Privacy statement
Council of the City of Gold Coast (Council) is collecting your personal information in order to provide the services requested, perform associated Council functions and services, and to update and maintain Council's customer information records. Your information is handled in accordance with the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld) and may only be accessed by Councillors, Council employees and authorised contractors. Unless authorised or required by law, we will not provide your personal information to any other person or agency.
Council may also use your personal information in order to contact you to provide you with information regarding Council functions and services. If you do not wish to receive such information please opt out using the unsubscribe link in the communication material sent to you.
Personal information
Personal information in this privacy statement means any information from which your identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained.
When handling your personal information, we undertake to comply with the
- Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld)
- Queensland Information Privacy Principles
- Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld).
We comply with these Acts and principles where they do not conflict with over-riding Queensland legislation such as the Local Government Act 2009 (Qld) and the Planning Act 2016 (Qld).
Correcting or amending your personal information
You can contact us to correct any errors or request to make amendments to personal information we manage, subject to you providing our service areas with evidence of identity. To correct or amend your personal information, visit our Contact us page.
Requesting access to your personal information
You can request advice about our information access services and make a formal request to access your personal information via our How to access Council information page.
Complaints about information privacy
If you have concerns about how we have managed your personal information you can submit an enquiry via our Complaints page.
Before making a complaint, please check information on the Office of the Information Commissioner About privacy complaints webpage.
Why we need your personal information
We only collect your personal information when we need the information to:
- conduct local government business, deliver a local government service
- support Council compliance with the law and meet our statutory and regulatory obligations
- protect your safety
- provide a service when you have provided consent for Council to collect and use the personal information.
Types of personal information collected for these purposes include:
- customer or account numbers assigned to individuals by Council
- information to confirm your identity including name, date of birth, gender
- contact details including addresses, phone numbers, email addresses
- information to help us assess your eligibility for services/functions (for example, Blue Card, health status, pensioner/concession details)
- information generated when you transact with our services
- information from digital photographs, videos, audio-visual, CCTV
- ownership (owner/occupier) of property
- car registration and driver licence details
- permits, licences and applications (for example, building approval, pet registration, planning approvals, details of disputes and complaints)
- information in relation to potential employment with Council such as educational qualifications, previous work history
- if you are a Council employee or a contractor, information about your employment with us (training records, payroll, complaints, performance appraisals).
How we manage your personal information
Before you give us any personal information, we provide you with a privacy notice that informs you about what information we collect, why we need it, what law applies and when we might share this information.
You can see or hear a privacy notice when you give us your information in person, by phone, or online.
We may collect your personal information in several ways:
- directly from you either verbally, in writing or electronic form
- when you visit our websites or online services
- from publicly available sources of information
- from third parties, for example, if you are a parent/guardian, other government departments and bodies
- providing local government, community and commercial services
- making assessments, recommendations and decisions in relation to local government and community services
- making and receiving payments
- processing approvals, forming agreements and implementing decisions
- dealing with enquiries, requests and complaints to Council
- protecting the safety of staff, councillors and the wider community
- monitoring and responding to community needs and reviewing Council policies and procedures
- procuring goods or services
- administer and enforce relevant legislation
- recruitment and human resources purposes
- reporting purposes, legal compliance and risk.
Security of personal information
We store personal information in managed secure locations and systems. We also take precautions to protect your personal information against loss, and unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure or other forms of misuse. Some examples of the safeguards we use to protect your personal information include:
- password protection and multi-factor authentication on our devices and systems
- restricted access to our employees and facilities
- Council policies on access, storage and use of information
- encryption, antivirus malicious software detection and regular back up of Council information.
For further information, please read our:
Use of this website
We use cookies and other technologies to record visits to this website. Cookies are small pieces of code that identify and recognise the computer, but not the person using the computer, when you visit our website.
The use of cookies is an industry standard and most major websites globally use them. We use first-party cookies and JavaScript code from website analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics, and from social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. The cookie data is used to help us improve the website and each user's experience. This information is also used to offer you relevant content such as ads.
No attempt will be made to identify users individually except in the unlikely event of an investigation, where inspection of the Internet web server logs is required by law (for example, by a law enforcement agency).
Google Analytics and internet browser settings
If you prefer not to have cookies monitor your website usage, you can change the privacy setting of your browser to disable cookies or to warn you when cookies are being used. Google Analytics offers opt-out tools for the web. For details, visit the Google Analytics opt-out webpage. You can also refer to your internet browser's 'help' information about how to change your cookie preference.
Information is gathered about how visitors use this website. Website usage data may include information such as:
- your device's internet protocol address (for example, IP address)
- browser type, browser version
- the pages you visit
- the time and date of your visit, including time spent on those pages
- unique device identifiers and other diagnostic.
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) settings
At any time you can view your Facebook and Instagram advertisement settings and update your preferences for how Meta uses your website activity data to show you advertising content.
User feedback
We welcome feedback from our website visitors to improve the services provided on this website. Any feedback you provide is voluntary and does not in any way affect your access to the our website.