WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANY OF THIS CONTENT AND ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE

WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANY OF THIS CONTENT AND ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE

CEW PRIVACY POLICY

Chief Executive Women (CEW) recognises the importance of protecting your personal information. We comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and are committed to openness and transparency about how personal information is handled.

This policy explains how we manage personal information collected, used and disclosed, including any personal information collected via the CEW website.

‘Personal information’ is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is:

  • True or not
  • Recorded in a material form or not
 
Kinds of Personal Information

Personal information collected may (but does not always) include:

  • Name, contact information (e.g. mailing address, phone number and email address) and date of birth
  • Employment and academic history and financial information (e.g. bank account or credit card details)
  • Images, video and sound recordings
  • Opinions of current and potential members, employees, scholarship applicants and winners and participants in CEW programs, studies, activities, events or functions
  • Correspondence and other interactions with CEW
  • The names and email addresses of persons who subscribe to CEW emails and newsletters
  • Usernames and passwords created when registering on the CEW website

You do not need to disclose your personal information to us; however, you may be unable to avail yourself of the opportunities, studies and activities offered by CEW if you do not do so.

 

How Personal Information is collected

Personal information is collected in the following ways:

  • Registering for a CEW membership
  • Submitting a query or request via the CEW website
  • Responding to a survey or filling in forms on the CEW website
  • Tracking use of our website
  • From public sources
  • From third parties who are entitled to disclose that information
  • Applying for a CEW Scholarship
  • Applying for a job with CEW

Where personal information is collected from you, CEW will generally do so directly. However, in some cases personal information may be collected from third parties such as third-party contractors engaged to provide personal information from publicly available sources. We will take reasonable steps to ensure third party contractors comply with the Australian Privacy Principles (the APPs).

We may also collect sensitive information where we have consent to do so (e.g. information about your philosophical beliefs, information required to cater to dietary requirements at functions or to accommodate a reasonable adjustment for members or course participants with a disability).

 

Storage and security of personal information

CEW may hold your personal information in physical form or in electronic form on computer systems located in Australia or overseas, including with related company and third party technology and storage providers. CEW will take reasonable steps to ensure that any personal information we collect is stored securely, to protect the information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, and is accurate, up‐to‐date and complete. For example, CEW implements measures such as password protected computers, locked physical storage and implementation of internal policies and procedures intended to ensure only personnel who require such information to discharge their functions, will have access.

 

Use of personal information

Personal information is used to:

  • Administer memberships
  • Promote and conduct courses, programs, studies, activities, events or functions
  • Provide products and services for members and non‐members
  • Research the needs of members and non‐members
  • Expand our membership
  • Update our contact lists
  • Administer scholarships

You may opt out of receiving marketing material at any time. Please contact CEW (details below) if you no longer wish to receive marketing material.

 

How personal information is disclosed

We will disclose personal information with your consent, where you would reasonably expect us to disclose the information or if we are authorised to do so by law (e.g. in the event of an emergency). We may publish information about members to other members and non‐members via the CEW website or publications.

We may disclose your personal information to other members, and to third parties that provide us products or services such as sponsors, event managers and facilitators. We may also disclose your personal information to our service providers, such as hosting vendors, located in Australia and in overseas jurisdictions (including the Philippines and the United States of America). Where we disclose to third parties, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the third party does not breach the APPs. In addition, personal information about scholarship applicants is transferred overseas as part of our scholarship administration process, which is flagged to scholarship applicants during the application process.

 

Cookies, our website and your privacy

Our web servers gather your IP address to assist with the diagnosis of problems or support issues with our services. Information is gathered in aggregate only and cannot be traced to an individual user.

We use cookies to provide a better experience. These cookies increase security by storing session IDs and are a way of monitoring single user access. This aggregate, non‐personal information is collated and provided to us to assist in analysing the usage of the site.

 

How to access and correct personal information

If you want to access and correct any personal information we hold, please log on to the Member Hub and make the necessary changes. Should you have any issues contact CEW using the details set out below.

When requesting access to information, there may be times we are unable to comply with your request, such as where it would interfere with the privacy of others or result in a breach of confidentiality. In these cases, you will be advised the reasons for not fulfilling your request. In certain cases we may charge you an administration fee for providing you with access to the information you have asked for, but we will inform you of this before proceeding.

 

How to make a complaint

You may lodge a complaint about how we handle personal information by contacting CEW using the contact details set out below. We will investigate the complaint and respond to you as soon as practicable. If you are unhappy with the handling of your complaint you are entitled to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), contact details can be found on the OAIC website: www.oaic.gov.au.

CONTACT

For all requests, enquiries and complaints regarding privacy, please contact CEW via:

Email: cew@cew.org.au

We will respond to all requests and enquiries within a reasonable timeframe.

When we talk about women, we include anyone who identifies as a woman. 

Thanks to MinterEllison for their generous pro bono support for content and Mahlab for website development.

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Acknowledgement of Country

Chief Executive Women acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We especially recognise the women who have been the strength of their communities for thousands of years.

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We need to set the tone and lead from the top. With this in mind, here are examples of some things we should never say or accept from others:

  • A bullying and harassment policy should be enough to deal with sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct.
  • We have low report rates of sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, so it’s not a problem at this organisation.
  • We have a reporting hotline which is well publicised, but we don’t get many calls about sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct, so it’s not an issue here.
  • I have been in this industry for decades and I have never seen it, so it mustn’t be happening.
  • That’s the remit of our HR team. If there were ever a big issue, they would escalate it to us.
  • Our staff engagement scores are terrific and there is no indication of there being a sexual harassment problem here. That means we’re doing enough.
 
Most cultural issues aren’t hiding in plain sight. Often, it’s the things that aren’t being talked about that we need to be concerned about. Research tells us that sexual harassment is common and that it’s significantly under reported. In fact, increased reporting can indicate greater psychological safety and a culture of trust that the organisation takes sexual harassment seriously. We have a positive duty to prevent sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, and to continuously assess and evaluate whether we are meeting the requirements of the duty. 
 

We need to ensure our people feel safe to come forward and report instances of sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct in the workplace. The only way they’ll do this is if they can see that leadership takes this issue seriously.

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We take the health and wellbeing of our people very seriously. We work hard to improve our safety outcomes and reduce injuries, and overall we do a good job of preventing physical harm to our people.

As we have seen in many other organisations, sexual harassment is more prevalent than a lot of people think. This represents a real risk to keeping people safe in the workplace, and to our people’s wellbeing and productivity.

It can also cause significant damage to our reputation, our brand as an employer of choice, lost business, and to our corporate standing. If we fail to take steps to address this conduct, we may be subject to enforcement action and/or civil penalties. Our organisation may also be held liable for inappropriate conduct committed by our employees unless we took all reasonable steps to prevent the conduct occurring. 

We need to make it crystal clear to everyone in the organisation that we have zero tolerance for any form of sexual harassment. We will always take appropriate action when sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct occurs. We seek to prevent these unlawful behaviours and to have a zero-harm workplace. We welcome the new Australian positive duty placed on organisations by the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022 and commit to implementing its provisions in a timely fashion and demonstrating our leadership. 

We need to treat sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct risks as we would any other physical or psychological risk in the workplace. We already have existing systems and processes in place for identifying and mitigating workplace health and safety risks and hazards, and for defining our desired safe and respectful culture. 

We need to embed these sexual harassment response frameworks into our existing risk reporting practices and organisational culture, so all forms of sexual harassment and related misconduct are eradicated.

We can’t afford to wait on this; we need to act urgently. 

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Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other conduct of a sexual nature. It’s not only a human rights issue, which is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act, but also a workplace health and safety (WHS) risk which can cause significant psychological, physical, reputational and financial harm.

Existing systems and processes for managing WHS risks and hazards should be used to eliminate the risks and control the likelihood of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace.

Board members and senior executives have a duty to address this. Everyone deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. Respect is everyone’s business.

Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other conduct of a sexual nature. It’s not only a human rights issue, which is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act, but also a workplace health and safety (WHS) risk which can cause significant psychological, physical, reputational and financial harm.

Existing systems and processes for managing WHS risks and hazards should be used to eliminate the risks and control the likelihood of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace.

Board members and senior executives have a duty to address this. Everyone deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. Respect is everyone’s business.