Privacy statement - students
The purpose of this Privacy statement is to explain how and why Careers & Employment (C&E) collects personal information about the users of its services, and how we might use, disclose and handle that personal information. In this document, "user" refers to a current student of the University of Melbourne or a recent graduate up to one year after course completion.
Personal information means: "information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database), whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion, but does not include health information."
When dealing with personal information about individuals, the University of Melbourne is obliged to comply with the Information Privacy Act 2000, and is constrained by this Act to collect information only where it is necessary for one or more of its functions or activities. As such, C&E operates in accordance with the University of Melbourne's Privacy Policy, and individuals have the right to gain access to their personal information held by the University. Privacy enquiries may be e-mailed to privacy-officer@ unimelb.edu.au
What information may be collected via Careers Online and why C&E needs to collect it
Careers Online is the interactive section of the C&E website which contains employment information and event registration facilities intended for the exclusive use of current students, recent graduates and staff of the University of Melbourne.
To ensure this exclusivity, users gain access to Careers Online by submitting their University of Melbourne student ID and family name for authentication against information downloaded from the University of Melbourne's Student Administration System (Merlin).
When a user logs on to Careers Online, a record of their student ID is stored to:
- keep open their browser's current Internet session with the user's personalised settings and stored information
- allow Careers Online to collect information about the user's navigation within the system
By linking additional data to Student IDs, Careers Online will be able to collect personal information about users, which can be used to identify them.
Personal information may be provided to Careers Online by the user as part of the registration process or for more advanced features:
- saved reports for job searches
- email alerts on/off
- email bulletins on/off (not yet implemented)
- information about registration for programs, events and appointments
Careers Online stores this information is so that users can look at it again in the future. C&E may also use users' email addresses to send messages to them, sometimes on behalf of employers, or perhaps to ask questions to assist in management of the Careers Online service. Apart from log on details, the only information which is compulsory is the preferred e-mail address. All other user-activated features of Careers Online are optional.
Sometime in the future, C&E may offer a service to (verified) employers whereby they can look through resumés lodged with Careers Online, for the purpose of searching for suitable candidates for their positions. For student users, this will be on an opt-in basis only.
At present, employers can choose to receive their job applications via Careers Online. C&E reserves the right to monitor files uploaded by students as part of this process, and may contact users to provide them with feedback about their applications.
If users take advantage of the Online Applications feature, a copy of all attachments will be temporarily stored on the Careers Online server for employers to download and view.
Personal information may also be sourced and uploaded into Careers Online by C&E staff for internal reporting and administrative purposes, such as when booking students for appointments:
- student ID
- telephone number/s
- current course/s and year level
- course completion date
- registration to attend career events and programs offered by C&E
- international vs. local student
- gender
- library barcode (for monitoring attendance at seminars and workshops)
- dates/times of appointments such as on-campus interviews, Careers Counselling or Resumé Review sessions
- staff notes from Careers Counselling or Resumé Review sessions
Additionally, the Careers Online server will make a record of each user's visit and log the following information:
- server address
- top level domain name (eg/ .com .gov .au .net .edu)
- time and date of visit
- pages and documents accessed or viewed
- type of browser used
C&E may use the information provided by users, uploaded to Careers Online by staff, or logged by the server, to calculate how many people use Careers Online and its various features. C&E may publish statistics about the use of Careers Online, but these will never identify individual users.
C&E collects statistical information about the use of Careers Online for:
- website and system administration, including monitoring to prevent security breaches
- maintaining and improving its website
- reporting purposes
- research and development
- producing statistics about website traffic
C&E staff will never disclose to anyone else personal information or any other information stored by users on Careers Online without their consent unless authorised or required to do so by law.
top of pageSecurity of personal information
Careers Online and the information it contains resides on a secure server maintained and hosted by the University of Melbourne's Academic and Corporate Service's divisional IT group on behalf of C&E.
The University of Melbourne takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the information (including personal information) it holds in its servers is not subject to loss, misuse or unauthorised access or alteration. We will continue to hold users' personal information but may archive or destroy records after a period of time in accordance with University records management disposal guidelines.
Careers Online does not provide facilities for the secure transmission of information across the internet. Users should be aware that there are inherent risks associated with the transmission of personal information via the internet. Users should also note that if they link to another website from this site, a different privacy and security statement is likely to apply. Please be aware that users can also protect the security of information provided to Careers Online by not disclosing their log on details to any other person and ensure that they log off or close their browser window when they have finished using the system.
Access to personal information
C&E will take reasonable steps to ensure that the information it holds is accurate & complete. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic), the University of Melbourne is required to provide individuals with access to and correction of the personal information it holds about them. All requests for access to personal information will be handled by the University of Melbourne's FOI Officer, who can be contacted via foi-requests@ unimelb.edu.au.
In some cases, consistent with the Privacy Act, C&E may refuse to give users access to personal information it holds about them, including circumstances where giving access:
- would have an unreasonable impact on other people's privacy
- would prejudice negotiations between the user and the University
- would prejudice an investigation of unlawful activity
- would prejudice activities carried out by, or for, a law enforcement agency
Reasons for refusal will be provided. Generally, upon request from a user, C&E will amend any personal information about them stored on Careers Online which is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
Changes may be made to this document from time to time. For questions regarding this Privacy Statement or the practices of this site please contact:
The General Manager, Careers & Employment
PO Box 4048
The University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3052
Australia
Tel: +61 3 8344 6686
Email: toniw@unimelb.edu.au
If a user is concerned that their privacy has been breached and wish to make a complaint please write to:
The Privacy Officer
The University of Melbourne
Parkville 3010
Email: privacy-officer@ unimelb.edu.au
If you would like to know more about your rights under Australian privacy laws, please see the Privacy Commissioner's website at www.privacy.gov.au