Privacy Notice

ClearBridge Investments Limited (ABN 84 119 339 052; AFSL 307727) and its subsidiary (“ClearBridge”) are committed to safeguarding your personal information and recognise any concerns you may have about your privacy and the security of your personal information.

This Privacy Notice details how we protect your privacy and how we comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). This notice also describes:

  • who we collect information from;
  • the types of personal information collected and held by us;
  • how this information is collected and held;
  • the purposes for which your personal information is collected, held, used and disclosed;
  • how you can gain access to your personal information and seek its correction;
  • how you may complain or inquire about our collection, handling, use or disclosure of your personal information and how that complaint or inquiry will be handled; and
  • whether we are likely to disclose your personal information to any overseas recipients.

Who do we collect personal information from?

In the course of providing investment services, including the management of certain products, we may collect personal information from clients or potential clients to assist with verification.

 

What types of personal information do we collect?

The types of information we may collect includes, but is not limited to:

  • Personal Information including names, addresses and other contact details; dates of birth; residency status; information to verify your identity such as your driver’s licence number, tax file number ("TFN"), and financial information such as your bank account number.
  • Sensitive Information including your nationality, country of birth, professional memberships and criminal records.

 

How do we collect and hold your personal information?

How we collect personal information will largely be dependent upon whose information we are collecting. If it is reasonable and practical to do so, we collect personal information directly from you.  

Where possible ClearBridge has attempted to standardise the collection of personal information by using specifically designed forms (e.g. Fund Application Forms). However, given the nature of our operations we often also receive personal information by email, letters, notes, over the telephone, in face-to-face meetings and through financial transactions.

We may collect information of individuals who are the relevant contact of a corporate client or other organisation or an adviser within a dealer group. In this instance, information may be collected from that entity.

We may also collect personal information from other people (e.g. a third-party administrator) or independent sources, however, we will only do so where it is not reasonable and practical to collect the information from you directly.

Sometimes we may be provided with your personal information without having sought it through our normal means of collection.  We refer to this as “unsolicited information”. Where we collect unsolicited information, we will only hold, use and/or disclose that information if we could otherwise do so had we collected it by normal means. If that unsolicited information could not have been collected by normal means, then we will destroy, permanently delete or de-identify the information as appropriate.

 

How we use your personal information?

We only use personal information that is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions or activities (the primary purpose) or for a related secondary purpose that would be reasonably expected by you, or to which you have consented.

Our uses of personal information include, but are not limited to:

  • providing you with one or more of our investment services;
  • assessing your application for a financial product or service; and/or
  • communicating with you about the investment services that we offer.

We may also need to collect personal information in order to comply with our legal obligations, such as the AML/CTF laws, under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth).

It may be necessary for ClearBridge to disclose your personal information to certain third parties in order to assist us with one or more of our functions or activities. This may include organisations providing fund administration or custodial services under an arrangement with us.

We only collect sensitive information reasonably necessary for one or more of these functions or activities if we have the consent of the individuals to whom the sensitive information relates, or if the collection is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to life, health or safety or another permitted general situation.

Please be aware that there is certain information that we are required by law to provide you and you cannot opt out of receiving this information.

 

Direct Marketing

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our services that we expect may be of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail and email. You consent to us sending you those direct marketing communications by any of those methods. At any time you may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us using the contact details below or by using the opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications.

Please note that, if we are currently providing you with investment services, we will still need to send you essential information about your account, the relevant services or products and other information required by law.

 

Storage and security of your personal information

We store personal information in a variety of formats including on databases, in hard copy files and on personal devices, including laptop computers.  

The security of your personal information is of paramount importance to us and we take all reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold about you from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

These steps include:

  • Restricting access to information on our databases on a need to know basis with different levels of security being allocated to staff based on their roles and responsibilities and security profile.
  • Ensuring all staff are aware that they are not to reveal or share passwords.
  • Ensuring where sensitive information is stored in hard copy files that these files are securely stored. Access to these records is restricted to staff on a need to know basis.
  • Implementing physical security measures at our premises to prevent break-ins.
  • Implementing security systems, policies and procedures designed to protect personal information storage on our computer networks.
  • Implementing human resources policies and procedures, such as email and internet usage, confidentiality and document security policies, designed to ensure that staff follow correct protocols when handling personal information.
  • Undertaking due diligence with respect to third party service providers who may have access to personal information, including customer identification providers and cloud service providers, to ensure as far as practicable that they are compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles or a similar privacy regime.

Personal information we hold that is no longer needed, or required to be retained by any other laws, is destroyed in a secure manner. 

Our website may contain links to other websites. We do not share your personal information with those websites, and we are not responsible for their privacy practices. Please check their privacy policies.

 

When we disclose your personal information

We only use personal information for the purposes for which it was given to us, or for purposes which are directly related to one or more of our functions or activities. We may disclose your personal information to government agencies, and other recipients from time to time, only if one or more of the following apply:

  • you have consented;
  • you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your personal information in this way;
  • we are authorised or required to do so by law or a court/tribunal order;
  • disclosure will lessen or prevent a serious threat to the life, health or safety of an individual or to public safety;
  • where another permitted general situation applies;
  • disclosure is required or reasonably necessary for a law enforcement related activity.

 

Disclosure of your personal information to overseas recipients

We may disclose personal information about an individual to overseas organisations that help us provide our services, in certain circumstances, such as when storing information with a “cloud service provider” which stores data outside of Australia.  We will, however, take all reasonable steps not to disclose an individual’s personal information to overseas recipients unless:

  • we have the individual’s consent (which may be implied);
  • we have satisfied ourselves that the overseas recipient is compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles, or a similar privacy regime;
  • we form the opinion that the disclosure will lessen or prevent a serious threat to the life, health or safety of an individual or to public safety; or
  • we are taking appropriate action in relation to suspected unlawful activity or serious misconduct

 

How we ensure the quality of your personal information

We take all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we hold, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date. These steps include ensuring that the personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date at the time of collection and when using or disclosing the personal information.

On an ongoing basis we maintain and update personal information when we are advised by individuals or when we become aware through other means that their personal information has changed.

Please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. You should also contact us if you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date.

 

How to gain access to your personal information we hold

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you or request that we change the personal information, by contacting us using the contact details below.

If we do not agree to provide you with access or to amend your personal information as requested you will be notified accordingly. Where appropriate we will provide you with the reason/s for our decision. If the rejection relates to a request to change your personal information you may make a statement about the requested change, and we will attach this to your record.

 

Dealing with ClearBridge online

We may use “cookies” to help us tailor our website to better suit your needs (e.g. we may use cookies to enable us to save any personal preferences indicated by you) and to provide a more effective route to various components of our website. If you choose to disable cookies, some of our website’s functionality might be impaired. Cookies are small text files that are stored in your computer’s memory and hard drive, in your mobile device or tablet when you visit certain websites. They are used to enable websites to function or to provide information to the owners of a website or other third parties which receive data obtained from that website. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the website work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised online experience.

We may disclose details about the general use of our website to third parties – for example, to demonstrate patterns of use and other business partners. Information we pass on for this purpose will not include any personal data by which you may be identified.

 

Privacy Complaints

If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it.

We request that complaints about breaches of privacy be made in writing, so we can be sure about the details of the complaint. We will attempt to confirm as appropriate and necessary with you your understanding of the conduct relevant to the complaint and what you expect as an outcome. We will inform you whether we will conduct an investigation, the name, title, and contact details of the investigating officer and the estimated completion date for the investigation process.

After we have completed our enquiries, we will contact you, usually in writing, to advise the outcome and invite a response to our conclusions about the complaint. If we receive a response from you, we will assess it and advise if we have changed our view.

If a complaint remains unresolved, you may access an external dispute resolution service (if applicable) or apply to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) to have the complaint heard and determined.

When we write to you about our decision, we will explain how you may access an external dispute resolution scheme or make a complaint to the OAIC.

 

How to Contact Us

You can contact us about this Privacy Notice or about your personal information by:

  • emailing at [email protected]
  • Calling 02 9397 7300; or
  • Writing to our Privacy Officer c/- ClearBridge Investments Limited, Level 13, 35 Clarence Street, Sydney NSW 2000.

If practical, you can contact us anonymously (i.e. without identifying yourself) or by using a pseudonym. However, if you choose not to identify yourself, we may not be able to give you the information or provide the assistance you might otherwise receive if it is not practical to do so.

 

Your rights if you are in the EU/UK

The General Data Protection Regulation provides you with the right to access your data, as well as to correct or rectify your data, or delete your data, subject to applicable law. You also have the right to have your data processed only in accordance with applicable law, as well as to have copies of your data moved to another controller.  You may also object to us processing your data otherwise than in accordance with the law, and to withdraw any consent to our processing your data at any time. Please email [email protected] to exercise any of those rights.

 

Changes to our privacy and information handling practices

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time and you are advised to visit our website periodically to view these changes.