At Tearfund Australia, protecting the privacy of personal information we hold is important to us.
This Privacy Statement explains how Tearfund Australia (we, us, our, Tearfund) collects, uses, holds and discloses personal information and how to contact us if you have any queries about personal information that we hold about you. You should read this Privacy Statement alongside any collection notice or consent form we provide to you.
In this Privacy Statement:
Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified person (or a person who is ‘reasonably identifiable’), whether the information or opinion is true or not, and whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not. Personal information includes a person’s name, address, contact details (such as telephone number or email), date of birth, gender, and their health and other sensitive information.
Sensitive information is a special category of personal information and includes information or an opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions or associations, religious or philosophical beliefs or affiliations, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record, health information or genetic information, and some aspects of biometric information.
Supporters means donors, potential donors, event attendees, advocacy participants, church and faith-based supporters, volunteers, and people who complete a Tearfund form or sign up to receive Tearfund communications.
We collect and hold a range of personal information about our supporters and others in connection with carrying out our functions or activities, which includes inspiring and equipping Christians in Australia to be partners in tackling injustice and the root causes of poverty, working with our partners in places where the effects of poverty hit hardest as they equip people to lead change in their own lives, families and local communities.
The type of personal information that we collect and hold will depend on the nature of our relationship with you and the circumstances of collection, including whether we collect the information from you as a Supporter, service provider, job applicant or some other capacity.
For example:
We may also collect details of the interactions you have with us.
If you provide us with personal information about another person, please make sure that you tell them about this Privacy Statement.
If you are or become an employee, the handling of your personal information may be exempt from the Australian Privacy Principles, if it is directly related to your current or former employment relationship with us.
We will primarily collect personal information from you directly (such as when you contact us, or request information or resources from us, sign up for emails, register for an event, sign an online petition, or complete surveys) including through our website, over the phone or face-to-face, or indirectly from your interactions with us (such as when you open emails we send you and clicking through to our website).
If we collect personal information from or about you, we may combine or link it with other personal information we hold about you.
In some cases, we may also collect personal information about you from third parties (such as recruitment agencies and sector relevant coalitions).
We do not purchase marketing/information lists from third parties.
Depending on our interaction with you, we may collect and hold health or other sensitive information about you. For example, we may collect information about your religious beliefs or affiliations (such as your membership or association with a particular church or faith group, and your role within that church or group) for the purposes described below.
We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent (unless we are otherwise permitted or required by law to collect that information without your consent. If you are a church or faith-based supporter who has regular contact with us, this may include information about your membership or association with a particular church or faith group, and your role within that church or group).
If you are a Supporter and provide personal information to us, we record it on our database and may use it to contact you in the future. We may also collect, hold, use and disclose personal information about you for a range of purposes, including to:
We otherwise collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to carry out our functions or activities including to:
We may use and disclose your personal information for other purposes required or authorised by or under law (including purposes for which you have provided your consent).
We may use and disclose your personal information for direct marketing purposes. This includes contacting Supporters about fundraising programs and emergency appeals, events and courses, or opportunities to volunteer with us or participate in our advocacy and other community work. We may contact you by email, post, text message, telephone, or messaging apps.
This may include using your personal information to:
Where you have provided personal information to us, we may reach out to you via social media, including through the use of the marketing services of social media platforms such as the Meta Custom Audience Program, Google Customer Match, X (formerly Twitter) Tailored Audiences, LinkedIn Matched Audiences, and others.
We may also reach out to people who have similar interests to our Supporters through social media, in accordance with the terms and conditions they agreed to and the privacy settings and advertising preferences they set within the platform. This matching is carried out by the social media platform and is not at any time seen by Tearfund.
This type of marketing lets us reach new and existing Supporters with relevant, meaningful content while being cost-effective, helping us focus resources where they matter most.
You can opt out of receiving direct marketing communications from us at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” or ‘preference centre’ link at the bottom of our emails or by contacting Tearfund directly via email or phone. We will process your request as soon as possible.
Supporters can exclude themselves from social media targeting activities by contacting Tearfund directly.
Call us on 1800 244 986
Email us at [email protected]
Write to us at PO Box 110, Forest Hill VIC 3131
If you visit our website, we may collect usage data using cookies, including the date and duration of your visit, information about your device (device type, operating system, screen resolution, language, country you are located in and web browser type), the name of your internet service provider, the website you visited us from, and the parts of our website you accessed. This information helps us to improve the content and functionality of our website.
You can manage your preferences through the cookie consent tool on our website. Alternatively, you can adjust your cookie settings directly within your web browser.
If you provide any personal information to us through our website, such as through completing an online form, we will collect and hold this information for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement.
Where you provide this personal information to us in connection with your website visit or you accessed our website by clicking a link in an email from us, we may link previously collected usage data with the information you provide and that we hold about you to improve our understanding of your interests and provide a more personalised experience. This linking of previously anonymous usage data allows us to provide relevant content and direct marketing communications based on your demonstrated interests.
When someone applies for a job with us, sends us personal information through their CV or by completing an application form, we will collect, hold and use this information to:
People who are staff, volunteering or traveling on a trip with Tearfund may need to send us additional personal and/or sensitive information – such as information about their dietary requirements, mobility requirements or health. We will handle this information in accordance with this Privacy Statement or as otherwise permitted or required by law.
We generally hold personal information in computer systems, including computer systems operated for us by our service providers. We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
This includes using a range of operational and technical measures, such as the use of firewalls, password restricted access to computerised records by our staff, routine security risk assessments, and internal policies in relation to access to personal information. We also use trusted third party payment gateways to process donations and other payments.
We aim to only retain personal information about you for as long as we need it or are lawfully required to retain it. For example, we may need to keep personal information about you for a certain period of time for accounting and tax purposes. When we no longer need the personal information we hold, we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it.
We never swap, buy, trade or sell supporter information with any entity for any reason. This decision is informed by our values and beliefs and by how important supporter privacy is to us.
Some of our service providers are located outside Australia. As a result, personal information collected and held by us may be transferred to recipients in other countries. We also use service providers located in a range of countries to store and process data. This includes cloud-based systems that process data outside of Australia. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that processing and storing personal information overseas is done in compliance with the APPs.
If a Supporter travels outside of Australia with us, we may share personal information with partners in other countries. This may include sensitive information – such as medical information necessary to enable safe travel. Before we do this, we’ll let the Supporter know what we’re planning to share and check they are happy for us to do so.
In conducting our operations, we may disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes outlined in the section “Purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information”, above. These third parties may include, where appropriate:
We may also disclose your personal information to other third parties and for other purposes where we are required or authorised by or under law to do so (including where you have provided your consent).
You have a right to request access to personal information that we hold about you and request its correction if it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. You may also request deletion of your personal information. These requests can be made by contacting our Privacy Officer at the details below.
We will generally provide you with access to your personal information (subject to some exceptions permitted by law). We will respond to all requests for access to or correction of personal information within a reasonable period (usually 30 days).
You can contact us (using the contact details at the end of this statement) if you have any concerns or complaints about the manner in which we have collected or handled your personal information. We will inquire into your complaint and respond within a reasonable period of time (usually 30 days). If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact us to discuss your concerns or lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or by writing to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.
If you have any questions, comments or complaints about Tearfund’s handling of your personal information, or would like to request access to or correction of personal information that we hold about you, you can contact our Privacy Officer on 1800 244 986 between 9am and 5pm (AEST or AEDT) Monday to Friday. Alternatively, you can send an email to [email protected] or write to: Tearfund Australia Privacy Officer, PO Box 110, Forest Hill, VIC, 3131, Australia.
From time to time it may be necessary for us to review and revise our Privacy Statement. We may notify you about changes to this Privacy Statement by posting an updated version on our website and communicating this change with you. We encourage you to check our website from time to time to ensure you are familiar with our latest Privacy Statement. Our Privacy Statement was last updated in August 2026.
