Privacy

The Victorian Government values and is committed to protecting your privacy.

We handle your personal information in accordance with the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) (PDP Act), Public Records Act 1973 (Vic), Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) and other applicable legislation.

This Privacy Statement applies to information collected through the budget.vic.gov.au website. For information about our broader collection, use and disclosure of personal information, email information@dtf.vic.gov.au.

We may update this privacy statement from time to time. Any changes to this privacy statement will be published on this website.

What information do we collect?

There are 3 main ways that we may collect personal information from you:

1. Requests to provide information

In most circumstances, you will know if we are collecting personal information from you because you will be requested to provide it. For instance, if you submit a form to contact us through the website, we will ask you to provide your name and email address.

2. Automatic collection through the website

Some personal information is automatically collected as a result of your visit to our website. This information is collected using software techniques such as web server log file analysis, cookies and web beacons.

3. Automatic collection by third party software vendors

We use some third party software that collects information about your interaction with our website.

When you visit our website, your web browser automatically sends certain information to these software providers.

This statement covers each of these instances of personal information collection in more detail below.

Requests to provide information

We may collect personal information that you choose to give us, or which may be required to access a particular service. This includes information collected via online forms, events and training registration, or when subscribing to receive newsletters.

The information you provide by completing an online form on budget.vic.gov.au is collected by the Drupal 9 content management system (CMS) and is stored on the Microsoft Azure infrastructure in Sydney, Australia. The Victorian Government has a process in place to delete this data from the CMS on a regular basis.

Automatic collection through the website

Use of cookies

We use first-party cookies and JavaScript code to collect information about visitors to this website. We use these to track how our visitors interact with this website, including where they came from, what they did on the site and whether they completed any transactions on the site.

If you don't want to have cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your web browser. You will need to customise each web browser you use to turn off cookie tracking.

If you opt out of using cookies, you will still have access to all the information and resources provided by this website, though some features may not work as expected.

Automatic collection by third party software vendors

This website uses several online tools to measure website use, which are provided by third party software vendors. We use these tools to help us make our site better.

We use software by third parties, including:

• Facebook
• Formsite
• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager
• HotJar
• Ingenious
• Jotform
• YouTube

For further information on how these third party software vendors handle your personal information, please review their privacy policies. Personal information may be provided to third parties when accessing this website. Information that may be shared to third parties includes:

• network location and IP address
• the date and time of your visit to our website
• the types of web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari) and operating system (e.g. Windows 10, Mac OS X etc.) you are using
• flash version, JavaScript support, screen resolution and screen colour processing ability
• referring site details (such as the URL that you came through to arrive at our website)
• page visited and the time spent on each page
• documents downloaded and search terms used
• the forms accessed on our website
• unique device identifier
• cookies and data about which page you visited
• device information, hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage, debugging information, browser information
• geo-location information (if enabled by user)
• may assign a unique user identifier.

The information we disclose to some of our third-party vendors may travel outside Victoria. We take steps to ensure that when your personal information travels, privacy protections travel with it.

Third party software vendors may alter how they collect and handle personal information at any time.

Use and disclosure

Use of web analytics data

We use web analytics data for statistical purposes, such as to analyse, measure, and report on data about our website traffic and visits. This information helps us understand general user trends at an aggregate level, and improve our website, content, and user experience.

We may also use this information for security audits to protect against threats from hackers or other security purposes.

We do not use this information to identify you or match it with any other personal information that we may collect from you, unless required to do so as part of an internal investigation or for a law enforcement-related purpose, in accordance with the PDP Act.

Your site visit data is collected under the authority of Information Privacy Principle 1.1 of the PDP Act for the purposes stated above.

Disclosure of web analytics data

Apart from the third party tools described in this Privacy Statement, we do not disclose your site visit data to any other third parties without your consent, unless we are required or authorised to do so by law. In the event of an investigation into suspected unlawful or improper activity, a law enforcement or government agency may use its legal authority to inspect our web server’s records (e.g. in relation to hacking or abusive messages).

Can I opt out of the collection of web analytics data?

You cannot opt out of the automatic collection of information that is used for analytical purposes, however you may choose to disable cookies or delete any individual cookie. If you choose to disable cookies, the website may not function fully and your ability to browse, read, and download information contained on our website may be impaired. However, you may still access our services by contacting our office via other methods such as telephone, email, or mail.

You can enable a “Do Not Track” setting on your browser to help protect your privacy. When Do Not Track is tuned on, your browser will send a Do Not Track request to the sites you visit, and to the third parties whose content is hosted on those sites. However, many websites will still collect and use your browsing data regardless of the Do Not Track Request. This depends on individual sites’ privacy practices. Sending a Do Not Track request does not guarantee privacy protection.

Instructions on how to enable the Do Not Track setting:

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer 11(opens in a new window)
• Mozilla Firefox(opens in a new window)
• Safari(opens in a new window)
• Microsoft Edge

You can also opt out of tracking and website analytics using a Google browser plugin.

Social media

Please be advised that information you share via social media sites may be accessible to anyone else engaging with the Victorian Government via the same social media, including non-government third parties. Each social network has inbuilt privacy settings. We recommend that you regularly check and configure your privacy settings for your profile and accounts to make sure you know what information you are making available and to which audience.

We have social media sharing links on this website. These are located on the right-hand side of a webpage under the heading 'Share this'. By clicking these links, you are given the option to share the webpage as a post on your social media account X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or LinkedIn). These social media networks have channel-specific privacy policies and may collect your personal information if you choose to share a post, so we recommend viewing their privacy policies at the links below.

• X (formerly Twitter)
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Links to non-budget.vic.gov.au websites

This privacy statement does not apply to any external websites that are linked on the budget.vic.gov.au website.

The icon we provide to let you know when you are leaving budget.vic.gov.au and visiting an external website is displayed below.

This is what an external link looks like(opens in a new window)

We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of external websites. When you visit other websites, we recommend you read the privacy statements or policies of these websites before providing personal information.

Security of your personal information

Under the PDP Act, we have a responsibility to protect your personal information. We take reasonable steps to make sure that your personal information is protected from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Access to systems, applications, and the information that we collect is limited to authorised staff members only.

Further, any personal information that we collect and use for identifying user trends (for example, IP address) is aggregated and anonymised when generating reports.

Access and correction

You may request access to, or correction of, documents that contain your personal information which are in our possession. For information on how to make a request for access or correction, please contact us via the details below.

In some cases, requests for access or correction will be handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic).

Contact us

For further information about this privacy statement or how we handle personal information, please contact us by email at information@dtf.vic.gov.au.

For other information requests, see the Victorian Government's Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner website.