Managing Your Privacy The BFSO is committed to protecting the privacy of individuals who lodge disputes about financial service providers. We treat all disputes as confidential as between the disputant, the financial services provider and this office. When a person lodges a dispute, the BFSO requires a consent form to be completed, permitting the BFSO and the financial services provider concerned in the dispute to pass relevant information to each other. We will send you this form when we have received your written dispute. If the accounts to which the dispute relates are joint accounts, we ask that all account holders sign the consent form. Failure to obtain the consent of all account holders may limit the BFSO’s ability to consider the dispute fully. Our procedure for dispute resolution When you lodge a dispute with the BFSO, we ask you to do so in writing so that we can send it to your financial services provider. Initially we ask the financial services provider to try to resolve the dispute directly with you and the financial services provider will contact you before there is any further contact from this office. If the dispute is not resolved at this stage, we ask you to write and explain why you are unhappy with the financial services provider’s response. Your reply is then sent to the financial services provider to give it another opportunity to try to resolve the dispute. If no resolution is reached, the dispute will be assessed to determine whether it is suitable for investigation. If it does proceed to investigation, you may be asked to provide more information to demonstrate your claim. All information you provide to BFSO may be forwarded to the financial services provider unless you tell BFSO that you regard it as confidential. Confidential information will not be forwarded to the financial services provider. However, under the Terms of Reference which govern the Ombudsman’s powers, that confidential information cannot be used to make a determination against the financial services provider. Therefore, it may be returned to you without being used or considered by this office. BFSO will also obtain information about you and your account(s) from the financial services provider, if that information is considered relevant and necessary to resolution of your dispute. Information about third parties In order to minimise the chance of breaching the privacy of people not involved in your dispute with the financial services provider, we ask that you try to limit the information you provide to us to that which concerns you and the financial services provider. However, we recognise that sometimes information about third parties is relevant and necessary to understand, consider and resolve a dispute. If information about another person (such as a joint account holder, partner or relative) is relevant to your dispute and you need to tell us about that person, make them aware that you are sending the information to BFSO, if possible. Let the person know that the information you send will probably be forwarded to the financial services provider. In some cases, the information may need to be deleted or returned to you, if we determine that keeping and using it would breach the privacy of the other person, or that we can determine the dispute without that information. BFSO publishes a separate brochure dealing with third party information which can be provided on request. You can also download a PDF version of the Third Party information brochure from our publications page. Privacy Policy The BFSO’s privacy policy is available to any person who requests it. If you require a copy, please call or write to us. You can also download a PDF version of the privacy policy from our publications page. Security We have in place systems to keep information about you secure from unauthorised access, use and disclosure. Access to information Under the National Privacy Principles, individuals have the right to request access to information about them held by organisations. There are some limits to what is required to be provided, but generally you are able to access the information that we hold about you. Similarly, third parties can request access to the information that we hold about them, including information that you may have sent. Unless required by law to release the information, BFSO is not obliged to provide such access if it considers that to do so would breach your privacy. If you wish to view information that we hold about you, you should contact us by letter setting out what you wish to see. Your request should include the file number if you have it. Record retention Files are not kept indefinitely and will generally be destroyed 6-10 years after they are closed unless there are compelling reasons for keeping them longer.