Protecting Your Privacy

International Pen Friends' mission has always been to provide its members with a high-quality penfriend service. This includes protecting their privacy and personal information both online and offline.

This document provides information on how IPF collects, uses and discloses your personal information.

International Pen Friends (IPF)®

International Pen Friends provides a range of penfriend services to its members worldwide. It was founded in 1967 in Dublin, Ireland by Neil O'Donnell. On 1 February 2001, after Neil's retirement, IPF was relocated to Australia and Julie Delbridge became its President. IPF is privately owned and registered in Australia, ABN 80 070 592 343. International Pen Friends (IPF)® is a registered trademark.

How we Collect Your Personal Information

International Pen Friends collects your personal information in the following ways:

• directly from you, when you complete the IPF application form, or when you provide information by email or in writing, or when you submit your personal information to us through our websites.

International Pen Friends has an international network of agents who are responsible for promoting our penfriend club and recruiting club members. Agents forward personal information relating to the members they recruit to IPF's Head Office in Australia where all applications are processed through the computer database. For the safety and security of all of our members, IPF's membership database is not connected to the internet. As a result IPF agents do not have access to the Head Office database either. All club agents are instructed to protect the privacy and the security of our customers' personal details. Please contact us if you would like to verify that the agent you are dealing with is a registered IPF agent.

How we use Your Personal Information

The information you provide to us is collected by International Pen Friends for the purpose of answering your enquiry or processing your application form to provide you with penfriends, together with any other services you request. The provision of the information requested is voluntary. However, if you choose not to provide us with the information we request from you, we may not be able to provide you with the services you require.

Our penfriend service operates in two parts:

1. After you join International Pen Friends, you are provided with an individual address list of 4-12 IPF members in your age group who we have matched as closely as possible according to your hobbies and interests. As IPF is a penfriend club, not a dating service, the only information we ask you to provide is shown on the application form. We do not match penfriends according to more in-depth personal information. We always do our best to accommodate your country requests, but if there are requests we cannot meet, we will provide you with penfriends from other countries.

   The number of penfriend addresses on your address list depends on the service you join under. For example, our service for school classes and youth groups provides 4 penfriend addresses; our C5 adult individual service provides 12 addresses. We may decide to slightly increase the number of addresses on your list to provide you with an opportunity to gain extra penfriends.

2. During the 12 months of your membership, your name and address are also circulated to 10-14 suitable IPF members whose addresses do not appear on your penfriend list. The number of times your address is circulated to other members depends on the service you join under. For example, the members who join our service for school classes and youth groups have their name and address circulated 10 times. The members who join our other services have their address circulated 14 times. We may decide to slightly increase the number of times your name is circulated to other members to provide you with the opportunity to gain extra penfriends.

In providing our penfriend service, your information is only disclosed to the IPF members who receive your name and address on their penfriend lists, as mentioned above. The only information we disclose to those members is your name, address, gender, languages spoken and if you selected stamp collecting as one of your hobbies. This is also the only information you will receive about the IPF members whose details appear on your penfriend list. As penfriends, you can disclose to each other whatever information you feel is appropriate.

Currently, we do not show members' email addresses on penfriend lists, but we may provide that information in the future.

All IPF members are instructed not to pass the details on their penfriend lists to anyone else. Sharing, giving and selling of the names and addresses of our members is strictly prohibited and any person found to be doing so will be permanently expelled.

For the purposes of providing or improving our services, we may disclose your personal information to organisations outside IPF, for example, information technology installation and maintenance services. IPF would only contract reputable organisations that have a serious commitment to privacy.

Your personal information may also be used by us from time to time to keep you informed about our products, services, offers and upcoming events, or those of other reputable organisations whose products or services are relevant to the penfriend hobby and which we think you might find interesting. This would always be done after careful consideration. IPF does not 'spam' its customers. If you do not wish us to contact you for marketing purposes, please let us know.

International Pen Friends does not rent or sell its membership database or any customer information received to other organisations. If this option was ever to be considered, IPF would first contact you and give you the opportunity to decline.

Personal Details Data Security

To help protect your personal information against unauthorised access, hacking and data breaches, IPF's membership database is specifically not connected to the internet. The only people who can access IPF's membership database are authorised IPF Head Office staff.

Due to the nature of our service, i.e. providing people with the address details of other people, there is a responsibility for our members to treat each other with respect. In terms of how that relates to our privacy policy, we keep a record of whose name is circulated to whom and we are legally required to provide that information to authorities if a situation arises where information is formally requested (and the appropriate procedures followed). In addition, for data security, integrity and legal reasons, we do not change the history of the entries made in the membership database, i.e. we do not permanently eliminate records and/or personal details from our database.

A member can advise us at any time that they would like their membership to be terminated or we can expel a member for unacceptable and/or bad behaviour. In all instances, the member's name and address won't be circulated to other members from the time of the termination of their membership. We also won't provide the expelled member's address to any of their previous or current penfriends for any reason, and we won't contact the member again for marketing purposes. However, the personal details of the member whose membership has been terminated and the information on with whom they were matched will remain in our database for as long as we are legally required to store them. This is a security feature as it prevents people from joining IPF for inappropriate reasons, subsequently requesting us to eliminate their details from our database and then being unaccountable to legal authorities.

Refunds

For data integrity and security reasons, each IPF membership is non-transferable and non-refundable once a penfriend list has been issued. If a penfriend list has not been issued, we reserve the right to deduct from the payment received any costs associated with providing a refund (this does not apply in cases where the address list could not be issued for reasons under our control). Exceptions to this refund policy may apply, please read the Personal Details Integrity section below.

Personal Details Integrity

To help International Pen Friends provide a safe and enjoyable penfriend service to all its members, people are expected to provide correct details on their application forms, particularly in relation to their name (first name and last name), address and year of birth.

It is not acceptable to join IPF under an alias, under a fake name, under a false identity or under false pretences.

If someone has a valid reason for joining IPF under an identity that is not their real identity, they should contact us and discuss the matter before joining. At all times, we reserve the right to not accept or to terminate a membership if we believe it is in the best interest of our members and the service we provide.

Unless we specifically agree to someone joining IPF under a name and/or identity that is not their own, any person found to have joined IPF under a false identity (including providing false information regarding their year of birth), will have their membership terminated and/or be permanently expelled.

All memberships are non-transferable, and a membership cannot be transferred from a false identity to a membership associated with the true identity of a person. The names and addresses of IPF members provided during the membership must also not be shared, sold or given to anyone else.

We reserve the right to ask people to confirm that the details they have provided on their application forms are correct, either before we process an application form or at any time during the membership period. The confirmation that a true identity has been used is legally binding. Please note: we do not ask anyone to provide us with any kind of sensitive and/or confidential information such as account numbers, identity numbers, credit card numbers, etc.

Given the seriousness of the issue, if confirmation that the details on the application form are correct is not given to us in a way that we are satisfied with and/or we have any reason to believe that a correct identity has not been provided to us, we will provide a refund (we reserve the right to deduct any costs associated with the refund) if a penfriend list has not been issued (see paragraph below for an exception to this). If a penfriend list has been issued, we will terminate the membership and a refund will not be provided. In both instances, a membership cannot later be created, reinstated or renewed at any time in the future unless confirmation that the details are correct is provided to us. We may also ask for some form of proof of identity that does not contain any kind of sensitive and/or confidential information. If a membership has previously been permanently terminated, it will not be renewed at any time.

A refund will also not be provided if the information provided to us on the application form can be proven to be incorrect before the address list is issued. In such a case, the person will be requested not to join IPF again at any time in the future.

We reserve the right to report members to the appropriate authorities in relation to false identity issues should we believe the situation justifies such action.

Help us Ensure we Hold Accurate Information

International Pen Friends takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date. However, the accuracy of the information we hold depends to a large extent on the information you provide. That's why we recommend that you:

• let us know if there are any errors in your personal information
• keep us up to date with changes to personal information such as your name and address
• advise us if you have enough penfriends and don't wish to have your address circulated to more people

You can Access Your Personal Information

You have the right to access your personal information, subject to some exceptions allowed by law. If you would like to do so, please let us know. You may be required to put your request in writing for security reasons. (IPF reserves the right to charge a fee for searching for and providing access to your information depending on the situation).

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions in relation to privacy, please contact IPF Head Office at admin@ipf.net.au stating your name, address and membership number (if you are an IPF member). Alternatively, you can write to:

International Pen Friends

P.O.Box 430

Paynesville, VIC 3880

Australia

All communication to IPF's Head Office must be in the English language.