Privacy Policy

Protecting Your Privacy

This Policy sets out how ŠKODA collects, stores, uses and discloses personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles ("Principles") contained in the Privacy Act 1988.

The Principles govern the use of "personal information", which is information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonable identifiable. It need not matter that the information is correct or not or whether it is recorded in a material form or not.

This privacy policy describes the information that the Privacy Act requires us to communicate to all of our customers. We hope it helps you understand how we handle your personal information and deliver the protection that the Privacy Act affords. Please keep it for future reference.

ŠKODA Australia

In this document 'ŠKODA' refers to Volkswagen Group Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 14 093 117 876) trading as ŠKODA. ŠKODA distributes and sells a range of vehicles and related products in Australia through its appointed dealer network.

Your personal information

Personal information held by ŠKODA about you, may include:

name;
gender;
date of birth;
address;
telephone numbers;
e-mail address;
purchase details;
driving licence number and state;
ABN;
warranty and service transaction information provided by our dealer network, affiliates or third parties;
employment application information; and
any other relevant information.

If you choose not to provide us with your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with the services you require, or the level of service on which we pride ourselves.

How we collect personal information

ŠKODA collects personal information in a number of ways, including:

directly from you, when you provide information by telephone, electronic messages (including email and SMS) or in documents such as 'change of owner details' forms;
directly from you, via our internet site (requests for information);
from our dealer network when you purchase a vehicle or have your vehicle repaired;
from your agents or representatives who act on your behalf;
from competition entry forms or at our promotional activities or sponsored events;
directly from you, via our internet site (requests for information);
from third parties we contract to collect and/or manage data on our behalf;
from third parties who you have asked or permitted to provide your personal information (including those parties from whom you purchase goods and services);
from marketing organisations, including through the use of purchased lists;
from industry databases;
from publicly available sources such as the Internet and telephone directories; and
from law enforcement, dispute resolution, statutory and regulatory bodies.

Website cookies

We may collect cookies from you about your visit to our website to help us to improve our website. Cookies are small information files which are sent to your computer’s hard drive or mobile device when you visit a website and it will recognise your device on future visits. For example, we may collect the time of your visit, whether you have visited our website previously, whether you used a search engine to find us and some geographical information. For information on disabling these cookies, please go to the privacy settings section within your browser.

We may also use analytical web tools such as Google Analytics to collect visitor information for us to better understand how to improve our products and services for you. In addition to the session cookie, Google Analytics uses other data collection methods such as appending query strings to an image request. We store the data generated by Google Analytics securely and do not share it with third parties.

We also use other external service providers for the following purposes:

for web hosting services for this website; and/or
to gather non-personal information (using cookies) in order to evaluate the website's effectiveness, for example online marketing activities.

How we use your personal information

Your personal information may be used in order to:

provide and market our products and services and those of our related companies and dealerships (whether directly or through our related companies and dealerships);
communicate to you in relation to our products, services and our promotional activities;
purchase from you;
support your purchase through warranty and road-side assistance (whether directly or through our dealerships);
comply with our legal obligations (i.e. in the event of a Vehicle Safety Recall);
monitor our performance and to help us manage our services;
identify and contact individuals who do business with us;
train our employees, agents, dealers and representatives;
conduct customer and market research and analytics to improve the quality of our products and services;
assess and process employment applications and manage employment issues; and
handle complaints and disputes; and detect, investigating and preventing fraud.

We may contact and communicate with you either via telephone, post, facsimile, email or SMS.

Direct Marketing

We will not direct market to you unless you have been given an opportunity to opt out of receiving future direct marketing communications or unless you have otherwise consented to direct marketing. If you do not want to receive such offers from us or do not want us to disclose your personal information to our related entities or dealerships for marketing purposes, you can opt out at any time by contacting us using our contact details provided below.

When we disclose your personal information

We may disclose your personal information to organisations outside of ŠKODA. These organisations may include:

our appointed dealers;
outsourced service providers who manage services we provide to you including:
roadside assistance;
customer research;
financial services and insurance;
mailing systems and direct marketing; and
market research;
government, regularity and law enforcement authorities and organisations, as required or authorised by law;
our related body corporates;
the agent(s) of any of those entities referred to above;
your employer (where applicable); and
our advisors (including legal and accounting advisors).

Those entities are not authorised by us to use personal information for anything other than the purpose for which we supplied that information to them. We may also disclose personal information where you consent to us doing so. That consent may be written, verbal or implied from your conduct.

Disclosure to overseas recipients

Our related entities and some of our service providers (including information technology service providers) may be located overseas and, as a result, personal information collected and held by ŠKODA may be transferred overseas. The countries in which these recipients may be located will vary from time to time, but may include Germany, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

How we hold and store your personal information

ŠKODA may hold your personal information in a number of ways, including:

in our computer systems or databases, which may involve storing data on storage or computer systems provided by third party suppliers;
in paper records; and/or
in telephone recordings.

Where the information has been collected from our or your agent, or our service providers or dealerships, they may also hold copies of your personal information.

We may combine personal information we receive about you with other information we hold about you.

ŠKODA will store your personal information in a secure environment. It is protected by a combination of physical and technological measures. We have taken all reasonable steps to carefully protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access or disclosure, alteration or destruction. If you want more information about the way we manage the information we hold please contact us as we would be happy to provide you with further information on our processes. Our contact details can be found at the end of this document.

Help us to ensure we hold accurate information

ŠKODA takes reasonable precautions to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date. However, the accuracy of that information depends to a large extent on the information you provide. We recommend that you:

let us know if there are any errors in your personal information; and
keep us up to date with changes to your personal information such as your name and address.

You can access your personal information

You have a right to access your personal information, subject to some exceptions allowed by law. If you would like to access your information, please let us know. You may be required to put your request in writing for security reasons and in some circumstances we may need to charge a fee for searching for and providing access to your information.

How to contact us

If you wish to notify us of your new contact details, update your personal information, opt out of direct marketing, make a complaint about a breach of privacy or have any questions in relation to the accuracy of your information or privacy, please contact our Information and Privacy Officer by:

Telephone
1800 060 936
8:30 am – 5:00 pm (AEST) Monday to Friday (excluding NSW Public Holidays)

Facsimile
(02) 9742 7280
Mark to the attention of the 'Information and Privacy Officer'

E-mail
privacy@volkswagen.com.au

Mail
Information and Privacy Officer
Regents Park Business Centre
PO Box 414 Regents Park NSW 2143

Please include the identification number of your vehicle (VIN) in all correspondence. This number is 17 characters long and can normally be found on your registration documents.

Making a Complaint

If you believe that we have interfered with your privacy in our handling of your personal information, you may lodge a complaint by emailing privacy@volkswagen.com.au

You will need to provide us with details of your complaint and any supporting evidence and/or information. You will receive an acknowledgement from us no later than five business days after receipt of your written complaint.

We will investigate your compliant in accordance with our internal complaints resolution process and determine the steps (if any) that we will undertake to resolve your complaint. We will contact you if we require any additional information from you. You will be sent the final decision in writing no later than 15 business days after you contact us, if we have all the necessary information to make that decision.

If you disagree with our decision, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by visiting www.oaic.gov.au, calling 1300 363 992 or emailing enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time for any reason. We will publish changes to this Privacy Policy on our website: www.skoda.com.au

Updated 01 August 2015