GHD (comprising GHD Group Pty Ltd and its related entities) collects and holds personal information in the course of its business from employees, contractors, clients and other individuals.

GHD respects and upholds your right to privacy protection. GHD complies with the Australian Privacy Principles in respect of the collection, use, disclosure and handling of personal information from individuals.

This policy details the practices we have adopted to protect your privacy so that you can understand how we manage the personal information you entrust to us.

By providing us with information about yourself through this website, or otherwise, you consent to the collection, use, disclosure and transfer of that information as set out in this Privacy Policy.

When do we collect and hold personal information?

Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you, and may be collected directly from you, by a third party you have given consent to disclosing personal information, or by a credit agency, government or statutory body. We collect and hold personal information (including contact name, telephone number, address, email address, occupation, education and qualifications etc) in a range of contexts:

  • when entering into relationships with new clients
  • when individuals apply for employment with us
  • when individuals register online with the GHD Clientnet™ service
  • when we conduct surveys, community consultation, and environmental studies
  • when passing information between GHD Operating Centres, credit, law enforcement, and government agencies, and professional services providers if required.

What do we do with personal information?

We may use personal information:

  • to enable us to provide services to our clients
  • to communicate information about our services
  • for our internal administrative, planning, product development, marketing and research requirements
  • to consider the suitability of applicants for employment with us

As part of the provision of services, we may outsource some of our functions to third parties which may involve the disclosure of personal information. These third parties will not be permitted to use the information for purposes other than for which the information is disclosed. We may disclose your personal information to GHD offices in countries outside the country in which it was collected if it is necessary for one of the purposes the information has been disclosed to us. For example, if you send us an application for employment, we may send it to our Operating Centre in Canada to consider whether it may be in a position to offer you employment. By way of further example, GHD technology support is provided from the Philippines and for that purpose personal information may be accessed remotely from the Phillipines. If we disclose your personal information to an operating centre in a country other than the country in which it is collected, we will take all reasonable steps to oversee that protection of your personal information is not diminished.

We will not use or disclose your personal information that was collected for a particular purpose for another purpose which you would not reasonably expect unless required or authorised by law, without your consent or otherwise consistent with the Privacy Act.

GHD must seek your consent to use or retain your personal information or disclose it to related or third parties otherwise than as set out in this Privacy Policy and you have the choice to opt-out.

Apart from this, your personal information is never shared, sold, rented or otherwise disclosed except if required by law or with your consent.

How do we manage marketing and communications?

We send marketing and communication material to you in order to give you information about our services which may be of benefit to you. At any time you may opt-out of receiving any communications from us (other than as required for the operation of our business e.g. regarding payment of accounts).

How do we use "cookies" and "log files"?

We do not use cookies on our website located at https://communications.ghd.com or in the GHD Clientnet™.

The GHD Clientnet™ website located at http://www.ghdwa.com/ uses log files on a limited basis to record appropriate access to some project information by registered users.

We may log IP addresses (i.e. the electronic addresses of computers connected to the Internet) to analyse trends, administer the site, track user movements, and gather broad demographic information.

What do we do to safeguard personal information?

We will take all reasonable steps to maintain the security of any personal information we receive. We use a variety of secure techniques to store and protect your information, including secure GHD servers, locked file cabinets, firewalls and encryption.

We will only keep your personal information when we consider it necessary for one of the purposes you have disclosed it. If it is no longer necessary to keep your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information safely.

How can you access and correct information?

If you wish to access the personal information we hold about you, or correct, update, or remove personal details please submit a request to the relevant GHD office, the Integrity Officer, or via the Contact Us link on our website, and we will respond to you promptly. We will ask you to verify your identity to ensure that we do not give information to the wrong person.

Links

Websites operated by us may contain links to other sites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties as to the privacy practices of any third-party site and are not responsible for the privacy policies of other sites.

Future changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change this policy from time to time and will notify you by posting an updated version of this policy on our website. The amended policy will apply between us as and when it is posted on our website.This document represents our policy as at March 2014.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about our privacy policy or any complaint regarding the treatment of your privacy by us please contact a local GHD office, use the Contact Us link on our website, or contact our Integrity Officer using the details set out below. Any concerns or complaints will be investigated and responded to promptly.

Integrity Officer
C/- Office of the Company Secretary
Level 15, 133 Castlereagh Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Email: integrity.officer@ghd.com
Website: www.ghd.com