Privacy policy

This Privacy policy applies to Motor Trades Association of Australia Superannuation Fund Pty Ltd (Trustee) (ABN 14 008 650 628), as trustee of Spirit Super (74 559 365 913) (Fund), and to each of the following companies, being companies which are wholly owned by the trustee: -

• Quadrant First Pty Ltd (ABN 78 102 167 877); and
• MTAA Superannuation Fund (Secretariat Co.) Pty Limited (ABN 29 104 826 413),
  (collectively referred to as the “Group”.

For the purposes of this policy the trustee and the wholly owned entities referred to above are collectively referred to as the ‘the Group’, ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’.

This Privacy policy is designed to enable the Group to appropriately manage privacy and information matters and to provide individuals with information regarding how the Group handles and manages their personal information.

Protecting your privacy is important to us

This policy outlines what details we keep about you, why we need this information and how we maintain your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act.

You have the option of interacting with the Group anonymously or by using a pseudonym. In such circumstances, we may provide you with general information about our products, services or processes. We won’t, however, be able to provide you with any specific information (for example information about a specific account or member). This is because the provision of certain identifying information is required by law and/or for integrity purposes to provide access to products, services and features or to provide certain information.

You can print this Privacy policy or you can request a hard copy free of charge, by calling us on 1800 005 166.

Why we need your personal information

We may collect a range of personal information for the following purposes:

• establishing your account
• identifying you, your beneficiaries, or any agents acting on your behalf
• verifying your identity
• administering your super or other accounts with us, including managing your underlying investments, processing contributions to your account, paying or transferring your super benefits
• assessing your eligibility for insurance or benefit claims
• providing you with advice
• providing you with information about super and other related services
• complying with laws and reporting requirements and assisting government or law enforcement agencies
• managing and resolving complaints made by you
• research to improve products and services
• conducting research and analytics related to the functions of the Group
• investigating suspicious matters and potential fraud and scams
• assessing your job application if you apply for employment with us.

We may also collect personal information for related purposes such as:

• informing you of opportunities, special offers and promotions, potentially including marketing materials regarding the products or services of third parties
• research and feedback to improve the products and services available to you.

You can advise us at any time if you don’t want us to use your personal information for the marketing and research purposes outlined above. This means that we won't advise you of opportunities and additional services available to you.

Where we use your personal information to contact you for marketing and research purposes, we’ll give you the opportunity to opt out of any future direct marketing campaigns at the time of contacting you.

What kind of information we collect

The type of personal information we collect about you will depend on the products and services provided to you, but may include your:

• full name
• date of birth
• tax file number (TFN)
• identification documents
• contact details including address, phone number and email address
• residency and citizenship status
• employment details including salary
• details of your nominated beneficiaries
• financial information such as salary, contributions history, banking details, and your applications for benefit payments
• information about your investments, assets and liabilities, expenses, estate planning, insurances, income, and tax affairs
• other information necessary to provide products and services to you.

Over time, this information may be supplemented by financial and other information necessary to administer your account. For example, changes to your investment options, amounts transferred into or out of your account or variations to your insurance.

We may also need to collect sensitive personal information about you, but only with your consent. For the purposes of the Privacy Act, sensitive information includes information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, political persuasions, criminal record and religious or philosophical beliefs. Any sensitive information we collect about you will generally be limited to information about your health with regard to insurance eligibility assessments for either applications or claims. We won’t use your sensitive information for any other purpose or share it with anyone else without your permission, unless we are required or authorised to do so under any applicable law.

You may choose not to provide some types of information we request. If you don’t provide complete or accurate information, this may have adverse implications such as:

• preventing us from contacting you
• preventing or delaying the processing of your request
• preventing us from accepting some types of super contributions for you
• impacting the taxation of your super
• affecting your eligibility for an insurance or benefit claim.

Consequences of not providing your personal information

If your personal information is not provided to us to enable us to properly administer your account or benefits, certain consequences may follow. Examples of these consequences include:

• We may be unable to pay your benefit or there may be delays
• We may have difficulties in calculating your benefit
• There may be difficulties and delays in processing any insured death, terminal illness or TPD benefit you may be eligible for
• You may pay more tax than is necessary
• We may experience difficulties in contacting you - which means you do not receive annual statements or other important communications and may get reported as a lost member and eventually your benefit may be transferred to the ATO.

How we collect your information

Where possible, we'll collect your personal information directly from you.

There may be occasions where we collect information from an authorised representative, third parties such as your employer or the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and publicly available sources. If you attend an event sponsored or conducted by us, we may collect information about you from the organiser of the event or from our service providers involved in conducting the event.

Collection of information from you will occur when you contact us to request that we provide a product or service. We may continue to collect your personal information during the course of our relationship. Your communications with us may be monitored and recorded. This is so we can improve our products and services and to ensure compliance with our policies and procedures.

We collect personal information when you lodge forms such as membership application and change of personal details forms, if you send us documents containing personal information, or if you pass security checks and provide updates to your information either over the phone or in writing. We also collect your personal information when you update your details in our online member portal, Member Online.

If we don’t have your personal information, including your name, date of birth, address, contact phone number, email address and TFN, these can be provided to us by your employer to enable us to accept, and process, your super contributions and maintain your account. We may also collect your personal information from the ATO, other super entities and other third parties where doing so is necessary for the administration of your account or provision of benefits and services to you or is required or authorised by an applicable law.

Personal information may also be collected by the Group through external service providers, including our group life insurer, MetLife Pty Limited (ABN 57 078 907 883, AFSL 238761) (MetLife). MetLife provides insurance options to members. Read the MetLife Privacy Policy at the MetLife website.

How we securely store your information

We have strict security measures in place to seek to protect your personal information.

Your information can only be accessed by authorised staff and service providers performing specific functions and we take reasonable steps to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, use or disclosure.

The measures that we take to seek to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, use or disclosure include the use of secure passwords, user log ons or other security procedures. Developments in security and encryption technology will be reviewed regularly. Group staff are trained to deal with personal information confidentially and in accordance with the Privacy Act.

How you can access and update your personal information

You have a right to request access to the information we hold about you and to have it corrected if required. You can access your personal information by logging in to Member Online, or you can call us on 1800 005 166 or otherwise contact us to make a request for access to or correction of your information.

Your request for access to your personal information will be responded to within 30 days of us receiving the request. You won't be charged for making the request for information and information will usually be provided free of charge. However, we reserve the right to impose reasonable charges for provision of information either generally or on a case-by-case basis.

There are some circumstances in which access to information may be denied or restricted. If this applies to you, we’ll explain this to you when you following you making your request.

To update your personal information, you can:

• complete an application form, if you haven’t already done so
• complete a Change your details form
• log in to Member Online
• call us on 1800 005 166
• write to us at Spirit Super, GPO Box 1547, Hobart TAS 7001
• email us at [email protected].

How we retain your personal information

We’ll only retain your information for the minimum period of time required to facilitate the administration of your account and to ensure compliance with legislative requirements. To facilitate this, we’ve determined that:

• all digital records will be held for a period of at least 10 years following the closure of a member account and
• subsequent to this period member information that’s no longer required may be destroyed or de-identified as appropriate.

Disclosure of your personal information

We will only disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes outlined in this Privacy policy, for other purposes that we notify you of and/or obtain your consent to or for purposes that are required or authorised by an applicable law. Where personal information is disclosed to a third party engaged by us, we will ensure that the third party is subject to appropriate controls and restrictions regarding the use of that information.

The types of third parties to which we may disclose your personal information include:

• printing and mailing companies
• archiving companies
• actuaries, accountants, auditors, legal advisers and regulators
• insurance companies and underwriters
• medical practitioners and other service providers that assist us with the assessment of claims
• custodians and investment managers
• marketing and research companies
• organisations maintaining and providing our information technology systems and services
• service providers and other advisers appointed by us
• your spouse or former spouse, to the extent required by law
• a third party where authorisation has been provided by you
• your dependants, legal personal representative or power of attorney as appropriate
• any fund to which your benefit is to be transferred or rolled over, including the administrator of that fund
• government agencies (including the ATO, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, Australian Securities and Investment Commission, Australian Financial Complaints Authority, the Courts and any other bodies or persons where required by law.

Generally, we require organisations who handle or obtain personal information as service providers, to agree to comply with the Privacy Act, the Australian Privacy Principles and this Privacy policy.

These organisations may transfer your personal information to organisations located outside Australia (overseas recipients). We won’t disclose personal information to an entity that’s located outside Australia, nor allow such an entity to hold personal information, unless one of the following applies:

• we’ve taken reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas entity is committed to protecting the individual’s privacy and complies with the Australian Privacy Principles or
• we reasonably believe that the overseas entity is subject to a law or binding scheme that, overall, is at least substantially similar to the way in which the Australian Privacy Principles protect information, and there are mechanisms that the individual can access to take action to enforce that protection of the law or binding scheme; or
• the disclosure of the information is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order or
• we have obtained your consent for the specific disclosure or you request that we disclose the information to the overseas entity.

The overseas jurisdictions where personal information may be held or disclosed is attached to this policy at Appendix 1.

Your personal information won’t be used or disclosed for any purpose other than the purposes set out in this Privacy policy without your consent, except where required or authorised by super, tax or other relevant law. For example, we’re required to report certain information to the ATO for tax related purposes.

We may disclose information to a third party nominated by you, such as your financial planner, where authorisation has been provided by you.

We’ll only disclose your sensitive personal information to a third party with your consent or where required or authorised by applicable law. However, without your consent, we may not be able to process your insurance application or assess your claim or may otherwise be limited in how we can assist you.

Quality of your personal information

We rely on accurate, complete and up-to-date personal information to provide you with products and services. We take steps to ensure that your personal information is complete and up-to-date, by maintaining and updating personal information when you advise us that your personal information has changed, and/or by proactively seeking clarification of details as necessary.

If there are any changes to your personal information, we encourage you to advise us immediately so we can update your details.

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Your privacy and the internet

Security of your information

While all reasonable steps are taken to protect your personal information provided through the internet, you should be aware that there are general risks associated with transmitting personal information through the internet. You should assess these potential risks before deciding whether to use our online services. If you don’t want to transmit personal information over the internet you may provide information to us by mail, phone or in person.

What information do we collect?

The general and personal information collected online depends on how you use the Spirit Super website.

If you visit an unsecured area of the website to read or download information, our service provider will log information for statistical purposes.

We’ll try not to identify users or their browsing activities or merge this with personally identifiable information. An exception is, in the event of an investigation, a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect the service provider’s logs.

Interactive tools on the website, such as calculators, often require you to provide personal information. We only retain this information where a calculator or similar tool allows you to save information and retrieve it at a later time. The information stored won’t ordinarily be viewed by us.

How we handle email

If you provide us with your email address, we may use it to send regular communications such as updates on new and existing products and services (including products or services of third parties). If you don’t want to receive such information, you can click the unsubscribe link within the email you received, or you can contact us to unsubscribe at any time.

We’ll preserve the content of any email that you send us, if we believe we have a legal requirement to do so. Your email content may be monitored for security issues, including where email abuse is suspected. Our response to you may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are sent to the user’s browser to allow the web page browser to retrieve information from the computer. Cookies can either be temporary session cookies, or stored permanently on a computer. We use traditional web browser cookies.

We use cookies on our websites to obtain information regarding the use of the website and to tailor the information we present to you. By using the website, you agree to our use of this type of technology.

We may use cookies from approved third parties, such as Google, to customise your experience of our advertising on other sites. If you want to avoid tracking, you can block trackers with a browser like Safari or a privacy add-in tool, or you can change your advertising settings with the organisations directly.

We may use remarketing with Google analytics to advertise online and to access demographic and interest reports. You can opt out of this at Google ad settings or by downloading and installing the Google analytics opt-out browser add-on. 

We, and third-party vendors, may at times combine cookies together to inform, optimise, and serve ads based on past visits to our website. This may also be used with analytics to report ad impressions and interactions with these ads.

If you’re concerned about cookies, you should be able to adjust your computer settings so that cookies will be rejected, however, this means that you may be unable to view secure pages.

Links to other websites

Our website has links to other internet sites.

These are provided as a convenience to you. We make no warranties and accept no liability in relation to the material contained on any linked external websites.

This Privacy policy only applies to the Group and doesn’t extend to the websites of other companies or organisations to which our website is linked. We encourage you to read the relevant privacy policies or terms and conditions governing these linked sites to ensure that your privacy is protected.

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Making a complaint

If you consider that any action by us breaches this policy, the Privacy Act (including the Australian Privacy Principles), or otherwise doesn’t respect your privacy, you can make a complaint.

For information on how we handle your personal information, or if you’d like to complain about a possible breach of privacy, contact us in one of the following ways:

Postal address	Complaints Officer Spirit Super GPO Box 1547 Hobart TAS 7001
Phone	1800 005 166
Email	[email protected]

The Spirit Super Complaints Officer will commence an investigation into your complaint. You will be informed of the outcome of your complaint following completion of the investigation. We will endeavour to notify you of the outcome of the complaint within 30 days of you notifying us of the complaint.

If you’re not satisfied with our response to your privacy complaint, you can refer the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. Their contact details are:

Postal address	Office of the Australian Information Commissioner GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001
Phone	1300 363 992
Email	[email protected]
Website	oaic.gov.au

Review of this policy

This Privacy policy will be reviewed and updated by the Group from time to time. 

If the Privacy policy is varied, an updated version will be posted on the Spirit Super website. Please check the Spirit Super website regularly to ensure that you have the most recent version of the Privacy policy.

This Privacy Policy was last updated in November 2023.

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Appendix 1 – Privacy policy – International personal information register

Motor Trades Association of Australia Superannuation Fund Pty. Limited ABN 14 008 650 628
This register forms part of the Group’s Privacy policy, which sets out the way in which the Group holds and handles personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 and associated Australian Privacy Principles.

The Group has appointed an insurer and other specialist organisations to provide professional services to Spirit Super. They’re authorised, under the strictest confidence, to only use an individual’s personal information to administer our membership in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 and associated Australian Privacy Principles.

Member personal information provided to the Group or its service providers may be disclosed to, or stored by, entities located outside Australia. This may include, but isn’t limited to, data and IT hosting organisations, re-insurers and other analytical and administrative service providers. Disclosure of a member’s personal information to an entity located outside Australia will only occur where it’s necessary for the purposes of administering our membership in accordance with the terms of the Group’s Privacy policy or where the disclosure is otherwise required or permitted by applicable laws.

This list is accurate at the date on which this policy is approved, based on the information available. Reasonable steps have been undertaken to ensure the information contained below is accurate. Due to business operational variations and circumstances, this register is subject to change. This register will be updated by the Group when it becomes aware of a change.

MetLife Insurance Limited  (ABN 75 004 274  882)	USA Canada Ireland England Germany France South Africa Singapore Hong Kong Bermuda	MetLife provides death, total and permanent disablement (TPD), and income protection insurance products to Spirit Super.  As part of the provision of insured benefits to members, disclosures may be made to MetLife, and as a result to the listed countries predominately due to relationships with reinsurers.  Read the MetLife Privacy Policy at the Metlife website.