Privacy policy
UCB Australia Pty Ltd (UCB, we, our, us) recognises the importance of protecting the privacy and the rights of individuals in relation to their personal information. This document is our privacy policy and it tells you how we collect and manage your personal information.
We respect your rights to privacy under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act) and we comply with all of the Act’s requirements in respect of the collection, management and disclosure of your personal information.
What is your personal information?
When used in this privacy policy, the term “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Act. In general terms, it is any information that can be used to personally identify you. This may include your name, address, telephone number, email address and profession or occupation. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, the information will be considered personal information.
What personal information do we collect and hold?
We may collect the following types of personal information:
- name;
- email address;
- telephone number;
- age or birth date;
- profession, occupation or job title; and
- additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our websites or indirectly through use of our websites or online presence, through our representatives or otherwise.
Generally, we will not collect sensitive information from you (such as your religion, race, political beliefs, or biometric information), however, we may collect health information from you to the extent that it is relevant to provide you with our services, such as our patient support programs. We will seek your consent to collect your health information in these circumstances, unless an exemption applies.
In particular, we may collect personal information from you in the following circumstances:
- if you are a healthcare professional assisting a patient in one of our patient support programs;
- if you are a patient participating in one of our patient support programs; or
- if you are an applicant or an employee of UCB or one of our affiliates.
We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else. For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys. We collect aggregated information about how users use our websites including through the use of strictly cookies to measure and analyse traffic patterns. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them. Please note that some services or features of our website will not function so well if cookies are disabled. We may log IP addresses (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, track users movements, and gather broad demographic information.
How do we collect your personal information?
We collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. When collecting personal information from you, we may collect in ways including:
- through your access and use of our websites;
- where you apply for a position with UCB; or
during conversations between you and our representatives.
We may also collect personal information from third parties including:
- law enforcement agencies and other government entities; and
- service providers who hold your personal information, such as the Medical Directory of Australia.
What happens if we can’t collect your personal information?
You may decide not to provide us with your personal information or health information and deal with us anonymously. However, if you do not provide us with the personal information described above, we may not be able to provide you with the requested products or services, either to the same standard or at all or we may not be able to provide you with information that you may have requested.
Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?
We collect personal information about you so that we can perform our business activities and to provide best possible quality of customer service. We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:
- processing applications for employment or contracts with UCB;
- to provide products and services to you and to send communications requested by you;
- to manage and facilitate patient support programs;
- to answer enquiries and provide information or advice about our products or services;
- to assess the performance of our websites and to improve the operation of the websites;
- to conduct business processing functions including providing personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors, service providers or other third parties;
- for the administrative, marketing (including direct marketing), planning, product or service development, quality control and research purposes of the UCB group, its related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;
- to provide your updated personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;
- to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;
- to process and respond to any complaint made by you; and
to comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or in co-operation with any governmental authority of any country.
Your personal information will not be disclosed other than as described in this Privacy Policy.
To whom may we disclose your information?
We may disclose your personal information to:
- our employees, related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers, IT systems administrators, mailing houses, couriers, payment processors, data entry service providers, electronic network administrators, debt collectors, and professional advisors such as accountants, solicitors, business advisors and consultants;
- suppliers and other third parties with whom we have commercial relationships, for business, marketing, and related purposes; and
any organisation for any authorised purpose with your express consent.
We may combine or share any information that we collect from you with information collected by any of our related bodies corporate (within Australia).
Direct marketing materials
We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our products and services that we consider could be of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS, fax and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and the Do Not Call Register Act (Cth). You consent to us sending you those direct marketing communications by any of those methods. If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. In addition, at any time you can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us (see the details below) or by using opt-out facilities APAC-#120214744-v1© Norton Rose Fulbright Australia4provided in the marketing communications and we will then ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.
We do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing.
How can you access and correct your personal information?
You can request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see the details below). Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing it (for example, by mailing or emailing it to you). We may charge you a fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you. We will not charge for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.
There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, we will give you written reasons for any refusal.
If you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request us to amend it. We will consider if the information requires amendment. If we do not agree that there are grounds for amendment then we will add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.
Do we disclose your personal information to anyone outside Australia?
We may disclose personal information to our related bodies corporate and third party suppliers and service providers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above.We take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipients of your personal information do not breach the privacy obligations relating to your personal information.
Security
We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We may hold your information in either electronic or hard copy form. Personal information is destroyed or de-identified when no longer needed.
As our websites are linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.
Links
Our websites may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party websites and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.
What is the process for complaining about a breach of privacy?
If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it.
We request that complaints about breaches of privacy be made in writing, so we can be sure about the details of the complaint. We will treat your requests or complaints confidentially. Our representative will contact you within a reasonable time after receipt of your complaint to discuss your concerns and outline options regarding how they may be resolved. We will aim to ensure that your complaint is resolved in timely and appropriate manner.
Contacting us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, any concerns or a complaint regarding the treatment of your privacy or a possible breach of your privacy, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details at:
- email: dataprivacy.au@ucb.com cs.australia@ucb.com or
- mail: UCB Australia, Level 1, 1155 Malvern Road, Malvern Victoria 3144.
Changes to our privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. Any updated versions of this privacy policy will be posted on our websites.
This privacy policy was last updated on 6 February 2024.