Effective: 10/25/24
This privacy notice applies if you are a resident of Australia or New Zealand. If you are not a resident of Australia or New Zealand, please click here.
This Privacy Policy, as may be amended from time to time, sets out how Dharma Ocean Foundation (“Dharma Ocean”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, stores, uses and discloses your personal information.
In this policy “personal information” means information about an identifiable individual.
Collection of Personal Information
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us (for example, when completing an application form for one of our retreats or programs, when you engage with us through social media or when you contact us to request information whether through our website or otherwise). We, or a third party engaged by us, may take photos or record audio or video footage of your participation in our programs. We also automatically collect information when you visit our website, and we provide further information on this in the below “Tracking Technologies” section. We will only collect your information for the purposes for which it is being collected.
The types of personal information that we may collect includes your:
- first and last name;
- physical address;
- gender;
- e-mail address;
- phone numbers;
- date of birth;
- country of residence;
- payment details;
- image, appearance, likeness and voice;
- medical information including but not limited to, your Covid vaccination status, any medication you are taking, allergies, past and current mental and psychiatric issues and any mobility issues you may have.
We may also collect personal information from third parties that you have authorised, or as otherwise permitted by law. We will also collect personal information from you that is not about you including the first and last name and number of your emergency contact. It is your responsibility to make sure that all personal information that you share with us is accurate and correct. In the event that you do not fill in all required fields, or otherwise fail to provide your full and correct details, we may not be able to comply with the purpose for which such personal information has been provided to us. Information may be collected, and held, either by us directly or on our behalf via our third-party contractors. This information may be stored by our third-party contractors outside of the country of your residence.
Use of Personal Information
We will process and use your personal information for the purposes which we collect it, however such processing will only occur where we have a legal basis to do so. Our legal basis for processing your personal information will, in almost all circumstances, fall within the following two categories: (1) Retreat Administration and Promotion, and (2) Business Interests and Legal Compliance.
Retreat Administration and Promotion: The following sets out how we may use your personal information for retreat administration and promotion:
- to provide and deliver the products and services you have requested;
- to contact you in relation to our retreats and programs including if there is a cancellation or change in event details and to provide you with information about the retreat and the conditions of the retreat;
- where possible, to cater the retreat experience to suit your medical status;
- to share retreat materials with you and other participants in the specific program you attended, which may include providing your likeness through photographs, recorded audio and/or videos of the program;
- to promote the Dharma Ocean which may include providing your likeness through photographs, recorded audio and/or videos of you participating in the retreat on websites or social media channels and blogs owned or controlled by us.
Business interests and legal compliance: The following sets out how we may use your personal information for business interests and legal compliance:
- to provide you with any assistance you seek in relation to any inquiries;
- to interact and communicate with you, and to manage our relationship with you;
- to improve our facilities and services;
- to comply with our obligations with you and to other third parties;
- to perform billing operations;
- to comply with our legal obligations including any reporting obligations;
- to carry out activities that relate to legal, governmental, or regulatory requirements on us, or in connection with legal proceedings and crime prevention, detection, and prosecution.
We may also disclose your personal information to service providers and contractors to help us operate our business and/or provide a service to you, e.g. to service providers who help us operate our systems and facilities (including maintaining our online payment system and provide us with fraud prevention services).
Retention and Deletion
We will keep your personal information only for as long as it is required for the purposes for which the information may be lawfully used. We have implemented and maintain security measures to safeguard your personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, in accordance with our obligations under applicable privacy legislation. We cannot promise and we do not warrant or guarantee that your personal information will be safe from loss or unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, either during transmission to or from our website, or when held by us. We may store your personal information using a third party (including a third party located outside of your country of residence) and so your personal information may be held outside of country of residence. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that such third parties are aware of our obligation to you and that any agreements we have with them will prohibit your personal information being used in a manner inconsistent with this privacy policy. When we no longer need your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to securely destroy or delete personal information. Personal information may continue to be stored in a backup computer system and we may be required by law to retain certain personal information.
Disclosure of Personal Information
We may disclose your personal information to:
- our third party service providers to assist us in performing any of the tasks described above under the “Use of Personal Information” heading;
- our employees, volunteers, contractors, agents, and third party service providers; or
- our third party business partners, including data processing entities.
We may disclose personal information if we consider doing so is appropriate for medical purposes, legal and regulatory compliance, to facilitate court proceedings, to enforce these terms or any contract we have with you, to protect our company, our customers, or others. We may release personal information to third parties if instructed by you, and in other ways permitted by law. We may from time to time disclose your personal information to third parties situated out of your country of residence. Where we do this, we will only do so in accordance with our obligations under this Privacy Policy and to entities bound by the privacy laws of the country in which they are based in.
Access and Correction & Other Rights
You can request that we provide access to the personal information we have collected about you at any time. There are certain exemptions which may apply to, or otherwise prevent us from providing you with, your information. You can also request us to correct such personal information. In the event that we refuse or do not comply with any such request, you are entitled to request a statement be attached to the relevant information that a correction was sought but not made. You can object to the processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. You can withdraw your consent to the processing of personal information we have collected at any time. Any such withdrawal will not invalidate processing that has occurred prior to withdrawing your consent.
Use of Tracking Technologies
Our website may use cookies. “Cookies” are a small block of text placed on the computer that you are using to access the internet. Cookies are designed to remember information about your personal preferences for our website. We use and disclose such information so that our website will remember you next time you visit, to help improve our services to you, and to sometimes identify you for security purposes. You can change the settings on your browser to reject some cookies, but this may reduce the functionality of our website. Techniques we use that may be similar to cookies are tracking pixels, Java scripts, tags and web beacons. Examples of information we may collect using cookies and other tracking technologies include:
- technical information such as your computer’s IP address and your browser type; and
- information about your visit such as the products you viewed or searched for, the length of your visit and the pages that you visited.
Contact information
If you have questions or comments about our Privacy Policy or if you feel we have not adhered to this policy or if you want to obtain more information about how we manage your personal information, please contact our privacy officer at:
Email address: info@dharmaocean.org
Attention: Paul Adams
