BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register™ Privacy Policy

About this policy

This Privacy Policy tells you how we manage the personal information we collect for the BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register™ service (BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register or the Service).

Please read this Privacy Policy and the terms of use before you use BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register.

This Privacy Policy applies to all personal information about individuals that we collect and handle. Relevant personal information includes information about people using the Service, such as people applying for self-exclusion under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Cth) (Interactive Gambling Act), people that have self-excluded, and their nominated support persons.

This policy applies to all of our activities in the operation and administration of the service that involve handling of personal information by any member of our staff and any service provider that we have contracted.

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) imposes obligations in relation to the management of personal information by APP entities, including us. Relevant obligations include those detailed in the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which are found in Schedule 1 to the Privacy Act. The Australian Information Commissioner has more information about the Privacy Act.

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. We last updated this Privacy Policy on 21 June 2023. We will try to notify known users if we make any significant changes to this Privacy Policy. However, it is your responsibility to check for updates to this Privacy Policy.

About Us

IXUP Limited (ABN 85 612 182 368) (‘we’, ‘us’) has been appointed as the National Self-Exclusion Register operator (the Register operator) to provide the Service on behalf of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The ACMA is the Australian Government authority responsible, under the Interactive Gambling Act, for regulating BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register.

As the Register operator, we are regulated in relation to collection and handling (including disclosure):

of ‘personal information’ about individuals, as defined in the Privacy Act; and
of information about people applying for self-exclusion, and people that have self-excluded and their nominated support persons, as ‘protected information’ pursuant to Part 7B (National Self-exclusion Register) of the Interactive Gambling Act.

Certain information about you may be both personal information under the Privacy Act and protected information under the Interactive Gambling Act.

Personal information that BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register collects, holds and uses

How we collect and hold personal information can depend on the purposes for which we interact with you, such as:

registering people for self-exclusion, and advising a wagering provider whether a relevant person is self-excluded
registering users in our system
verifying identities
allowing us to identify and contact people if needed to process a complaint or enquiry
performing other functions under the Interactive Gambling Act.

Persons registering for self-exclusion

If you wish to self-exclude (that is, you wish to be a ‘registered individual’), we will collect and hold information about you. This information can include:

full legal name
date of birth
residential address (including postcode)
mobile phone number
email address
information necessary to undertake identity verification, which will involve at least one form of government-issued identification (for example, a driver’s license number).

Once self-excluded, your information is collected and held in our register so that wagering providers can run queries against register to check whether an individual seeking to use or currently using a wagering provider’s service is self-excluded.

Once self-excluded, your information will also be used by us to contact you at key events during your self-exclusion – for example, when you exclusion period is about to expire.

If you have nominated a support person, we will disclose information about you and your registration to them so that they can support you.

You are responsible for ensuring the confidentiality and security of mobile phone numbers and email accounts that you provide to us. Please note that when we communicate with you using your nominated accounts, our communications may be viewed by anyone that you allow to access and view those nominated accounts. This access and viewing may lead to people viewing those communications working out that you are self-excluding. Please consider your privacy and confidentiality settings on your nominated accounts, and control of access to your mobile and other internet access devices, to protect your privacy and confidentiality.

If you wish to cease your self-exclusion before expiry of your nominated self-exclusion period, and provided that you have completed the initial minimum 3-month exclusion period, you may apply to cancel your registration with the Service. Your application must include a statutory declaration that, amongst other things, states that you have seen a counsellor, general practitioner or psychologist in the past 3 months to discuss your gambling behaviour.

When you end your self-exclusion, if you have provided consent to us retaining your registration details, we will put your account on-hold. You will then be able to self-exclude again at any time in the future without needing to create a new account. If you have not provided this consent and you wish to self-exclude again in the future, you will need to create a new account.

You may withdraw your consent to us retaining your registration details at any time through your account. If you do so after your self-exclusion has ended, we will remove your account within 24 hours.

Support Persons

If a person choosing to self-exclude wishes to nominate you as a support person, they should first discuss this with you and seek your agreement to be nominated.

When they nominate you, they will provide us with your name and contact details. We will then use this information to contact you:

to tell you who is the registered individual that has listed you as a support person and how long the registered individual has chosen to be self-excluded for. You will be provided with an opportunity to decline to be a support person
when the registered individual extends their self-exclusion period
when the registered individual attempts to cease being self-excluded
when the registered individual’s self-exclusion period is about to expire.

We will disclose information to you about the registered individual that you are supporting so that you can support them with their decision to stop gambling.

You can withdraw your consent to be a support person at any time.

Contact Centre

Personal information may be collected when you:

complete a complaint or enquiry form
contact us by telephone, including through making of call recordings.

Calls to and from the contact centre are recorded for quality assurance and training purposes. If you do not wish your telephone interactions with our contact centre to be recorded, you may request that the call not be recorded.

We endeavour to collect personal information only where necessary when interacting with you via our contact centre. It may also be necessary for us to collect and use personal information to verify your identity, so that we do not inadvertently disclose personal information or protected information to someone who is not entitled to receive it, or who doesn’t need to know it.

Whether you will be able to correspond with us on an anonymous basis, or by using a pseudonym, will depend on the circumstances, including the purpose for your corresponding with us. In some instances, anonymity may not be practical because we will require proof of your identity before we can action particular matters, for example, updating a self-exclusion registration. It may also not be possible for the ACMA to investigate a complaint you have made if you choose to remain anonymous.

Wagering Provider Employees

We will collect and use your personal information if you are the employee of a wagering provider engaging with us.

This information is collected from you or an authorised representative of the wagering provider, so that we can verify that only authorised personnel of wagering providers access the Service and maintain a log of users of the Service.

Collection of data through the BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion Register website

When you browse our website, we collect and hold the following information:

your IP address and operating system and version
the type of device and brand you used, for example, tablet, Apple iPad.
the browser you used (name, version and language)
the date and time you visited the site
the pages you accessed and as your page interactions such as how long you stayed on a page
the performance of the page on your device
the previous site you visited
your physical geographical location when you visited the site, for example, country, state/territory, city

No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities, except where in the event of an investigation, when a law enforcement agency or other government agency may exercise its legal authority to inspect our internet web server logs.

We may use this information to:

compile statistics and reports to improve our website and services
identify and respond to issues, including security issues or inappropriate conduct.

We don't share this information with other government agencies or other organisations without your permission unless that is required or authorised by law.

INFORMATION DISCLOSURE

Many disclosures that we make are required and authorised by Part 7B of the Interactive Gambling Act, which is the principal law regulating BetStop - the National Self-exclusion Register.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

We may disclose information to the ACMA so that the ACMA can administer the Service, including to:

investigate complaints and potential non-compliance with the Interactive Gambling Act
produce aggregated reports relating to the Service using de-identified information (for example, about how many people have registered with the Service)

Information about how the ACMA collects and holds personal information is available in its Privacy Policy.

Wagering Providers

Wagering providers can run queries against our database to check whether you, as an individual seeking to use or currently using their service, are registered with the Service.

To undertake these checks, wagering providers send customer identifiers (such as name, mobile number and email address) to the Service. We then run an automated process that checks for a match between this information and the personal information that we hold about people who have self-excluded. If these details match, we will respond to the wagering provider’s query by stating that you are registered. Further information is set out below in relation to how personal information is used for this automated process.

We may also need to disclose your personal information to a wagering provider in order to resolve a query from you, or investigate a complaint.

The ACMA provides a list of all wagering providers covered by these requirements.

Research Purposes

If you are a registered individual and provide your consent to us doing so, we may provide your personal information to organisations for research purposes.

You may withdraw your consent for your personal information to be further used for research purposes at any time.

OTHER USES AND DISCLOSURES

In limited situations:

the Privacy Act authorises other uses and disclosures of personal information about you (e.g., ‘permitted general situations’ listed in section 16A of that Act)
the Interactive Gambling Act authorises uses and disclosures of protected information, which is likely to include or comprise personal information about individuals
we may be compelled by law to disclose personal information to particular recipients such as a law enforcement agency or a court.

We may make such uses and disclosures, but we will only do so if and to the extent we are authorised by those laws.

AUTOMATED DECISION MAKING IN OUR MATCHING SERVICE

As a registered individual, we will use your personal information in automated decision making, including:

Identity verification – your identity information will be matched against an identity database to verify your identity. If you are not able to be verified, you will be given the opportunity to use another identity document or call our Contact Centre for assistance.
Data matching with wagering providers – we store your personal information to conduct matching against customer details provided by wagering providers. If the two sets of information match, we inform the wagering provider that we have a match and the wagering provider is required by Part 7B of the Interactive Gambling Act to stop permitting you to use their wagering service. We have safeguards in place which involve human monitoring and intervention. If you think you have been incorrectly matched and treated as self-excluded, you can call our Contact Centre. Our staff will investigate any concerns you raise about our automated matching service.

SECURITY

We are committed to protecting and security of your personal information. All information collected is secured and managed in accordance with the Australian Government’s Protective Security Policy Framework, Information Security Manual and the Archives Act .

Your information will be held in electronic form and stored in data centres within Australia. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, or disclosure.

For example, we transfer personal information to our verification services provider via a secure link. Information stored within our matching service is not held in directly identifying form and is appropriately secured. We also require that our service providers who will have access to your personal information take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any information that you handle in the course of your self-exclusion registration. You are responsible for maintaining appropriate confidentiality of your account and login details (including password). You are responsible for activities that occur under your account and for any access to or use of the Service by you or any person or entity using your account, whether or not such access or use has been authorised by you.

APPLYING FOR ACCESS TO AND CORRECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Your rights in relation to personal information and protected information about you include to:

access a copy of this information;
have inaccurate information corrected; and
withdraw your consent at any time, where our collection and handling relies upon your consent.

The personal information we hold about you can be found in your account settings when you log into your account, and updated by you if those details are incorrect or have changed.

You should make sure that your registration details are up to date with your latest personal information. This is important for your self-exclusion to remain effective.

If you cannot or would prefer not to log into your account to access and manage your personal information, you can apply for access to, or the correction of, your personal information using the contact details under How to Contact Us.

If you are applying for the correction of personal information, you should:

specify the personal information you wish to correct;
explain why you consider that the personal information should be corrected, that is, why that personal information is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading; and
provide any documents/information in support.

Your application will be acknowledged on receipt. You will be advised in writing of the outcome of your application. If your application is refused, we will explain our reasons for that decision.

In order for us to process a request for access to or correction of your personal information, we may need to take steps to verify your identity.

You can find out more about your rights to access and correct personal information about you from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

MAKING A COMPLAINT

If you have any concerns about how we use your personal information, we ask that you contact us in the first instance using the contact details below.

In submitting a complaint, you should provide the details of the complaint and any supporting information. We will acknowledge the receipt of the complaint.

Our Privacy Contact Officer will ordinarily conduct the initial assessment of the issues raised to determine the most appropriate course of action based on the circumstances of the complaint.

We will also advise you of the outcome of our consideration of the issues required.

In some circumstances, you may be able to lodge a complaint directly with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

OTHER SITES

There are approximately 140 licensed Australian-based wagering providers that are subject to the self-exclusion scheme. Each wagering provider is required to collect, handle and share personal information about you only in accordance with the wagering provider’s published Privacy Policy.

We enable the wagering providers to comply with their legal obligation to give effect to self-exclusions. We do not monitor or control their other handling of personal information, or vet their published privacy policies or terms of use.

While being Australian-based wagering providers, some providers may have arrangements that mean you information is disclosed overseas or held in overseas data centres. We encourage you to read and consider the Privacy Policy of each wagering provider that you choose to use, so that you know how they will collect, use, and share personal information about you, including to understand whether those providers have arrangements that mean information is disclosed overseas.

HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have questions regarding this policy or our handling of your personal information, please submit an online enquiry or call us on 1800 238 786.