Privacy policy

We primarily collect personal information that is necessary for us to conduct our business. Our business includes the supply and promotion of products and services including relating to natural gas, biogas, electricity, hydrogen, water and thermal energy, pipeline construction, large scale gas storage, gas processing, gas fitting services, as well as purchase, repair and maintenance of gas and electricity appliances. Personal information has the meaning given in the Privacy Act and includes any information that can be used to identify you such as:

• Your name, occupation and contact details (address, telephone numbers and email address) and details of the relevant property address;
• Information about your dealings with us or use of our services;
• Information about your use of gas and electricity and gas or electrical appliances;
• Information about your actual or intended purchase of any gas appliance;
• Other personal information you may disclose to us when you contact us or request a service from us, or which is contained in communications between you and us.
• In certain circumstances, it may be necessary to collect sensitive information (as defined by the Privacy Act), for example, we may collect certain health information to assist in meeting your special requirements in supplying gas to you.

Where relevant we may ask you for other information, for example, qualifications and employment history if you are applying for employment with us as well as bank account and superannuation account details and a tax file number if you obtain employment with us.

We usually collect personal information in the following ways: 

• Directly from you, either in person, in documents, by email or via one of our Sites when you, for example::
  
  • purchase or enquire about our products or services
  • submit an enquiry to us
  • use a Site (including by means of a link to a site)
  • participate in any competitions, promotions, specials or surveys, or 
  • apply for employment with us. 
• From third parties, such as an agent acting on your behalf or other third parties who may work with us, or provide services to us, including retailers, property developers, builders, promotional services providers and social media sites;
• From publicly available resources.

If we collect your personal information from an agent acting on your behalf, we will seek some indication that the party contacting us is your authorised agent. If we collect your personal information from another third party we will generally let you know that we have collected that information or require the third party to let you know we will be doing so or have done so. We may hold personal information in hard copy and electronic files.

If you provide us with unsolicited personal information (being personal information about you that we have not requested), we will consider within a reasonable period, whether the information is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions. If the unsolicited personal information is not reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions, or is sensitive information, then we will return, destroy or de-identify that information unless it is not lawful to do so, or it is not reasonable or practical to separate it from solicited information. If the unsolicited personal information is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions (and is not sensitive information), we may retain such information in accordance with this policy.

If your personal information is no longer needed, AGIG will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it.

If you were an AGN shareholder (formerly Envestra), your records remain securely stored for the period of time we are required or permitted by law to retain those records.

When using a Site, you may voluntarily disclose personal information to us. We may also automatically record details such as your internet address, domain name if applicable, and the date, time and duration of your visit to our Site.

Our Site uses various technologies such as cookies, which may collect personal information. Cookies are pieces of data stored on your browser that record information on your use of the Site, such as details of your server and your browsing activity and send the information to the server. We use these cookies and other technologies to monitor usage of the Sites. You may be able to change the settings of your browser so that cookies are not accepted generally or that you are provided with options to accept or reject them as they are sent to your browser. You might not be able to use the full functionality of the Sites by refusing the use of cookies.

We may combine information collected by means of cookies and similar technologies with personal information we have collected by other means. We may use this combined information to understand and measure your online experiences and to determine what products and services may be of interest to you. By accessing any of our Sites by using any link emailed to you, or where you have otherwise identified yourself, you consent to the collection of such information where it is personal information. 

In addition to web server logs, we also use third party web analytics, reporting and statistics services (“Web Analytic Services”), such as Google Analytics, Hotjar and Facebook Pixel to improve the performance and usability of a Site and to analyse how you view and use our Sites. These Web Analytic Services use cookies to analyse how you view and use our Sites, for example which pages you visit and how long you are on a Site. Information collected by the cookies (including your IP address) is transferred to and stored on the servers of the Web Analytic Service provider. Some of our Sites employ different Web Analytic Services, as specified below: 

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (employed on the AGIG, AGN, DBP and Multinet Sites), uses cookies to analyse how you view and use a Site, for example, which pages you visit and how long you are on the Site. Information collected by the cookies (including your IP address) is transferred to and stored on Google’s servers in the United States. Google does not identify or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.  

By using the relevant Sites, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner described in Google’s Privacy Policy (available at  http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/) and for the purposes set out above. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie or use the opt-out service provided by Google however you may not be able to access all the features of the Site to their full extent.

Hotjar

Hotjar (utilised on the AGIG, AGN and Multinet Sites), uses a tracking code embedded on each specified Site and cookies to collect non-personal information, including standard internet log information and details of the behaviour patterns of Site users upon visiting the Sites. This information (including your IP address captured and stored in an anonymized format) is transferred to and stored on Hotjar’s servers in Ireland. Hotjar does not hold your personal information. By using these Sites, you consent to the processing of data about your interactions with the Site in the manner described in Hotjar’s Privacy Policy (available at https://www.hotjar.com/privacy) and for the purposes set out above. You can opt out of Hotjar if you disable or refuse the cookie or use the opt-out service provided by Hotjar (available at https://www.hotjar.com/opt-out) however you may not be able to access all of the features of the Site to their full extent. 

Facebook Pixel
Facebook Pixel (used on the AGN Site), is an analytics tool which uses a code embedded in the Site and cookies to collect data that assists with obtaining consumer insights, tracking conversions from Facebook ads and the effectiveness of social media campaigns. By using the AGN Site, you consent to third parties, including Facebook using cookies, web beacons and other storage technologies collecting or receiving information from the AGN Site and using that information to provide measurement services and targeted ads. You can opt-out of the collection and use of information for ad targeting by visiting http://www.aboutads.info/choices.

LinkedIn Pixel
LinkedIn Pixel (used on the AGN Site), is an analytics tool which uses a code embedded in the Site and cookies to collect data that assists with obtaining consumer insights, tracking conversions from LinkedIn ads and events, and the effectiveness of social media campaigns. By using the AGN Site, you consent to third parties, including LinkedIn using cookies and other storage technologies collecting or receiving information from the AGN Site and using that information to provide measurement services and targeted ads. You can opt-out of the collection and use of information for ad targeting by visiting https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/62931?lang=en.

Generally, we collect personal information about you:

• for the provision of our services;
• to meet our obligations to you and well as our gas distribution, transmission and storage businesses;
• for business planning purposes;
• to enable us to conduct hydrogen research and innovation;
• to improve, market, promote and educate on the services we provide;
• to run a promotion, contest, special offer, survey or other Site feature;
• to provide or improve our customer service by responding to your customer service requests and support needs more efficiently;
• so you can seek employment with us; or
• to communicate with you in writing, by e-mail, telephone or via the Sites. 

Whilst where possible we will provide individuals with the option of not identifying themselves, in many circumstances our ability to meet our obligations to you, your business or to process any application, request or query may be adversely affected if you do not give us the requested personal information, or if the information you give us is incomplete or inaccurate.  

In general, the personal information we collect is used for the primary purposes for which it was collected, namely, to provide and manage our products and services in the ordinary course of conducting our gas storage, transmission and distribution businesses. We may also use personal information to: 

• manage our relationship with you and improve the services we provide;
• assess applications for employment;
• provide you with our products and services;
• provide you with information in relation to our business that you request;
• provide you with information on our projects, products and services that we think you may be interested in;
• provide you with information about promotions, special offers and competitions;
• notify you of proposed appliance and connection rebates;
• provide advice and information on outages, meter reads and other activities and alerts;
• collect information and feedback relating to our Site and marketing campaigns;
• send periodic emails, for example, to respond to queries or other requests; and
• enhance and personalise your experience with us by, among other things, understanding how you use our Sites and services and the resources provided. 

We may also use your personal information for a secondary purpose that is related to a purpose for which we collected it, where you would reasonably expect us to use your personal information for that secondary purpose. For example, to provide to certain third parties including the service providers who assist us in providing our services, gas retailers and other gas market participants (such as the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)) to ensure they have sufficient information for billing customers. 

Direct Marketing

If we intend to use any of your personal information for direct marketing, such as by adding you to a marketing database, and you have not already consented to this use, we will notify you and will provide you with an opportunity to opt out. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future promotion, content, survey, feature or other marketing information or emails, you will also be able to indicate a preference to stop receiving promotional communications and have the opportunity to opt-out. You may not, however, unsubscribe from emails about your account or administrative content such as notices of updates to our Privacy Policy while you remain an active user or customer. 

Automatically Collected Information

In general, we may also use information collected passively from your computer by technologies such as cookies to help improve our services and our Sites.

We will only disclose personal information for the purpose for which it was collected or in the following circumstances:

• to commonly managed companies within AGIG, including Australian Gas Networks, Multinet Gas and Dampier Bunbury Pipeline;
• to companies within the APA Group who operate and manage the AGN gas distribution networks as independent contractors;
• to Service Stream who maintain the Multinet gas distribution network;
• to digital agencies who provide website hosting, website administration, analytical and promotional services to us;
• to other third parties, including other contractors, business partners, agents, suppliers, service providers and retailers who assist us in servicing our distribution networks, transmission pipelines, or who assist us in servicing you or communicating with you;
• where required or authorised by law or otherwise as permitted under the Privacy Act;
• where you consent or have authorised the disclosure; and
• in the event of a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your personal information that we have collected may be sold or otherwise transferred. However, this will only happen if the party acquiring the information agrees to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy and the notice provided to you when the information was collected.

AGIG is unlikely to disclose your personal information to overseas recipients. Should we be required to disclose your personal information to overseas recipients, we will do so in accordance with this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Act. 

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information we hold is:

• accurate, complete, up-to-date, relevant and not misleading;
• stored in a secure environment; and
• protected from misuse, interference and loss as well as unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

These steps will include appropriate levels of security for our systems and providing training for our employees who have access to personal information. We use SSL technology on our websites and encrypt the data we store on them. In addition, we take reasonable steps to de-identify or securely destroy personal information that is no longer required by us. We take these precautions in an effort to protect your personal information against security breaches. However, this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by a breach of such security controls. By using our Sites and our services, you acknowledge that you understand and assume these risks. If any of your details change, please let us know as soon as possible by using the contact details below so we can maintain the accuracy of your personal information. 

We seek to ensure that all personal information collected is accurate and complete. You have a right to access personal information we hold about you. If you were a former AGN shareholder, you have a right to access the personal information that the share registry, Link Market Services holds about you. Details of Link Market Services’ Privacy Policy are available on their website www.linkmarketservices.com.au.

We will comply with any request to access your personal information except where the Privacy Act or the APPs allow us to refuse to do so. There is no fee for making a request to access your personal information but we may charge a fee for giving you access to your personal information in a mutually agreed format, usually by sighting the accessible information held on file. You also have the right to ask us to correct information about you that is inaccurate, incomplete, out-of-date, irrelevant or misleading. If we refuse to correct your personal information as requested, we must:

• Notify you in writing of the reasons for the refusal (unless it would be unreasonable to do so) and how to complain of the refusal; and
• Upon request from you that we associate a statement that the information is inaccurate, incomplete, out-of-date, irrelevant or misleading, take such steps are as reasonable in the circumstances to associate such a statement so that it will be apparent to users of the information.

If you were an AGN shareholder and wish to access the information that Link Market Services holds about you, please contact Link Market Services by phone on 1300 554 474 or by email at privacy.officer@linkgroup.com.

The Sites may contain links to third party websites. The links are provided for convenience only and we are not responsible for the content or material contained in, or obtained through, any third party website or for the privacy practices of the third party website. We suggest that you review the privacy policy of each website that you visit.

If you have any questions or complaints about how we handle your personal information, you can contact our Privacy Officer as follows:

Mail: Level 6, 400 King William Street Adelaide SA 5000

E- mail: privacy@agig.com.au

Phone: (08) 8418 1130

We will consider and respond to any complaint notified to us within a reasonable time, usually within 30 days. We will always endeavour to resolve any complaint to the satisfaction of both parties.

If you are not satisfied with the way in which we handle your enquiry or complaint, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by phone on 1300 363 992 or by email at enquiries@oaic.gov.au.

The Privacy Officer is responsible for overseeing AGIG’s privacy framework, including being the central point of contact for any privacy related questions or complaints and working with senior management, IT, Legal and Compliance to coordinate and assist with privacy compliance and establish appropriate governance for the privacy framework.

The Privacy Officer is responsible for overseeing or co-ordinating the following with the relevant AGIG team(s):

• The implementation and regular review of a Privacy Management Plan;
• The implementation and regular review of a Data Response Plan;
• That privacy policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and are up to date; 
• Responses to privacy related queries from internal or external stakeholders; 
• Handling of privacy complaints, and requests for access to, and correction of, personal information; and
• Assisting the legal and other teams to respond to any data breaches and undertake any required mandatory reporting and notification.