Privacy Policy

Moonee Valley City Council is committed to the protection of your right to privacy.

We collect, use and disclose personal information in accordance with the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014, the Health Records Act 2001 and other applicable legislation.

The following website privacy statement applies to the Moonee Valley City Council website.

For information about the broader collection and use of personal information by the Moonee Valley City Council, please refer to our Information Privacy Policy by clicking here and searching for Information Privacy Policy.

Website Privacy Statement

Links

This website Privacy Statement does not apply to other websites we may link to. Moonee Valley City Council (Council) recommends that you read the privacy statement and privacy policy when you access another site.

Collection of your personal information and health data

Council's website only collects or records personal information (including sensitive information) you choose to provide through our Contact us section, subscription to our website, various e-newsletters and e-forms, initiatives or programs updates and financial transactions. As part of our commitment to customer service, Council may periodically invite you to provide feedback about your experience via a survey. Any survey is voluntary and you do not have to participate.

Personal information collected typically includes, but is not limited to the following:

  • name

  • address (postal and email)

  • telephone (home, work and mobile)

  • date of birth

  • motor vehicle registration.

This collection provides for:

  • making subsequent contact

  • confirming correct property ownership within Councils' boundaries

  • allocating the liability of rates

  • registering and undertaking specific client functions within various services administrated by Council.

Where possible, you have the option of not identifying yourself when entering into a transaction with the Council. However, there may be instances where this is not feasible. For example, there is no requirement for an individual to identify themselves if they just want to report an incident (such as a toilet block maintained by Council requiring cleaning). However, if an individual contacts Council because they want a new rubbish bin - we are unable to provide the new bin without knowing the person's name and address.

Council staff use personal information collected from email and survey sources to respond to individuals and discuss their particular enquiries. Survey results may also be shared within Council to evaluate and improve the customer service experience and service delivery.

Anonymous access to our site

You can access the Moonee Valley City Council home page and browse our website anonymously, without disclosing your personal information.

Disclosure of personal information

Council will take all necessary measures to prevent unauthorised access to, or disclosure of, your personal information.

External organisations to which your personal information might be disclosed include service providers contracted by Council who perform various services for and on Council's behalf. These contractors have agreed to be bound by the provisions of the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014. Information provided to these contractors is limited to contact details provided by you while contacting us.

Council will ensure that your personal information is not disclosed to other individuals, institutions and authorities outside Council except if required or authorised by law or explicitly permitted by you. For example, in the event of an investigation into suspected unlawful or improper activity, a law enforcement agency or government agency may exercise its legal authority to inspect the web server's records (e.g. in relation to hacking or abusive messages).

Agencies and businesses that we may need to forward your contact details to include but are not limited to:

  • State Government authorities and departments (e.g. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Department of Health and Human Services)

  • Federal Government authorities and departments (e.g. Department of Health)

  • Victoria Police

  • VicRoads

  • City West Water

  • Managers of energy infrastructure assets (Jemena)

  • Electricity and gas distribution network operators (AusNet)

  • Australia Post

  • National Telecommunications Agencies (e.g. Telstra)

All of these agencies are subject to privacy legislations.

Security of your personal information

This website uses secure transmission facilities when appropriate (e.g. for financial transactions). You should be aware that there are risks in transmitting information across the Internet. If you are concerned about conveying sensitive material to Council over the Internet, you might prefer to contact us by telephone: 03 9243 8888 or email: council@mvcc.vic.gov.au.

Single sign-on to online services account

Single sign-on is available on our website. Users are encouraged to implement good password practices to maintain your own security, as well as the security of Council's online services account. Council is not responsible for breaches of your online services account that are caused, or contributed to, by compromises to your Google, Facebook or other similar account.

Website payments

Payment transactions made on this website occur directly between your credit card provider and our gateway provider. Council cannot access any of your credit card details.

Collection and use of website visit data

Cookies are used on our website, but they do not collect any personal information. For the most part they are sessional and contain system-generated values to identify the user's session for statistical and system administration purposes only.

Clickstream data refers to visitor logs and statistics that provide useful information about users' online experience without identifying individuals. We collect the following clickstream data for statistical and system administration purposes:

  • your server (or IP) address

  • the day and time you visited the site

  • the pages you visited on our site

  • the address of the last page you visited

  • the operating system you are using

  • rough geographic location (down to the city)

  • internet service provider (e.g. Telstra)

  • the type of browser and version you are using.

To the extent that this data could make you identifiable, we will not attempt to identify individuals from the clickstream data unless required by law or to investigate improper activity in relation to this website.

Google Analytics and Facebook Pixels

This website uses Google Analytics (including Display Advertising Features) to gather anonymous information about visitors to help us monitor and improve the website. Google Analytics uses first-party cookies and JavaScript code to gather information about how visitors use the site. For example:

  • number of visitors

  • browser information

  • pages viewed

  • IP address

  • demographic information.

This information will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.

This data is used by Council to analyse how visitors use the website in order to improve your user experience.

You can choose not to allow Google to collect your information by opting out of Google Analytics or specifically opt out of Google Analytics Display Advertiser Features.

Alternatively, if you want to block cookies for all websites, you can change the privacy settings of your web browser.

In addition, the website uses Facebook Pixels to tailor content specifically for you within Facebook and measure the success of campaigns. Facebook pixels use cookies, JavaScript code, web beacons and similar technologies to gather information. No personally identifiable information is shared with us by Facebook. The information will be transmitted to and stored by Facebook on servers in the United States. You can choose to opt out from tailored content through your Facebook settings.

In accordance with our privacy policy, Council does not collect or keep any personally identifiable information, nor track visits to any non-Council websites.

Disclaimer

Website

This website is for information and communication purposes only.

While care is taken to ensure accuracy, Moonee Valley City Council (Council) cannot guarantee that information on this website is correct and recommends that users exercise care with its use.

Council takes no responsibility for inaccurate information and does not accept any liability whatsoever for any direct or indirect loss, damage or injury suffered as a result of reliance on this information.

This website contains links to other websites operated by organisations other than Council. These links are provided for your convenience and should not be seen as an endorsement of those sites, or the information that they provide.

Emails

Except as required at law, Council does not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that the communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference.

While care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this communication, Council, its Councillors, officers, employees, contractors, consultants and agents accept no responsibility for any errors or for any consequence of its use.  Any action taken, or omission made by a user or other person in reliance of this information is taken or made at the sole risk and expense of that person.  No person should rely on the contents of this communication for the purpose of ascertaining the legal rights or obligations of any person or for any other purpose without first obtaining legal or other relevant professional advice.

Google Translate

A translation tool is made available on Council's website and is provided by Google Translate, which is an externally-provided online tool.

Council does not guarantee, and makes no representations, warranties or guarantees in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of any material on Council's website which has been translated by Google Translate.

Council disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including through negligence) for any damage, losses, expenses and costs incurred as a result of mistranslated material using Google Translate.

Find out more about Google Translate.

Further information

If you have any queries about this Information Privacy Policy or any privacy matter, please contact Council's Privacy Officer on 03 9243 8888 or email privacy@mvcc.vic.gov.au.

Collection Notices

Social Media - Information Regarding Your Social Networking Services ("SNS")

If you use your Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking sites ("SNS") account information to log in and/or authenticate with a Moonee Valley City Council website ("Council"), we will collect and store a unique user ID provided by your SNS.

As a user of Council's website, you can choose to log in and/or authenticate with a SNS, such as Facebook. To do so, you must use your account credentials (typically username and password) for your SNS. Your SNS will provide Council will a unique user ID which can be used to identify you on Council websites. Council will retain this user ID, keep it private and use it to identify you and enable your access to features on Council websites.

Our use of SNS sometimes involves listening to social trends and issues that relate to Council services and events. We use various tools to view public social media and website commentary in which Council's accounts may not necessarily be tagged - and engage directly with you to provide information or a better level of customer service. In doing so, we may temporarily collect and store your personal information.

To protect your own privacy and the privacy of others, we suggest that personal information including phone numbers and email addresses are not shared on SNS.

Please note that each social networking service will also handle your personal information for its own purposes. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and other statements of the SNS you use.

E-Newsletters

Your email address is being collected by Moonee Valley City Council (Council) so you can receive a newsletter based on your preferences. We run this newsletter through SendinBlue. By subscribing, you agree to their Privacy Policy and Terms. Council will not disclose your email address without your consent except where required or authorised to do so by law. You may contact us to request access to your email address, or for other concerns regarding the privacy of your email address at privacy@mvcc.vic.gov.au. Please refer to the above Privacy Policy to find out more about how your personal information is managed.

Survey Privacy

In addition to Moonee Valley City Council's general privacy policy (above), Council abides by a number of research specific privacy and ethical considerations when conducting research with the community.

Anonymity

Unless clearly specified up front, your participation in our research surveys is completely anonymous. If personal information is recorded within the survey for the purpose of entering a competition/prize draw or providing further information, this personal information is initially stored within the same database as survey responses, but will be separated from the data file prior to analysis. We will not 'trace back' responses to contact information unless requested by yourself. For instance, if you provide a comment in a survey and request that someone contact you about it, we will use the provided contact information to meet your request; but we will strictly not link this information unless expressly requested by you.

Survey data will be analysed in group form (for instance, percentage of those aged 25-39 who gave a particular answer). From time to time verbatim comments will also be used in the reporting, provided it is not possible to identify who provided them. At no point will we reveal the person who provides a specific comment or survey response to any party unless it is required by law or requested by you. If a point of analysis could potentially result in the respondent being identified, this analysis will be skipped in reporting. It is of critical importance to us that survey participants feel that they can be completely honest within their survey responses without risk of being identified.

It is commonplace within our surveys to collect information about the suburb where you live, your gender, your age and sometimes particulars about your household or background. This information will never be used to try and identify you. We use this information so that we can group similar responses together to assist with analysis. For instance, if we are asking whether you use a particular service, it is often useful for us to see if there is a difference in the incidence of use for those who are under the age of, say, 40 years, compared to those aged 40 years or over. Being able to conduct these 'cross-tab' analysis by demographics means that we can generate useful information to assist with planning to meet the needs of our community.

Please note that because your responses are anonymous, if you type in a survey response with a request for contact, we will not be able to do so unless you also provide your contact details in the comment. These contact details will be stored separately to the analysis file.

Contact Information

From time to time we will have a space within surveys to collect personal information such as name, address, email and/or phone number. When this information is collected, the purpose of collection will be clearly stated. It is usually for one of two purposes:

  1. To have a means of contacting you if you are drawn as a winner of a competition or prize draw associated with the research; or

  2. If you wish to be contacted with further information about the topic.

As per the Victorian Information Privacy Principles (2000), any contact information collected will not be used for any purpose other than that which it was collected, unless requested by you.

If personal information is recorded within the survey for the purpose of entering a competition or draw or registering for updates, this personal information is initially stored within the same database as survey responses, but will be removed prior to analysis.

Web Survey Creator

From time to time, Moonee Valley City Council runs online surveys using Web Survey Creator - an online survey platform. The servers which store data entered within these surveys are located in Australia. Web Survey Creator abides by Victorian and Australian privacy principles. You can view their own privacy policy.

Access to data

Only specific Council staff have access to the raw survey data.  Indeed, if the survey has been conducted through a website other than Web Survey Creator, only the Social Research Officer or an accredited external provider will have access to the raw data. If the raw data is saved on our internal secure file management system, it will always be de-identified; that is, any field with contact information will be removed before saving.

Privacy

Council staff regularly undertake privacy training to ensure that they understand their obligations under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic).

Further Information

If you require any further information about research privacy or ethics, please email surveys@mvcc.vic.gov.au.