Hello Teacher! is committed to providing a quality service to you. This policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your personal information.
We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The APPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your personal information.
A copy of the APPs may be obtained from The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
What is personal information and why do we collect it?
Personal information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual.
We collect a range of personal information when you apply for a teaching position with us. This includes your name, date of birth, nationality, email address, phone number, Skype name, eligibility details (such as your health, criminal record and TEFL certification status), teaching preferences (such as your salary expectation), resume (including details about your education and work experience), degree, passport, and current photo. To support your application, we may ask for additional personal information by telephone, Skype or email, such as a police check and reference check.
Collecting this personal information allows us to assess your eligibility for a teaching position in China and the relevant work visa, per the requirements of the relevant Chinese school and/or Chinese government.
When subscribing to our newsletter or downloading an ebook or lesson plan from our website, personal information we collect includes your name and email address.
We collect your personal information for the primary purpose of providing our service to you, as well as marketing. We will never give any of your personal details to any third party unless explicitly stated in this policy or required by law.
Sensitive information
Sensitive information is defined in the Privacy Act to include information or opinion about such things as an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional body, criminal record or health information.
When you apply for a teaching position with us, we explicitly ask for some of this information (e.g. criminal record), while you may include some information in your resume that you provide us.
Sensitive information will be used by us only:
- For the primary purpose for which it was obtained
- For a secondary purpose that is directly related to the primary purpose
- With your consent, or where required or authorised by law.
Third parties
Where reasonable and practicable to do so, we will collect your personal information only from you. However, in some circumstances we may be provided with information by third parties. In such a case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of the information provided to us by the third party.
Disclosure of personal information
Your personal information may be disclosed in a number of circumstances including the following:
- Our recruitment partners to help you with a teaching position
- Schools and education institutes in China to help you with a teaching position
- Online advertisers and marketing platforms including Google, Facebook and Mailchimp
- Other third parties where you consent to the use or disclosure
- Where required or authorised by law.
Security of personal information
Your personal information is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.
When your personal information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your personal information. However, most of the personal information is or will be stored in our files which will be kept by us for a minimum of seven years.
Access to your personal information
You may access the personal information we hold about you and to update and/or correct it. To do so, please contact us in writing. Please note that we may charge an administrative fee for providing a copy of your personal information.
In order to protect your personal information we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.
Maintaining the quality of your personal information
It is important that your personal information is up to date. We will take reasonable steps to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide a quality service to you.
Direct marketing
We use direct marketing to contact you for the purposes of promoting our services that we think may be of interest to you. To facilitate the delivery of direct marketing we provide third parties with your contact details. We take all reasonable steps to ensure that our service providers treat your personal information with the same level of privacy and protection as we do.
We use MailChimp to provide e-newsletters about Hello Teacher! MailChimp collects personal information (including your name and email address) you have provided and all information relating to the email address. MailChimp is based in the USA. Your information (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by MailChimp on servers located outside Australia. This means that the APPs and Australian legislation do not apply (but USA laws do). You can refer to MailChimp’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for more information.
You can opt out of direct marketing by contacting us or using the ‘opt out’ or ‘unsubscribe’ functions provided in communications.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file attached to your web browser that can track your internet activity. We use cookies to monitor the usage and improve the performance of our website. The information collected during this process does not include personal identifiers.
We may share this information with third parties for website maintenance and development purposes. You can manage the use of cookies in your internet browser.
Website analytics
We use Google Analytics on our website to collect information about how you use our website and to provide you with information about services we think will interest you. This information is provided to us as aggregated data and does not include personal information.
Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information about you, such as your device, your location and the webpages you visit. Google shares information it collects with affiliates within the Google group of companies and other third parties. The manner in which Google collects, stores and discloses information is detailed in the Google Privacy Policy.
You can opt out by downloading and installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
Online advertising
We may use remarketing or retargeting platforms, such as Google and Facebook, to advertise our services to you.
For Google remarketing, cookies are used to show you ads on Google and other websites based on your past visits to our website. For Facebook retargeting (Custom Audiences), your personal information is encrypted and matched with Facebook’s encrypted data to serve you advertising on Facebook and its associated websites.
Google Analytics Advertising Features (Demographics and Interests Reports) are enabled on this website. Cookies are used to gain insights about users and to refine ad campaign strategies.
You can opt out by visiting Google’s Ads Settings page, Facebook’s Settings page or the third party advertiser’s equivalent page.
Social media
We use social media sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to keep you informed about our services. We discourage you from providing personal information to us in public forums.
Social media sites also use cookies to collect data; the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information is subject to the privacy policy of the site provider.
Policy updates
This policy may change from time to time and is available on our website.
Privacy policy complaints and enquiries
If you have any queries or complaints about our privacy policy, please contact us in writing.
Page last updated: October 29, 2018
