Privacy

Sydney Writers’ Festival Ltd (ABN 17 079 586 057) (the Company, we, our and us) is committed to protecting your privacy. Our Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information.

The Company 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, the Company will handle personal information relying on the employee records exemption and the related bodies corporate exemption in the Privacy Act.

Please note also that this Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with (and is subject to) any other privacy statement that the Company may provide to you when we collect your personal information or provide a particular program or service.

What personal information do we collect and why?

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

The following are the main purposes for which personal information is collected by the Company and the main types of personal information collected.

We may collect the following types of personal information:

• Contact Details, including name, mailing or street address, email address and telephone number
• Financial details, including your bank account number and credit or debit card details
• Identification information, including age or date of birth or gender
• Details of the products and services you have purchased or that you have enquired about, including any additional information necessary to assist with those purchases and respond to your enquiries
• Information you provide to us through customer surveys and any information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our website, or to our representatives, or indirectly through your use of our website or through other websites from which you permit us to collect information.
• Your device ID, device type, geo-location information ,computer and connection information, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the websites, ad data, IP address and standard web log information.
• With your consent, your health or sensitive information, such as access seating requirements.
• Any other personal information that may be required to facilitate your dealings with us.

To sell tickets to Festival events

Tickets can be purchased in a number of ways, including by calling our box office over the phone and through electronic means such as 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, send out information about upcoming festival events and also for marketing and other research purposes by the Company.

With your consent, we may collect your health or other sensitive information such as access seating requirements. Where we partner with ticketing organisations, other arts organisations or publishers in relation to an event (known as the Co-Presenter), we may collect ticketing information (including personal information) from, and/or share such ticketing information with, those other organisations. In these instances customers who consent will receive future communications from both the Co-Presenter or Presenter and the Company. This Privacy Policy applies to patrons who purchase tickets directly from the Company and to patrons who purchase tickets from Co-Presenters or Venue Presenters.

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.

To communicate with our donors and supporters

We collect personal 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 Company and our programs.

To operate our website

When you use the Website, you may choose to provide your name, email address or other personal details in order for us to send you ticketing or other information about the Company or its programs or other related programs or services or to respond to your queries.

As part of our general operations

The Company 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.

Employees and contractors

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 or if you buy a gift voucher for 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.

How do we use personal information?

When we collect personal information, we generally 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 Company 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.

From time to time we may send you special offers and promotions from third parties. We will not disclose your personal information to those third parties. If you do not wish to receive offers from third parties please contact our Privacy Officer through the contact details given below.

Disclosing personal information

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

• to our related bodies corporate;
• to our suppliers (including service providers such as mail houses and IT companies), contractors, agents or promoters and persons who help us to deliver programs and events, such as judges of competitions and other persons who collaborate with us to deliver our programs;
• where we partner with other organisations for an event, to those other organisations, in relation to those events;
• to anyone to whom our assets or business (or any part of it) may be transferred;
• where you have otherwise consented; or
• as otherwise required or authorised by law.

Some of the persons or organisations to whom we disclose personal information may be situated outside Australia, including in the United States. In addition, some of our promotional material that may include photographs and other personal information about our artists and audiences may be made available to the public, including on the internet and outside Australia. The data protection laws in other countries may not provide an equivalent level of protection to Australian privacy law. You acknowledge that by giving consent to the disclosure of your personal information to the overseas recipients, the Company will not have an obligation under Australian privacy law to take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients do not breach Australian privacy law. However, where practicable in the circumstances the Company will take reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipients of your personal information only use and disclose such information in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy.

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 Company may use cookies to 'remember' your browser between page visits. In this situation, the cookie identifies your browser, not you personally. The Company 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.

Secure Transmissions

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

Third party links

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

Access and correction and complaints handling

If you would like to access your information or to find out what information we have about you, please contact our Ticketing and Customer Services Manager 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 Ticketing and Customer Services Manager. 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 Ticketing and Customer Services Manager 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 by calling 02 9256 7200 or emailing ticketing@swf.org.au.

You may also write to:

Ticketing and Customer Services Manager
Sydney Writers’ Festival
Level 3, 10 Hickson Road
The Rocks NSW 2000

Last updated 9 March 2023.