Our Privacy Policy

Updated 18 July 2024

Policy Aims

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival (ABN 12 003 806 371) is committed to protecting your privacy.

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act), as well as other applicable laws protecting privacy. In some circumstances, we may undertake contractual obligations to observe additional privacy obligations. Where appropriate, we will handle personal information relying on the employee records exemption and the related bodies corporate exemption in the Privacy Act.

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time and if we do so, we will post any updated Privacy Policy at www.bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au. Please note also that this Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with (and is subject to) any other privacy statement we may provide to you when we collect your personal information or provide a particular program or service.

Data Collection

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival collects the personal information we need to produce our programs, conduct related activities and operations, involve the community in our programs and activities, and promote and seek support for the Festival.

The following are the main purposes for which personal information is collected by the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival and the main types of personal information collected.

Selling tickets to Festival events

Tickets can be purchased in a number of ways, including by calling our office over the phone and by visiting our website. When you purchase a ticket, your information may be used to facilitate payment, provide you with your ticket, provide you with any applicable discounts, notify you in case of changes in date or time of an event, or send out information about upcoming festival events. With your consent, we may collect your accessibility requirements, such as seating or parking requests.

In aggregated form (that is, without identifying details) ticketing information may be shared with other arts companies and agencies for research purposes, such as to guide and assist future programming and marketing.

Communicating with our donors and supporters

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival collects information about our current and potential donors and supporters so that we can encourage, record and acknowledge their support and communicate with them about the Festival and our programs.

Operating our website

When you use the website, you may choose to provide your name and email address for us to send you ticketing or other information about the Festival and its programs.

Managing general operations

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival also collects personal information about individuals who are, or are employed by, our partners, our suppliers (including service and content providers), contractors, agents and other partners. Generally, if appropriate, we will state why we are collecting personal information when we collect it and how we plan to use it, or these things will be obvious when we collect the information.

When you apply for a job or contract with us we may collect certain information from you, from any recruitment consultant and from your previous employers and others who may be able to provide information to us to assist us in our decision on whether or not to make you an offer of employment or engage you under a contract. This Privacy Policy does not apply to acts and practices in relation to employee records of our current and former employees which are exempt from the Privacy Act.

Please note that if you provide us with personal information about third parties (for example, if you buy tickets on behalf of another person) we ask that you let them know about this Privacy Policy. You should not give us any sensitive information (such as health information) about a third party or ask us to send any information to a third party (including by email) unless you are sure that you have that person’s consent to do so.

Use of Personal Information

When we collect personal information, we use it for the purposes for which it was collected, or as otherwise authorised or required by law. We may sometimes use personal information for marketing or other research or allow information in aggregated form (without identifying individuals) to be shared with other arts companies and agencies to guide and assist future programming and marketing planning.

If you have purchased tickets from us, or if you have asked to make such a purchase, we may use your information to send you material (including by email) about the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival or its programs or other related programs or services, unless you tell us not to using the contact details set out below.

If at any time you do not want us to use your personal information to send you any further information, you can always let us know by contacting our Privacy Officer through the contact details given below.

Disclosure of Personal Information

For the purposes we have described, we may disclose your personal information to

our related bodies corporate, or to anyone to whom our assets or business (or any part of it) may be transferred.

Cookies

A type of anonymous information shared between your browser and our server is a cookie. A cookie is a small text file that a server places on your hard drive to identify that subsequent requests to a site have come from the same user.

The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival may use cookies to ‘remember’ your browser between page visits. In this situation, the cookie identifies your browser, not you personally. The Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival may use cookies on this web site to facilitate online transactions and develop patterns of site usage.

If for any reason you do not wish to take advantage of cookies, you may configure your browser so it does not accept them. However, this may disable or render unusable some of the features of the website.

Security of Information

While the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival endeavours to provide a secure Internet environment, users should note that there are inherent risks associated with transmission of information via the Internet.

There are several places throughout the Festival website that may link to other websites that do not operate under this website’s privacy practices. When you link to other websites, the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival privacy practices no longer apply. We encourage visitors to review each site’s privacy policy before disclosing any personally identifiable information.

Access and Correction

If you would like to access your information or to find out what information we have about you, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details given below. We will respond to any such request within a reasonable period of time. When you request access, we will need to take measures to verify your identity. We will provide you with access to most personal information that we have about you, but sometimes that will not be possible, in which case we will tell you why (except to the extent it would be unreasonable for us to do so).

If you think that any personal information we hold about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, you may request that we correct that information by contacting our Privacy Officer. We will respond to any such request within a reasonable period of time. Although in most circumstances we will be able to correct the personal information we hold about you, in some circumstances it may not be possible for us to correct some or all of your personal information in the manner in which you have requested. Where this is the case, we will notify you and give you the reasons why (except to the extent it would be unreasonable for us to do so).

If you wish to make a complaint about the way we have handled your personal information (including if you think we have breached the Privacy Act), you may do so by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact details set out below. If you make a complaint, please include contact details such as your name, address, telephone number and email address and clearly describe your complaint. We will respond to your complaint within a reasonable period and will endeavour to deal with your complaint in an efficient manner. If we are unable to resolve your complaint and you believe that we have breached the Privacy Act, you may wish to contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

More Information

If you have any queries or would like further information about our privacy policies or practices, please contact Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival by calling (02) 4782 5674 or by emailing hello@bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au or by writing to Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival, 141 Cascade St, Katoomba, NSW 2780