Privacy Policy

Who we are

We are the Australian Garden History Society (ABN , ARBN ), a not-for-profit organisation based in Australia. We promote awareness and conservation of significant gardens and cultural landscapes through engagement, research, advocacy and activities.

Our website address is: https://www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au.

Scope of this policy

The Australian Garden History Society, referred to as ‘we’ ‘us’ and ‘our’, is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information that we collect from you, hold and use. ‘Personal information’ is simply information that identifies you. We are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles, found in the Privacy Act 1988.

This policy applies to personal information that you provide to us directly, through online channels, and personal information that we receive from third parties.

Collecting your personal information

a. Personal information we collect

The type of personal information the Australian Garden History Society collects and holds includes but is not limited to your:

  • contact details, including name, address, company, phone numbers, email address;
  • shipping address;
  • gift recipient contact details;
  • Australian Business Number (ABN);
  • purchase details;
  • IP address.

For certain retail transactions, the Australian Garden History Society may forward to a financial institution but not retain certain personal account information, including your:

  • credit or debit card details;
  • PayPal details;
  • cheque details;
  • bank account details (for refunds only).
b. Information collected from our website

The Australian Garden History Society automatically collects and stores the following information about visitors to our website:

  • IP address;
  • Date and time of visit;
  • Web pages accessed and documents downloaded;
  • Previous site visited;
  • Type of browser and operating system used;
  • Browser user agent string (for spam detection);
  • Screen resolution.

This information is collected in an aggregated form using Google Analytics and cannot directly identify individual visitors. We only use the information to measure the number and assumed country of visitors to the different parts of the site and to help us make the site more useful to you. If we do not collect this information, we may be unable to tailor our website content to your preferences. You are able to browse our site without entering any personal information so you can remain completely anonymous during your visit.

c. How we collect personal information

We collect personal information about members, conference registrants, online store customers, referrers, website and newsletter subscribers, and people who make enquiries or otherwise come into contact with us.

We collect personal information through the following avenues:

  • our website and social media pages;
  • via documents, such as membership forms, registration forms and purchase orders;
  • during phone conversations with you;
  • written enquiries and contact;
  • from third parties, such as referrers;
  • at society/community events.

What we use your personal information for

The Australian Garden History Society will only use or disclose your personal information for the primary purpose for which it was collected, or a directly-related secondary purpose. In other words, we will only use your personal information in a way in which you would be likely to expect us to use it. Some of the main purposes for which we use personal information are:

a. Sale of books, magazines, publications and souvenirs

The Australian Garden History Society will use your personal information to provide or assist in providing products as described on our website. We may need to use it to contact you, provide advice to you or prepare documents to assist with the purchase process and decisions.

b. Payments, invoices and receipts

We use your personal information to process payments made by you for membership, conferences, events or products purchased from us. This includes the generation of invoices, packing slips, receipts and other retail transaction documents.

c. Promotion and marketing

The Australian Garden History Society may use your personal information for direct marketing, such as emailing you our newsletters, information about our products and upcoming events. Our direct marketing will always contain an ‘unsubscribe’ mechanism, and we will remove you from our direct marketing lists if you ‘unsubscribe’. If we receive your personal information from a third party, we will only use it for direct marketing purposes if you have consented, and have not unsubscribed.

We sometimes use photographs taken at society events, which may include photographs of attendees, on our website and social media platforms or in our promotional and marketing materials.

Sharing your personal information

The Australian Garden History Society may, in accordance with the above specific purposes only, disclose your personal information to:

  • Our employees and volunteer staff;
  • Financial institutions and credit card intermediaries;
  • Conference and event venues;
  • Event catering organisations;
  • Freight shipping companies;
  • Our auditors or other contractors;
  • The Australian Taxation Office;
  • Anyone you authorise us to disclose it to.

Other than the above, we will not disclose your personal information without your consent unless disclosure is necessary to prevent a threat to life or health, authorised or required by law, reasonably necessary to enforce the law or necessary to investigate a suspected unlawful activity.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies in order to provide a better user experience. Cookies are a small text file our website stores on your computer, and are used to determine whether your computer supports Javascript (a software language used in websites), and a session cookie, to determine whether you are a registered, logged-in user, and record some of your interactions with our website content.

Off-site links

Our website contains links to other websites. The Australian Garden History Society is not responsible for the privacy policies, practices or content of any site that may be linked to or from our website. We recommend that you review the privacy policy of each site you visit.

Storing your personal information

The Australian Garden History Society stores your personal information in our electronic databases. We may also store some of your personal information in our hard copy files.

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information whether it is stored electronically or as hard copy.

Your personal information that is no longer required by us or by law will be destroyed or de-identified, unless it is retained for direct marketing purposes.

Right to request access and correction

You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold, and seek to have it corrected and updated. Such requests can be made by contacting the Australian Garden History Society directly on the contact details below. No fee will be charged for complying with these requests. If you want us to delete your personal information, please contact us and we will take all reasonable steps to delete it, unless we are prevented from doing so by law.

How to complain

If you believe the Australian Garden History Society has breached the Australian Privacy Principles or a binding registered Australian Privacy Principles code, you may complain by using the following procedure:

  1. Contact the Australian Garden History Society using the contact details below and provide us with the details of your complaint;
  2. We will:
    • Record your complaint in writing and ask for further information if required;
    • Assess your complaint and contact you within 28 days of the date of the complaint to discuss options to resolve it;
    • Work with you to implement any agreed action to resolve the complaint;
    • Contact you to follow up about resolution of the complaint;
  3. If the above process does not deal satisfactorily with your concerns, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner via:

Our contact details

Australian Garden History Society (ABN , ARBN )
Postal Address: AGHS, Private Bag 2000, South Yarra VIC 3141, Australia
Telephone: +61 (0)419 977 703
Email: info@gardenhistorysociety.org.au