What information does BKI collect?
Bendigo Kangan Institute (BKI) collects your personal information during the student enquiry, application, enrolment and throughout your student journey with us.
We will mainly collect information directly from you. There may be circumstances where information may be provided on your behalf, for example, to verify you meet the requirements of the enrolment or course pre-requisites, such as from professional associations, training providers, medical practitioners, or government agencies. We will only collect information from other sources with your consent or in accordance with the law.
We collect personal information about you:
- to consider your application to enrol in one of our courses and
- if you do enrol in one of our courses, to provide our educational and training services to you, to obtain payment from you for those services and to otherwise administer and manage our relationship with you.
Generally, the personal information that we collect from you and process to support your study at BKI includes:
- your name
- mailing or street address
- email address, telephone number and other contact details
- age or date of birth
- details of your previous education and qualifications
- fee payments, financial aid, and scholarships information
- citizenship and/or visa status
- information about your academic progress and standing, assessments, results and details of practical placements and other workplace training (if applicable)
- any assigned student numbers (unique identifiers)
- Tax file numbers and financial institution information for the purpose of fees, refunds, and financial support programs (if applicable)
- Details of any disciplinary or conduct matters
- Other information relevant to your enrolment and education to facilitate appropriate academic and student services.
- Collection of identity documents (other than ‘citizenship and/or visa status’)
We may also collect additional types of personal information about you as set out in our General Privacy Collection Statement from time to time. This includes collection of personal information indirectly from for specific purposes where direct collection is not practicable such as the collection of data from BKI’s learning management systems, library services and other relationship systems to enable us to carry out analytics for reporting purposes and to improve our student support and services provision.
When individuals access academic and non-academic facilities and services that we offer, BKI may also process personal information classed as sensitive or special category data (for example, when you access our student support services), which require additional protections under the law. For some courses of study, other types of sensitive information or special category data may also be processed by us, such as information about past criminal convictions, working with children or adults experiencing vulnerability, vaccination records and fitness to practise in certain regulated industries. Access to, and the sharing of, this type of information is carefully controlled, and it is processed in compliance with our legislative obligations. You will be given details about our collection and management of such information at the time that we collect it from you.
If you register for events, campus tours, newsletters or are a supporter of, or a volunteer at BKI we will hold the personal information provided by you during your interactions with us. You may also provide us with your personal information when you agree to participate in user experience research or provide other feedback. This is explained in the relevant privacy collection notices specific to those activities.
Where you provide BKI with the personal information of others (such as details of your emergency contacts) you are encouraged to inform those parties whose information you provide that:
- you are disclosing that information to BKI and
- the information will be retained in accordance with relevant BKI policies.
How do we keep your information secure?
Your personal information is created, stored, and transmitted in a variety of paper and electronic formats. This include databases that are shared across BKI. BKI staff receive privacy and data protection training.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that any personal information we (or third parties operating on our behalf) collect, transmit, store or otherwise process, is accurate and complete, and that appropriate measures are implemented and maintained to protect it from accidental or unlawful destruction, misuse, loss, alteration, or unauthorised access or disclosure.
Your academic record is retained indefinitely so that the details of your academic achievements can be confirmed and for statistical or historical research purposes.
What will your personal information be used for?
Generally, BKI processes personal information collected from you to establish and maintain your student entitlements and obligations as part of your study with BKI and to help us engage with you and improve your experience at BKI. The personal information collected from you is necessary to properly administer your course, provide and administer relevant student services, to facilitate internal and strategic planning requirements and for government reporting purposes related to the provision of education.
BKI uses the personal information it collects for its public purposes of its statutory functions.
BKI uses information to:
(a) communicate with and promote its services to students and potential students.
(b) enable BKI to provide services to the individuals to whom the information relates.
(c) assess applications (both for enrolment and for employment) where the information relates to an applicant; and
(d) deal with its customers and suppliers in relation to the provision of its services.
(e) Use of identity document details collected for identity verification purposes.
We also process personal information for the following purposes:
- individual teaching areas collect and process personal information to administer courses and programs.
- the personal information of graduates is provided to BKI’s alumni team for the purpose of fostering alumni relationships, maintaining and facilitating alumni networks, and promoting BKI activities; and
- the collection of students' personal information is required under Commonwealth and State Government legislation for the purposes of government reporting.
Where BKI has been engaged by an employer to provide educational services to you or is delivering a course in which you are enrolled in collaboration with another training provider, BKI may share any personal information it obtains from you with your employer or the other training provider to the extent reasonably necessary to deliver our services.
As a training services provider, BKI may be required by the Victorian State Government to collect personal information, including sensitive information, relating to students on behalf of the State Government. In such cases, the collection of information will be identified as being for the purposes of the State Government and BKI will collect that information as agent of the State Government. Bendigo Kangan will not retain or use such information for its own purposes.
If you choose not to provide your personal information or revoke your consent, BKI may not be able to enrol you, provide you with your course of study, or provide you with the specific information, assistance, facilities, or services that you have requested, and it may limit opportunities available to you.
If BKI holds personal information about you that was collected for a particular purpose (the primary purpose), BKI will not use or disclose this information for any other purpose unless you consented to the use or disclosure or you would reasonably expect BKI to use or disclose this information for secondary purpose (but this does not apply to sensitive or health information).
Disclosure of information
BKI will not share any personal or health information to a third party for any reason other than the primary purpose for which it was collected, except where it is required or authorised or where you consent.
Information may be disclosed to the Commonwealth and tuition assurance scheme operators in accordance with the law.
We may also, in carrying out that primary purpose, engage third parties to act on our behalf. For example, we may engage information technology suppliers, marketing and advertising agencies, mailing and logistics providers and professional advisors. When we do so, we take steps to ensure any contracts governing these arrangements pass on obligations to third party organisations to require that they adopt the same Privacy Principles BKI does.
BKI will not disclose any personal information it collects to any person located outside Australia unless:
a) we have obtained the consent of the person to whom the information relates to that disclosure.
b) the recipient of the information is subject to a law or binding scheme, that provides at least a substantially similar level of protection in respect of the use of personal information to that available under Australian law and the person to whom the information relates is directly able to enforce their rights in respect of that protection; or
c) the disclosure is otherwise in compliance with our obligations under the law.
d) Disclosure of identity document details to third parties which provide identity verification services to BKI.
If BKI intends to disclose any personal information it collects from you in any other manner than those detailed above, we will inform you at the time the information is collected.
We may disclose your personal information to third party organisations including organisations located outside of Victoria. The below paragraphs describe instances where this may occur:
Sharing with Victorian Government
The Victorian Government, through the Department of Education and Training (the Department), develops, monitors and funds vocational education and training (VET) in Victoria. BKI is required to provide the Department with student and training activity data. This includes personal information collected by BKI through enrolment and unique identifiers such as the Victorian Student Number (VSN) and the Commonwealth’s Unique Student Identifier (USI).
BKI provides data to the Department in accordance with the Victorian VET Student Statistical Collection Guidelines, available at https://www.education.vic.gov.au/training/providers/rto/Pages/datacollection.aspx.
For further information about the way the Department collects and handles personal information, including access, correction, and complaints, go to https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Pages/privacypolicy.aspx.
For further information about Unique Student Identifiers, including access, correction, and complaints, go to: https://www.usi.gov.au/documents/privacy-policy.
Sharing with other regulators
BKI may be required or permitted by law to disclose personal information with other regulators including:
- Commonwealth Government agencies and regulators located outside of Victoria pursuant to Funding Agreements in place between BKI and these agencies and regulators or specific legislation requiring BKI to disclose personal information with these agencies and regulators
- Agencies and organisation involved in quality assurance and planning for education such as the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA); the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA); the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA); National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Department of Education and Training Victoria.
Sharing with other third parties
Some of the services we provide include the delivery of educational services to employers and/or in collaboration with other training organisations. Under these circumstances, we are frequently provided with personal information which has been collected by an employer or external training provider. In all situations where we obtain personal information from a third party, we are careful to confirm that the:
• information is accurate and was acquired in accordance the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic)
• third party, is permitted to provide the information to us, and
• third party is authorised to use the information it for the purposes for which they are supplying it.
Some BKI IT systems may use cloud computing services and are hosted in countries other than Australia. Depending on the service accessed this could include selected countries in the Americas, Europe, or Asia-Pacific region. Similarly, contracted service providers including third party software and technology platform providers which BKI may use to perform services on its behalf (such as course administration, identification verification services, credential verification services) or enables a student to access or use as part of their study may be based outside of Victoria or outside of Australia. To enable students to access these services BKI may be required to share student personal information to set up user accounts in accordance with the third-party provider’s end-user access requirements.
As part of your course, you may be required to undertake work integrated learning such as practical placements or voluntary workplace activities. In those instances, we may be required to share your personal information with host organisations and/or their agents or representatives to enable you to participate in the placement program.
To facilitate and enable programs relevant to your course we may be required to share your personal information with external organisations such as professional bodies, industry associations or government agencies.
If you participate in an exchange program, dual enrolment, or similar arrangement with one of our international partners we may be required to share your personal information to the relevant partnering educational institution.
If you are an international student, we may disclose personal information about you to third parties located outside of Victoria in some circumstances. This may include:
- where we are required to disclose certain information about international students to the Commonwealth Government's Department of Home Affairs via Provider Registration and International Students Management System (PRISMS)
- if applicable, disclosing information about you to the recruitment agent in your home country (unless you request that we do not disclose such information)
- disclosing information about you to other third parties in your home country for marketing purposes, such as for promoting our educational services in your home country
- with your consent, disclosing information about you to AusTrade in relation to any scholarships you may be receiving or
- where we have a partnership with an educational institute in another country that delivers our qualifications at which you have a dual enrolment or at which you are participating in an exchange program, we may disclose information to that overseas educational institution (including your results).
Before BKI discloses personal information about you to a third party including a third party who is outside of Australia BKI will take steps that are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the recipient:
- complies with its obligations under relevant privacy laws and only uses and processes the personal information for permitted purposes; and
- does not transfer personal information outside of Australia without BKI’s consent and unless the overseas recipient provides an undertaking that the personal information will be protected at a standard comparable to Australian privacy laws
- has in place appropriate security arrangement to prevent unauthorised access.
What rights of access and correction do you have?
You have the right to access and correct personal information about yourself under Victorian laws. In many instances current students will be able to access and correct your personal information by contacting Student Support Services.
There may be circumstances where access to information cannot be granted as it may compromise the privacy of another individual. In those instances, BKI may require requests for access to be sought through the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic). Further information about this process is available on our Freedom of Information page
Anonymity
So far as is reasonably possible, we are happy to deal with you anonymously or under a pseudonym if you prefer. We are happy to provide information about our services without requiring you to provide contact details.
If you do deal with us under a pseudonym, we would prefer to know, so we avoid collecting inaccurate information. Similarly, if you have provided us with your contact details, and those details subsequently change, please contact us at info@bendigotafe.edu.au so we can ensure our records are accurate.
Our student counselling service or other support services
We make a counselling service available to our students. If you receive counselling services from us, we may collect additional personal information about you, including health information about you, as part of providing this service. Health information includes any information or an opinion about an individual's physical, mental, or psychological health, any disability that an individual has and any details of any health or medical services provided to an individual.
We will only collect health information about you with your consent.
When you access any of our special category student support services further information on the types of information we may collect, our use and management of that information will be explained in the relevant privacy collection notices specific to those services.
Health and personal information about you collected for these services will only be used for the purpose of providing the services to you. Any counselling service that we provide is confidential and any information that you provide to us will be held in the strictest confidence. Any health information that we collect about you will be separately stored by our counsellors and will not form part of your student records.
Surveys
You may receive a student survey which may be run by a government department or an NCVER employee, agent, third-party contractor, or another authorised agency. Please note you may opt out of the survey at the time of being contacted.
Data Breach
A data breach occurs when personal information that is held by an organisation is accessed or disclosed in a way that it shouldn’t have been (e.g., where it is lost, stolen, or given to the wrong person).
Examples of data breaches include:
• When an employee takes paper records, an unencrypted USB stick or laptop out of the office and the information is lost or stolen.
• When an organisation mistakenly provides personal information to the wrong person.
• When an organisation’s database is illegally accessed by staff members or by individuals outside of the organisation.
In the event of a suspected data breach, refer to BKI’s Feedback Procedure , which is informed by the OVIC’s four recommending steps for responding to a data breach (or suspected breach).
Turning 18 years during your enrolment and sharing of your information
Prior to 18 years of age, BKI shares your information with your nominated adult, such as parent or guardian. BKI will continue to share this information, for the duration of your enrolment, with your nominated adult after you turn 18 years, unless you specifically contact us to request a change to this arrangement or enrol in a different course after you turn 18.
How to contact us or make a complaint
If you feel that we have breached your privacy, wish to make a complaint about the way we have handled your personal information, or want to discuss any other privacy matter with us, please contact us on information@bendigokangan.edu.au
We take all breaches of privacy and privacy complaints seriously. If we have not handled your information in accordance with our Privacy and FOI Policy, our policy principle is to let you know of this and what we are doing to address this.
Please include your name, email address and/or telephone number and clearly describe your complaint. We will acknowledge your complaint and respond to you regarding your complaint within a reasonable period. If you think that we have failed to resolve the complaint satisfactorily, we will provide you with information about the further steps that you can take.