Protecting your privacy

South West TAFE respects your right to privacy
When you study at the Institute, or use any of our many services, we usually collect personal information from you which allows us to identify who you are. We respect this personal information and do our best to keep it safe and secure.

Why do we collect personal information?
When you enrol we ask you for personal information so that we can identify you as a student of the Institute and so that we can contact you (to pass on your results, for example). We try only to collect the information we need, though sometimes we ask questions which are required by government departments, such as “what is your highest level of schooling?”. We may also ask for personal information where we think we can offer you extra assistance, such as “do you have a disability?”.

How do we collect personal information?
We generally collect your personal information from your enrolment form, but there may be additional ways in which we ask you for information, such as on a Work Placement Application Form, where work placement is a part of your course.

What do we do with the information we collect?
Generally, the information we collect about you stays within the Institute and is shared between your teaching department, the Student Management Department, the Finance Department, and other support services such as the Learning Resource Centre and Student Services.

Sometimes we are required to disclose information to other organisations. For example:

• If your training is taking place as a result of a Registered Training Agreement, we will report on your progress to your employer or host employer.
• Where required by law we will report to other government bodies, such as Centrelink or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
• We provide information to our funding body, the Office of Training and Tertiary Education, for their annual audit and survey of participating students.

Of course, where we do provide information to another agency, they are also required to respect your privacy.

How do I know the information is correct?
We will do everything we can to make sure that the information we hold about you is up to date and correct. You can help us in this by filling out your enrolment form carefully and letting our Student Records Office know when any of your personal details change.

Can I access my personal information?
You have a right to access your personal information, subject to some exceptions allowed by law. If you would like to do so, please let us know. For security reasons, we will ask you to put your request in writing, and we reserve the right to charge a fee for locating the information, depending on the difficulty of the request. If the information is incorrect we will do our best to correct it as soon as possible after you tell us.

What happens if I don’t provide my personal information?
You can choose not to provide your personal details, but then we may not be able to provide you with all the services you require.

What do I do if I want to know more?
If you want to know more about what sort of personal information we hold and what we do with it, contact:

Terry White, Registrar
Phone: (03) 5564 8920

We also have an Online courses privacy statement which is about the way in which our website collects information such as email addresses and computer user IDs when you access certain sites.