Our Commitment to Privacy & Safety

The Online Hate Prevention Institute (ABN: 65 155 287 657) is a Registered Charity and the owner and operator of the Fight Against Hate software system and the CSI CHAT Software System. Given our work monitoring, tracking and reporting on online hate and abuse, and our software systems which facilitate such work both by us and by others, we recognize the public are interested in way we handle personal information. We need to collect, store, use and disclose a wide spectrum of information as part of our efforts to reduce and prevention harmful and abusive behaviour that can causes emotional abuse, physical abuse, self harm or suicide. We are committed to keeping personal data we collect safe and ensuring the security of your data. Your privacy matters to us at the Online Hate Prevention Institute and protecting it is part of our broader commitment to online safety.

Our Privacy Statement

This statement explains how we collect, use and protect your information. It applies to all of the Online Hate Prevention Institute’s activities including data collected through the Fight Against Hate reporting software, including when the reporting form may be embedded in the website of a partner organisation. This statement extends to both our control and processing of personal information.

This page, at https://ohpi.org.au/privacy-statement/, contains our most up-to-date privacy policy. We may need to update this policy from time to time, shoudl this occur, we will update this page . The current policy came into effect at 11 March 2018.

What information do we collect?

The types of information we collect depends on our relationship with you.

Basic information we collect can include your name, gender, contact details (including address, email address, phone number or mobile telephone number), location (including your city, state or country), usernames for our systems, passwords for our systems, social media identifiers, and financial information (such as credit card or bank account numbers).

We may also collect more in-depth information such as:

• Billing information related to your financial relationship to us, either as a donor to the Online Hate Prevention Fund or as a customer of our services. This may include a payment history and history of any services purchased from us.
• Information about products or services we provide to you and how you use them. This can for example include what type of content and what specific items you report to us or review for us, your opinions and comments on these items, your location when reporting items to us, your IP address at the time of reporting, information used to verify your identity.

Under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) sensitive information includes personal information that relates to a persons: racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual orientation or practices, or criminal record. It also includes: health information about an individual, genetic information about an individual that is not otherwise health information, biometric information that is to be used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or biometric identification and biometric templates.

If you chose to provide us with sensitive information, we may collect and use it. For example, when reporting online hate that targets a group of people, you may identify yourself as being part of that group. You may also provide such information to us in order to improve the interactions with our reporting software, for example if you want to review items of hate targeting communities you are a part of.

How do we collect information?

We collect information in three ways:

You give the information to us when engaging with us, our representatives or our online systems. For example, when you register for our Fight Against Hate reporting tool using a Facebook login, you provide us with your Facebook ID and via Facebook with some of your basic information. You may provide us with additional information by updating your profile in our Fight Against Hate reporting tool, or through communications with us, for example, updating your address when making a donation to us.

We collect the information when you use our products and services. For example, when you use our Fight Against Hate reporting tool or connect to our website, we collect your IP address and the date, time and nature of your interaction with us. We may also

We obtain information from outside sources. This includes public information such as public posts to websites and social networking sites. We may gather this information ourselves, or gather it from reports made to us by others. For example, social media content in which you are being bullied or attacked may be reported to us by others, and social media content you post publicly may be reported to us as potential hate speech.

How do we store and protect your information?

Your information may be stored in electronic form or on paper. Electronic records may be stored on our servers or devices, or on those of our suppliers. We use a combination of policies, processes, security controls and technical solutions to protect your information from unauthorised access and disclosure.

How do we use your information?

We use your information in three way:

Administration – we use your information manage our relationship with you e.g. to provide you with access to our online tools, or processing your donations.

Communication & marketing – we need to be able to communicate with you to keep you informed of the activities we do to advance our charitable mission, as well as updates related to the products you are using, and marketing for campaigns we are running to raise funds to advance our work.

Analysis – we use data you provide to create our analysis of online hate. This data include items you have reported or reviewed in our Fight Against Hate reporting tool, and your classification of these items and comments on them, but can also include other communications with us for example on social media or via e-mail.

How do we share your information?

Your contact details and what you reported:

We may disclose your information, for example contact details, to partner organisations, law enforcement or regulators when you ask us to do so or if required to do so by law. For example, if you are the victim of online abuse, if you ask us to, we may provide details of the reports you made to us to police. We may provide contact details for you and details of what you have reported to our partners if you give permission for us to share those details with that partner, for example, where the partner organisation is supporting you in making a complaint.

Where public social media content is reported to our Fight Against Hate online reporting software, we may make the data of the reported item available to our partner organisations. This may be done through the Fight Against Hate reporting software and the CSI CHAT analysis software. Details of who reported an item, however, will not be shared without the reporting person’s consent. Note that even when the reporting form is embedded in the website of a partner organisation, all data is collected and stored by the Online Hate Prevention Institute and not by the partner organisation and the partner organisation will not have access to details of who reported the content unless the reporting person opts to share that data.

Public information gathered about individuals:

While we publish many examples of online hate and abuse, except in exceptional circumstances, our policy is for these examples to be based on information gathered from publicly available sources (for example public social media content) and for the names and pictures of individuals to be redacted in our public publications. The unredacted data and other unpublished information gathered from publically available sources may be disclosed to law enforcement, national security agencies, and other government and regulatory authorities as required or authorised by law. They may also be disclosed to other organisations or people when we believe such disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual or to mitigate a threat to public safety.

Sharing data with Platform Providers

We may share your social media account details and contact details with social media platform providers if you have requested our assistance in mediating a problem with them. For example if your account has been wrongly closed.

Sharing data overseas

We may disclose your information to parties outside Australia. This can occur in any of the situations outlined above if the party the information is to be disclosed to is located overseas. For example, we may disclose your contact details at your request to an organisation located outside Australia, or in assisting you with a social media platform, we may share your details with representatives of that platform in a country or countries other than Australia. We may also use data storage or processing services (e.g. “in the cloud”) which are located outside of Australia, and by using the service you give your consent to this.

Accessing and correct your personal information

You can view and correct personal information associated with your Fight Against Hate reporting system account by login in and editing your profile. If you need any assistance, please contact us.

To correct your personal information please contact us and provide us with the new details. There is no cost to providing us with updated information.

To request access to your personal information held by the Online Hate Prevention Institute, please contact us to discuss your request. We will need to verify your identity before releasing any personal information to you. There may be an administrative cost for processing your request.

Privacy Complaints

You can contact us to notify us of any privacy complaint you have against us. You may also be able to lodge a complaint with the Australian Information Commissioner.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about our privacy statement, please use our contact page to get in touch with us.