National Budget Referral Chain Ltd. t/a Budget Motels
UseROSS: Rooms On Standby Services Pty. Ltd. t/a UseROSS

This Privacy Policy applies to all Budget Motels businesses and entities in Australia, including Budget Motels, Budget Motels Gold, Paragon Hotels, Orbit Inns and UseROSS .

1. Key features of our Privacy Policy

Consent and opting-out

When you provide us with your Personal Information (for example, by agreeing to our terms and conditions and/or terms of service), you consent to our collection and use of your Personal Information (which is information about you which identifies you, or which can be used to reasonably identify you) in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us. You can also opt-out from receiving any marketing communications from us or from our marketing partners, and from our use or disclosure of your Personal Information for marketing purposes.

If you do not provide your consent, or if you withdraw your consent to our use of your Personal Information, it may mean we are unable to provide you with the same services, offers, or discounts that we would otherwise be able to provide.

What Personal Information we collect

The Personal Information we collect about you may include your name, contact details, and billing information, but may also include information about the goods and services you buy from us, and how you interact with us (for example, how you access and use our websites or mobile applications).

How we collect your Personal Information

We collect Personal Information about you directly from you or by your use of our websites or mobile applications, from public sources, and in some cases from third party and event organisations.

How we use your Personal Information

Our policy is to use your Personal Information to deliver our products and services to you, to improve our services, and to market products and services to you. In some cases, we share your Personal Information with third parties who perform these activities or do so on our behalf.

How and where we store your Personal Information

We take commercially reasonable steps to secure your Personal Information from unauthorised access, and to ensure the people we share your data with do the same.

Accessing, correcting, or deleting your Personal Information

You can request access to, correction, or deletion of your Personal Information or withdraw your consent to our use of your Personal Information by contacting us at admin@budgetmotels.com.au

Our full policy is set out in detail from 2.

2. Budget Motels

Budget Motels own or market a range of member motel businesses. Budget Motels understands and appreciates that you are concerned about your privacy and about the confidentiality and security of your Personal Information, and is committed to ensuring your Personal Information is protected.

3. This Privacy Policy and your consent

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and handle your Personal Information in Australia. Personal Information is information about you which identifies you or which can be used to reasonably identify you. When you consent to us using your Personal Information, you agree that we may use your Personal Information in accordance with this policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us.

If you do not provide consent, or if you withdraw your consent to our use of your Personal Information, it may mean we are unable to provide you with the same services or the same level of service that we would otherwise be able to provide. For example, we may not be able to provide you with personalised recommendations, or with exclusive or discounted offers.

From time to time, there may be specific and additional privacy provisions that apply to our collection and use of your Personal Information. For example, Personal Information provided when participating in a promotion, entering a competition, subscribing to a newsletter, or participating in a survey may be subject to a different privacy policy or contractual terms. If there is any inconsistency between this Privacy Policy and those specific and additional provisions, the specific and additional provisions will prevail.

Section 11 of this Privacy Policy outlines specific provisions with respect to Budget Motel’s collection, use, holding and disclosure of Personal Information of its employees and contractors (including employees of contractors providing services to Budget Motels) in order to manage its employment and contractor relationships. If there is any inconsistency between section 11 and the other terms of this Privacy Policy, section 11 will prevail.

4. Personal Information we collect

The types of Personal Information we collect depend on what services you use and products you acquire. It may include:

• identifying information, such as your name, gender and date of birth;
• contact information, such as your postal address, email address and telephone numbers;
• social media handles and other social media profile information that you make available to us or to the public;
• billing and financial information, such as credit card, bank account or other payment details;
• details of any products or services that you purchase from us or that we provide to you;
• information about how you use the products and services we provide, such as your accommodation, travel, and meal preferences;
• records of our communications with you, including any messages or enquiries you send us (either through the website or through other means);
• information about how you access and use our websites or mobile applications, such as your IP address and internet service provider, the web page you visit us from, web browser, navigation patterns on our websites, device identity and location, operating system, or device configuration; and additional information, including your image, collected via Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems used at motels within our membership.

5. How Personal Information is collected and held

5.1 Personal Information

We collect Personal Information about you:

• when you purchase products or services from us at one of our motels or through our websites or mobile applications (such as when you book accommodation online);
• when you sign up to become a member of one of our loyalty programs;
• when you submit feedback, a query or request to us;
• when you participate in a promotion, competition, or survey that we run;
• when you fill in forms on our website or at one of our motels;
• when you check-in at one of our motels;
• when you sign-up to receive our emails, newsletters, information about our special offers, and/or any other promotional material;
• by tracking your use of our websites or mobile applications;
• through our CCTV systems at our motels;
• when you access or use Wi-Fi portals owned or operated by us;
• from public sources;
• from third parties who are entitled to disclose that information to us, and
• when you apply for a job with us.

5.2 Sensitive information

Generally, we do not collect sensitive information. In rare circumstances, however, we may collect sensitive information about you, for example:

• in the event you are involved in an accident, injury, or incident at one of our motels, and
• as required to comply with any law, regulation or Federal or State government order or direction including in respect of a pandemic, epidemic (including COVID-19) or a state of emergency.
• Any use of sensitive information we collect from you may be subject to additional restrictions outside this policy

5.3 CCTV

You may be recorded on CCTV cameras at motels. Footage from CCTV cameras may be recorded and used if required for safety and/or security purposes, and for optimising the delivery of our products and services.

6. Purposes for which we use or disclose Personal Information

We use Personal Information that you provide to us:

• to help you access the services or acquire the goods Budget Motels provides;
• to provide you with information and offers in relation to goods and services offered by Budget Motels that may be of interest to you (including information and offers in relation to Budget Motels’ members and businesses);
• to improve our products and services and tailor them to your interests;
• to determine your eligibility or suitability for any of our products or services;
• improve our payment processing services to you, including by developing fraud detection and prevention tools;
• monitor, prevent, and detect fraudulent payment transactions;
• comply with legal or regulatory obligations applicable to the payment processing services, including applicable anti-money laundering and identity verification obligations, or to assist law enforcement agencies by responding to requests for information;
• analyse, develop and improve products and services;
• perform data analysis; and
• de-identify and aggregate payment transaction data for the purpose of statistical analysis of payments by region or industry;
• to modify advertising (including re-marketing) shown on our websites so that it is customised or more relevant to your interests, characteristics or general location;
• to answer your feedback, queries and requests;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in respect of your Personal Information (including your sensitive information) under any law, regulation or Federal or State government order or direction including in respect of a pandemic, epidemic (including COVID-19) or a state of emergency;
• to develop and improve our existing products and services and create new products and services (including by carrying out market analysis and research);
• to monitor use of our products and services (including our website);
• to improve customer service and our customer relationships;
• to assess, maintain, upgrade and improve our products and services;
• to carry out education and training programs for our staff;
• to manage and resolve any legal or commercial complaints or issues;
• to carry out planning and forecasting activities and other internal business processes; and
• for marketing purposes in accordance with part 8 below, and to keep you informed about our activities and promotional offers, including by sending out newsletters and emails.

We may also use your Personal Information for other purposes as authorised by you, or in accordance with your requests or instructions.

7. People to whom we disclose Personal Information

We will only disclose your Personal Information to third parties in compliance with this Privacy Policy.

We may share Personal Information about you with:

• your representatives, advisers and others you have authorised to interact with us on your behalf;
• our staff who need the information to discharge their duties;
• the owners (and their employees and representatives) of motels that Budget Motels manage or provide services to;
• our business partners, agents and service providers (including information technology service providers, data hosting and processing companies, loyalty, data and research companies, fraud detection, prevention and security service providers and social media channel operators);
• our Marketing Partners, as outlined in part 8 below;
• payment system operators as outlined in part 9 below, banks and financial institutions;
• prospective purchasers of all or part of our business assets or a related entity;
• professional advisers who we engage to provide advice on our business; and
• government and law enforcement bodies and authorities who ask us to disclose that information, or to other people as required to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in respect of your Personal Information (including your sensitive information) under any law, regulation or Federal or State government order or direction including in respect of a pandemic, epidemic (including COVID-19) or a state of emergency.

8. Marketing

8.1 How Budget Motels markets its services to you

We may from time to time use your Personal Information in order to send you marketing materials about products or services that you may be interested in (including in some cases products and services that are provided by third parties). You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us using the details in the “contact us” section below, or by following the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the communication you receive from us.

8.2 Our Marketing Partners

Budget Motels will from time to time engage trusted third-party marketing and media partners and programmatic or display vendors (collectively Marketing Partners) to:

• send you marketing or promotional content and offers that you may be interested in;
• deliver to you personalised advertisements or targeted promotional content via email, online, or via social media platforms.
• Promotional content and personalised advertisements may be for goods or services provided by businesses of Budget Motels members.

The Marketing Partners we may work with include but are not limited to Facebook, Google, Instagram, Brevo. To enable delivery of targeted advertising messages we utilise the Facebook pixel on our website. Facebook uses this cookie information to match profiles within their platform to create targeted audiences to deliver content that is relevant to you. Any information collected by Facebook is subject to its privacy policy available at https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation

9. Overseas disclosure

Third parties to whom we may disclose Personal Information may be located outside Australia. 

Our Marketing Partners may be located and/or use data storage facilities located outside Australia.

We take commercially reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipient of Personal Information has appropriate safeguards in place to ensure a level of protection of your Personal Information that does not breach Australian or New Zealand privacy law or this Privacy Policy.

10. Personal Information of employees and contractors

10.1 Personal information of employees and contractors

Budget Motels collects, uses, holds and discloses Personal Information of its employees and contractors (including employees of contractors providing services to Budget Motels) in order to manage our employment or contracting relationship with you.

This Personal Information includes your name, contact details, employment or engagement history and other relevant Personal Information. Where relevant, we may also collect additional relevant Personal Information, such as your superannuation details, bank account details, tax file number, citizenship status, work visa or other right to work documents, educational or professional qualifications, emergency contact details, and relevant medical and health-related information (including any disabilities or medical conditions you may have).

We will collect such Personal Information from you where possible, but we may also collect your information from third parties (such as your referees, law enforcement agencies, and other government bodies), in which case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are aware of the matters contained in this policy. If you provide us with the personal information of another person (such as the name and contact details of your referees), you must make them aware of the matters contained in this policy.

If you choose not to provide your Personal Information to us, we may not be able to manage or administer our employment or contracting relationship with you, including paying you the full amounts of any salary, wages or other amounts or benefits which you may be entitled to.

We may disclose such Personal Information to companies and businesses within Budget Motels, our contractors, agents and service providers, other parties listed in section 7, and government bodies and regulatory authorities (where required or authorised by law), in order to manage our employment or contracting relationship with you, to allow you to use various information technology systems and platforms to enable you to undertake tasks and activities relevant to your employment or contracting relationship with us, or for purposes listed in section 6, and to our customers and clients in connection with our provision of goods and services to them. Personal Information may be disclosed overseas as outlined in section 10.

10.2 Recorded Images of employees and contractors

From time to time, we may organise for photographs, video or other recordings (Recorded Images) to be taken of our employees and contractors while they are working, attending Budget Motels-related work or social events, or undertaking Budget Motels-related entertainment activities or experiences.

Recorded Images may be used by us at our discretion for internal and external purposes and to promote a positive image of Budget Motels, including on our internal systems (such as our “Workplace” system), in internal and external corporate, promotional, marketing, HR, training, and induction materials, publicly available websites, brochures, publications or annual reports, or in news media reports.

Recorded Images may be provided to external parties in Australia and overseas, such as marketing providers, printing companies for the purposes of preparing such publications, or to news media organisations for publication in news media reports.

11. Cookies

11.1 What is Cookie Information?

We may collect information and data when you visit our website using cookies, tags, pixels and other similar technologies (Cookie Information). Cookie Information includes pieces of information that a website can transfer to an individual’s computer hard drive for record keeping, such as the IP address of a user’s computer, the URL of a page visited and the time the page was visited by the user. The collection and use of Cookie Information is an industry standard and many websites collect this information.

Cookie Information is useful for facilitating a user’s access to and use of a website. It allows us to track usage patterns and compile data that can help us improve our services.

Cookie Information is useful to advertisers because it helps them understand their advertising audience, and to deliver advertising.

11.2 How do we use Cookie Information?

We may use Cookie Information, or engage third parties who collect similar information and data from publicly available sources, to deliver or modify advertising (including re-marketing) that is customised or more relevant to your interests, characteristics or general location (Targeted Advertising).

In order to carry out Targeted Advertising we may build a user and/or device profile by:

• using Cookie Information and de-identified system information that we hold;
• using device-matching technologies that utilise mobile device advertising identifiers as well as Cookie Information; and
• engaging or working with third parties who provide Budget Motels with information about you collected from publicly available sources or from their own databases.

We may also work with other companies to advertise their products and services online using Cookie Information. When we provide Cookie Information to third parties, we take commercially reasonable steps to ensure that the information is de-identified.

11.3 To whom do we disclose Cookie Information?

Examples of third parties that we may work with and disclose Cookie Information to include external companies and agencies that provide programmatic advertising services, specialist data companies, advertising platform providers, advertising servers, data partners, specialist data providers and social media operators such as Facebook.

11.4 How can you control Cookie Information?

The settings of most web browsers can be modified to prevent the collection of Cookie Information. You can also delete Cookie Information from your device.

Most mobile devices operating common operating systems such as Android or iOS record a unique advertising identifier. This identifier may be part of the Cookie Information we collect, and can be reset in the device settings.

12. Storage and security of your Personal Information

We generally store the Personal Information that we collect in electronic databases, some of which may be held on our behalf by third party data storage providers.

We may also, at times, keep hard copy records of Personal Information in physical storage facilities. We use a range of physical and technical security processes and procedures to protect the confidentiality and security of the Personal Information that we hold, and we update these from time to time to address new and emerging security threats.

13. Access to and correction of Personal Information

You have a right to access and correct most of the Personal Information we hold about you. If you wish to access or correct your Personal Information, please contact us via the details provided in the “contact us” section below.

To protect the integrity and security of the Personal Information we hold, we may ask that you follow a defined access procedure, which may include steps to verify your identity. 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. There may be cases where we are unable to provide the information you request, such as where it would interfere with the privacy of others or result in a breach of confidentiality. In these cases we will let you know why we cannot comply with your request.

If you have an account with either of our businesses, receive newsletters or marketing materials or if you are a member of any loyalty program we operate, you can also contact us or update your profile online:

Budget Motels – https://www.budgetmotels.com.au
UseROSS – https://www.useross.com.au

14. Our responsibilities under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are a resident of the EU or UK you have certain rights and protections under the EU and UK GDPR regarding the processing of your Personal Data.

We collect, use and store your Personal Data to enable us to provide you with our goods or services and information about them. We rely on the following lawful means of processing your Personal Data:

• where it is necessary to fulfil a contract with you. This includes where we collect your Personal Data to enable us to send you our goods or provide you with our services;
• where you have given us valid consent to use your Personal Data. We will rely on that consent and only use the Personal Data for the specific purpose for which you have given consent. This includes where we email newsletters or send mobile phone notifications;
• we may also process your Personal Data where it is to further our legitimate interests which could include usage statistics, analytics and internal analysis so we can improve our services to you.

If you are a resident of the EU or UK you have various rights including the:

• right to be informed;
• right of access;
• right to rectification;
• right to object;
• right to restriction of processing;
• right to erasure or to be forgotten;
• right to data portability; and
• right not to be subject to automated processing.

If you want to access your Personal Data or ask for the information to be corrected, please contact us. In some circumstances, you also have a right to object to or ask that we restrict certain processing activities or delete your Personal Data. If you would like to limit or request deletion of your Personal Data or exercise any other rights you can do so by contacting us.

14.2 Withdrawing your consent

You can withdraw your consent to our collection or processing of your Personal Data. You can do so by contacting us or by opting out of email newsletter communications by following the instructions in those emails, by clicking unsubscribe or by using the opt out option through our App. If you withdraw your consent to the use of your Personal Data, you may not have access to our services and we might not be able to provide you with our services. In some circumstances, where we have a legal basis to do so, we may continue to process your information after you have withdrawn consent. For example, if it is necessary to comply with an independent legal obligation or if it is necessary to do so to protect our legitimate interest in keeping our services secure.

14.3 Our compliance

We comply with the GDPR protection directives set out by the EU and UK regarding the collection, use and retention of Personal Data from EU member countries and the UK. All Personal Data stored on our platform is treated as confidential. It is stored securely and is only accessed by authorised personnel. Our collection is limited in relation to what is necessary, for the purpose for which the Personal Data is processed, and kept only for so long as is necessary for the purpose for which the Personal Data was collected. We implement and maintain appropriate technical, security and organisational measures to protect Personal Data against unauthorised or unlawful processing or use, and against accidental loss, destruction, damage, theft or disclosure. We ensure the encryption and pseudonymisation of Personal Data and we have adequate cyber security measures in place.

14.4 Your acknowledgement

By providing us with your Personal Data, you consent to us disclosing it to third parties who reside outside the EU or UK. We will ensure that those third parties are GDPR compliant.

If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us regarding the use of your personal data, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Australian Privacy Commissioner through their website: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/

15. Changes to this policy

We may make changes to this policy from time to time, to take into account changes to our standard practices and procedures or where necessary to comply with new laws and regulations. The latest version of this policy will always be available on our website.

16. Complaints

We try to meet the highest standards in order to protect your privacy. However, if you are concerned about the way in which we are managing your Personal Information and think we may have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, the Information Privacy Principles (NZ), or any other relevant obligation, please contact us using the contact details set out below. Complaints must be lodged in writing. We will deal with the matter within a reasonable time, and will keep you informed of the progress of our investigation.

If we have not responded to you within a reasonable time or if you feel that your complaint has not been resolved satisfactorily, you can contact us to discuss your concerns.

In respect of Personal Information we collect in Australia, you are also entitled to make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). Contact details can be found at the OAIC website: www.oaic.gov.au.

In respect of Personal Information we collect in New Zealand, you are also entitled to make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC). Contact details can be found at the OPC website: www.privacy.org.nz.

17. Contact us

We take the privacy of your Personal Information seriously. If you have any questions, comments, or complaints in relation to this Privacy Policy or our handling of your Personal Information, or if you wish to access or correct your Personal Information, please contact us:

By email:
admin@budgetmotels.com.au 

or

By mail:
Administration Officer
Budget Motels Head Office
113b Nepean Highway
Seaford
VIC 3198
Australia

Updated March 2024