Privacy
The Department of Housing and Public Works is committed to protecting user privacy.
We understand and appreciate that visitors and users of this website are concerned about their privacy and the confidentiality and security of any information that may be provided.
The department is subject to the Information Privacy Act 2009, which requires that it complies with the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) set out in the Act.
The IPPs set out how Queensland Government agencies should collect, store, use and disclose personal information and how individuals can access and apply to amend documents containing their personal information.
When you visit a departmental website, our server makes a record of your visit and logs certain information for statistical purposes only.
No attempt is or will be made to identify users or their browsing activities except, in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a power to inspect activity logs.
Website analytics
We are committed to providing a useful and effective service via our websites. To that end, we employ tools to gather information about how the department's website is accessed and used.
We use this data to analyse the pages that are visited, to improve your experience and make sure our website is useful. No attempt will be made to identify you and your browsing activities, unless we are lawfully required to do so for investigation or law enforcement purposes.
You can read more about Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses data. You can choose not to allow Google to collect your information by opting out of Google Analytics or specifically opt out of Google Analytics Display Advertiser Features.
Cookies
A cookie is a short piece of data which is sent from a web server to a web browser on the user's machine when the browser visits the server's site.
The cookie is stored on the user's machine as an historical identifier. It is not however, an executable program and cannot do anything to your machine.
A server cannot find out a name or e-mail address, or anything about a user's computer by using cookies and cookie information is not stored or collected by the department.
We use cookies to collect anonymous statistical information, including:
- your browser, computer platform and screen resolution
- your traffic patterns through our site, such as
- the date and time of your visit
- the pages and documents accessed
- the website you visited before ours
- your server address.
The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website may be transmitted to and stored on servers located outside of Australia. No personally identifying information is recorded or provided.
This information will be used by the department to optimise the department's site(s) to improve access and useability, and to compile statistical data for reporting purposes, for example to include in the annual report.
We do not identify users or any browser activity outside this website, except in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may have a warrant to inspect activity logs.
Personal and financial information provided when you use an online service is protected at all stages of the transaction.
Meta Pixel (Facebook and Instagram)
Our website uses a Meta Pixel. This allows us to track browsing behaviour on our websites and measure the efficacy of Meta advertising by reporting on the actions people take after viewing our ads.
We may use your personal information to create a customer list (‘Custom Audience’) that we can use to advertise to you, or to create a ‘Lookalike Audience’ to find new people who share similar behaviours and interests as you.
To make a ‘Custom Audience’ for our use on Meta, we would upload information about you which would include an ‘identifier’ (such as email, phone number, address) to Facebook via direct integration.
Meta would then create a Custom Audience or lookalike audience for us to use for marketing purposes.
When we upload the customer list to Meta for the matching process, the information is ‘hashed’ so that your personal information is unidentifiable at an individual level.
Hashing is a type of cryptographic security method that turns your identifiers into randomised code.
If you have a Facebook or Instagram account, you can manage your privacy settings.
Links to external web sites
Some of the department's websites contain links to other sites that are external.
The department takes care in linking websites but has no direct control over the content of the linked websites, or to the changes that may occur to the content on those sites.
It is the responsibility of the user to make their own decisions about the accuracy, currency, reliability and correctness of information contained in linked external websites.
Emails
This is a Queensland Government website. Email correspondence sent to this site is subject to the Right to Information Act 2009 and will be treated as a public record and retained as required by the Public Records Act 2002 and other relevant Acts and regulations.
Your name and address details will not be added to a mailing list, nor will we disclose these details to third parties without your consent unless required by law.
Email messages may be monitored by our website support staff for system trouble shooting and maintenance purposes.
Access and amendment of personal information
Individuals are entitled to seek access to their personal information and to amend those records if they are inaccurate, misleading or out of date. Rights of access and amendment exist under the Information Privacy Act 2009.
You may apply online to access or amend your personal information or complete the Right to Information application form.
Payments
When you pay an account or purchase something through the department on websites, your personal and financial details are protected at all stages of the transaction.
In order to process any payment, we need to know your:
- name
- address details
- email address
- credit card details.
Your credit card details are not stored on servers at any stage of the transaction. Once the credit card details have been sent to our financial institution they are no longer known to our system.