Privacy Policy

The type of information we collect about you

The type of information we collect about you varies depending on how you interact with us and the types of products or services you use. If you do not provide certain information that we need from you, we may be unable to provide you with the products and services you request.

The information we collect and hold includes:

Information about you

• Identifiers such as your name, date of birth, username, password or contact details, or documents that verify your identity such as your driver’s licence
• Information about the products and services you have with us or our business partners
• Financial and credit information. For more details on how we manage and use your credit information, see our Credit Reporting Policy below. 
• Employment information and information about your educational background
• Information about your interests, preferences, opinions or comments you have made to or about us
• Other information about your identity, such as when your image is recorded on a surveillance camera such as CCTV when you visit one of our stores or offices.

In limited circumstances (e.g. if you apply for a job with us or seek specialised support in vulnerable circumstances), we may need to collect certain sensitive information about you, such as information about your personal circumstances, health, criminal history or biometric information (e.g. voiceprint or fingerprint). The information we collect when you send and receive messages using our network (including when we are authorised or required by law) may also include sensitive information. We’ll always get your consent before we collect sensitive information (except if the collection is required or authorised by law).

We may also need to collect personal information about other individuals from you (such as family members linked to your account). We rely on you to get their consent before you provide us with their personal information.

Information abut how you use your products and services

• Information about your use of products and services, including your use of our network, operating systems, websites, apps, and through our call centres and stores.
• Information relating to your browsing or viewing history, habits and preferences (including via our websites and apps such as the My Optus App). This includes browser or device information such as location information, IP addresses, cookie IDs, advertising IDs and other unique identifiers, as well as content and service metrics. For more information, please see our Cookie Policy.
• Other device specific information (including electronic SIMs) such as the hardware model, operating system, non-resettable device and service identifiers, and mobile network information. This can include information about your network location, device location, and call frequency and duration.
• Data relating to your administrative use of our services, such as account and payment information. 
• Data relating to the phone calls you receive, such as call logs and voicemails. 

How we collect your information

Directly from you

When you:

• interact with us by phone, in writing, in person or online (including via our apps, websites or social media).
• attend our events or visit our stores or offices.

Automatically through your use of our network, products or services

When you:

• interact with our websites, mobile sites, apps, electronic communications and other online products and services, we or our service providers may use cookies and other similar technologies to collect information about you. For more information, including what options you have to manage cookies, please read our Cookie Policy. 
• use our network and our products and services (such as to make and receive calls and text messages) (e.g. using our cell towers to approximate your location).

From other sources

• People with permission from you to give us your information (such as family members or authorised representatives).
• Our business partners, such as our franchisees or distributors like Coles or Harvey Norman.
• Recruitment agencies, previous employers or referees.
• Third party websites and social media platforms that collect and disclose information about you (including via the use of cookies and similar technologies) such as Google or Facebook.
• Business directories, open data sources, or public social media posts.
• Government agencies, such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
• Credit reporting bodies, such as Equifax and Illion.
• Service providers that work with Optus, like companies that help us provide products and services to you, or identity and fraud checking services, or analytics and advertising-related services (including ad-serving/targeting platforms).
• Companies related to Optus (for example in connection with the transfer of employees between related companies).

How we use your information

Administration and business operations

• Providing our products or services (and those of our business partners), communicating with you, managing your account and billing, and delivering customer support or technical support.
• Developing, operating, maintaining and improving our network, products, services, apps, content offerings and business processes.
• Security and verification purposes, including with respect to your use of Optus products and services as well as third party services (such as by confirming to third party service providers that a phone number used by you in connection with a third party application matches the phone number of an active Optus account).
• Conducting internal investigations, including in relation to potential fraud and crime. We may share your information with trusted business partners to implement anti-scam measures and protect you from suspected fraudulent activities.
• Debt recovery purposes, such as assigning a debt you owe us.
• Employment-related purposes (e.g. verifying your work experience or undertaking criminal history checks when you apply for a job with us).
• Delivery, provision, installation or repair of your device, accessories or service, and maintenance of our products, systems and networks.
• Credit-related purposes, such as assessing your credit worthiness before and during the time you use our products and services, including at the time of purchase.

For more details on how we manage and use your credit information, see our Credit Reporting Policy below. 

Marketing

• Communicating with you to market products and services we think might interest you (including those from our selected partners).
• Developing products and services that may be of interest to you.
• Communicating with you when you have previously expressed an interest in our products or services (e.g. when you have left an item in your online shopping cart).
• Conducting competitions or trade promotions, including with selected partners.

Analytics & Insights

• Deriving insights about you and the brands and companies or third parties you enjoy, to identify market segments, market products and services, or carry out market research.
• Assessing the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns to improve how we personalise our products, services, and marketing messages to you.
• Analysing anonymous viewing, browsing and usage data to understand how you and others engage with our products and services.
• Supplementing, matching and analysing information about you with information from third party sources (e.g. from Facebook or Google, or from third parties offering demographic datasets such as household composition, financial indicators and other socio-economic data) to learn more about your likely preferences and interests based on the data of others with demographic characteristics similar to you, and to create aggregated market segments to inform and personalise the campaigns we deliver.
• We may de-identify information about you to use and share it with our business partners (e.g.: via reports we prepare using analytics and insights tools). This information may be combined with other demographic information or anonymous identifiers and used to develop aggregated insights to improve our products, services and offers to you. 
• We may also utilise artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance our products and services (including customer support), manage and improve communication with you, improve our data analysis and operational processes and deliver better experiences for our customers and stakeholders. 

Relevant advertising

• Delivering targeted advertising or other content which might interest you via websites, apps and online services, including through third-party service providers such as Google.

When required or permitted by law

• Using your information as required or permitted by law.
  
  

When we share your information

We share your information with our business partners and carefully selected third parties for the purposes outlined above, including:

• Our service providers (including our contact and service centres and sales agents).
• Our analytics and advertising-related providers including providers of targeted advertising platforms.
• Our debt recovery agents and external credit reporting bodies, such as Equifax and Illion.
• Other telecommunications companies (e.g. to administer number portability requests).
• Companies who collect information and data from cookies and other similar technologies.
• Companies working with us to prevent or investigate potential unlawful activity (particularly fraud and identity theft).
• Our AI technology providers.
• Companies related to Optus, including companies in the Singtel Group.
• Advertisers of third-party products and services for the purpose of selling or providing relevant advertising on our websites, apps, and other online services.

When we share your information, we put measures in place to ensure your information is kept confidential, used securely and only used for the purposes outlined above. We will not otherwise sell or share information that directly identifies you with any third-party for commercial purposes, unless you give us your express consent.

However, for commercial purposes, we may de-identify your information and share it so that our business partners may combine it with other information. We share this so that our business partners can provide analytical services and anonymised and aggregated insights to their customers and to us.

For example, we may de-identify information about customer characteristics and movements and share with a business customer so they can develop anonymised and aggregated insights and offer products and services based on these insights for transport planning purposes.

We also share your information:

• To comply with our legal obligations in response to warrants, subpoenas or similar lawful requests for this information (including from credit reporting bodies).
• For the purpose of a transfer, sale or restructure of some or all of our assets or business.
• With government and regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies, as required or authorised by law.
• With the operator of the Integrated Public Number Database to assist with the provision of directories, emergency services and safeguard national security.
• With directory producers when you elect to have your information disclosed to such organisations (e.g. if you choose to have a listed number).
• With emergency call service centres and relevant emergency service organisations.

In some cases, we may share, host and access your information with organisations (including some Singtel Group companies, service providers and third parties) located overseas for the purposes listed above (see countries where we may share your information).

Your privacy options

You can review and update your account information by logging in to My Account.

To manage your communication preferences, log-in to My Account or contact us. 

For other Optus brands such as One Pass Mobile and Coles Mobile, you can manage your communication preferences on our Manage your marketing preferences page.

Additionally, you can control whether you want to:

• receive marketing messages and targeted online advertising from us.
• have your information included in aggregated and anonymised insights used by our business partners and their customers.

If you would like to manage the way we use browser or device information for relevant advertising, please follow the steps outlined in our Cookie Policy. 

Credit Reporting Policy

Managing your credit information

When we assess your credit worthiness, we share some of your information and your credit information with credit reporting bodies (‘CRBs’), and we collect some of your credit information from CRBs. 

The credit information that we collect from CRBs and hold in an electronic format includes:

• Personal identification information.
• Details of enquiries made about you by other creditors.
• Information about credit arrangements you have, such as whether you have opened or closed any accounts.
• Information about any overdue payments, default listings or serious credit infringements, and whether those issues were resolved.
• Other publicly available information about your credit worthiness, such as court proceedings involving you.

The information we share is recorded by these CRBs. 

The CRBs that Optus currently works with are Equifax and Illion. You can find their contact details, more about what they do and how they manage your credit information on their websites.

If you fail to meet your payment obligations, or we believe you have committed a serious credit infringement, we may also disclose this to the CRBs.

We may use or disclose your credit information to:

• Assess your credit worthiness for our products and services and perform general credit management activities, including to verify your identity with the issuer or official record holder of your identity documents via third party systems.
• Manage your account and perform debt recovery and debt management activities.
• Manage complaints relating to your credit information.
• Participate in the credit reporting system.
• Protect against and detect potential fraud and for risk management purposes.
• Protect, enforce or defend Optus’ legal rights (including enforcement of our agreements and terms of use).
• Comply with any law or legal or regulatory process.
• Engage third parties to assist us with any of the above.

For consumer credit, we’ll tell you before we conduct a credit assessment and we won’t conduct one if you are under 18 years old. Additionally, we don’t use credit information we have collected about you to generate direct marketing lists. However, we might ask a CRB to undertake pre-screening to assist us to identify whether you should be excluded from a direct marketing campaign based on certain eligibility criteria. This helps us assess if a particular product or service offer is relevant to you. 

You can ask each of the CRBs that we work with not to:

• use your credit information to pre-screen for a direct marketing campaign; or
• use or disclose your credit information if you think you have been or are likely to become a victim of fraud.

We work with customer service partners that are located within and outside Australia on credit-related matters. Where necessary, we give our partners secure access to the credit information they need to help manage your credit and your services.

How we secure & protect your information

We take the protection and security of your information and credit information seriously. We’ll continue to review and improve our security measures to ensure your information remains protected.

Some of the measures we currently take include:

• Providing you with an account ID and asking you for information about you to confirm your identity when you contact us or log into our system.
• Following the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) when handling credit card data.
• Using firewalls, virus scanning and access logging tools and encryption to protect against unauthorised access to your information and our networks.
• Using secure work (and sometimes closed) environments and workflow systems to prevent unauthorised access and copying of your personal information and credit information.
• Managing access privileges to ensure that only those who really need it can see your personal information and credit information.
• Ongoing training and security reviews.

How to access and correct your personal information

You can contact us if you wish to request access to, or update, your personal information and credit information we hold about you. For simple updates, you can log-in to My Account to view and update your account information, such as your contact and payment details. If you’re not registered with My Account, you can register for My Account. We also encourage you to review your recent bill, as that contains certain personal information that we hold about you.

If you ask us to provide access to other personal information, we’ll usually give you access once we have verified your identity. We’ll acknowledge your request within 7 days, and provided that you tell us specifically what you wish to access, we’ll usually be able to provide it to you within 30 days of receipt of your request. Request access to your personal data.

Similarly, for Coles Mobile and One Pass Mobile customers, you can request access by calling 1300 265 370 or 1300 026 710 respectively. 

If you request access to records which are not current or your request is otherwise complex, it may take longer to locate those records, and we may charge you a reasonable administrative fee for the cost of providing access. If there is a charge, we’ll let you know beforehand so you can decide whether to proceed.

If we can’t give you access to your personal information, or if it is not appropriate to make the changes you request, we’ll contact you to explain why.

If we agree that your personal information needs to be corrected, we will do so within a reasonable period of time. If we agree that our records of your credit information need to be corrected, and we've previously disclosed that information to a CRB or other third party, we'll tell them what must be corrected. However, if we cannot correct your personal information or it is not appropriate for us to make the changes you request, we’ll contact you to explain why.