Our simplified privacy statement combines important information about how we handle your personal and credit-related information into one document.
We’re making it easier to understand how and why we collect, hold, and use this information, and who we share it with and why.
We’re also progressively updating our websites and apps (such as online banking), product and service terms and conditions, forms, and other documents with the simplified privacy information.
Protecting our customers' privacy is fundamental to the way we do business. We are committed to earning and maintaining your trust by carefully and respectfully managing your personal information and credit-related information.
Download a copy of our full Privacy Statement (PDF) or contact us for a free printed copy.
This Privacy Statement provides important information about how we collect and handle your personal information, including the purposes for which we collect and use your information and the types of organisations we share it with (some of which are located outside of Australia). It also explains how you can access and correct the personal information we hold about you, and how you can make a complaint about our handling of your personal information.
Why are we collecting your personal information? Westpac Banking Corporation and its Australian related body corporates (the Westpac Group, we, us, our) collect your personal information to provide you with products and services and to provide you with assistance and support. Some Australian members of the Westpac Group may also collect your credit-related information for the same purposes.
We also collect or generate information based on your transactions, preferences and behaviours (including through use of our website and apps) so that we can tailor our digital content and products and services to you. For more information, see section 4.
With whom do we share your personal information? We may share your personal information with members of the Westpac Group (including members of our group outside Australia), our authorised representatives (for example, RAMS franchisees) and other organisations that help us run our business and other entities described in section 8.
We use your personal information to send you offers. We will use your personal information to send you offers for products and services we believe may be of interest and value to you (including by email, SMS or other means) unless you have previously told us that you do not want to receive marketing offers from us. The products and services offered may be provided by us or by one of our third-party partners. If you do not want to receive direct marketing offers from us, you can manage your marketing preferences in your online banking profile, contact us using the contact details set out below or follow the opt-out instructions in the message. For more information, see section 9.
If you are applying for, or providing a guarantee, for a credit product. If you apply for a credit product, such as a credit card or mortgage, or provide a guarantee for a credit product, we will also collect your credit-related information to assess (or have another member of the Westpac Group as the credit provider assess) your application for credit, and to manage the credit product. We (that is, the Westpac Group entity that is the credit provider for the credit product you applied for or in relation to any guarantee for such) will also share your information with credit reporting bodies. You should be aware of the following:
For Capital Finance Australia Limited, we only use Equifax.
Further information. For more information on how you can access and correct the personal information we hold about you (including credit-related information), make a complaint, or the circumstances in which we share information to entities outside of Australia, please see the relevant sections below.
You do not have to provide us with your personal information or credit-related information. If you choose not to, we may not be able to process your application for a product or service, assist with your enquiries, provide all of the features available for a product or service, or respond to any complaint to us.
If you are providing us with personal information about someone else You must first make them aware that you’ll be doing this, the contents of this Privacy Statement, and that we will collect and handle their personal information in accordance with this Statement and any other relevant Privacy Notices. If you are providing us with another person’s sensitive information, you must first obtain their consent to sharing it with us and their consent to us collecting and handling their sensitive information in accordance with this Privacy Statement and any other relevant Privacy Notices.
This Privacy Statement includes our:
Depending on your circumstances, including the product or service you apply for, or obtain, from us, some or all of this Privacy Statement may be relevant to you. On occasion, we will need to provide you with additional information specific to a collection of personal information, in which case we will provide you with a supplementary privacy notice. Please read this Statement, and any supplementary privacy notice provided to you, and contact us if you have any questions.
You can download a copy of our full Privacy Statement (PDF) or contact us for a free printed copy using the contact details set out below.
Important information about your specific circumstances
Whilst this Privacy Statement applies generally to you as a customer of the Westpac Group, there are certain sections of this Statement which may only apply in particular circumstances. Please read the following sections if they apply to you:
BT is part of Westpac Banking Corporation and its Australian related body corporates. Westpac Banking Corporation and its Australian related body corporates (the Westpac Group, we, us, our) are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (‘Privacy Act’) and must protect your personal information according to that Act.
Only some members of the Westpac Group (credit providers) share credit-related information with credit reporting bodies. When we refer to disclosure to, or collection from, a credit reporting body in this Statement, we mean in relation to:
Westpac Group Australian Business | Credit provider |
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Bank of Melbourne, Bank SA and St George Bank | Westpac Banking Corporation, St George Finance Limited and St George Motor Finance Limited |
BT | BT Securities Limited |
Capital Finance | Capital Finance Australia Limited |
Westpac, RAMS Home Loans and Xylo | Westpac Banking Corporation |
Westpac Group includes:
Where you are interacting with the Westpac Group in countries other than Australia, the privacy statement applicable to that country as shown below applies to you, along with any other applicable privacy notices provided to you.
Overseas Privacy and Data Protection Policies
We collect and hold your personal information (including your credit-related information) to help us run our business, including to:
Purpose | Examples of why we collect and hold your personal information |
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Provide you with our products and services and serve you as a customer |
Where you agree or we are permitted by law, we may collect sensitive information about you to:
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Security, verification and prevention of fraud/criminal activity |
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Legal and regulatory compliance |
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Insurance | Where we are the insurer:
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If you apply for a credit product, obtain a credit product from us, are offering to act as a guarantor or acting as guarantor in relation to credit, we also collect and hold your personal information for the following purposes:
Purpose | Examples of why we collect and hold your personal information |
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To help you obtain credit |
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To manage your credit product |
Where you agree or where we are permitted by law, we may collect sensitive information about you to assess any hardship application that you make, or to meet our responsible lending obligations. |
Lenders mortgage insurance or reinsurance (not applicable to guarantors) | To enable us to obtain lenders mortgage insurance which protects the lender if a borrower is unable to meet their mortgage repayments. |
To manage our loan funding arrangements |
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To determine your eligibility to act as guarantor | Assess your application to act as guarantor in connection with another person's application for credit under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) |
You do not have to provide us with personal information or credit-related information. If you don’t, we may not be able to process your application for a product or service, assist with your enquiries, provide all of the features available for a product or service, or respond to any complaint you make to us.
Certain laws require us to collect, use and/or disclose your personal information (including credit-related information) in particular circumstances, including:
From time to time we may collect personal information and credit-related information about you (and sensitive information where you have agreed or we are otherwise permitted to do so) from others. For example, we may collect your information from:
If you apply for a credit product, obtain a credit product from us, are offering to act as a guarantor or act as a guarantor for a credit product, we may also collect personal information and credit-related information about you (including sensitive information where you have agreed or we are otherwise permitted to do so) from others. For example, in addition to the above, we may collect your information from:
The table below explains who we disclose your personal information (including your sensitive information) to:
Entity description | We may share your information with |
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Westpac Group entities | Other companies within the Westpac Group to manage products and services including offering new products and services and risk management. |
Westpac's professional advisers | Our professional advisers such as our financial advisers, auditors and legal advisers for the purposes of obtaining their professional services (in the case of our legal advisers, these services will include assessing our legal obligations and defending any legal claims or potential claims) |
Associated entities, service providers and agents that help us run our business | Other organisations that help us run our business, including:
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Dispute resolution and regulatory authorities |
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Investors and prospective purchasers | Companies or other persons who purchase or invest in, or may purchase or invest in, a part or all of our business or assets (including their advisers and representatives). |
Financial services organisations, payment system operators and other institutions that facilitate transactions and payment services |
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In addition to the third parties described above, if you apply for a credit product, obtain a credit product from us, or are offering to act as a guarantor or act as a guarantor for a credit product, we may also share your personal information with the following third parties:
Entity description | We may share your information with |
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Westpac Group entities | Other companies within the Westpac Group in Australia to comply with our responsible lending obligations. |
Credit reporting bodies | Credit reporting bodies for the assessment of your financial position in relation to your application for credit and the ongoing management of a credit product or guarantee. |
Other loan parties | Other borrowers as part of the application process and to administer the product. |
Guarantors |
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Your representatives and nominated individuals |
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Your employer | To verify your employment and income, for example, in connection with a home loan application. |
Debt collectors, debt purchasers, and other lenders |
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Funding organisations | Organisations involved in our funding of loans (including securitisation trustees, investors and their advisers). |
Lenders Mortgage Insurers | Lenders mortgage insurers to enable them to assess the risk of providing insurance in respect of your credit product and to administer any claims. |
Land Registry Services and Conveyancing Services |
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We will use your personal information to offer you products and services we believe may be of interest and value to you. The products and services offered may be provided by us or by one of our third party partners. We may offer you products and services by various means, including by mail, telephone, email, SMS or other electronic means, such as through social media or targeted advertising through our websites or non-Westpac Group websites or through our online banking service. We may also disclose your personal information to companies outside the Westpac Group who help us to market products and services to you. We won’t send you marketing offers if you have previously told us you do not want to receive them. If you do not want to receive direct marketing offers from us, including offers we send about products and services provided by our partners, you can manage your marketing preferences in your online banking profile or you can contact us using the contact details below or through the opt-out facility provided to you in each marketing message.
Our handling of credit-related information is regulated by the Privacy Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code (as updated from time to time). Because credit-related information is a type of personal information, this section should be read along with the rest of this Privacy Statement for detailed information about our collection, use, storage and sharing of personal information. See section 3 for further information on members of the Westpac Group who handle your credit information.
Credit-related information includes both credit information and credit eligibility information.
The types of credit-related information we may collect, hold and use includes:
If you apply for any kind of credit with us or offer to act as guarantor for any of our customers, we will share your personal information and your credit-related information with credit reporting bodies, and/or we will collect your credit-related information from credit reporting bodies. This is done for the purpose of determining your eligibility for credit (or your suitability to act as guarantor), and we may assess or rate your suitability for credit (or to act as a guarantor).
The information we access includes your repayment history information, which shows whether you have a history of making required payments on time (and whether any have been made after they are due), and from 1 July 2022, financial hardship information.
Credit reporting bodies may include your personal information and credit-related information, including information we provide them in relation to the credit products you have with us, in reports that they provide to other credit providers to assist those providers in assessing your credit worthiness (such as when you have applied for a loan from the provider).
If you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to consumer credit, we are required to disclose this to a credit reporting body. From 1 July 2022, if you enter a financial hardship arrangement in relation to credit to which the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) applies, we are also required to disclose this to credit reporting bodies. If you commit a serious credit infringement, we may also disclose this to a credit reporting body.
We may also use your credit-related information to assist you during hardship, or to assess whether to securitise your loans, or for mortgage products to enable a provider of lenders mortgage insurance to assess the risk of providing insurance. To facilitate these uses, we may share your credit-related information with potential securitisation and funding partners and providers of lenders mortgage insurance, including to assist them with administering those arrangements.
For more information on how we use and share your credit-related information, and who we may share this information with, see sections 8 and 21.
The credit reporting bodies we use and their contact details appear below. For information on how those bodies manage credit-related information, please see their privacy policies available on their websites.
For Corporate Finance Australia Limited, and credit applied for, or provided, in relation to RAMS Home Loans, we only use Equifax.
Equifax Australia Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited
Illion Australia Pty Limited
Experian Australia Credit Services Pty Limited
1300 783 684
www.experian.com.au
Credit reporting bodies offer a service to credit providers (like us) who wish to send direct marketing material about their credit services to individuals. This is called credit pre-screening. You have the right to request that the credit reporting bodies do not use your credit-related information for this purpose. To opt-out of credit pre-screening, contact the credit reporting body using the contact details on their websites noted above.
You can also ask a credit reporting body not to use or share your personal information (including credit-related information) for a period if you reasonably believe that you have been or are likely to be a victim of
This section applies (in addition to the rest of this Privacy Statement) if we ask for, or collect, your tax file number (TFN). Please see the Accessing and correcting your personal information and/or credit information and Resolving your privacy complaints sections below to find out how to access your TFN, correct your details, or complain about our handling of your TFN or other personal information.
We are authorised to collect the TFNs of:
We only collect your TFN for purposes required or authorised by law, including for the purpose of reporting information to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). If you are a superannuation fund member and you provide your permission for us to do so, we may also use your TFN to search for funds held by you with other superannuation or retirement savings providers for the purpose of consolidating your super.
It is not an offence to withhold your TFN. However, if you choose not to provide your TFN when you open an account with us:
unless you are exempt from providing a TFN. If you are exempt, please let us know the type of exemption that applies so that we do not deduct tax from the interest earned on the account.
For joint account holders or investors, a minimum of two TFNs should be provided (one for each person) if you decide to provide your TFN.
For accounts in trust for someone else (such as your child) you should quote your own TFN. If a formal trust has been established, you can quote the trust's TFN.
If your investment with us is made in the course of carrying on a business you may provide us with an ABN instead of a TFN.
If you are a superannuation fund member you can ask us in writing not to record your TFN. However, providing your TFN gives you the following advantages, which may not apply to you if you choose to withhold your TFN:
We are required to report details of interest or dividend income earned, withholding tax deducted and TFNs and exemptions recorded in connection with the accounts and investments you hold with us to the ATO.
In addition, if you are a superannuation fund member and you provide your TFN, we may provide your TFN to another super plan or retirement savings provider if your benefits are transferred, unless you request in writing that your TFN not be disclosed to anyone else.
Otherwise, your TFN will be kept confidential and only shared where permitted by law.
We collect your personal information in relation to your application for insurance for the purpose of underwriting that insurance product.
In addition to the above, if you apply for or have an insurance product, we may also collect your personal information from:
If you apply for or have an insurance or superannuation product, we may also share your personal information (including your sensitive information) with:
Before you provide another person’s personal information to us (for example, a proposed guarantor or your nominated beneficiary under an insurance policy), you must make them aware:
Where you provide us with another person’s sensitive information you must first obtain their consent to sharing it with us and their consent to us collecting, using and disclosing their sensitive information in accordance with this Privacy Statement and any other relevant privacy notices.
Where you are a representative, director, corporate officer or signatory, beneficiary or shareholder of one of our customers, or otherwise give instructions on behalf of a customer, we may collect your personal information to process an application by customer for a product or service, manage its account or comply with our legislative and regulatory requirements (both in Australia and overseas).
The personal information (including sensitive information and credit-related information) that we collect and hold about you will depend on the products and services we offer you and the nature of your interactions with the Westpac Group.
In the table below we list some examples of the personal information we collect and hold about you for most of our products and services:
Type of personal information | Examples of what this may include |
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Personal and contact details |
Your name, date of birth, gender, signature, mailing and residential address details, telephone numbers, email addresses, and personal details relevant to any application for credit such as marital status, number and ages of dependents, citizenship and/or residency details, foreign tax residency status, employment details and status, salary details, work history and bank account and credit card information. |
Government issued identification (copies) and identifiers | Your Tax File Number, Medicare number, passport details, Driver’s Licence number, and copies of government identification documents. |
Photographs, video or audio recordings | Your Tax File Number, Medicare number, passport details, Driver’s Licence number, and copies of government identification documents. |
Sensitive information |
Information relating to your citizenship, residency status and biometric data (to verify your identity and authorise transactions, for example if you enrol in our Smart Verify or Verify-Ewe service). In addition, we may collect sensitive information about your health, medical history, racial or ethnic origin in the limited circumstances described above under Why we collect your personal information (for example, to offer you specialist Indigenous and remote banking capabilities). |
Transactional information | Records of transactions you make using our products and services. |
Interaction and behavioural information |
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Digital (or electronic information) | The date and time of your visits to our webpages, geographical information, information about the device used to visit our website (including your tablet or mobile device) such as device IDs and IP addresses, the date and time of accessing online banking and other digital services, and geolocation where you provide permission in your device settings. We may also collect information from third party websites, applications or platforms containing our interactive content or that interface with our own websites and applications. |
Publicly available information | Searches of ASIC's banned and disqualified persons register, ASIC's insolvency register, bankruptcy register search and State or Territory Land Registry Services or real property registers. We may collect information about you from social media platforms if you publicly comment but we will never ask you to supply personal information publicly over any social media platform that we use on which we have a presence and use, such as Facebook or Twitter. |
If you have applied for a credit product, obtain a credit product from us, are offering to act as a guarantor or act as a guarantor for a credit product, we may also collect and hold the following personal information about you:
Type of personal information | Examples of what this may include |
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Credit information
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See a definition of Credit information under Credit reporting and credit-related Information [Section 10]. |
Credit eligibility information | See a definition of Credit eligibility information under Credit reporting and credit-related Information [Section 10]. |
Loan application information | Information about your assets, debts, income and expenditure. |
Guarantor information | If you are a proposed guarantor for any of our products, we will collect your personal information from the prospective borrower(s). With your consent, we will also collect your credit-related information in accordance with this Privacy Statement. |
Sensitive information | We may collect additional sensitive information about your health, medical history, racial or ethnic origin in limited circumstances described above under 'Why we collect your personal information'. |
We collect most of your personal information directly from you, whether in person, on the phone or electronically via our websites, our online banking platform(s) and email.
For example, we collect your personal information from you when you interact with any Westpac Group Australian business to:
We may also collect your personal information if we infer or generate information about you based on your transactions, preferences, and behaviours (including through the use of data analytics).
In addition to the specific reasons we provide for collecting your personal information in section 4 above ('Why we collect your personal information'), we also hold, use and disclose your personal information for additional purposes set out below.
Purpose | Examples of why we use your personal information |
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Improve our products and services, enhance customer relationships and manage risks | To prepare your personal information for data analytics processes, conduct data analytics and generate insights from that data analysis for the benefit of Westpac, to improve the delivery and development of our products, services and programs, enhance our customer relationships and effectively manage risk and adherence to our policies and procedures. |
Assist third parties with their products and services | To prepare your personal information for data analytics processes, conduct data analytics and generate insights from that data analysis for the benefit of third parties (noting that the outputs of these activities will not be disclosed to third parties unless they have been subject to a de-identification process or the disclosure is otherwise agreed with you or permitted by applicable laws). |
Mergers, acquisitions and other sales/funding arrangements | To facilitate actual or prospective divestments, acquisitions, investments, debt/loan sales or other changes (and potential changes) to entities that make up the Westpac Group or Westpac Group products and services. |
Cookies are small pieces of information stored on your hard drive or in memory. We use cookies to collect personal information directly from you when you interact with us through our public and secured websites, mobile or tablet applications. We collect limited personal information about you via cookies for the following purposes:
Purpose | Description |
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Security | Cookies can help secure a user's experience by simplifying login, maintaining session integrity or validating content entered into form fields. We do this to:
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Personalise and improve your customer experience | Cookies can be used to remember user preferences or understand traffic or webpages. We do this to:
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Measurement and analysis | Cookies can be used to collect data (including location) about users who interact with our public and secured websites, mobile or tablet applications. This data is stored and analysed by us. We do this to measure effectiveness of our marketing, including via third parties, to improve our services to you. |
Marketing and communication | Cookies can be used to launch segment targeted marketing campaigns, promote new services or websites and send segment or targeted messages to you. We do this to:
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We take a range of physical, electronic and other security measures, to protect the security, confidentiality and integrity of your personal information (including your sensitive and credit-related information). For example:
We will share your personal information (including your sensitive information) outside Australia to some of the types of recipients and for the purposes noted above, including:
Our processes for approving and managing credit products involve some tasks being carried out for us by third party service providers, both in and outside Australia, including in India and the Philippines. In carrying out these tasks, service providers may have access to credit-related information.
You can request access to the personal information (including your sensitive information and credit-related information) that we hold about you. You can also ask for corrections to be made to it. To do so, please contact us using the contact details provided below..
If your request relates to your credit-related information, you may also want to contact the relevant credit reporting bodies that have credit-related information about you on file and make similar corrections to your information.
If you want to access or correct your consumer data pursuant to the Consumer Data Right, please refer to our Consumer Data Right policy.
We will seek to verify your identity before we allow access, or make changes, to your personal information or credit-related information.
There is no fee for requesting corrections to your personal information or for us to make those corrections. In some circumstances, we may charge you a reasonable amount for providing you access to your personal information to cover the costs of locating the information, copying it and supplying it to you.
We are not required to provide you with access to your personal information in certain limited circumstances, for example where a Court or Tribunal order requires us to deny access. There are also certain circumstances in which we are not required to correct your personal information – for example, where we are not satisfied that the information we have on record for you is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.
However, if we refuse to give you access to or to correct your personal information, we will give you a notice explaining our reasons (except to the extent it would be unreasonable or unlawful for us to do so) and provide you with information on how you can complain about our refusal.
If you have a question or complaint about how your personal information (including sensitive information and credit-related information) is being handled by us, our affiliates or service providers, please contact us first by using the contact details provided above.
We are constantly striving to provide the best possible service, and we will do our best to efficiently and fairly resolve any concern you have.
If you are ever unhappy about something we have done – or perhaps not done – please give us the opportunity to put things right.
Our aim is to resolve your complaint within five (5) business days, and where possible we will resolve your complaint on the spot. If we need additional time to get back to you, we will let you know. Should we be unable to resolve your concern at your first point of contact, we will then refer the complaint to our dedicated Customer Managers in our Customer Solutions team.
Our Customer Solutions Customer Managers are here to find a solution for you and will ensure that you’re regularly updated about the progress we are making to resolve your complaint.
If you are not satisfied with our response to, or handling of, your complaint, you can contact the external dispute resolution scheme, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
AFCA provides a free and independent service to resolve complaints by consumers and small businesses about financial firms (e.g., banks), where that complaint falls within AFCA’s terms of reference. The contact details for AFCA are set out below.
Australian Financial Complaints Authority
GPO Box 3
Melbourne VIC 3001
Phone: 1800 931 678 (free call)
Email: info@afca.org.au
Online: www.afca.org.au
Under the Privacy Act you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) if you have raised a complaint with us and you’re not happy with our response or have concerns about the way we handle your personal information. The contact details for the OAIC are set out below.
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001
Phone: 1300 363 992
Online: www.oaic.gov.au
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
We may update this Privacy Statement from time to time. An up-to-date version of this Privacy Statement is available at any time on this page.
This Privacy Statement was published on 20 June 2022
Learn more about our privacy policy with answers to these frequently asked questions.
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