IMPORTANT - Due to important planned upgrades, submitting an application to Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria (DBDRV) will NOT be available between 12pm 22nd May and 9am 27th May. If you have any questions, please contact us on 1300 55 75 59.

Privacy statement

Our approach to privacy

Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria (DBDRV) is established by the Domestic Building Contract Act (DBC Act).

DBDRV is committed to responsible and fair handling of your personal information, consistent with the Information Privacy Principles in the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and the Health Records Act 2001.

This Privacy Statement tells you how we collect, use and manage your personal information. It applies to all your contact with us, whether in person, over the telephone or online.

What is 'personal information'?

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identifiable individual. The sort of personal information we collect or receive includes:

  • Name
  • address
  • telephone and email contact details, and
  • dispute details
  • information about your circumstances
  • financial details

‘Health information’ is any personal information about your health or disability. It includes information or opinion about your illness, injury or disability.

DBDRV may receive health information from a party to a dispute – for example, to explain why a homeowner was unable to attend a conciliation or why there have been delays by the builder in the completion of building work.

DBDRV may receive health information if it is required to be collected to protect DBDRV staff and clients from illness. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic – before an on-site building assessment, DBDRV may enquire as to whether you have experienced cold and flu symptoms in the period leading up the assessment. DBDRV may also require confirmation of vaccination where it is judged to be necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Where health information is collected (either from you or another person), it is administered in accordance with the Health Records Act 2001.

How we collect personal information

We collect personal information when you:

  • make an online application for domestic building dispute resolution through our website
  • submit a hardcopy form
  • provide information or documents to us
  • email or write to us
  • speak with us over the telephone
  • attend an in-person conciliation
  • participate in surveys or provide customer feedback
  • are referred to us from a third party

We may also get personal information about you from other people or organisations. For example, we may obtain your contact details from another party to the dispute.

Collection of personal information and what we do with it

DBDRV collects personal information to enable it to carry out its statutory dispute resolution functions under the DBC Act.

The personal information we request when you make an application for dispute resolution and during the course of conciliation, is to enable us to assess your dispute, determine if it is suitable for conciliation and, if so, arrange and facilitate the conciliation conference.

In addition to the personal information we collect at the time of the application, we are empowered by law to ask applicants for additional information and documents, as well as details about any steps that were taken to resolve the dispute before it came to DBDRV. DBDRV can reject a dispute as not suitable for conciliation if the applicant does not co-operate with such a request.

Some of our work involves the 'indirect' collection of personal information - that is, where personal information is collected or received about you, but from someone else or from some other source. The most likely indirect source of personal information about you, is when we contact the other party to a dispute.

Whenever we collect personal information, we will ensure that you know why we collect it, what we do with it and to who we may disclose it. Where we do not collect information directly from you, we will take reasonable steps to let you know that we have the information.

If you do not provide some or all of the personal information we request, we may not be able to provide you with dispute resolution services.

Following the closure of the dispute with DBDRV, we may also ask participants of the service to complete voluntary surveys to help us improve our service.

The information provided through voluntary surveys will be used by our quality assurance team to identify what we are doing well and where we can improve, as part of our policy of continuous review.

We will not disclose this personal information outside of DBDRV. If we use your information for publication of statistical or research outcomes, neither you nor your personal information will be identified.

Disclosure of personal information

DBDRV can share your personal information with third parties where this is done for the purpose of carrying out its statutory functions.

DBDRV is required by law to notify the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) of any contraventions of the Building Act 1993 (and its Regulations) that are identified in connection with a building assessment and to notify the VBA if a builder does not comply with a dispute resolution order. DBDRV must also inform the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority (VMIA) whether a builder whose warranty insurance has been issued by the VMIA complies with a dispute resolution order.

DBDRV also has agreements with the following government agencies about the circumstances in which the regulation of domestic building work would be improved by sharing information about your dispute :

  • Consumer Affairs Victoria
  • VBA
  • VMIA

Here are some other examples of circumstances when we may need to disclose your personal information:

  • If you lodge an application for dispute resolution, we will usually disclose relevant details to the other party to the dispute.
  • If we engage a member of our panel of specialist conciliators, we will need to provide them with your personal information.

We may also need to disclose personal information to:

  • service providers who assist us in the operation of DBDRV, such as organisations who provide auditing and information technology services
  • third parties assisting you or acting on your behalf, such as a support person, advocate or interpreter.

Accessing and amending your information

You can request access to the personal information we hold about you or amend incorrect information about yourself at any time.

We will try to give you access with as little formality as possible and without charging a fee. However, where your request is difficult or time consuming to answer, or where it involves personal information about other people, you may have to use freedom of information procedures to have your request processed.

If you become aware that personal information we hold about you is not accurate, complete or up to date, you can ask us to correct it and we will inform you of any action we take in response to your request.

Staying anonymous

Most of the things we do require you to provide us with personal information. However, where it does not affect the proper performance of our functions, we will not require you to provide personal information. For instance, if you make an enquiry about how we conciliate disputes, we can help you over the telephone or by email without the need for you to give us any of your personal details. If you need a copy of one of our publicly available fact sheets or other publications, you can obtain this without identifying yourself, by visiting the website and downloading or printing the material.

Website privacy

You can access the DBDRV home page and browse our website without disclosing your identity, because we do not collect personal information when you visit or browse. We may use software to track the total number of visitors to the website, and the number of visitors who visit specific website pages, but this will not personally identify any individual visitor.

Where you complete and submit an application for domestic building dispute resolution online, or submit personal information through automatically generated links from an email or our website, your personal information will be managed in accordance with the policy set out in this Privacy Statement.

Web statistics data collection

We use web analytics software to collect usage statistics for our website. This information is not used to identify you or match your identity with any of your personal information.

Clickstream data

The following non-personal information may be automatically recorded by our web server for statistical and system administration purposes:

  • your server address
  • your top-level domain name (e.g. .com, .au, .gov)
  • the date and the time of your visit to the site
  • the pages you accessed and downloaded
  • the address of the last site you visited
  • your operating system
  • the type of browser you are using

To the extent that any clickstream data could make you identifiable, we will not attempt to do so.

Cookies

We may use ‘cookies’ from time to time. Cookies are small data files that a website places on a user's hard drive to record aspects of that user's experience of the website. Cookies are not used to identify you or record any of your personal information. The default settings of your browser may allow some or all cookies, but you can easily take steps to erase cookies from your hard-drive, block all cookies or receive a warning before a cookie is stored on your hard-drive. However, our website may not function fully if you disallow cookies.

Links to external websites

The website privacy component of this Privacy Statement does not extend beyond the DBDRV website. When following links to other sites, we recommend that you read the privacy statement on those sites to familiarise yourself with their privacy practices.

Data quality and data security

We make every effort to ensure that personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. Where we receive personal information about you from someone else, we will, where appropriate, verify that information directly with you. If you make an online application for domestic building dispute resolution, we cannot guarantee the security of all elements of the online transmission, but will take reasonable steps which are within our control to protect the security of your personal information when it is collected online.

We have secure office premises and a security pass entry system. Our electronic files are stored on a secure server and protected from outside or unauthorised access, while older or completed files are electronically archived.

Only staff who need to use your information will have access to it. Our information technology arrangements incorporate data security measures. We require staff to use passwords to enter the computer system and our databases require an additional password, with different levels of access depending on the role of the officer concerned. We have encryption, 'firewalls' and anti-virus software to protect the integrity of the information we store electronically. These and other measures help protect your personal information from misuse, loss or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Our staff are provided with privacy training and we have implemented policies and procedures which address access, storage and security of information.

Where personal information is disclosed or made available to contractors, we ensure that the contract requires confidentiality, restricts the use of the information to the purposes of the contract and clarifies what happens to personal information when the contract finishes. Wherever possible, arrangements are also made to enable us to monitor the contractor's compliance. Where contractors are involved in the delivery of core services, we require them to comply with the Information Privacy Principles.

We will take steps to destroy personal information or remove it from our system when no longer required (except where archiving is required under public records laws).

Privacy complaints

If you are unhappy about the way we have collected or handled your personal information, you may wish to raise your concerns with DBDRV’s Privacy Officer.

You can raise your concerns in writing, either by email or post to:

The Privacy Officer
Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria
222 Exhibition Street
Melbourne VIC 3000

Email: feedback@dbdrv.vic.gov.au

DBDRV will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days, and will endeavour to provide a full response within 20 working days.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you can complain directly to the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.

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