AIM Privacy & Security Policy

Our Commitment

This Statement sets out the Australian Institute of Management's (AIM) privacy policy in respect of personal information which you may provide to AIM. AIM recognises that your privacy is very important to you and we are committed to promoting confidence in the manner in which your personal information is handled by us. The statement that follows explains how AIM collects, uses, discloses and protects this information on its website.

Supporting Industry Best Practice

The Australian Institute of Management (AIM) is bound by, and committed to supporting, the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) set out in the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000. The aim of AIM is both to support and to ensure that it complies with the NPPs that form the basis of laws introduced to strengthen privacy protection for the general public. We believe that in supporting industry best practice this statement will address any potential concerns you may have about how personal information you provide to us is stored, used and accessed.

Collection of Information

AIM receives and stores transaction information, information you enter on our website or have provided to us in application, registration or administration processes.

Wherever it is lawful and practicable, AIM will endeavour to provide you with the option of not identifying yourself or not providing personal information when entering transactions with us. However, failure to provide the full and complete information we request may result in a limited ability on our part to offer or deliver complete services to you.

No personal information is collected when you browse anonymously. Anonymous browsing is when personally identifiable information is not required by an individual to gain access to our web site. In addition, personally identifiable information such as name, birthdate and contact details (email addresses) are only collected when you make an enquiry, place an order, book on a course or register to use the member only section of an Aim state division. All other information will be requested from you directly.

Information collected is kept for as long as it is needed to service your account and provide services and products requested by you. When your information is no longer needed for these purposes we will destroy or permanently render anonymous any information held about you.

Use and Disclosure of Information

The primary purpose in collecting information from you is to enable us to fulfil our business commitments to you in providing management education and training, consultancy, membership and on-line bookshop services and to improve these services to you and other clients of AIM. We may use the information you provide to help improve the services we deliver to you, measure consumer interest in AIM services, inform you of other AIM products and services or to comply with requirements under the law.

We will only collect and store information about you that is necessary. The information you provide may be used to offer, provide and improve our services to you and may also be disclosed to other parties such as AIM State Divisions, organisations contracted to operate and maintain AIM databases, provide IT support Services and distribute AIM information, universities and other educational services providers that are affiliated with or support the provision of educational services offered by AIM including State and Commonwealth public sector organisations and agencies, and to those interested members of the public to whom AIM provides referral services.

AIM does not permit these parties to use information about you for any other purpose than to perform the services that AIM has instructed them to provide. All suppliers, agents and third party companies must sign a confidentiality agreement with AIM before any personal information is disclosed by AIM.

AIM will not, without your consent, disclose personal information for any purpose (a Secondary purpose) other than for the main purpose (Primary purpose) of fulfilling our business commitments to you, except where:

1. it is required or authorised by law or for purposes of law enforcement and matters directly related to law enforcement or the prevention of unlawful activity;
2. the Secondary Purpose is related to the primary purpose (or directly related when sensitive information is involved) and there is a reasonable expectation that we would use or disclose the information in the circumstances;
3. AIM reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent any serious and imminent threat to any person's life, health or safety or the public's health or safety.

AIM will not otherwise disclose your personal information to any other party without your consent.

Third Party Relationships

To provide you with a more informative online experience AIM does use the online resources, from time to time, of suppliers, agents and business partners. Such services comprise of links to third party sites that promote additional services and products. In any such relationship AIM takes all reasonable steps to ensure that these parties have and enforce an adequate privacy policy. Understandably, the privacy policy of a third party might be different to that of AIM and it is advisable that you carefully review any third party's privacy policy before using the site's products and/or services.

Storage and Security of Personal Information

AIM will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that you only provide personal information in a secure environment and when the information is no, longer needed it will be destroyed or permanently render anonymous.

Where indicated by a lock (on the browser window), we protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information, you input. In conjunction with our key suppliers and agents, we operate secure data networks protected by an industry standard firewall and password protection system. We also take care to ensure that we have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, modification or disclosure of your user data under our control.

The security of any information (including personal information) downloaded and stored on your PC/Server etc is the responsibility of the individual. The individual is also responsible for the correct configuration of the hardware and software he/she uses to access an AIM website, along with the physical security and maintenance of that equipment.

Notwithstanding the fact that we take all reasonable steps to protect your personal data including the use of encryption technology, we cannot guarantee the security of any data you disclose online. You can help us keep your personal information secure by ensuring that any password you use on our web site is kept strictly confidential, and by logging off when you have finished using a shared computer.

AIM imposes strict rules on its employees who have access either to the databases that store your user information or to the servers that host our services and while we cannot guarantee that any unauthorised access, disclosure, loss, misuse or alteration to your data will not occur, we will take all reasonable steps to prevent such unfortunate occurrences.

You accept the inherent security implications of dealing online over the Internet and will not hold AIM or its agents or suppliers responsible for any breach of security.

Cookies

AIM may use cookies to personalise and simplify your access to and use of our website. A cookie is a small data file that is downloaded from our website and stored in a text file on your hard drive. The information is made up of a string of letters and numbers which uniquely identifies your computer and any user name or password that you may have already registered on our web site. This information is used to authenticate or identify whether you are registered on our website, without requiring you to re-enter details each time you log on to our website. AIM Cookies cannot be used to obtain any other information on you or on your hard drive unless you have already provided such information. Cookies may also be used to "track" or "follow" your movement through our website. This will be used to determine which areas of our website are the most popular so that we can improve user's access to relevant information on our services and make your online experience more informative and worthwhile. In particular, AIM Cookies may collect information such as the server your computer is logged onto, the browser type you are using, the time and date of your visit together with the particular pages you are accessing.

If at any time you do not wish to accept Cookies or wish to delete existing Cookies, you may manually configure your browser to refuse Cookies or you may manually delete existing Cookies from your hard drive (Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your Cookie preferences.) If you reject all Cookies, you will not be able to use areas of the AIM website that require you to "sign in," and you may not be able to take full advantage of all offerings. However, many areas within the AIM website do not require that you accept Cookies.

Trans-border Data Flows

Where, for the purpose of fulfilling our business commitments to you, we disclose personal information to persons involved in administering the services, our related entities or business partners (Permitted Persons), and such Permitted Persons are in a foreign country, AIM will not, without your consent, transfer personal information to such Permitted Persons unless:

1. we reasonably believe that the Permitted Persons are subject to a law, binding scheme or contract or we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the Permitted Persons are subject to a contract which effectively upholds principles for the fair handling of personal information that are substantially similar to the National Principles for the Fair Handling of Personal Information embodied in the Privacy Amendment (Public Sector) Act 2000; or
2. the transfer is necessary for:
   • the performance of services requested by you; or
   • for the purpose of fulfilling our business commitments to you; or
   • to implement pre-contractual measures taken in response to a request by you; or
3. the transfer is necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract concluded in your interest, between AIM and a third party; or
4. all of the following apply:
   • the transfer is for your benefit; and
   • it is impracticable to obtain your consent to the transfer; and
   • if it were practicable you would be likely to consent to the transfer.

Accessing and Changing Your Personal Information

AIM attempts to ensure that all personal information collected and stored in its database systems is correct and accurate. You may at any time request access to the information we have collected from you and obtain a more in depth explanation about how the information is used by emailing us at privacyofficer@aim.com.au or by contacting the National Privacy Officer at the address given below. We will endeavour to meet or advise of the outcome of a request within 7 business days of receipt.

If at any time you wish to change personal information that is incorrect or wish to have your personal information deleted, please contact us using the details below. If you are a member and have registered to use a member only site in your state (if available) you can correct your details by completing the appropriate form on the website. If you are not a member you can send your request by emailing us at enquiry@aim.com.au Unless personal information is required for administrative or legal reasons we will take all reasonable steps to meet such requests at the earliest possible opportunity.

You also have the right to request access to your personal information at any time. All our staff will be able to assist you with such a request and this information will be forwarded to you within 5 working days.

For any privacy issues or concerns, you can contact our National Privacy Officer at:

Privacy Officer
Australian Institute of Management
181 Fitzroy Street
St Kilda, Victoria 3182
Phone: (613) 9534 8181
Fax: (613) 9534 5050
Email: privacyofficer@aim.com.au

Complaints Resolution

AIM is committed to providing consumers with a fair and responsive system for handling and resolving complaints. You have a right to complain and to have your complaint handled efficiently. We believe that in receiving your complaint, we are provided with a valuable opportunity to improve the services we deliver to you and maintain your confidence in AIM and our services.

If at any time you wish to lodge a complaint in respect of the handling, use or disclosure of your personal information by AIM you may notify us of your complaint by completing our Complaints Form and lodging it with us in the following way:

Print and manually complete a copy of the Complaints Form and submit by post to the National Privacy Officer, Australian Institute of Management- 181 Fitzroy Street St Kilda, Victoria 3182.

Download Complaints Form
Complaints Form [PDF; 62K]

Alternatively, you may contact us by phone: (613) 9534 8181 or fax: (613) 9534 5050 or email to privacyofficer@aim.com.au. We will endeavour to investigate and advise you of the outcome of a complaint within 21 days of receipt of such complaint.

Liability Disclaimer

AIM will use all reasonable endeavours to protect and keep confidential any personally identifiable information in its possession in relation to its Members, subscribers or website visitors. If any confidential or personally identifiable information is accessed by a third party, whether by negligence or otherwise of AIM, its agents, suppliers, contractors, related bodies corporate, affiliates or associated parties, to the extent permitted by law, AIM is not liable for any loss, damage, costs, liability or other form of contribution.

We are constantly improving the AIM website and the tools you can use to manage the data that you provide to us. Please refer to this page from time to time to see any new policies about the use of these new features.

Further Information on Privacy

Further information may be obtained on privacy issues in Australia by visiting the Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner's web site at http://www.privacy.gov.au/.