This site is owned and operated by the City of Melbourne using software licensed from Social Pinpoint. For details on how the City of Melbourne collects and protects your personal information in the course of your engagement with the Participate Melbourne website and in-person community engagement activities, refer to the Privacy Statement below. For details of how Social Pinpoint may access personal information, please refer to Social Pinpoint’s Privacy Policy. For information about the broader collection and use of personal information by the City of Melbourne, please refer to our Privacy Policy.
The City of Melbourne takes privacy very seriously. Our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information is regulated by the Victorian Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014. You can find more information about your privacy rights at the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.
How will we use and disclose your information?
We use the personal information about you to:
- administer the site and manage your account
- identify when you sign into your account
- send you electronic newsletters and information, but only when you have agreed to us sending you this information or when the information is necessary to assist with the administration of the site
- respond to queries that you have contacted us about
- attribute content that you post on the site to you
- analyse use of the site to inform ongoing improvements and enhancements
- inform policy decisions by the City of Melbourne
- for any other purposes that we indicate to you when we request your personal information.
How your information is used depends on the type of activity you are participating in, as outlined below.
Community engagement projects (consultations)
Feedback you provide through community engagement projects, including any demographic details you choose to share, will be given to the relevant City of Melbourne work area responsible for managing the subject matter or project your feedback relates to.
Content that you post on the site publicly will be viewable by anyone who uses the site and will display your username. Any publicly available reports from consultations may include quotes that you have shared in forums, surveys and other consultation tools.
The City of Melbourne has created a central repository (the Knowledge Bank) of most survey responses. The City of Melbourne seeks to maintain your anonymity within the Knowledge Bank. Any personally identifiable information that you provide, including name and contact details, will be excluded or deidentified within the Knowledge Bank to preserve your anonymity.
Where you have consented, staff members will also add any verbal feedback you provide to them, in their interactions with you, to the Knowledge Bank. Staff members can filter the responses in the Knowledge Bank by subject matter, neighbourhood or demographics to inform future projects, gain insights into neighbourhood sentiment or key themes, and to ensure the provision of consistent service delivery across the organisation.
To further protect your anonymity, where there are very small sample sizes, staff cannot filter in the Knowledge Bank by demographics.
While the City of Melbourne takes multiple measures to protect the anonymity of survey respondents, we ask that you help us reduce the risk of inappropriate information access and exposure by not including other information in your survey response that could possibly identify you or others.
Expressions of interest and event registrations
Participate Melbourne also collects personal information through Expressions of Interest (EOIs), event registrations, advisory groups or similar participation activities.
For these activities:
- Your personal information (including your name, contact details and any additional information you provide) will be shared with the relevant City of Melbourne project team responsible for administering the activity.
- Your information may also be shared with consultants (see ‘Third parties’ below) or delivery partners engaged to support the project or activity.
- Your personal information will not be added to the Knowledge Bank.
- Information is collected and used for the purpose of assessing your EOI, administering the event or activity, and communicating with you.
Moderation
We monitor the information that you provide in order to protect the integrity of the discussions from individuals and groups who may attempt to unduly influence the outcomes of a consultation process. For example, we check to ensure multiple contributions are not coming from the same source. We also review the site to protect it from spam or misuse.
Third parties
We may disclose personal information to third-party research consultants engaged by the City of Melbourne. You consent to us disclosing your personal information to the consultants for community engagement projects (consultations), Expressions of interest and event registrations as outlined below under the respective headings.
Community engagement projects (consultations)
For community engagement projects, the information supplied to the research consultants is limited to raw feedback responses and excludes your name, contact details or other information that could directly identify you. However, it may include demographic details such as your age, gender and suburb.
The insights derived by these research consultants will assist the City of Melbourne to identify opportunities to improve our services, projects, plans and policies.
Expressions of interest and event registrations
For expressions of interest and event registrations, your name, contact details and any additional information you provide may be shared with relevant project teams and consultants for the purposes of assessing the submissions or supporting the delivery of events or activities.
If you register for an event or activity through a third-party platform such as TryBooking, your registration details will be collected by that platform in accordance with its privacy policy. Registration details will be shared with the relevant City of Melbourne work area and may be shared with consultants for the purpose of administering the event.
Planning scheme amendments
In the case of submissions you make on planning scheme amendments, City of Melbourne will disclose your entire submission, including your contact details, to Planning Panels Victoria within the Department of Transport and Planning. Submissions and contact details are stored in a Panel Book (typically a OneDrive file shared between all parties to the panel, where it is stored for three months before deleting).
Planning Panels Victoria will facilitate all contact with you on matters relating to the panel process including to circulate agendas, inform you of the date and time of the panel hearing and to send correspondence to you on any other matters relating to the relevant planning scheme amendment.
All third parties have agreed to the collection, use, and disclosure of data in accordance with this Privacy Statement. The City of Melbourne will not disclose your information to another external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law.
If you have any questions about the consultants engaged by the City of Melbourne, please contact participate@melbourne.vic.gov.au.
Access and correction
If you wish to access, correct or delete any of the personal information you have supplied to the City of Melbourne, please email your request to participate@melbourne.vic.gov.au
