Privacy policy

We use this information to:

- manage and communicate with you about your access to, or use of, My Smart Garden, as well as to inform you of updates to your account on My Smart Garden. Examples include notification from us when: you receive a response to your posting or when updates have been made to the content you are following;

- send you newsletters from time to time containing news about special offers and giveaways on products or surveys or informing you about services that are closely connected to My Smart Garden unless you indicate that you do not wish to receive these emails at the time you enter your details on the sign up page for the My Smart Garden Site or App. If you wish to stop receiving these newsletters or e-alerts, you can do so at any time, by following the instructions in clause 10 ‘Editing your settings and unsubscribing from My Smart Garden emails’;

-ask you about your My Smart Garden successes (e.g. if you have posted a popular gardening solution, whether you enjoyed any products or courses and events that you have ordered, if you have received helpful responses to queries that you have posted on the site). Any responses to such requests will be purely on a voluntary basis;

-reply to any correspondence sent to us;

- allow you to participate in discussion forums and post content to My Smart Garden; and

- for any other reasonable purposes related to My Smart Garden or your membership.

Your username – we ask you to provide a username by which you can be identified publicly. Please note that your username should not feature your last name or contain any other personal information that could be used to identify you (e.g. your address). We reserve the right to reject usernames that are offensive, defamatory or which we otherwise think are unsuitable.

3 HOW ELSE MAY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

3.1 We may use your personal information to investigate a complaint made by another member, breach of My Smart Garden’s Terms of Use and to prevent and detect criminal activity, fraud and misuse of or damage to My Smart Garden or the service made available through it and to prosecute those responsible.

4 INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

4.1 We do not share your personal information with third parties for the purpose of managing and administering the accounts and services provided to you through the My Smart Garden Site.

4.2 We do not sell or rent your personal information. We may, however, disclose information about you to the following, for the express purposes set out below:

If you create an account with My Smart Garden:

- to our employees and agents for them to administer any accounts or services provided to you through the site. e.g. the sending of e-alerts on our behalf.

- to our Sister Services and their employees and agents for them to administer the shared login functionality and for them to better integrate their services with My Smart Garden.

If you post content:

- as a member you are publicly identified to other users of My Smart Garden by your username. We therefore recommend that you do not use your real name as your username or provide any other personally identifiable information on the publicly viewable site, like your name or contact details;

- we may display some information that is publicly available on My Smart Garden on third party services and platforms that are closely connected to the My Smart Garden project and other third party sites such as Facebook and Twitter that wish to embed My Smart Garden activity. So, by way of example, user generated content such as forum thread titles, latest questions and answers and listings would be displayed on such third party sites with a link back to My Smart Garden. To the extent that usernames or personal information is included in that user generated content on My Smart Garden, it may be displayed on such third party sites. So for example if a listing included a username or a member’s photo, that information may also be displayed on the third party website. Just to be clear, this information will be embedded on any such third party website as a link;

- we may display some information that is publicly available on My Smart Garden in the regular newsletters that are emailed to all registered users on the My Smart Garden mailing list.

Transfer of business:

- if there is a change (or prospective change) in the management of My Smart Garden or any of its assets, we may have to disclose personal information to the new (or prospective) Manager. If we do so, we will require them to keep it confidential and use it in accordance with the terms of our Privacy Policy.

Legal requests:

- Apart from the use and sharing of your personal information in the limited circumstances already described, the only ways we may share your information are if we need to disclose personal information to protect our and our licensors’ rights and property or to comply with any applicable law or valid legal process.

5 USING INFORMATION ABOUT OTHER MY SMART GARDEN MEMBERS

5.1 You should avoid sharing any personal information including contact information with any other My Smart Garden Members. If you intend to share any such information, please exercise the same level of caution as you would dealing with a stranger. Never give any personal information to anyone until you are confident that it is safe to do so. You should in any event only reveal such personal information via secure communications that cannot be viewed by other people. You must treat any personal information that you receive from other My Smart Garden Members as private, confidential and use it only for the purposes for which the Member provides it to you unless that Member indicates to you otherwise.

6 AGGREGATED INFORMATION

6.1We may share non-personal aggregated statistics data about visitors to My Smart Garden and traffic patterns with third parties. Just to be clear, this information does not identify users in any personal capacity; it just gives generalised information about the users of My Smart Garden.

7 COOKIES

Cookies and log files

7.1 While on My Smart Garden, certain information is automatically logged about how you are using My Smart Garden. This information may include the URL of the website which linked you to this Site, your IP address and the pages you visit while on My Smart Garden. The IP address indicates the location of your computer on the internet. We keep a record of each user’s activity by reference to the IP address of the internet connection(s) they use to access My Smart Garden. These logs enable us to prevent users who breach the rules of the My Smart Garden community set out in our Terms and Conditions of Use by refusing communications from their IP addresses to the website. If you are concerned that we have blocked an IP address that you use to access My Smart Garden in error, please email us at contactus @ mysmartgarden.org.au.

7.2 Like many websites we may use a feature called a cookie. A cookie is a small data file that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. It allows us to recognise you as a user when you return to My Smart Garden using the same device and web browser. We use the cookies (including some provided to us through Google Analytics) and other automatically tracked information to:

- store login details. For example, to authenticate you as a user when you log in

- personalise your experience on My Smart Garden

- enable you to move more easily around My Smart Garden

- track visitors to My Smart Garden to analyse performance and usage of My Smart Garden, in order to develop My Smart Garden in accordance with visitors’ requirements;

7.3 You can delete cookies from your hard drive at any time. You can set your internet browser so that it will not allow cookies to be stored on your device. This may reduce functionality of My Smart Garden and may mean that certain features or content will not be available to you. Further information on how to prevent cookies from being stored on your device can be found on www.allaboutcookies.org under the 'manage cookies' section. Alternatively go to the help menu within your internet browser.

8 LINKS

8.1The My Smart Garden Site contains links (sometimes posted by us, and sometimes by users) to third party websites that are not subject to this Privacy Policy. Read the Terms and Conditions of Use for further information on these links. We strongly recommend that you read the privacy policy of any such websites that you visit.

9 HOW DO WE PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

9.1 The My Smart Garden Site contains links (sometimes posted by us, and sometimes by users) to third party websites that are not subject to this Privacy Policy. Read the Terms and Conditions of Use and Sale for further information on these links. We strongly recommend that you read the privacy policy of any such websites that you visit.

9.2 We use third party plug ins as part of the site, which each have their own high level of security. Eventbrite security features: www.eventbrite.com.au/security, Yet Another Forum security features: www.yetanotherforum.net/features and Mailchimp security features: http://mailchimp.com/about/security/

9.3 If you have any concerns about security, please email us at contactus @ mysmartgarden.org.au.

10 EDITING YOUR SETTINGS AND UNSUBSCRIBING FROM MY SMART GARDEN EMAILS

10.1 You can either edit your settings by clicking here or clicking the unsubscribe link included in an email to stop receiving e-alerts or newsletters from us.

11 ACCESSING AND UPDATING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

11.1You can access and edit information provided in your profile, recipes and blogs only via the My Smart Garden Site. You cannot edit comments made to the forum, your questions or answers or comments made to other users.

Your right to see your personal information

11.2 Under the Privacy Act 1988 you have the right to see the personal information that we hold about you, whether collected through your use of My Smart Garden or through any communications that you have had with us. You will need to provide us with a written request. If you have any queries about your right or wish to make such a request please contact us by e-mail at contactus @ mysmartgarden.org.au or 9 Kellaway Avenue, PO Box 126 Moonee Ponds Victoria Australia 3039.

12 CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

12.1 We may make any change to this Privacy Policy at any time by sending you an e-mail with the modified terms or by posting a copy of them on the My Smart Garden Site. Any changes will take effect seven (7) days after the date of our e-mail or the date on which we post the modified terms on My Smart Garden, whichever is the earlier. Your continued use of My Smart Garden after that period means that you agree to be bound by the modified terms.

13 CONTACT US

13.1 My Smart Garden, including the services we offer through it, is a program run by Moonee Valley City Council, Hobsons Bay City Council and Maribyrnong City Council whose online communications office address is:

9 Kellaway Avenue, PO Box 126 Moonee Ponds Victoria Australia 3039

If you have any queries about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at contactus @ mysmartgarden.org.au.

Last updated 20 June 2014.