Oxfam Australia (“we”, “us”, “Oxfam Australia”) is committed to using your information responsibly. The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) including the Australian Privacy Principles, as well as the codes that we adhere to, set out our obligations with respect to collecting and handling personal information.
This Privacy Policy helps you understand why and how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information, and what to do if you have questions, concerns or complaints.
You can choose which personal information you provide to us (including being anonymous or using a pseudonym where practicable), and you can request to change or access these details at any time.
Updating this privacy policy
We will occasionally make updates to this policy, and we will note the date of the last change at the top of this page.
Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?
Oxfam Australia regularly collects or asks for information about you and your interests that helps us engage with you. The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your information include:
to fulfil our core work of engaging with the public, raising awareness, advocacy and fundraising
to ensure a complete and accurate record of your engagement with Oxfam Australia, so we can work in an effective, efficient and informed manner
to process your donation and provide a receipt
to record your support of a petition, email or participation in a campaign (for example to send a letter to your local MP)
to ensure we can responsibly and lawfully accept any gift bequeathed to us in your will
to carry out analytics that help us understand our supporters, improve on our services, or report on our operations
as part of Oxfam Australia’s programming and project activities, including those undertaken in Australia, but also where Oxfam Australia carries out projects with partners in other countries
where you apply for an employment or volunteer position with us, to process your application
What information do we collect and hold?
It is your choice how much information you provide to us. However, we might not be able to fulfil a request if you don’t provide us with certain information. For example, we can only provide you with a tax receipt if you provide us with minimum details such as your name and contact details.
Below are some examples of information we commonly collect:
Personal details, such as your name
Year and month of birth (in limited circumstances, e.g. to confirm a person is over 18 years old)
Contact details, like your phone number, email or postal address
Transaction data for donations
How do we collect information?
In most cases, we’ll ask for information from you directly (for example asking you to complete a donation coupon, sending you a survey, or inviting you to complete a form or sign a petition on our website), however some information is collected automatically (like online activity by visiting our website) or from another source (like updating mailing addresses from Australia Post, or information that is listed in directories).
How do we secure and store your information?
We keep your personal information secure in our supporter database or other IT systems (or in the case of information relating to safeguarding or fraud incidents, in our cloud based case management system), and conduct regular tests and audits to ensure that information is held securely and safely. Physical copies of your information, such as donation forms, are held securely and destroyed if not needed.
Staff and volunteers are required to undergo compliance checks and complete cyber security and privacy training modules relevant to their roles.
Sometimes we may need to store or use your information in a country other than Australia, usually because one of our technical systems is located or needs to process data overseas (for instance, social media channels). Further, the information that Oxfam Australia collects for safeguarding and fraud reporting purposes may be stored on cloud services including services provided by third party service providers, and some of these cloud services may be hosted overseas.
How do we use and disclose this information?
We may use or disclose your information for the purpose for which it was collected, including in the following situations:
to keep you updated with issues you are interested in, and the impact of your engagement
to provide opportunities for you to support our work
to notify you of volunteering roles with us
to update our mailing addresses and develop our database
to action your support of a petition (for example, to include your first and last name in a letter to a relevant agency or government department, where the relevant petition has been clear that this is our intention)
Safeguarding or fraud incidents
Oxfam Australia may also collect information about you if you report, are the subject of, or are otherwise involved in a safeguarding or fraud related incident. The information we collect in such circumstances may include your name, your contact details, and information about your involvement in the incident (if applicable). You can also choose to report incidents anonymously, if you do not wish for us to collect your name or contact details.
Oxfam Australia may use or disclose this personal information to investigate and take appropriate action in response to the incident. This may involve disclosing the information to:
other Oxfam affiliates located overseas (for example, where an incident relates to activities undertaken or overseen by another Oxfam affiliate, we may disclose your information to that Oxfam affiliate for them to conduct an investigation)
Destruction or de-identification of personal information
Oxfam Australia takes steps to securely destroy or de-identify information when it is no longer needed.
You may request for us to remove your personal information from our system (to the extent we are not required to keep information to comply with our legal obligations) by contacting us at the details set out in the “Maintaining your information” section of this policy.
Online activity and social media
We use Google Analytics to monitor and analyse user interactions on our website. We use this information to evaluate and improve the effectiveness, relevance, and usability of our website.
This includes insights into the number of visits, duration of visits, pages viewed and the technical capabilities of our visitors. While this data is mostly anonymous, sometimes we will connect it to you, for instance in personalising a webpage, or prefilling a form with your details.
We also use tools that tell us when a computer or device has visited or accessed our content, and allow us to tailor advertising both on our websites and through advertising networks on other websites. This will be based on your visits or behaviour through cookies on your device or browser. You can control how cookies are used and for what through the settings on your chosen browser.
Maintaining your information
You can manage and update select information through your myOxfam account.
Once you have an account and are logged in you can update your personal details and see a history of your donations.
You can also request to access the personal information we hold about you, update or correct the information we have collected, let us know of your preferences for how we communicate with you or let us know if you wish for your details to be removed from our records by contacting our Supporter Services team:
By phone on free call 1800 088 110 (Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm, AEST/AEDT)
Making a query or complaint
If you have a question or a complaint about how we manage your personal information or would like to know more, you can contact Oxfam’s Privacy Officer:
By phone on free call 1800 088 110 (Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm, AEST/AEDT)
By mail: Attn: The Privacy Officer Oxfam Australia Locked Bag 20004 Melbourne VIC 3001
Committed to protecting your rights
Oxfam Australia (“we”, “us”, “Oxfam Australia”) is committed to using your information responsibly. The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) including the Australian Privacy Principles, as well as the codes that we adhere to, set out our obligations with respect to collecting and handling personal information.
This Privacy Policy helps you understand why and how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information, and what to do if you have questions, concerns or complaints.
Interests and opinions
Online activity on and to our website
Your support for our work, like volunteering, signing a petition, hosting or attending an event, or other relevant activities
Other areas of our work you might be interested in supporting
Your communication preferences
Your conversations in person or by phone, email, social media channels or web chat with our staff and volunteers
If you are engaged by Oxfam Australia (including as an employee, volunteer and/or contractor) we may also collect information (which may include sensitive information as defined in the Privacy Act) required for the purposes of fulfilling our compliance obligations to external regulators, or internal and external reporting purposes.
Credit card details are only collected and used in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is a set of rules and guidelines that help businesses and organisations protect cardholder data and prevent credit card fraud.
As of the last update of this policy, the countries in which we hold data include:
Australia
United Kingdom
United States
Canada
to external suppliers where we require them to assist us in our activities and it is necessary to provide them with your information to achieve this, for example:
mail houses to print letters to our supporters;
telemarketing agencies that we engage to contact you on our behalf;
third parties who process a donation or payment, undertake data analytics or to help improve our systems; or
to investigate and take appropriate action in response to a safeguarding or fraud incident (further detailed below).
If you are a volunteer, we may use your information to inform you of our work, events and internal communications and to keep you updated of the impact of your work.
We may occasionally invite you to sign a petition or sign-up to receive communications relating to that work we are doing with like-minded organisations (for example, a joint campaign). In these situations, your information will only be provided to another organisation where we have obtained your consent.
From time to time, we use internal or third party tools (such as digital analytics tools) to direct relevant content and communications to supporters. The tools we use guide our decisions about when, how, and with which supporters to communicate – and on what topics.
When we use third party providers, we engage them in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles, having appropriate contracts and security requirements in place.
law enforcement, or to government agencies or regulators, for compliance with our reporting obligations
in the case of a fraud incident, third party service providers who are assisting with the response
You can also engage with Oxfam Australia through social media like Meta (including Facebook and Instagram), BlueSky and ByteDance (TikTok).
Occasionally, we may engage or get in touch with you via social media if you aren’t a follower by using the details on your record, such as email address or phone number to match to your social media account. We may also use your email address or phone number to link to social media sites to identify other likeminded individuals who use these sites whom we believe would be interested in Oxfam, and we may then show them Oxfam content.
If you prefer we don’t use your data in this manner, you can let us know by opting out of receiving marketing communications when you first engage with us or by contacting our Supporter Services Team (refer to the “Maintaining your information” section of this policy). You can also update your preferences at the relevant social media site’s settings page. For example, you can change the default settings of a social media website or platform. This would inform how user data is collected and matched to other datasets like settings related to targeted advertising and analytics.
By mail Oxfam Australia Locked Bag 20004 Melbourne VIC 3001
To protect your privacy and personal information, when you contact us we’ll ask you to confirm your identity by getting you to confirm a few details which we have on record, such as your email address, current postal address, phone number, or supporter number.
If you want another person to be able to access or change your details on your behalf (a spouse, legal or financial representative) you can let us know in writing, or over the phone and we will record this permission.
If you’ve made a complaint, the Supporter Services Team or Privacy Officer will acknowledge that your complaint has been received as soon as possible, provide you with their contact details and work with you to resolve the matter. If the matter requires further investigation, they will give you an estimate of when they can update you on the status of your complaint.
Further details on how Oxfam Australia handles feedback and complaints are set out on our website and in our:
You can choose which personal information you provide to us (including being anonymous or using a pseudonym where practicable), and you can request to change or access these details at any time.
Updating this privacy policy
We will occasionally make updates to this policy, and we will note the date of the last change at the top of this page.
Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?
Oxfam Australia regularly collects or asks for information about you and your interests that helps us engage with you. The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your information include:
to fulfil our core work of engaging with the public, raising awareness, advocacy and fundraising
to ensure a complete and accurate record of your engagement with Oxfam Australia, so we can work in an effective, efficient and informed manner
to process your donation and provide a receipt
to record your support of a petition, email or participation in a campaign (for example to send a letter to your local MP)
to ensure we can responsibly and lawfully accept any gift bequeathed to us in your will
as part of Oxfam Australia’s programming and project activities, including those undertaken in Australia, but also where Oxfam Australia carries out projects with partners in other countries
where you apply for an employment or volunteer position with us, to process your application
What information do we collect and hold?
It is your choice how much information you provide to us. However, we might not be able to fulfil a request if you don’t provide us with certain information. For example, we can only provide you with a tax receipt if you provide us with minimum details such as your name and contact details.
Below are some examples of information we commonly collect:
Personal details, such as your name
Year and month of birth (in limited circumstances, e.g. to confirm a person is over 18 years old)
Contact details, like your phone number, email or postal address
Transaction data for donations
Interests and opinions
Online activity on and to our website
Your support for our work, like volunteering, signing a petition, hosting or attending an event, or other relevant activities
Other areas of our work you might be interested in supporting
Your communication preferences
Your conversations in person or by phone, email, social media channels or web chat with our staff and volunteers
If you are engaged by Oxfam Australia (including as an employee, volunteer and/or contractor) we may also collect information (which may include sensitive information as defined in the Privacy Act) required for the purposes of fulfilling our compliance obligations to external regulators, or internal and external reporting purposes.
Credit card details are only collected and used in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is a set of rules and guidelines that help businesses and organisations protect cardholder data and prevent credit card fraud.
How do we collect information?
In most cases, we’ll ask for information from you directly (for example asking you to complete a donation coupon, or sending you a survey), however some information is collected automatically (like online activity by visiting our website) or from another source (like updating mailing addresses from Australia Post, or information that is listed in directories).
How do we secure and store your information?
We keep your personal information secure in our supporter database or other IT systems (or in the case of information relating to safeguarding or fraud incidents, in our cloud based case management system), and conduct regular tests and audits to ensure that information is held securely and safely.
Physical copies of your information, such as donation forms, are held securely and destroyed if not needed. Staff and volunteers are required to sign our policies relating to privacy, and to undergo compliance checks.
Sometimes we may need to store or use your information in a country other than Australia, usually because one of our technical systems is located or needs to process data overseas (for instance, social media channels). Further, the information that Oxfam Australia collects for safeguarding and fraud reporting purposes may be stored on cloud services including services provided by third party service providers, and some of these cloud services may be hosted overseas.
As of the last update of this policy, the countries in which we hold data include:
Australia
United Kingdom
United States
Canada
How do we use and disclose this information?
We may use or disclose your information for the purpose for which it was collected, including in the following situations:
to keep you updated with issues you are interested in, and the impact of your engagement
to provide opportunities for you to support our work
to notify you of volunteering roles with us
to update our mailing addresses and develop our database
to external suppliers where we require them to assist us in our activities and it is necessary to provide them with your information to achieve this, for example printing a large number of letters to our supporters, or engaging a third party to undertake data analytics
If you are a volunteer, we may use your information to inform you of our work, events and internal communications and to keep you updated of the impact of your work.
We may occasionally invite you to sign a petition or sign-up to receive communications relating to that work we are doing with like-minded organisations (for example, a joint campaign). Your information will only be provided to another organisation where we have obtained your express consent. If you would prefer that we do not consider you for these kinds of communications, please get in touch via the details below and let us know.
From time to time, we use third party tools (such as digital analytics tools) to direct relevant content and communications to supporters. The tools we use guide our decisions about when, how, and with which supporters to communicate – and on what topics.
When we use third party providers, we engage them in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles, having appropriate contracts and security requirements in place.
Safeguarding or fraud incidents
Oxfam Australia may also collect information about you if you report, are the subject of, or are otherwise involved in a safeguarding or fraud related incident. The information we collect in such circumstances may include your name, your contact details, and information about your involvement in the incident (if applicable). You can also choose to report incidents anonymously, if you do not wish for us to collect your name or contact details.
Oxfam Australia may use or disclose this personal information to investigate and take appropriate action in response to the incident. This may involve disclosing the information to:
other Oxfam affiliates located overseas (for example, where an incident relates to activities undertaken or overseen by another Oxfam affiliate, we may disclose your information to that Oxfam affiliate for them to conduct an investigation)
law enforcement, or to government agencies or regulators, for compliance with our reporting obligations
in the case of a fraud incident, third party service providers who are assisting with the response
Destruction or de-identification of personal information
Oxfam Australia takes steps to securely destroy or de-identify information when it is no longer needed.
You may request for us to remove your personal information from our system (to the extent we are not required to keep information to comply with our legal obligations) by contacting us at the details set out in the “Maintaining your information” section of this policy.
Online activity and social media
We use Google Analytics to monitor and analyse user interactions on our website. We use this information to evaluate and improve the effectiveness, relevance, and usability of our website.
This includes insights into the number of visits, duration of visits, pages viewed and the technical capabilities of our visitors. While this data is mostly anonymous, sometimes we will connect it to you, for instance in personalising a webpage, or prefilling a form with your details.
We also use tools that tell us when a computer or device has visited or accessed our content, and allow us to tailor advertising both on our websites and through advertising networks on other websites. This will be based on your visits or behaviour through cookies on your device or browser. You can control how cookies are used and for what through the settings on your chosen browser.
You can also engage with Oxfam Australia through social media like Meta (including Facebook and Instagram), BlueSky and ByteDance (TikTok).
Occasionally, we may engage or get in touch with you via social media if you aren’t a follower by using the details on your record, such as email address or phone number to match to your social media account. We may also use your email address or phone number to link to social media sites to identify other likeminded individuals who use these sites whom we believe would be interested in Oxfam, and we may then show them Oxfam content.
If you prefer we don’t use your data in this manner, you can let us know by opting out of receiving marketing communications when you first engage with us or by contacting our Supporter Services Team (refer to the “Maintaining your information” section of this policy). You can also update your preferences at the relevant social media site’s settings page. For example, you can change the default settings of a social media website or platform. This would inform how user data is collected and matched to other datasets like settings related to targeted advertising and analytics.
Maintaining your information
You can manage and update select information through your myOxfam account.
Once you have an account and are logged in you can update your personal details and see a history of your donations.
You can also request to access the personal information we hold about you, update or correct the information we have collected, let us know of your preferences for how we communicate with you or let us know if you wish for your details to be removed from our records by contacting our Supporter Services team:
By phone on free call 1800 088 110 (Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm, AEST/AEDT)
By mail Oxfam Australia Locked Bag 20004 Melbourne VIC 3001
To protect your privacy and personal information, when you contact us we’ll ask you to confirm your identity by getting you to confirm a few details which we have on record, such as your email address, current postal address, phone number, or supporter number.
If you want another person to be able to access or change your details on your behalf (a spouse, legal or financial representative) you can let us know in writing, or over the phone and we will record this permission.
Making a query or complaint
If you have a question or a complaint about how we manage your personal information or would like to know more, you can contact Oxfam’s Privacy Officer:
By phone on free call 1800 088 110 (Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm, AEST/AEDT)
By mail: Attn: The Privacy Officer Oxfam Australia Locked Bag 20004 Melbourne VIC 3001
If you’ve made a complaint, the Supporter Services Team or Privacy Officer will acknowledge that your complaint has been received as soon as possible, provide you with their contact details and work with you to resolve the matter. If the matter requires further investigation, they will give you an estimate of when they can update you on the status of your complaint.
Further details on how Oxfam Australia handles feedback and complaints are set out on our website and in our: