Privacy Policy

Background

The Real Estate Institute of Queensland (“REIQ”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is the peak industry body for real estate agents and property professionals in Queensland.  REIQ operates various websites and provides a range of products and services including, for example:

• facilitating transactions in land, including provision of digital forms and contracts through Realworks and RealworksHR
• supply of hard copy documents through the REIQ shop
• facilitating professional development training courses and events, including as a registered training organisation
• providing professional registrations and licensing
• providing complaint resolution services
• offering and managing professional membership services
• general updates and information on real estate and property matters

REIQ recognises the importance of protecting your privacy. We attach great importance to safeguarding personal information that we hold. 

Our Privacy Policy outlines REIQ’s commitment to protect the privacy of our customers’ personal information and other personal information we receive in the conduct of our business.  Please take the time to read our Privacy Policy.

We comply with all relevant privacy laws, including the requirements under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act), the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act and relevant Australian State or Territory jurisdiction-specific privacy laws that apply to us.  We are required to comply with the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (Cth) in relation to our obligations as a registered training organisation.

Our privacy policy

This Privacy Policy explains:

• the kind of personal information we collect and why we collect it
• how we look after personal information
• how we hold, use and disclose personal information
• how individuals may access and update their personal information
• how privacy complaints may be made and how they will be dealt with by REIQ

This Privacy Policy applies to all of our customers and users of our websites, products and services, and any other individual whose personal information we receive in operating our business, wherever they are located and whether dealing with REIQ in person, or via telephone, email, correspondence or via our websites. This Privacy Policy also applies to REIQ job applicants. 

This Privacy Policy applies to all of our websites.  It does not apply to websites or platforms that we do not operate, such as linked third party websites or platforms that interact with our products or services.  Those website and platform owners are responsible for the privacy of the information they collect and should be contacted directly for details of their privacy policies.  If we refer you to a third-party website or platform, we are not making any representations to you regarding the privacy or security of any personal information that is collected or held by the third-party website or platform.  The privacy practices of other businesses may differ substantially from ours.  You should read the privacy policy of any other websites or platforms you visit before using them.  We do not accept responsibility for the content or practices of websites operated by third parties that are linked from an REIQ website.

By using our websites, or by providing personal information to us, you agree to the terms of our Privacy Policy.  If you open a Realworks or RealworksHR account, apply for REIQ membership or renewal, or apply for any REIQ training course or registration, you agree to the terms of our Privacy Policy as part of the account opening or sign-up process. When you agree to the terms of our Privacy Policy, you consent to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of that information as described in our Privacy Policy.  You have a right to withdraw your consent at any time and may do so by using the contact details below for the Privacy Officer.

We need to know certain information about our users and customers to authenticate who has access to various products and services, and who would like to hear from us about the latest news and new products and services.  Wherever possible, we maintain the anonymity of our users.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect personal information in the provision of our products and services, including the promotion of our products and services.  We collect personal information so that we can provide products, services and information to you.

We collect information about you when you access and use our websites, products and services.  The types of information we collect will depend on your use of our websites, and the type of product or service requested by you.

We also collect information where we are required to do so by law.

The types of personal information we collect depends on the circumstances in which the information is collected. The types of personal information we collect relating to our customers and visitors to our websites may include:

• Communication Data that includes any communication that you send to us whether that be through the contact form on our website, through email, telephone call, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, responding to enquiries, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.
• Customer Data that includes data relating to any purchase or trial of our products and services such as your name, title, billing address, delivery address email address, contact details and purchase details. We record and store payment information (such as credit card and bank account details) in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard where you have selected automatic payment for any of our products or services. We process this data to supply the products and services you have purchased or are trialling, and to keep records of such transactions. Our lawful ground for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us or taking steps at your request to enter into such a contract.
• User Data that includes data about how you use our website and any of our online services together with any data that you post for publication on our website or through other online services. We process this data to operate our website and ensure relevant content is provided to you, to ensure the security of our website, to maintain back-ups of our website and databases and to enable publication and administration of our website, other online services and business. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business.
• Technical Data that includes data about your use of our website and online services such as your IP address, your login data, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our website. The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We process this data to analyse your use of our website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and website, to deliver relevant content and advertisements to you and to understand the effectiveness of our advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.
• Device Data that includes information about your computer device upon which you install and run any of our applications, and includes the unique device identifier, operating system, hardware components, software version number, and usage.
• Marketing Data that includes data about your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences. We process this data to deliver relevant newsletters, website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of this marketing. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

If you are a customer or visitor to our websites, we may collect the following information about you, and potentially others in your organisation as applicable to the product or service:

• Your name
• Your date of birth or year of birth
• Your address (residential, postal and business)
• Other contact details for you, such as your email address and telephone number(s)
• Your occupation, role title and employer
• Your membership status with REIQ
• Details of the products you purchase or services you sign up to
• Any information provided to us when you register for a Realworks or RealworksHR account, apply for or renew an REIQ membership or enrol in an REIQ training course or for registration or licensing
• Information that you include in your Realworks, RealworksHR, Student or Membership online profile, account or documents, which may include your gender, licence/registration number, membership number and signature
• Information regarding your use of our products
• Information about real property you are dealing or intending to deal with
• How you make payments to us, and how we make refunds to you, such as your banking and payment details. This could include bank account and debit or credit card details
• Information regarding your credit score or creditworthiness
• Information relating to insurance policies or coverage held by you
• Information regarding your use of our websites including searches you undertake on our websites and information that you provide to us via our websites (for example if you use a forum, feedback/rating tool, online survey or other tool or input form on our websites)
• Information about your use of our social media content
• Records of communications and dealings with you, such as emails, telephone, live chat and in-person communications
• Location information
• Information we may collect as part of a survey or customer feedback request
• Information that you provide to us, for example, when completing an application or as evidence in respect of a complaint
• Information that we derive from the information that we hold about you, such as derived demographic information
• If you apply to work for us: Your resume, information about your past work and study, references and police background checks.

We collect information about people who are our suppliers, business customers and business partners, or who are employed or engaged by our suppliers, business customers and business partners.  The information we collect is that which we need to do business with that party.  For example, if you are an employee or contractor of a supplier or business customer, we may collect information about who you work for, the location where you work, your position or job title, and employer contact details. 

As part of working with business customers, we process personal data relating to, but not limited to, our customer’s employees, personnel, customers and vendors.  In circumstances such as these, we may be provided with the personal data of individuals who are not aware of the processing of their personal data via our products or services.  In these situations, we may not have direct contact with individuals whose personal data we are processing, and it may not be appropriate or feasible for us to provide them with a privacy notice that sets out how we process their personal data.  We consider that the processing of this information is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which is to be expected, our legal obligations and to perform our contractual obligations to our customers.

If we are made aware of personal information that we did not solicit, we will determine as soon as reasonably practicable whether we could have lawfully collected that information as part of our functions or activities. If we are not satisfied that we could have lawfully collected the information, then we will (if it is lawful and reasonable) destroy the information or ensure that it is de-identified.

We collect information about people who visit our offices and attend our events.  This may include photographs and video, and your signature and any consents when you sign in.

We may record and monitor telephone calls and other communications between you and us for training, quality control, verification and compliance purposes.

When you communicate with us, we may collect additional information including the languages you speak and how best to manage communications with you.

Sensitive information

Sensitive information includes information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs and criminal record.  (Sensitive information or sensitive personal information is defined in section 6 of the Australian Privacy Act 1988.) 

There may be limited circumstances where we collect sensitive information.  For example, we may be asked to collect sensitive information for government reporting purposes in relation to diversity. If we do have to collect sensitive information, we will do so in accordance with all relevant laws — for example, we will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent and where it is reasonably necessary for us to do so, or if we are otherwise allowed or required by law to collect that information.  If you provide us with sensitive information, we will consider that you have consented to us collecting it.

Additional information regarding collection of information when using our websites or communications

When using our websites, we and our technology partners may collect information about how you use our websites.  Where possible, we do not associate this information with an identifiable person and use it on an aggregated basis.  We may collect information such as:

• your use of the website, such as pages visited, links clicked, text entered, and mouse or cursor movements, and when you visit each page
• device information, such as the model and ID of the device you use, operating system, MAC address, device time zone, telephone number and mobile phone network
• server log information, such as details of how you used the service, IP address, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your use and referral URL
• information that may uniquely identify your browser or your account, and other online identifiers
• your user name and password, if you create an account with us or use a service that requires login information
• location information.

We also collect some statistical information about visitors to our websites (for example, the number of visitors, pages viewed, types of transactions conducted, time online and documents downloaded), but this is not personal information because we may not know who the visitor is or because we may aggregate this information so that no person can be identified from the statistical information.

We may use publicly available sources to approximate your geographic region and Internet Service Provider based on your IP address.  We use various technologies to collect and store information, including cookies, pixel tags, tracking tags, and local storage such as browser web storage or application data caches, databases, and server logs. These technologies help us track your usage and remember your preferences.

Other than for statistical information and user behaviour on our websites, we do not collect any information about you through our websites unless you voluntarily provide the information to us.

Analytics cookies and tracking tags may also be used to collect information about your use of our website (visitation data) that allow our third-party website analytics services to help us analyse trends and understand our website users’ behaviour patterns in the aggregate.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser.  However if you do, you may not be able to use the full functionality of our websites. 

We do not alter our websites’ data collection and use practices when we see a Do Not Track signal from your browser.

Use of hashed portions of personal information and third party technologies can also be used for targeted marketing and creating audiences including across platform marketing.  Sometimes, for example, your use of our website may be used by a third party to target advertisements to you on a non-REIQ website or app. 

Through our use of Google Analytics, the information generated by a cookie about your use of our websites (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 purpose of evaluating your use of our websites, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.

Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. 

Information collected by the Google Analytics cookie or tracking tag is transmitted to, and stored by, Google in accordance with its privacy practices. To opt out of Google Analytics, please visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner described in Google's privacy policy and for the purposes set out above.  You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.

Our communications to you (such emails, newsletters, direct messages via social media platforms and the like) may include links to pages on our website.  By clicking on such a link, you will be directed to a page on our website, and we may collect information related to the "click-through".  We may use cookies to associate information in the click-through with your previous experiences on our website. You may avoid having this information collected by not clicking on the link in our communications. 

How we collect personal information

We collect personal information in several ways, including:

• directly from you, for example, when you give it to us
• when you enter your personal details on our websites
• when you order products or services from us
• when you download or upload content
• when you create an account with us or update your account details
• when you apply to work for us
• when you email, text or telephone us, engage in live chat or when you share information with us from other social applications, services and websites
• when you interact with our website, online content and advertising
• when you visit our offices or attend our events, for example, you may be photographed or captured on CCTV
• from publicly available sources of information, including third parties from whom we may acquire information such as credit reporting bodies
• using technology to deduce information about you, such as demographic information
• if you are or work for a supplier or business customer of REIQ, or a potential supplier or business customer, as part of business dealings with you
• from your employer, if your employer is a supplier or business customer of REIQ
• from your service provider, if your service provider is a business customer of REIQ
• from background check providers, former employers, referees, and educational institutions, if you apply to work for us.

If you choose not to provide us with information, we may be unable to supply products or services to you or we may not be able to provide you with products, services or information that is relevant to you.

Use and disclosure of personal information

REIQ may use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

• to provide our products and services to you, including processing applications and renewals for membership services and training enrolments
• to identify you and to assist you to obtain and use our products and services
• to review your dealings with us, including the products and services you use, your potential needs, and new products that might be of interest to you or other customers
• to consider whether to recommend products and services to you
•  to deliver relevant content and marketing to you
• to measure or understand the effectiveness of the content and marketing we serve you
• to administer and manage our websites
• to help us decide how we can improve our products and services, and to improve our websites, our products, our services and our customer service
• to provide you with information that we think may be of interest to you
• to complete transactions with you
• to facilitate transactions for you or involving you as a party
• to manage your account
• to respond to inquiries from you
• to provide you with customer support including responding to complaints
• to promote real estate and property services and REIQ membership to the community
• for property market research and analytics
• to create reports for our management, members and business partners
• to ensure that you comply with all relevant laws and your contractual obligations to us
• to process payments
• to administer surveys and promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by us or our business partners
• to carry out consumer, market, community and product research, compile demographics, to analyse data and to deduce information
• for security purposes, including to perform functions that we believe are necessary to protect the security and proper functioning of our websites and online services
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements
• to investigate or pursue a legal claim
• to protect and defend our rights and property
• to make special offers related to our products and services
• to promote and market our products and services and the products and services of others
• to provide you with relevant and timely information
• to assist in the enforcement of laws
• to maintain and update our records, which may include billing records
• ensure our internal business operations are running smoothly which may include fulfilling legal requirements and conducting confidential systems maintenance and testing
• to help preserve the personal safety and security of our customers, website users, staff and the public
• to determine whether to hire you to work for us
• to conduct appropriate checks to detect fraud
• to monitor and detect possible fraud or breaches of our terms and conditions of service
• as otherwise required or authorised by law.

We may also use personal information for purposes as would be reasonably expected by you in connection with those activities described above.  

We may also collect, use and disclose statistical information about property market trends and analytics, but this is not personal information because we aggregate this information so that no person can be identified from the statistical information.

Direct marketing and opt-out

To provide our newsletters and to communicate account and promotional information to you, you may be contacted by us via several means including e-mail, SMS and phone communications, push notifications, social media posts or chats, hardcopy mail and other similar means.  If you have provided us with your email address, created an account with us, purchased a product or service, or subscribed to any of our newsletters, we may send you information from time to time that we think is relevant to you and your interests.  Should you not wish to receive communications of this nature from us, you may unsubscribe or opt-out:

• by following the link or instructions in the relevant communication(s)
• by contacting the Privacy Officer using the details below to update your communication preferences
• by changing the communication preference settings for your account on our websites and within our portals
• by changing settings on your device, such privacy settings or push notification settings.

If you unsubscribe from marketing communications, this will not stop you receiving service-related communications from us if we are otherwise legally entitled to send them to you.

You may contact us at any time to request that we refrain from providing your personal information to third parties for the purposes of direct marketing by those third parties by contacting the Privacy Officer.

We will not charge you for giving effect to your opt-out request and will take all reasonable steps to meet your request at the earliest possible opportunity.

Disclosure of personal information

We only disclose personal information for a purpose for which it was collected, or for a secondary purpose in circumstances permitted by law.  This includes where you consent to us disclosing your personal information.  You can give us your consent expressly or your consent may be implied.

We may disclose your personal information:

• to any organisation where you request us to do so that interacts with our products and services, including platforms such as Realworks, Igloo, Hutly, Docusign and Infotrack
• to your employer where your employer is our customer
• to your service provider where your service provider is our customer
• to insurance companies
• to a court, tribunal or other alternative dispute resolution bodies and personnel
• to anyone who acquires or is considering acquiring our assets or business (or part of it)
• to a person who serves us with a subpoena or other legal document requiring us by law to disclose information or documents about you to them
• to our consultants, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, service providers and professional advisors, who assist us in operating our business, for example to IT and cloud service providers, training service providers, payment service providers, companies that provide identification verification services, customer and property market analytics providers, marketing service providers, accounting service providers, website operators, mail house operators, CRM providers, collection services, banks, investigators, and organisations that we engage to deal with you on our behalf, and we only allow such third parties to process your personal information for specific purposes and in accordance with our instructions
• to government agencies, regulators and law enforcement bodies
• to our related companies
• to our sponsors, suppliers and business partners that provide related products and services, and who may use your personal information for the purpose of direct marketing
• to other organisations where necessary or reasonable to do so in relation to the operation of our business.

Data used and stored by REIQ is hosted in Australia, the United States and Canada.  We may store your personal information on servers in web hosting facilities outside of these countries.

We may disclose your personal information to organisations outside of Australia, including to our related bodies corporate, to contractors, cloud service providers, providers of payment services, and to third party providers who assist us to manage promotional material related to our products, management of our customer base and support processes, email, website hosting, office administration, courier and accounting services.  The disclosure may be to organisations located in the United States, the UK and the EU. 

The personal information we collect and store may be transferred out of Australia, for example, to the UK, the EU and the United States.   The service providers we engage may use international data centres and disaster recovery sites.

Security and storage of personal information

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.  We provide a robust level of security when you use our websites, products and services, or when you sign in as a visitor to our office or attend our events.  We have physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect personal information which is held by us.

We may store personal information in a variety of formats, including electronic or paper formats.

We allow access to your personal information only to those employees, contractors and partners who have a business need to know such information. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they must keep it confidential under contractual obligations.

We take measures to enhance the security of our websites, products and services.  If you are a customer or user who has an account with us, it is important for you to protect against unauthorised access to your password and to your computer.  You should have a unique and complex password and make sure to regularly update your operating system.  You must not disclose your password to others.

Transmissions sent to or from our websites are routinely monitored for quality control and systems administration.  We cannot guarantee the total security of any data transmission over the Internet.

A number of physical, administrative, personnel and technical measures are used to protect your personal information, including restricting access to offices, files, server rooms, databases and firewalls to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised use.  Access to personal information stored electronically is restricted to staff and contractors whose job purpose requires access.  We utilise data encryption in relation to shopping cart functions on our website. We continuously monitor and update our website security to minimise the risk of hacking and use anti-spyware and malware. 

Although due care is taken, we cannot guarantee the security of information provided to us via electronic means or stored electronically.  No security measures are perfect, and we cannot promise to be able to withstand security threats in all circumstances.

Personal information is only retained for as long as is necessary or as required by law.

We use secure methods to destroy or de-identify any personal information, provided the information is no longer needed by us for any purpose and doing so is not prohibited by law.

You may make a request to us in writing to remove or delete your personal information and, where permitted, we will do so in accordance with all relevant laws.

We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected notifiable data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach if we are legally required to do so.

Changes to this privacy policy

We regularly review this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices.

We may amend this policy from time to time.  If we do, we will update the Privacy Policy on our websites.  The changes will come into effect immediately upon notification on our websites.  If the changes are significant and relevant to customers, we will aim to provide customers who have an account with us with an email notification of the changes or via REIQ updates or newsletters.  You should check our websites from time to time to understand how the current version of our Privacy Policy applies to you.  Continued membership of REIQ and continued use of our products and services will be deemed acceptance of any changes to our Privacy Policy.

Access to your personal information

You can request access at any time to personal information we hold about you by using the contact details below for the Privacy Officer.

We will process your request within a reasonable time, usually 21 days for a straightforward request.  More time may be needed, depending on the nature of the request.  There is no fee for requesting access to your personal information; however, we may charge you the reasonable cost of processing your request.   If a fee applies, we will advise you before we provide access.  Sometimes we are not required to provide you with access – for example, if the law says we can deny access.

If there is a reason for not granting you access to any of your personal information, we will provide you with a written explanation of the reasons for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so) and inform you of the mechanisms to complain about the refusal.

We may also need to verify your identity when you request your personal information.

Correction of personal information

We try to ensure that all information we hold about you is accurate, complete and up to date.  You must promptly notify us if there are any changes to your personal information. 

Registered users of Realworks and RealworksHR, and enrolled students and members can update their user profile at any time by logging into the relevant portal from our websites. 

You may ask us at any time to correct personal information held by us about you, which you believe is incorrect or out of date.  We will deal with your request within a reasonable time, by acknowledging your request within 14 business days of the request, and aiming to grant any access within 14 business days of the acknowledgement unless the request involves complex considerations or voluminous materials in which case we will contact you to provide an estimated timeframe.

We may need to verify your identity when you request an update or correction to your personal information and before access to personal information is granted.

Once your request has been processed by us, you may be forwarded the information by mail or email or you may personally inspect it at the location where the information is held or another appropriate place. Whenever possible, we will endeavour to make the information available to you in the manner requested by you unless it is unreasonable for us to do so.

If you would like to make an update or correction to any personal information we hold about you, please let us know by sending an email to the Privacy Officer at the contact details below or if you have an online account, by updating your account details on our portals.  If there is a reason for not making a correction to any personal information, we will provide you with a written explanation of the reasons for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so) and inform you of the mechanisms to complain about the refusal.

You may choose to interact with us anonymously or using pseudonyms where lawful and reasonable, for example if you have questions general in nature.  However, you are required to provide true and accurate details when requesting the supply of products and enrolling for membership, training courses, registration or licensing.  You agree to provide accurate information if so required. 

Contact details and complaints

If you have a complaint about privacy related issues, please contact the Privacy Officer at the details provided below.

Following receipt of your complaint, we will acknowledge receipt within 3 business days, and investigate and respond to you within a reasonable period.  Where it is anticipated that we will not be able to respond within 20 business days after the complaint is received, we will contact you to provide an estimate of how long it will take to investigate and respond.

For further information, or if you would like to make a complaint about our use, handling or disclosure of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer at the details provided below.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may also contact the relevant regulator such as the Australian Information Commissioner.  As at the date of this Privacy Policy, the contact details are as follows:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218

Sydney NSW 2001

Phone: 1300 363 992

Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Online: https://www.oaic.gov.au/individuals/how-do-i-make-a-privacy-complaint

If you would like more information about the Privacy Act or Australian privacy requirements in general, please visit the Office of the Information Commissioner’s website at www.oaic.gov.au.

While your privacy is important to us, nothing in this Privacy Policy constitutes a voluntary opt in by us to any privacy laws, anywhere in the world, which we are not legally bound to comply with.

Real Estate Institute of Queensland, ABN 49 009 661 287

Email address: privacy@reiq.com.au

Postal address: PO Box 3447, TINGALPA DC QLD 4173

Telephone: (07) 3249 7347

This policy was last updated on 9 December 2024