The Sydney Speleological Society believe that your privacy is important and we are committed to protecting and maintaining the privacy and security of your personal information.
The Sydney Speleological Society collects personal information from our members and visitors during the course of running our organisation. For example we may collect your name, address, phone contact or email contact for general operational purposes. Our website may also automatically collect electronic information such as cookies and other links related to social media to optimize your online experience. For safety purposes it may be necessary for some medical conditions to be disclosed to a trip leader by those who attend adventure caving trips. Photographs of you may be taken during trips or training exercises and these will often be shared through social media.
Your private information is principally used if you choose to become a member of the Sydney Speleological Society. Our Members are contacted regularly via email for the announcement of important information and for the monthly distribution of our informative electronic journal. Once each year our journal is issued as a yearbook and this edition publishes the details of all current members of the society including your contact information. For caving trips your information will be used by the trip leader to confirm logistical details with you regarding the pending trip and ensure that all who are attending have the latest information about the trip. Your information may be disclosed to committee members as necessary for general operational activities, to government authorities should Australian laws and regulations require this or to healthcare workers in the event of a Medical Emergency.
For new members joining our society your membership application will ask whether you would like to keep your personal information private, or opt out of disclosing your information. For current and renewing members each year your renewal invoice will request that you record your preference. Options to opt out include, withholding of your information from annual year book publication, removal from SSS-Member email general communications, removal from the Journal distribution list. You may choose to withhold your information from the society such as email, phone or your physical address however in doing so you recognise that the society will have limited means with which to contact you or keep you informed of our activities. In particular if you withhold your email information, the Society will be unable to provide you with a copy of the monthly electronic Journal which is shared via email. The Journal and the SSS Members email list are a critical means for the Society communicating important matters with the membership, and a decision to withhold this contact information means you accept you may not receive important information (eg Trip Cancellation information etc). If you do not wish to be photographed or specifically have your photograph shared through the Journal or Social Media then it will be your responsibility to make this clear with the photographer on each occasion where your photo is taken. If you change your mind with respect to photographs then you understand and agree that constraints may limit our ability to remove you from shared images. At any stage you can change your opt out preferences by emailing sss-membership-administration@sss.org.au and a member of the committee will attend to your request ASAP.
Your information is kept securely in electronic form and will not be knowingly released without your consent. We distribute all general email communications using a general mailing list address so that no private member email address information is released. Whilst attempting to maintain best industry practice with regards to the security of your personal information the Sydney Speleological Society cannot make any guarantee against the unauthorised disclosure of your personal information by any party with malicious intent or through simple human error.
Any member's willful disclosure without consent of private information belonging to another member through any SSS communication platform will result in moderation of future communications and may result in termination of membership. All member communications must be conducted in a respectful and polite manner at all times.