsubscribe from our newsletter we will remove your details from our subscription list immediately. You can unsubscribe from our newsletter by using the Unsubscribe function at the bottom of our emails, or by sending an email to us (at the email addresses given below) with the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject.

International transfer

Your information, including personal information, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.

Information for Australian members of the EPA is held in Australia. Information for members located in the UK or EU is held in the UK and/or Australia. Information for members located elsewhere in the world is held in Australia and or the UK.

If you are located outside Australia, the UK or EU and choose to provide information to us, please note that we may transfer your information, including personal information, across international or state borders and process it there, as per above.

Your submission of such information represents your agreement to this policy and that transfer.

Links to other sites

Our website may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit as the EPA is not responsible for how other organisations handle privacy and data protection.

We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Children’s privacy

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will delete such information from our servers immediately. If you are a child over 13 and under the age of 16, you must seek the consent of your parent/legal guardian before giving us any personal information about you.

How to control your personal information

You have rights in relation to your information, which are important to us. These include the right to be informed, right of access, right to rectification, right to be forgotten, right to restrict processing, right to data portability, right to object, and right to not be subject to automated decision-making including profiling.

We will not sell, transfer, rent or lease your personal information to any third parties. We will not share your personal information with any third party without your permission unless required by law enforcement action or subpoena.

In addition, we may be required to disclose your personal information to third parties in the course of providing, managing and administering our services, which may include disclosure to the following:

1. Any people employed or contracted by or volunteering their services to EPA as EPA team or staff members or acting on behalf of EPA in relation to our services;

2. Government and regulatory agencies;

3. Lawyers, auditors and/or other advisors engaged by EPA or acting on EPA’s behalf;

4. Where disclosure is required by law;

5. Where disclosure is reasonably necessary to prevent a threat to the life or health of any individual or prevent the commission of a serious crime.

Personal information may also be disclosed to anyone to whom you have given written and signed consent to have access to this information (e.g. a solicitor, accountant or a person who has authority to act as your attorney).

We do not use opt-out marketing. In order to receive communications or newsletters from us, we require you to opt-in (i.e. choose to receive such material). To opt-in, when completing a web form on our website or sent to you by us you can either tick an opt-in box indicating that you wish for your information to be used for marketing purposes or by e-mailing us (using the email details given below).

If you want to unsubscribe at any time, you can. If you have opted into mail-outs from us, you can use the safe unsubscribe tick-box on each email you receive from us in response to that opt-in. Simply select the unsubscribe option and your request will be updated. To unsubscribe from any other service, you may email us at the contact details below or contact us via our website.

If you have previously agreed to receiving notifications, newsletters and/or marketing information and no longer wish to, or if you have opted out of receiving this information but have been sent such information, please email us stating ‘unsubscribe’ and your request will be updated. (See our contact details at the base of this document.)

Access to your personal information

We value your comments and opinions You may request details of the personal information we hold about you. You can do so by emailing us and we will provide all the information we hold about you. A request for access will be processed within a reasonable time, usually less than a week for a straightforward request. More time may be needed, depending on the nature of the request but in any case we will not take longer than one month. There is no charge for providing this information.

In a very few cases we may be unable to give you access to certain information for example where:

1. we no longer hold or use the information;

2. providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;

3. we consider the request to be vexatious;

4. providing access would be unlawful;

5. the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings;

6. providing access would prejudice or be likely to prejudice the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of unlawful activity;

7. disclosure would pose a threat to the life or health of any individual.

If we refuse your request, we will tell you the reason why. If we are not required to provide you with access to the information requested, we will consider, if reasonable, whether the use of a mutually agreed intermediary would allow sufficient access to meet your needs and ours

Correcting your personal information

We will regularly review the information that we hold about you, but should you feel that any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete please email us (using the email address(es) given below) and we will correct it. We may at our discretion request further information from you to confirm your identity.

Amendment of this policy

We may amend this policy from time to time. Any amended form of this policy will be updated on our website, and we will include the date at which the policy was updated at the top of the policy page. We encourage you to check back to this page to see amendments.

Questions or complaints

We value your comments and opinions. We will answer any questions you may have, correct any error on our part or use our best endeavours to resolve any complaint that you may have about our information handling practices.

Once you have contacted us in relation to your concerns, if you are not satisfied with our response, or if you do not feel your complaint has been resolved, you are able to seek advice from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au. If you are in the UK or EU you can contact The Information Commissioner’s Office, at https://ico.org.uk.

Contacting us

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about how we process your personal information, please contact: