Privacy Policy for the Cornea & Contact Lens Society of Australia (CCLSA)

1. Pledge on Privacy

The privacy of members and others is of utmost importance to the Cornea & Conact Lens Society of Australia (ABN 63 009 718 423) (CCLSA).  This Privacy Statement sets out how the CCLSA manages personal information.  It applies to your use of the CCLSA website, your dealings with CCLSA as a member or otherwise, and any third party information that may be collected by us.

The term "personal information" as used in this Policy refers to information from which your identity can reasonably be ascertained. CCLSA is bound by the National Privacy Principles and complies with these principles to the extent required by the Privacy Act 1988 (C'th).

We may update our policies and this Privacy Statement from time to time.  The most current version will always be located on our website.

The following sections explain how and when the CCLSA may collect personal information from you.

2. Collection and use of personal information

The CCLSA processes personal information for specific and limited purposes which we inform you about when we ask you for information.  The types of personal information we collect will vary depending on your membership, your dealings with the CCLS and the products, services and benefits we (or our agents, contractors and third parties) provide to you, or a request or inquiry you make in relation to such products, benefits and services.  This information may include any or all of the following:

  • name, address(es), telephone number(s) and other contact details;
  • electronic address(es);
  • date of birth;
  • gender;
  • financial information with respect to the payment of membership dues
  • all information required by us to assess and verify your eligibility to be a member of the CCLSA; and
  • any benefits you obtain from your membership.

The CCLSA may also collect and use personal data to establish memberships, to provide members with membership benefits, services, to market products and services which we think may be of interest to you, or to communicate with you for other purposes.   

The CCLSA also collects personal information to assist in identifying ways in which we can serve you better, such as providing our products and services to you more effectively, and to assist our internal administration and operations including accounting, risk management, record keeping, archiving, systems development and testing.
Some of the information we collect is for the purpose of improving our interaction with members and their involvement with the CCLSA.

The CCLSA keeps your data only for as long as is reasonably needed for such purposes and in accordance with any applicable legal reporting or documentation retention requirements. We only collect personal information from you when you visit the site if you use the "Contact us" facility to send us an email. In this case we will use your personal information to respond to your email. We may also use this information to send you, by email, certain product, health or other information which we consider to be of importance to you but will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do not want to receive this information.

3. How the CCLSA uses personal information

The CCLSA may use and disclose your personal information for a variety of purposes in connection with servicing you as a member or customer and in relation to our operations.  These include:

  • processing and administering your membership or your dealings with the CCLSA;
  • providing you with the membership benefits, products and services you have requested from the CCLSA;
  • developing processes, products, services and benefits to better meet your needs;
  • disclosing your information for use by relevant parties in connection with your membership; and
  • conducting market research and marketing our products and services to you more generally.

The fact that you lodged a proxy form and/or attended a member meeting in person or voted in a board election will be stored by the CCLSA and used in accordance with this Privacy Statement. The way that you (or your proxy) voted will NOT be recorded except on an aggregated basis to determine the outcome of any vote.
If you do not wish to receive marketing information from the CCLSA, please use the contact details below to update your preferences.  Please note that if you make such a request:

  • we may still need to use your personal information to provide you with the services and products you have requested as a member; and
  • it may not be possible for us to immediately action a request to cease receiving any or all marketing material.  However, we will respond to such requests as soon as practicable and will make all reasonable efforts to promptly activate a change in preference to opt out of receiving future marketing material.

The CCLSA will not sell or rent your personal information without your consent. The CCLSA may disclose your personal information where it is required or authorised by law to disclose your personal information or for any purposes connected to a fraud, crime prevention or impropriety investigation.

4. Disclosure of information

Personal information collected from members and others may be disclosed to further the purposes referred to in paragraph 3 above.  Personal information of members and others may occasionally be transferred to third parties who act for or on behalf of the CCLSA (such as our service providers, including mail houses and IT consultants). Such third parties may operate different privacy policies. However, the CCLSA will endeavour to ensure that such third parties provide the same level of protection as the CCLSA and, where appropriate, it will contractually require them to process personal information transferred to them only for the purposes expressly authorised by the CCLSA. We will not share with third parties any data about you that is sensitive (e.g. medical information) in the absence of your prior and explicit consent. Your consent may always be revoked at a later date. If consent is revoked the CCLSA may not be able to carry out certain requests made by you. The CCLSA will, where practicable, inform third parties to whom your data have been transferred of your withdrawal of consent.

4. Right of access

You have the right to access and update your personal information unless certain circumstances, set out in the National Privacy Principles, apply. We take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information we hold is up-to-date, accurate, and complete. If you wish to access or correct your personal information held by us, please contact the CCLSA . Your requests will be dealt with in a prompt and proper manner in accordance with the National Privacy Principles. No charge will be levied for requesting access or correction of your personal information, however, the CCLSA may charge a small fee to cover its costs of providing access.

5. Security and confidentiality

The CCLSA takes reasonable steps to ensure the security and confidentiality of personal information that it collects online. The CCLSA uses data password protection. Access to personal information is restricted to those employees who have a need to use the data, who have been trained to handle such data properly and observe strict standards of confidentiality.

6. Anonymous data and "cookies"

Most of the information that the CCLSA collects when you visit the site is anonymous information,  such as the pages you visit and searches you perform, which is processed by the CCLSA to help improve the contents of the site and to compile aggregate statistics about use of the site for internal, market research purposes. To collect this anonymous information, "cookies" may be sent via your browser and installed on your hard drive that collect the first level domain name of the user (e.g., "bigmail.com" from an email address of "john@bigmail.com") and the date and time of access. "Cookies" by themselves cannot be used to discover the identity of the user. A "cookie" is a small piece of information which is sent to your browser and stored on your computer's hard drive. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a "cookie", this will enable you to decide if you want to accept it or not.

7. Spamming: the CCLSA does not condone "spamming".

Spamming is defined as sending unsolicited emails, usually of a commercial nature, in large numbers and repeatedly to individuals with whom the sender has had no previous contact or who have declined to receive such communications. If you contact us by email and CCLSA believes that certain product, health, or other information is of importance to you, we may inform you by email but will give you the choice to opt out of receiving further communications of this type.

8. Personal information and children

The CCLSA will not knowingly collect, use or disclose personal information from a minor under the age of 13, without obtaining prior consent from a person with parental responsibility (e.g. a parent or guardian) through direct offline contact. We will provide the parent with (i) notice of the specific types of personal information being collected from the minor, and (ii) the opportunity to object to any further collection, use, or storage of such information.

9. Links to other sites

This Privacy Policy applies only to the site. If you link from the site to another website operated by a third party any personal information collected, used or disclosed as a result of your accessing that website will be subject to the relevant operator's privacy policy and any privacy laws which apply to that operator

10. Contact the CCLSA

If you have any queries or complaints about our compliance with this Privacy Policy, or if you would like to make any recommendations or comments to improve the quality of our Privacy Policy, please contact the CCLSA. This privacy policy is effective as of February 26, 2009. We aim to constantly improve the tools available to you to manage the data that you provide to us, and from time to time we may amend this Privacy Policy. Please refer to this page regularly to ensure you are familiar with our current Privacy Policy.

To contact the CCLSA, please call 02 9438 3172 or email