Privacy Policy

The Becoming-Australian website is owned and operated by Ardent & Pears, NSW, Australia. The website production can be reached by email at enquiries@becoming-australian.com.

This privacy policy, together with the Terms of Use, sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read this privacy policy carefully. By visiting this website you are accepting the terms of this privacy policy. It is the stated policy of Random House that we will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current best practice with regard to the processing of personal data.

Ardent & Paers takes your online privacy seriously. You may visit this site anonymously as often as you like without providing any personally identifying information (such as your name, address or email address). We do not collect personally identifying information from you except when you specifically provide it, and we protect the information we receive. With your consent we may gather personal information from you through website sales, surveys, competitions and newsletters. We do not generally link your name to cookies unless you specifically provide your name to us as part of surveys, competitions and newsletters, and we do not share it with third parties without obtaining your consent first. Please read below for a further explanation of the information we gather and how we use it.

1. Collection of data and how information we hold about you can be used

As you explore our website, you will come across places in which we ask you to provide us with information about yourself. We explain each of these below. We will not use your name or email address for any purpose other than as stated.

1.1 We may ask for your email address and your name (along with a competition answer), so that we can contact you in the event that you win one of our competitions. If you decide to participate, we will not use your name or email address for any purpose other than as stated.

1.2 In some places in this site, we ask for your feedback, opinion or suggestions, and provide you with a link for emailing us your response. But again we will only use the email address we receive from you for the purpose of responding to your questions or suggestions.

1.3 On occasion, we seek to gather a broader profile of some of the visitors to sections of this site (e.g. through surveys or competitions). The information that we request, may be provided to our editorial, marketing or publicity departments. It may also be shared with our content providers, such as authors, advertisers or other publishers, to provide them with demographic information about the visitors to our site.

1.4 An additional area in which we ask for your name is on bulletin boards or forums – places on the site where you can participate in a discussion of a particular subject by posting written comments which are then entirely public. You must register your details in order to do so. Registration information will not be disclosed and is for security purposes. You should be aware that if you do disclose personal information on the bulletin boards or forums, that information can be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages from third parties. By participating in these forums, you should remember that you are legally liable for the material you post, including libel and copyright infringement.

2. Storage and disclosure of personal data

2.1 We will retain the data we hold concerning you for as long as it is necessary to do so. We will retain and disclose personal data to authorised authorities without your consent where we are required to do so under the law.

3. Removing your email address

3.1 All of our email newsletters include instructions on how to unsubscribe. Please follow these instructions to remove yourself from our individual lists. If you have previously provided us with your email address or any other information and later decide that you do not want us to have it, you may ask us to delete it by e-mailing the information to: enquiries@becoming-australian.com.

3.2 You may have signed up to our email marketing communications with multiple email addresses. It is your responsibility to opt-out of receiving further email marketing communication at each different email address should you have signed up with more than one email address.

3.3 Your email address may change in the future and our email marketing communication may be redirected to your new email address. Again, it is your responsibility to unsubscribe with the email address you registered originally when subscribing in order not to receive future email marketing communication.

4. Cookies and Tracking

4.1 Cookies are electronic tags that most websites place on your computer in the process of sending your computer a file, such as a web page. We use them as well. A cookie can tell us when a computer that has previously visited our site returns, and what pages it requests on each of its visits. Cookies help us keep track of how our visitors (or more accurately, their computers) use our site, including such things as the type of browser they use, the frequency of their visits and the pages that are most popular. They can help smooth your travel through our site by keeping track of information that has already been provided by your computer so that you do not need to re-enter it. In no event does the cookie we place on your computer tell us anything about your visits to other websites (except those you enter through a link on our site), or your use of the internet in any other way. If you would still prefer not to receive any cookies, most browsers can be set to refuse cookies or to alert you when one is being sent. However, some portions of this site may not function properly if the cookies are disabled.

4.2 Ardent & Pears uses a tracking facility that indicates to us your response to our electronic communications such as open rate and click through rate. In no event does this tracking facility tell us anything about your visits to other websites (except those you enter through a link in our newsletter/on our site), or your use of the internet in any other way. We will only keep such data for research purposes in order to target our electronic communication to you in a more effective way.

5. Links to other sites

5.1 Our site contains links to other sites that are not under our control, even though they may use the Ardent & Pears name or logo on their site through an agreement with us. Such other sites do not necessarily follow our privacy policies, and may place their own cookies on your computer. This practice is standard on the Web. We do not control cookies placed on your computer by third parties whose advertising or links appear on our site.

6. Security of private information

6.1 We would like to be able to tell you that the personal information you provide us with is absolutely safe. Unfortunately, several well-publicised instances of computer security breaches make it impossible for anyone to be so confident. However we take reasonable steps to protect the information you provide us from theft, alteration or unauthorized inspection.

7. Parents and guardians

7.1 We encourage you to get involved with your children’s online usage and to be aware of the activities in which they are participating. We also ask you to check back here regularly to see what our latest policies are, particularly those relating to children. You should be aware that if your children voluntarily disclose their names, email addresses or other information on bulletin boards or chat areas of other websites, such disclosures may result in unsolicited messages from other parties. We suggest that you discourage your child from providing such information on this site or elsewhere unless you are confident that the information will not be misused.

Last Updated: 1 May 2012