Privacy Policy

Education Services Australia Limited (ESA) is committed to protecting the privacy of personal information. This privacy policy explains how ESA collects and uses your personal information and which rights and options you have in this respect. In doing so ESA complies with its obligations to protect the privacy of personal information under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and its international obligations.

Specifically, in Australia, ESA is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) in the Privacy Act which regulate how organisations such as ESA may collect, use, disclose and store personal information, and how individuals may access and correct personal information held about them.

In this privacy policy, ‘you’ or ‘your’ refers to the individual reading this privacy policy or those people whose personal information ESA collects, uses and discloses in accordance with this privacy policy.

*Please note that this privacy policy applies specifically to the Literacy Hub website (Website). The Website includes a phonics check (Phonics Check) and related resources.

Summary

ESA, through the Website:

collects personal information for use within the Phonics Check;
collects personal information if a user chooses to register to receive email newsletters;
uses Google Analytics and Viostream to collect usage information from the Website.
uses GoTo Webinars to host webinars.

The personal information collected for use within the Phonics Check is stored within the Phonic Check in Australia and is made available to participating schools and authorised users to run reports on individual students and class/group results.

The personal information collected in order to email newsletters is stored in Australia by a third party Australian based provider, Swift Digital.

The usage information collected from the Website is stored overseas by Google Analytics and in Australia by Viostream.

If you access the webinars on the Website, the contact details you are providing as part of your registration and/or other types of information, (including, but not limited to, duration of sessions, location, usage data, language) may be stored offshore and/or be accessible globally by GoTo and GoTo’s affiliated and unaffiliated service providers on a “need to know” basis.

1 What is personal information?

Personal information is anything that discloses your identity, that is unique to you. For example: a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier. It also includes “personal information” as defined in subsection 6(1) of the Privacy Act :

“information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database), whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion.”

2 What personal information does ESA collect?

a) When a school teacher registers to use the Phonics Check on the Website, ESA collects the school teacher’s:

first and last names;
email address; and
school name (including the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) school identifier), sector, state, address and postcode/suburb).

b) When a school teacher registers a school student to use the Phonic Check on the Website, ESA collects the school student’s:

first name;
last name (optional);
student ID (optional); and
Phonics Check evaluation.

c) When a school administrator registers their school to use the Phonics Check on the Website, ESA collects their:

first and last names;
email address; and
school name (including the ACARA school identifier), sector, state, address and postcode/suburb).

d) When a school teacher or system administrator accesses the Phonics Check via Single Sign On (Single Sign On enables relevant users to gain access to the Phonics Check without having to register), when first connecting to the Phonics Check, a user record will automatically be created for the user. The user record will include the user’s name and email address (provided by the relevant school/jurisdiction (Identity Provider)).
e) When you choose to register on the Website to receive a newsletter via email ESA collects your:

first name and last name; and
email address.

When you use the Website, ESA collects the following information relating to your use of the Website:

your server address;
your top level domain name (for example: .com., .gov, .au, .edu, .net, etc.);
the time and date of your visit to the Website;
the pages and documents you have accessed or viewed;
the number of video plays and percentage of video played; and
the type of browser you are using (for example Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer).

Usage statistics or patterns obtained from tracking the level and range of interest in the Website are collected in order to improve the Website.

3 How does ESA collect your personal information?

ESA may collect your personal information when:

you register on the Website to use the Phonics Check (only available to school teachers) and/or receive newsletters;
a teacher registers you (a school student) on the Website;
you (a school teacher) use Single Sign On; and/or
you browse, make an enquiry or otherwise interact with ESA, for example, via the Website or by telephoning the ESA help desk.

Sometimes ESA collects your personal information from a third party for example, ESA may collect your Student ID from ACARA or an individual school in order to enable a smooth integration of the Phonics Check observations data into existing school systems or from a relevant jurisdiction in order to enable Single Sign On.

4 Handling of personal information

4.1 Remaining anonymous or using a pseudonym: are you required to provide personal information?

Where it is not impractical or unlawful, you may interact with ESA without identifying yourself or using a pseudonym. As a general principle, you provide ESA with your personal information voluntarily and there are no detrimental effects for you if you choose not to consent or to provide personal information.

School students are registered to use the Phonics Check on the Website by their school teacher or a relevant school administrator. The school student registration process allows for the option to use a pseudonym for a school student and/or to only provide a first name without the addition of a last name or Student ID.

However, in order to register and use the Phonics Check, if you are a school teacher or school administrator, you are are unable to remain anonymous or to use a pseudonym. ESA requires you to provide the information specified in section 2 above in order to associate school administrators and school teachers to schools and to the extent relevant, to enable Single Sign On.

4.2 Use of your personal information

ESA will only use your personal information for the stated purpose for which it was provided or otherwise in accordance with the law.

Therefore, ESA will use your personal information for the following purposes only ("Permitted Purposes"):

providing services or things you have requested, for example being able to use the Phonics Check on the Website by creating user accounts, for school teachers to run reports and to send newsletters to registered recipients;
communicating with you about your account (including about any updates to the Phonics Check);
compliance with ESA’s legal obligations (such as record keeping obligations);
for insurance purposes;
for monitoring and assessing compliance with ESA’s policies and standards;
to comply with ESA’s legal and regulatory obligations and requests anywhere in the world, including reporting to and/or being audited by national and international regulatory bodies;
to comply with court orders and exercises and/or defend ESA’s legal rights; and
for any purpose related and/or ancillary to any of the above or any other purpose for which your personal information was provided to ESA.

ESA will only communicate with you (not school students) via email during the process of registration.

4.3 With whom will ESA share your personal information?

ESA may share your personal information in the following circumstances:

to instruct service providers within or outside of ESA, domestically or abroad, for example, shared service centres to process personal information for Permitted Purposes on ESA’s behalf and in accordance with ESA’s instructions only. ESA will retain control over and will remain fully responsible for your personal information and will use appropriate safeguards as required by applicable law to ensure the integrity and security of your personal information when engaging such service providers;
to synchronise your school’s listing with ACARA; and
to use aggregated personal data and statistics for the purpose of monitoring Website usage in order to help ESA develop its Website and services.

Otherwise, ESA will only use or disclose your personal information as described in this privacy policy, when you direct ESA or give ESA permission or when ESA is required by applicable law or regulations to do so;

Specifically, ESA may use information from your use of the Website for developing aggregated data and statistics (refer to 4.4 below) and/or share your personal information with Swift Digital for the purpose of emailing newsletters.

ESA emails newsletters to registered recipients using an automated marketing platform provided by Swift Digital, an Australian based organisation. Swift Digital stores personal information in Australia and its privacy policy is available here .

ESA’s webinars are held on the GoTo Webinars platform. GoTo may store data overseas. Further details are available at the GoTo Webinar’s Privacy Policy .

4.4 Use of Cookies

Usage statistics or patterns obtained from tracking the level and range of interest in the Website are collected in order to improve and develop the Website.

This Website uses:

Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the Website analyse how users use the Website. The cookie identifies your browser, not you personally. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google Inc. on servers in the United States.

Google Inc. uses this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the Website, compiling reports on website activity for ESA and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google Inc. 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 Inc's behalf. Google Inc. will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google Inc.; and

Viostream is a video platform service to store and stream video. Viostream uses cookies to help the Website analyse how users use the videos on the Website. The information collected by Viostream relates to the use of the videos on the Website and does not identify you personally. Viostream collects information regarding what videos are being watched, where the videos are being watched, what device is used to watch videos and how much of each video is watched. The information collected by Viostream is held in secure data centres in Australia and is only disclosed to ESA.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of the Website. When using this Website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google Inc. and Viostream in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

4.5 Personal information about other people which you provide to ESA

If you provide personal information to ESA about someone else you must ensure that you are entitled to disclose that personal information to ESA and that, without our taking any further steps, ESA may collect, use and disclose that personal information as described in this privacy policy.

4.6 Security of your personal information

ESA takes reasonable steps to:

protect personal information that it holds against misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure by utilising up-to-date electronic and physical security controls that comply with relevant industry standards and guidelines; and
destroy or permanently de-identify personal information if it is no longer required.

Personal information may be kept on ESA’s data technology systems, those of ESA’s contractors or in paper files.

Please note that if you link to a web page from the Website, ESA’s privacy policy will no longer apply. Therefore, you should check the privacy and security statement that apply to the linked website.

4.7 Location of personal information

Personal information collected by ESA via this Website is stored in Australia and not disclosed, accessed or transferred to overseas recipients.

5 Accessing and correcting personal information

If any of the personal information that you have provided to ESA changes, for example if you change your email address or if you wish to cancel any request you have made of ESA, or if you become aware that ESA has any inaccurate personal information about you, please let ESA know using the contact information in paragraph 8 below. ESA will not be responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient or incomplete personal information that you provide to it. If you are a Single Sign On user, you:

will not be able to update your name and email address by contacting ESA as this personal information is provided to ESA by your Identity Provider; and
should contact your Identity Provider directly if you wish to access and correct this personal information.

6 For how long does ESA retain your personal information?

ESA will delete your personal information when it is no longer reasonably required for the Permitted Purposes or you withdraw your consent (where applicable) and ESA is not legally required or otherwise permitted to continue storing such information.

7 Your rights

Subject to certain legal conditions, you have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you which ESA holds, to have any inaccurate personal information corrected and to object to or restrict ESA using your personal information. You may also make a complaint if you have a concern about ESA’s handling of your personal information.

If you wish to do any of the above, please contact ESA using the contact information below. ESA may request that you prove your identity by providing ESA with a copy of a valid means of identification in order for ESA to comply with its security obligations and to prevent unauthorised disclosure of information.

ESA will consider any requests or complaints which it receives and provide you with a response in a timely manner. If you are not satisfied with ESA’s response, you may take your complaint to the relevant privacy regulator. In Australia, the relevant regulator is the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner .

8 Contact information for ESA for questions, comments, concern or complaints

If you have any questions, comments, concerns or complaints about ESA’s privacy practices for this Website, you can contact ESA by:

Telephone: +61 3 92079600
Post: Post Office Box 177, Carlton South, Victoria, Australia 3053; or
Email: privacy@esa.edu.au.

9 Changes to this Privacy Policy

ESA may make changes to this privacy policy from time to time to take account of new laws and technology or changes to ESA’s operation and practices. ESA recommends that you regularly check this privacy policy. Any changes will take effect as soon as they are posted on this website. You may obtain a paper copy of this privacy policy by contacting ESA via the contact details provided above.