Except as outlined here, information you provide in this application will be kept confidential by the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade). It will be used by Austrade for the purposes of the Export Market Development Grants Act 1997 (EMDG Act) and the Australian Trade and Investment Commission Act 1985 (Austrade Act).
Section 94(2) of the Austrade Act prohibits Austrade staff from disclosing any information or documents about other people received by Austrade to any external parties unless it is disclosed for the purposes of the Austrade Act. Section 94(4) allows Austrade to make certain details relating to payments of grants available to the public, including:
If we enter into a grant agreement with you, these details will be published on GrantConnect, the Australian Government’s grant information system.
We will make available the information from your application, and information received during the course of engaging with you, to our colleagues within Austrade, including our Tradestart advisers, to complement the information that Austrade collects on the capacity of Australian businesses looking to export, for trade facilitation purposes.
This can include, but may not be limited to:
We may use and disclose information about grant applicants and grant recipients to other Australian Government agencies for the purposes of program administration, analysis, evaluation and application assessment. This includes giving information to the Australian Taxation Office for compliance purposes.
We may also share your information with third party entities in order to:
As an Australian Government agency, Austrade is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) in the Privacy Act 1988. These regulate how Austrade may collect, use, disclose and store personal information and how individuals may access and correct personal information held about them.
Austrade is authorised by law to collect your personal information to perform its functions under the EMDG Act and the Austrade Act. Austrade will collect, store, use and disclose your personal information that is provided in this application, and information about you that relates to this application and is provided by third parties, for the purpose of exercising the functions and powers of Austrade, including EMDG administration and trade facilitation. This information may be transferred to Austrade’s other offices, including overseas offices, via third party software and may, from time to time, be stored overseas through this process.
Unless you opt-out by unticking the relevant box, Austrade may make personal information available to other government bodies (for example, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Export Finance Australia and the state and territory governments) for export facilitation or business support purposes and they may contact you directly by the information below:
Where you provide personal information that is incomplete or inaccurate, it could impact Austrade’s ability to process your application and/or result in a contravention of the EMDG Act.
For further information on how we handle your personal information, please read the Austrade Privacy Policy.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact: privacy@austrade.gov.au.
Austrade may collect, store, use and disclose personal information of third parties, such as your employees and service providers, for the purposes of assessing your application and verifying payments you have made to those third parties, as required under the EMDG Act.
Where you provide personal information of third parties to Austrade, you MUST ensure that you have informed those third parties that the information will be provided to Austrade and that Austrade may use this information for the purpose of assessing this application and verifying payments made to them, as required under the EMDG Act, and obtained their consent to this prior to providing their information to Austrade.
Personal information includes, for example, a person’s name, contact details, position and any financial information regarding that person.
You must make sure that the information Austrade holds about you is accurate. If you need to change your details at any time, please email emdg.help@austrade.gov.au.
You can also access, change, or request the removal of the information Austrade holds about you at any time by emailing emdg.help@austrade.gov.au.
Applicants may be asked to provide specific additional information so that their grant application or a specified instalment of a grant can be processed. If the applicant is a body corporate which is part of a related company group Austrade may seek information from any body corporate in this group.
Austrade may also request the applicant's written consent to conduct criminal record checks in order to confirm that provisions of the EMDG Act concerning disqualifying convictions are complied with. These requests by Austrade will be made in writing and will specify the information required. Austrade may refuse to consider an application when requested information is not provided.
Austrade may, during the assessment process, require applicants to obtain and provide a Business Activity Statement, Notice of Assessment or Statement of Account from the Australian Taxation Office, to enable Austrade to check compliance.