Privacy Policy

WE RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY

At SXSW Sydney, the security of personal information that we collect is of utmost importance to us. SXSW Sydney collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so, we are regulated as a data controller for the purposes of various Privacy Laws, including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and the Data Protection Act 2018 (and incorporated General Data Protection Regulations) (which applies to data in the United Kingdom) (GDPR).

You can find information about how we handle and manage your personal information in this Privacy Policy. Our aim is to provide this information to you in an open and transparent manner, so that you can make informed decisions about your dealings with us. However, if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we manage your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer. This Privacy Policy also provides information about how you can seek access to and correction of the personal information that we hold about you.

We may update or revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. You can find the most current version on our website (www.sxswsydney.com) or ask our Privacy Officer for a copy.

Please note that where we pass your personal information to third parties we deal with when providing services to you such as promoters, venues and event partners ("third parties") such third parties will themselves be responsible for processing your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies as data controllers. We are not responsible for how they process your personal information where they are acting as a data controller in relation to your personal information. You will need to contact them directly in order to exercise your rights in relation to your personal information.

A. HAT KINDS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND HOLD?

The kinds of personal information that we collect will vary depending upon our interaction with you but may include:

  1. your SXSW Sydney account login;
  2. your name, address and other contact details (like your telephone number);
  3. your email address;
  4. your age;
  5. your gender;
  6. transaction details relating to any purchase(s) that you have made or that have been made on your behalf;
  7. credit card details, if you make a purchase with us or choose to have these stored in your online SXSW Sydney account to make the checkout process faster;
  8. any preferences that you select; and
  9. any other personal information (including but not limited to any image of yourself provided by you to us) which may be required to facilitate your dealings with us.

Our services are neither directed nor intended for use by minors under the age of 16. SXSW Sydney does not knowingly collect personal information of minors. If SXSW Sydney learns that it has done so, it will delete such information. Do not access or use SXSW Sydney's services if you are under the age of 16 unless you have the consent of your parent or guardian. We recommend reading the information relevant to the event(s) you are attending, to ensure you meet the minimum age requirements for that event. 

B: HOW DO WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Generally, we collect personal information when you:

  1. make a purchase through us, for example, over the phone, or via our website or SXSW Sydney App;
  2. register your details on our website, mobile site or SXSW Sydney App;
  3. participate in a survey, competition, promotion or other marketing campaign;
  4. make a submission via the SXSW Sydney Submissions Portal;
  5. indicate that you wish to receive news, offers or other marketing material from us;
  6. register to receive event specific updates from us;
  7. make an inquiry or a complaint;
  8. provide your business card to us at an event;
  9. have other dealings with us, for example, via social media or in person, over the phone or when you write to us.

In certain circumstances, we may also collect personal information about you in the course of combining and analysing different data sets which, in and of themselves, may not contain personal information.

If you make an application to purchase credentials with accessible seating via SXSW Sydney, we may also collect health data from you. We need certain health data from you in order to assess your application for accessible seats and to manage future accessibility credentials purchases. We will only process this data for these purposes and on the basis of your consent. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time

Sometimes we collect personal information about you from other sources, for example:

  1. our related companies which include TEG Pty Ltd, Ticketek Pty Ltd, TEG Dainty Pty Ltd, TEG Live Pty Ltd, Ovation Research Pty Limited, Eventopia Pty Ltd, and our affiliates and any entities that may in future become part of the SXSW Sydney group of companies (“Group Companies”) or in which SXSW Sydney may have an interest;
  2. agents who we engage to act as on our behalf to sell Credentials to the Event;
  3. people making a purchase on your behalf;
  4. our business clients and partners;
  5. third party suppliers and contractors who assist us to operate our business such as:some text
    • information technology suppliers
    • marketing and digital services suppliers
    • research and development organisations
    • data partners
    • analytics consultants; and
  6. publicly available sources of information.

Also, from time to time we may collect personal information about individuals who are not Participants. This is usually where we collect the name and business contact details of a person who is the contact in a government agency or company with whom we deal. Our policy is to only use personal information collected from non-Participants for the main business purpose for which it was collected.

C: WHETHER INFORMATION HAS TO BE PROVIDED BY YOU, AND IF SO WHY

The provision of personal data including name, address, email address, phone number etc is required from you to enable us to tailor communications and ensure you are up to date with information regarding any credential or event. 

Where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will give you the option at the point of collecting information from you, of not providing personal information, or of using a pseudonym, when you deal with us. If you don't provide us with the personal information requested or the information provided is incorrect or incomplete, this could impact the level of service we are able to provide to you. For example, we will not be able to contact you in the case of an event cancellation or venue change, or your credentials may not be able to be matched to your name. 

D: HOW DO WE HOLD PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We may hold your personal information in electronic or hard copy format or a combination of both. This personal information may be combined or linked with other information held about you, or linked with other information held about or which we attribute to, you, including:

  1. information (personal or otherwise) that we collect from our website and mobile site (as described in our Cookie Consent Tool) or from third parties; and
  2. personal information we receive from our Group Companies and client businesses, who, in common with us, have a relationship with you and where we understand that you have consented to such Group Companies and client businesses sharing your personal information with us.

We have taken a number of physical, electronic and procedural steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We protect the personal information we collect in a secure database stored by our third-party data storage provider. It is in proprietary data format, which can only be read using proprietary tools.

Data collected online is stored in a secure data centre that is unreachable by the internet. SXSW Sydney encrypts data sent from your computer to our systems during internet transactions. SXSW Sydney also employs firewalls, intrusion detection systems and virus scanning tools to protect against unauthorised persons and viruses from entering our systems. Our employees are required, as a condition of their employment, to treat personal information held by us as confidential, and to maintain the confidentiality of that personal information. They are also required to use a login and password when accessing our systems and to undertake training about how to manage personal information.

E: WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE MAY COLLECT, HOLD, USE AND DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Generally, we only use personal information for the primary purpose for which we have collected it, or for another closely related secondary purpose. Our potential uses of personal information which we collect (and for which you consent to us using your personal information for) may include:

  1. to process and fulfil your purchase with us;
  2. to contact you if there is an event cancellation or change in event details, or for the replacement of lost credentials or other goods;
  3. to get a better understanding of you, your needs, your behaviours and how you interact with us in order to identify ways in which we can provide you with a better service, or enhance your experience of our website and mobile site or other services;
  4. to manage your dealings with us as a SXSW Sydney participant or member;
  5. so that where you have consented to this, we can (and to allow our related companies to) promote our products and services to you and the products and services of third parties that we deal with;
  6. where you have consented to this, to allow our group companies and affiliates to promote their products and services to you and those of their partners;
  7. detecting and preventing fraud and unauthorised on-selling of credentials or other goods;
  8. for business research and the development of new products and services;
  9. to facilitate the competitions, special offers and promotions that we or our partners run;
  10. to display content and advertising that are customised to your interests, preferences and experiences, including through online targeted marketing, data and audience matching and market segmentation activities;
  11. to verify your identity;
  12. for the conduct of data analytics and predicting trends;
  13. for marketing services in connection with the products and services we or our partners provide;
  14. so that we can respond to inquiries and complaint handling; and
  15. to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and enforce our legal rights.

Sometimes we will produce aggregated data. We may also receive aggregated data from third-party suppliers and contractors or business customers. This aggregated data does not identify individuals. We use, and may combine, the aggregated data we produce and receive for research purposes and in connection with products and services we provide to our business clients.

From time to time, there may be other purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information. We will tell you about these at the point of collection.

F: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES 

As set out above, we may use personal information about you for marketing and research purposes. You can manage your SXSW Sydney communication and marketing preferences in a number of ways, eg within your SXSW Sydney account, or you can tell our Privacy Officer at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing material from us. In addition, the marketing communications that we send to you may also contain information on how to unsubscribe from those communications.

You can also tell us at any time if you do not want us to disclose your details to other organisations such as our related companies or third parties for marketing purposes. To do this, you just need to contact our Privacy Officer.

G: REASONS WE CAN COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We require a lawful basis for processing your personal information in relation to the processing in question.

The primary lawful basis we use is that the processing is for the purposes of legitimate interests of us or a relevant third party (such as the operation of our business and to provide the tailored services you would expect from a leading event for creative discovery and to prevent and detect fraud). For example, we would rely on this basis in order to provide you with services such as to process any credential or other purchase you may have made with us, and to contact you if there is an event cancellation or change in event details, or for the replacement of lost credentials. We may also rely on an additional basis that the processing in question is necessary for the performance of a contract for which you are a party or relates to steps taken at your request to enter into such a contract.

We rely on consent as a lawful basis where we require this in order to lawfully market you and to pass your data to third parties (such as venue operators, promoters and event partners) to allow them to do so. Where we are relying on your consent you are entitled to withdraw your consent for the processing in question at any time. Otherwise, we rely on our legitimate interests to process your personal information for marketing and promotional purposes.

We may also process your personal information where needed to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. 

H: WHO MIGHT WE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO?

We may disclose your personal information:

  1. to venue operators and to event partners of the event for which you purchased or received credentials. We may disclose your personal information to such organisations for operational purposes. If you consent, these organisations may use this information to provide you with promotional and marketing material about the event via email. You may change your preference to receive email marketing at any time directly with the organisations which have obtained your information. If you do not have their details, you can contact our Privacy Officer directly;
  2. to third party contractors and service providers who help us operate our business or provide a service to you. We may disclose your personal information to third party contractors and service providers who, for example, help us operate our computer systems, send out our mail/email and clean collected data;
  3. to event partners, venue operators, sponsors and promoters if they require this information to fulfil or administer services to you;
  4. to authorised onsellers of credentials or other goods or services who (unless they obtain a separate consent from you) use it for operational purposes only, for example, to provide you with additional information about the event or venue that you are attending;
  5. to our Group Companies or affiliates and their contractors and service providers (such as data management providers). We may disclose your personal information to these Group Companies to enable them to provide products and services to you and for the purposes of ensuring that information collected is accurate, complete and up to date, producing anonymised and aggregated information for the benefit of other group companies, and enabling us and other group companies to better understand and meet your needs and interests;
  6. to government bodies, in response to, or in anticipation of, a request for your personal information for the purposes of COVID-19 contact tracing or responding to COVID-19 related public health orders or directions. The contact tracing information which may be disclosed includes your full name, contact email and/or contact phone number and by purchasing your credentials, you are providing us with your permission to disclose such information for this purpose.
  7. to third party contractors and service providers who help us operate our business or provide a service to you. SXSW Sydney may disclose your personal information to third party contractors and service providers who, for example, help us operate our computer systems, provide us with fraud prevention services, operate certain features accessible from our website, send out our mail/email and clean collected data and who perform data analysis to group demographic attributes of individuals. Such persons include:
  • Campaign Monitor to allow SXSW Sydney to Send Email Marketing and Information based emails.
  • Facebook/Twitter to allow SXSW Sydney to communicate to Participants via social media.
  • Google to allow Google to Tailor your search to you.
  • DV360 to allow SXSW Sydney to communicate with Participants across the Web.
  • Zendesk to allow SXSW Sydney to receive and respond to Participant enquiries.
  1. to any third party in connection with the sale or transfer of our business

Otherwise, we will only disclose your personal information:

  1. where we are required to do so by law;
  2. if the disclosure is permitted under privacy laws, including the APPs, or the GDPR (as it applies); or
  3. if you have consented to the disclosure.

I: HOW LONG YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WILL BE KEPT?

We will only keep your personal data for (a) as long as this is necessary to provide services to you and to keep you informed in accordance with your communication preferences selected in your SXSW Sydney account; and (in any event) (b) for as long as we are required to do so for legal, accounting or tax purposes or for as long as we need to keep it to bring or defend legal claims or for other reasonable reasons. For more information on our data retention periods please contact our Privacy Officer

J: DO WE DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION TO OVERSEAS RECIPIENTS?

Some of the recipients to whom we disclose personal information may be located overseas, most likely in the United States of America, Japan and New Zealand.

K: YOUR RIGHTS

Under Privacy Laws, including the APPs, and the GDPR (as applicable) you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:

  1. fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information that this Privacy Policy is already designed to address;
  2. access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information;
  3. require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold; 
  4. require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations;
  5. receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations;
  6. object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing;
  7. object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you;
  8. object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information; and
  9. otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

You also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time where we are relying on your consent as the legal basis for our processing (e.g. direct marketing).

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

  1. email, call or write to privacy@sxswsydney.com, our Privacy Officer;
  2. let us have enough information to identify you by sharing your name and email address that you hold an account with;
  3. let us have proof of your identity and address (for example, by providing a copy of your driving licence, passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
  4. let us know the information to which your request relates for example, an order confirmation ID, Date of Transaction, details of your transaction.

If you would like to unsubscribe from any marketing emails you can follow the information included in your marketing email as to how to unsubscribe from those communications, or click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of the marketing email. If you have created a SXSW Sydney Account, this will direct you to your account unsubscribe page which can also be visited at any time to unsubscribe from marketing emails. It may take up to 4 working days for this to take place.

L: COMPLAINTS AND HOW TO CONTACT OUR PRIVACY OFFICER

Our Privacy Officer can be contacted by:

  1. e-mail at privacy@sxswsydney.com
  2. letter to GPO Box 1610, Sydney NSW 2001.

If you feel that we are not complying with this Privacy Policy, the APPs or the GDPR, please put your concerns in writing and send them to our Privacy Officer by one of the methods set out above.

We will always endeavour to investigate your complaint and respond to you as soon as practicable after receipt, generally within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may refer the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or the Information Commissioner’s Office, as applicable.

Last updated 02 February 2024

*SXSW Sydney means SXSW Sydney Pty Ltd (ACN 661 937 980).