Privacy, Confidentiality and Data
As a Registered Training Organisation (RTO), we must collect personal information from you. This might include things like your name, address, birthdate, Unique Student Identifier (USI), employment history and education history.
It is very important to us that your personal information is protected. This page explains how QTC collects, uses, discloses and protects your information.
QTC is committed to supporting the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) set out in the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000. Our aim is to support, and ensure that QTC complies with the NPP, which forms the basis of the law introduced to strengthen privacy protection for the public.
Collection of information
QTC receives and stores transaction information, information you enter on our website or have provided to us in application, registration or administration processes.
Wherever it is lawful and practicable, QTC will endeavour to provide you with the option of not identifying yourself or not providing personal information when entering transactions with us. However, failure to provide the full and complete information as requested may result in a limited ability on our part to offer or deliver complete services to you.
No personal information is collected when you browse our site generally – we do not keep records which identify those who have accessed our site. In addition, personally identifiable information such as name, birth date and contact details (email addresses) are only collected from you directly.
Information collected is kept for as long as it is needed to provide the requested service – when your information is no longer required for these purposes it will be removed.
Use and disclosure of Information
The primary purpose in collecting information from you is to enable us to provide services as efficiently as possible. We will only collect and store information about you that is necessary. The information you provide will not be disclosed to third parties.
QTC will not, without your consent, disclose personal information for any purpose (a Secondary purpose) other than for the main purpose (Primary purpose) of fulfilling our business commitments to you, except where:
- It is required or authorised by law, or for purposes of law enforcement and matters directly related to law
- enforcement, or the prevention of unlawful activity;
- The secondary purpose is related to the primary purpose (or directly related when sensitive information is
- involved) and there is a reasonable expectation that we would use or disclose the information in the
- circumstances;
- QTC reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent any serious and imminent threat to any person’s life, health or safety or the public’s health or safety.
QTC will not otherwise disclose your personal information to any other party without your consent.
Data sharing with NCVER
Please note that we are required by law (under the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (Cth) (NVETR Act)) to disclose the personal information we collect about you to the National VET Data Collection kept by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research Ltd (NCVER). The NCVER is responsible for collecting, managing, analysing and communicating research and statistics about the Australian VET sector.
We are also authorised by law (under the NVETR Act) to disclose your personal information to the relevant state or territory training authority.
More information on how the NCVER manages your personal information is included in our enrolment form. And you can also check the NCVER Privacy Policy at http://www.ncver.edu.au/privacy.
Data sharing with other third parties
No QTC employee will share information about students with any third party unless prior written authorisation is obtained from the student, or disclosure is required by law.
Students may nominate third parties they wish to access their records. This process is conducted by the Training Manager who ensures a Third-Party Access Form is completed and the security details for the third party are obtained. These details will be entered into the student’s file.
If you are enrolled in a program that is sponsored by your employer, and you do not authorise us to share your study details with your employer, you must notify us in writing.
Any staff member who receives a request for information from a person claiming to be authorised must verify this authorisation and any related conditions through either a password or a series of questions before to releasing any information.
Staff members will not release any information to any other third-parties requesting student information. The Training Manager will obtain details of the request in writing, and discuss these to the student in question to determine whether they wish to authorise access through a written consent form.
How we keep your information secure
QTC will use all reasonable means to ensure that you only provide personal information in a secure environment and when the information is no longer required, it will be destroyed or permanently rendered anonymous.
Where indicated by a lock (on the browser window), we protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information, you input. In conjunction with our key suppliers and agents, we operate secure data networks protected by an industry standard firewall and password protection system. We also take care to ensure that we have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, modification or disclosure of your user data under our control.
The security of any information (including personal information) downloaded and stored on your PC or Server is the responsibility of the individual. The individual is also responsible for the correct configuration of the hardware and software he/she uses to access the QTC web site, along with the physical security and maintenance of that equipment.
Notwithstanding the fact that we take all reasonable steps to protect your personal data including the use of encryption technology, we cannot guarantee the security of any data you disclose on-line. You can help us keep your personal information secure by logging off when you have finished using a shared computer.
QTC imposes strict rules on its employees who have access either to the databases that store your user information or to the servers that host our services and while we cannot guarantee that any unauthorised access, disclosure, loss, misuse or alteration to your data will not occur, we will take all reasonable steps to prevent such unfortunate occurrences. You accept the inherent security implications of dealing on-line over the Internet and will not hold QTC or its employees responsible for any breach of security.
Here are some of the ways that we protect your information:
- We store all digital documents in secure folders with access restricted to the smallest amount of people possible.
- We limit the amount of physical documents we print. Where we do print physical documents with personal information, these are kept in a secure locked location when not in use.
- We review who has access to our IT systems on a quarterly basis (i.e. every three months) and ensure we remove access from anyone that should not have it.
Accessing your training certificate or other information
You have the right, at any time, to ask to see your personal information.
You can also ask for this to be updated if the information we have on record is not correct.
QTC makes all attempts to ensure that all personal information collected and stored in its database is correct and accurate. You may at any time request access to information we have collected from you and obtain a more in-depth explanation about how the information is used, by contacting us directly at [student support email]. We will endeavour to meet or advise you of the outcome of a request within 10 business days of receipt of your request.
We keep a record of the training that you have completed successfully. You can contact us at any time for a copy of your AQF certification document, or other data we hold in your record. Complete a Request for Access Form and email it to [student support email].
We must verify your identity before re-issuing your certificate. We can do this by sighting appropriate photo ID, or by asking you a series of questions based on the personal details you have provided to us (such as your Date of Birth and Unique Student Identifier).
After we have verified your identity, both you and the Training Manager must sign the Request for Access Form as an official record of identification. The Training Manager may seek confirmation of signature authenticity.
The Training Manager will notify you when access is available. You and the Training Manager must again sign the form as the information is released. This form is then to be placed in your student file for future reference.
Liability Disclaimer
QTC will use all reasonable endeavours to protect and keep confidential any personally identifiable information in its possession in relation to its clients’ or website visitors. If any confidential or personally identifiable information is accessed by a third party, whether by negligence or otherwise of QTC, its agents, suppliers, contractors, related bodies corporate, affiliates or associated parties, to the extent permitted by law, QTC is not liable for any loss, damage, costs, liability or other form of contribution.