QILT and the associated website are administered by the Social Research Centre under contract to the Australian Government Department of Education. The Social Research Centre is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.
Generally, the Social Research Centre collects personal information in order to properly and efficiently carry out social research activities, and only uses personal information for the purposes for which it was collected or for a directly related purpose (unless otherwise required by or authorised under law).
In addition to this general privacy policy, where more detailed information is needed to explain the Social Research Centre’s privacy practices, the Social Research Centre publishes separate data collection statements to describe how it will handle personal information that it collects. For example, where the Social Research Centre asks website visitors to provide personal information in relation to a particular program administered by the Social Research Centre, it will provide a privacy notice which details its practices in relation to that particular program. For more information about how the Social Research Centre may collect and use your personal information on its websites, visit the Privacy section of the Social Research Centre’s website.
The Social Research Centre’s servers may record a website viewer’s email address if a message is sent to the Social Research Centre online. Email addresses will not be added to mailing lists unless users have provided it to the Social Research Centre in order to subscribe to one of the Social Research Centre subscription services, such as the Site Change Subscription Service or Media Subscription Service.
Where users choose to send the Social Research Centre a completed electronic form that includes personal details, the Social Research Centre collects personally identifiable information such as names, addresses and email addresses.
The information collected by email or electronic forms will be used only for the purpose for which users provide it and the Social Research Centre will not disclose it unless one of the circumstances described below under the heading ‘Information sharing’ has been satisfied. Where users send the Social Research Centre a message online, the Social Research Centre will use the information provided to process enquiries and may provide that information to third parties including higher education institutions and other related entities for the purpose of responding to enquiries.
The Social Research Centre online services are used, servers automatically record information that each user’s browser sends whenever a website is visited. These server logs may include information such as server addresses, top level domain names (for example, .com, .gov, .au, .uk, etc.), dates and times of website visits, pages accessed and documents viewed, previous sites visited, and browser type, browser language, and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify a particular browser.
A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that uniquely identifies a particular browser. It is information that web browsers send back to the Social Research Centre’s website server whenever the website is visited more than once. The Social Research Centre uses cookies to ‘remember’ browsers between page visits. In this situation, the cookie identifies a particular browser, not personal information about the website viewer.
The Social Research Centre use Google Analytics to collect information about visitors to the QILT website. Google Analytics uses first-party cookies and JavaScript code to help analyse how users use the site - no third-party cookies are used on the QILT website. It anonymously tracks how visitors interact with this website, including how they have accessed the site (for example from a search engine, a link, an advertisement) and what they did on the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purposes of compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google Analytics Demographic and Interest Reporting is enabled on the QILT website. Demographic and interest reports may be generated including identifiers such as your age, gender, affinity categories (for example educational and training interests), in-market segments and other categories based on acquisition, behaviour, and conversion metrics.
You can prevent your information from being collected by Google Analytics by refusing the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser or by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
When personal information is provided in relation to the Social Research Centre services, the department will allow access to that personal information and will correct personal information if it is inaccurate (subject to restrictions on such access/alteration of records under the applicable provisions of any law of the Commonwealth). The Privacy Act 1988 also provides website visitors with an opportunity to request access to documents in the possession of the Social Research Centre.
The Social Research Centre only discloses personal information to third parties in the following circumstances:
The department takes all reasonable steps:
The Social Research Centre takes reasonable steps to make sure that the personal information it collects and stores is accurate, relevant, up to date, complete and not misleading.
The Social Research Centre regularly reviews its compliance with this privacy policy. If you have any questions/complaints about privacy or confidentiality or if you wish to access and amend your personal information, please email the Social Research Centre at privacy@srcentre.com.au or by writing to: Privacy Officer Level 5, 350 Queen Street, MELBOURNE VIC 3000.
The Social Research Centre’s privacy policy is reviewed and updated periodically and is available at https://www.srcentre.com.au/research-participants#privacy.