Woodards Privacy Policy
At Woodards (referred to as "the Group," "we," "us," or "our"), including all its independently owned and operated offices ("Office"), we are deeply committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. This Privacy Policy outlines in detail how the Group and its Offices collect, use, disclose, and manage your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act), including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and our proactive commitment to best practices under the recent and upcoming privacy law reforms in Australia, including the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) (the Act).
By providing us with your personal information, you acknowledge and consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of that information as described in this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to read this policy carefully.
1. What personal information do we collect?
We collect various types of personal information that are reasonably necessary for our functions and activities, depending on your interactions with the Group or a specific Office and the real estate services we provide. This may include, but is not limited to:
- Contact Information: Your full name, residential and postal address, email address, and phone numbers.
- Identification & AML/CTF Information: Date of birth, driver's license number, passport details, or other government-issued identifiers required for verification and compliance with anti-money laundering legislation. To comply with Customer Due Diligence (CDD) requirements, we may also collect information regarding your beneficial ownership status, Politically Exposed Person (PEP) status, Source of Funds (SoF), and Source of Wealth (SoW).
- Financial Information: Bank account details, credit card information (for transactions), income details, employment details, financial history, and credit worthiness assessments (for rental applications or other credit-related services).
- Property Information: Details about properties you are interested in, have inquired about, or are selling/leasing. This includes property preferences, purchase history, rental history, property ownership details, property condition reports, and specific requirements for a property search.
- Communication Records: Comprehensive records of your communications with us, including emails, phone calls, text messages (SMS), instant messages, and meeting notes, to ensure accurate service delivery and for record-keeping.
- Website Usage Data: Information about how you interact with our websites and digital platforms via cookies, analytics tools, and similar technologies.
- Other Information: Any other personal information you voluntarily provide to us in the course of seeking or receiving our services.
2. How do we collect personal information?
We collect personal information through various transparent and fair methods, primarily directly from you:
- Directly from You: This is our primary method of collection. It occurs when you inquire about a property, attend an open home, make an offer, submit a rental application, list a property, sign up for communications, or provide documents required for identification or verification.
- From Third Parties: We may collect information from third parties where permitted by law or with your consent. This can include:
- Real estate portals (e.g., realestate.com.au, domain.com.au).
- Credit reporting agencies or rental databases.
- Financial institutions, conveyancers, and solicitors involved in your property transaction.
- Government bodies or public registers.
- Electronic Identity Verification (EIV) providers, such as First AML, who assist us in verifying your identity documents securely.
- Other real estate professionals, previous rental providers, or employers.
- Publicly Available Sources: Such as public registers, social media platforms, or other online sources.
- Through Our Website and Digital Platforms: Via cookies, analytics tools, and other tracking technologies.
3. Why do we collect, use, and disclose personal information?
We collect, use, and disclose your personal information for purposes directly related to our real estate services and operations:
- Providing Real Estate Services: To assist you with buying, selling, leasing, or managing properties.
- Facilitating Transactions: Processing applications, preparing contracts, managing settlements, and coordinating with other parties.
- Communication: Responding to your inquiries, providing property updates, and managing our relationship with you.
Marketing & Research: Sending you information about properties or services. You will always have a simple means to opt-out of direct marketing communications.
- Compliance with Legal and Regulatory Obligations: Meeting our obligations under Australian laws, including the Privacy Act and consumer protection laws. Effective July 1, 2026, this includes strict compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth). We are legally required to conduct Customer Due Diligence (CDD), monitor transactions, and report certain threshold transactions or suspicious matters to the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).
- Internal Operations and Improvement: For administrative, accounting, record-keeping, and statistical purposes.
- Security and Risk Management: Protecting our business, clients, and systems from fraud and managing potential risks.
4. Who do we disclose personal information to?
We may disclose your personal information to third parties in connection with the purposes described above:
- Other Entities within the Woodards Group: Shared for operational support and lead management.
- Other Parties in a Transaction: Including vendors, rental providers, prospective buyers, and renters.
Other Professionals and Service Providers: Conveyancers, solicitors, mortgage brokers, valuers, and tradespeople.
- External Service Providers: IT support, marketing agencies, payment processors, and Electronic Identity Verification (EIV) services like First AML.
- Government and Regulatory Bodies: Including the OAIC, ATO, police, courts, and AUSTRAC. Please note that under the AML/CTF Act, strict "tipping-off" provisions prohibit us from disclosing to you if a Suspicious Matter Report (SMR) has been filed regarding your transaction.
- Financial Institutions, Credit Reporting Agencies, Rental Databases, and Strata Managers.
- Potential Purchasers of Our Business.
5. Your Rights: Accessing, correcting, and deleting your personal information.
You have important rights regarding your personal information under the Privacy Act and as part of ongoing privacy reforms:
- Right to Access & Correction: You have the right to request access to or correction of the personal information we hold about you.
- Right to Erasure (Right to be Forgotten): You may request that we delete your personal information in certain circumstances. Please note that this right is subject to overriding legal obligations; for example, we are required by law to retain all AML/CTF Customer Due Diligence and transaction records for a mandatory period of seven years.
- Right to Opt-Out of Direct Marketing: You can easily opt-out of receiving direct marketing communications at any time.
6. What are the main consequences if you do not provide your personal information?
If you choose not to provide us with your personal information, or if you withdraw your consent for us to use it, you may not be permitted to inspect properties, and we may be legally prohibited from brokering a sale, purchase, or transfer of real estate on your behalf under AML/CTF legislation.
7. Overseas disclosure of personal information.
We may disclose your personal information to external service providers located overseas (such as cloud storage providers) to assist us in operating our business. We take reasonable steps to ensure overseas recipients handle information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles or are subject to substantially similar protective laws.
8. Security of your personal information.
We are committed to protecting your personal information through secure systems, encryption, strict access controls, physical security, and regular staff training.
- Data Retention: We retain personal information only for as long as necessary. Specifically, all AML/CTF-related information (including CDD and transaction records) must be retained for seven years from the end of the business relationship or the last transaction.
- Data Minimization: To protect your privacy, we do not retain photocopies or scans of full identification documents unless specifically required by another Australian law. We only extract and securely store the specific data points reasonably necessary to demonstrate our compliance.
- Notifiable Data Breaches: In the event of an eligible data breach likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the OAIC as required by the Privacy Act.
9. Automated decision-making.
We may use automated decision-making processes (e.g., property matching). Where these processes significantly affect your rights, we strive to provide transparency about the logic involved and your right to request human review, in anticipation of ongoing Privacy Act reforms.
10. Making a privacy complaint.
If you believe we have breached your privacy rights, please contact us immediately. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If unsatisfied, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at [email protected] or 1300 363 992.
11. Changes to this privacy policy.
We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in practices or legal requirements. The most current version will always be available on our website.
12. Contact us.
If you have any questions or wish to make a request regarding your personal information, please contact us in writing at [email protected] or by post to:
Woodards Real Estate Group
P O Box 387
Camberwell VIC 3124
Effective: March, 2026
