Privacy Policy | Project Sunflower

Project Sunflower is a project established and run by the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations ABN 40 104 855 692 (we, us, our). The AFUO owns and operates the website at www.projectsunflower.au (the Website).

The purpose and scope of Project Sunflower is to assist and advise the AFUO on mechanisms to bring to justice perpetrators of atrocity and crimes committed in the course of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and to assist the AFUO gather information from people in Australia who have relevant information that may assist applicable authorities investigate or prosecute such crimes.

It involves persons with various expertise including amongst others in law, information technology, forensic and health and also interviewers, researchers and translators who assist and advise the AFUO in relation to the project.

1. Who are we?

The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations is the peak body for 22 community organisations throughout Australia. It is widely regarded as the body representing the Ukrainian community in Australia and Ukraine. It is also a member of the Ukrainian World Congress, the peak body for Ukrainian organisations in the diaspora.

2. What is this Privacy Policy about?

AFUO agrees to be bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) which incorporates the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

This Privacy Policy explains how we manage your personal information that is collected via our Website or as a result of any interview you consent to attend. It sets out our obligations and your rights with regard to how we deal with your personal information.

Your personal information is information or an opinion about you, whether true or not, which identifies you or from which your identity is reasonably identifiable.

3. How we collect your personal information

We will collect and hold your personal information in a fair and lawful manner, and not in an intrusive way. We will generally collect your personal information directly from you.

We will collect the personal information you directly give us through some of the following means:

(a) when you visit the Website and register;

(b) when you make an inquiry or upload information through our Website;

(d) when you speak to an investigator or interviewer;

(e) from correspondence (whether in writing or electronically), including when you complete our online form, email us, text us, contact us through the Website or write to us.

4. Types of personal information we collect

The type of personal information we may collect can include (but is not limited to), your name, postal address, email address, date of birth, mobile phone number, images or videos of you, your device ID, IP address, statistics on page views, standard web log-in information, your internet connection and the equipment you use to access our Website.

We may also collect and hold sensitive information about you, including:

(a) health information;

(b) your racial or ethnic origin; and

We only collect sensitive information about you with your consent, or otherwise in accordance with the Privacy Act.

Where you do not wish to provide us with your personal information, we may be unable to adequately verify and use the information you do want to provide to us to assist in the investigation or prosecution of crimes or for any other purpose as set out in this Policy.

5. Children under 18 years of age

The Website is not intended to be used by or for children under the age of 18. No one may provide information about a person under the age of 18 through the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information about or from children under 18 years of age. If we learn that personal information relating to a child under 18 years of age has been uploaded to the Website, that information will be deleted. If you believe we may have been provided with personal information relating to a child under 18 years of age, please contact us immediately.

6. Our purposes for handling your personal information

Any information you provide to AFUO as part of Project Sunflower is collected for the purpose of gathering information that may:

· assist the investigation or prosecution of crimes committed in the course of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation commencing in 2022 (Invasion); or

· contribute to the creation and documentation of narratives or historical records of the impact of the Invasion including the impact on the Ukrainian community in Australia.

As a general rule, we only process personal information for the above purposes that would be considered relevant and reasonable in the circumstances.

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to:

(a) offer and provide you with services;

(b) manage and administer those services;

(d) comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; and

(e) otherwise to manage Project Sunflower.

7. Disclosure of personal information

We do not share, sell or otherwise disclose your personal information for purposes other than as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

We may disclose personal information to third parties such as our suppliers, organisations that provide us with technical and support services, volunteers or our professional advisors, where permitted by the Privacy Act. If we disclose information to a third party, we generally require that the third party protect your information to the same extent that we do.

Specifically, we will disclose personal information for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy in either identifiable (with your consent) or de-identified form (that is, without your name, date of birth, contact details or other identifying particulars) to:

· various prosecuting or investigating bodies or tribunals which may reside outside of Australia such as, amongst others, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court situated in The Hague in the Netherlands or the Ukrainian Prosecutor in Ukraine who are investigating and prosecuting crimes committed in the course of the Invasion; or

· academic institutions, research or human rights organisations to inform and provide research, analysis, trends and reports in relation to the Invasion and its impacts.

We will not use or disclose your personal information for any other purpose unless you have consented to that use or disclosure.

8. Protection of personal information

We will hold personal information as either secure physical records, electronically on our intranet system, in cloud storage, and in some cases, records on third party servers, which may be located overseas.

We maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical security for our offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, or modification of personal information. This also applies to disposal of personal information. We use encryption technology to secure information sent and received by us.

We further protect personal information by restricting access to personal information to only those who need access to the personal information do their job. Physical, electronic and managerial procedures have been employed to safeguard the security and integrity of your personal information.

We will destroy or de-identify personal information once it is no longer needed for a valid purpose or required to be kept by law.

9. Direct marketing

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

10. Cookies

A cookie is a small text file stored in your computer’s memory or on your hard disk for a pre-defined period of time. The reason we do this is in order to collect aggregate information on how visitors are experiencing the Website. This information will help to better adapt the Website to suit personal requirements. While cookies allow a computer to be identified, they do not permit any reference to a specific individual. For information on cookie settings of your internet browser, please refer to your browser’s manual.

On your technological device you may refuse to accept browser cookies. However, if you refuse to accept cookies you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser or operating system settings to refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.

11. Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (Google) to collect certain information relating to your use of the Website. Google Analytics uses cookies to help the Website analyse how visitors use the Website. For more information regarding Google Analytics please visit Google's website, and pages that describe Google Analytics, such as www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html.

12. Accessing and correcting your personal information

You may contact our Privacy Officer to request access to the personal information that we hold about you and/or to make corrections to that information, at any time. On the rare occasions when we refuse access, we will provide you with a written notice stating our reasons for refusing access. We may seek to recover from you reasonable costs incurred for providing you with access to any of the personal information about you held by us.

We are not obliged to correct any of your personal information if we do not agree that it requires correction and may refuse to do so. If we refuse a correction request, we will provide you with a written notice stating our reasons for refusing.

We will respond to all requests for access to or correction of personal information within a reasonable time.

13. Overseas transfers of personal information

If you consent to provide your information to an investigator, your personal information may be sent overseas to investigators based in Europe and Ukraine.

If in the future we do propose to disclose personal information overseas, we will do so in compliance with the requirements of the Privacy Act. We will, where practicable, advise you of the countries in which any overseas recipients are likely to be located.

By providing your personal information to us, you consent to us disclosing your personal information to any such overseas recipients for purposes as set out in this Privacy Policy, and agree that APP 8.1 will not apply to such disclosures. That is, we will not be required to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the Australian Privacy Principles. For the avoidance of doubt, in the event that an overseas recipient breaches the Australian Privacy Principles, that entity will not be bound by, and you will not be able seek redress under, the Act.

If you do not want us to disclose your information to overseas recipients, please let us know.

14. Resolving personal information concerns

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this Privacy Policy, or how we handle your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer:

The Privacy Officer

Email: privacy@projectsunflower.au

We take all complaints seriously, and will respond to your complaint within a reasonable period.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your complaint, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218

Sydney NSW 2001

Telephone: 1300 363 992

Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

15. Changes

We reserve the right to change the terms of this Privacy Policy from time to time, without notice to you. An up-to-date copy of our Privacy Policy is available on our Website.