This site is owned and operated by Hobsons Bay City Council using software licensed from Social Pinpoint. For details on how Hobsons Bay City Council collects and protects your personal information, refer to their Privacy Policy below. For details of how Social Pinpoint may access personal information, please refer to Social Pinpoint’s Privacy Policy.

Hobsons Bay City Council is committed to protecting your privacy – click here to read Council’s Privacy Policy.

Council respects the provisions of the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and the Health Records Act 2001 in relation to how we collect, store, use and access the personal information you provide to us.

You have the right to access your personal information and make corrections. If you wish to amend your information please contact a member of Council's Customer Service team on 1300 179 944.

By accessing and using this site, you are choosing to accept and comply with the Terms presented throughout this agreement as well as the Privacy Policy and Moderation Policy. You're also agreeing to receive communications and/or updates from Hobsons Bay City Council on consultations in the municipality to your nominated email address. If you would like to stop receiving communications or updates, you can select the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email. Or email communityengagement@hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au

What information do we collect?

Basic Identifying Information

Screen Name, Email Address, Demographic Information

User Generated Information

Comments in forums, Votes on other comments in forums, Responses to surveys and quick polls.

User-Behaviour Information

We collect information from you when you register to use this site. This information may vary depending on the specific needs of Hobsons Bay City Council, however, at a minimum is includes your additional demographic information such as your age, identified gender, household income, suburb and interests may also be collected at this time. You can click the ‘My Profile’ link to check your details.

We also collect information about user behaviour on the site including but not limited to documents downloaded from the library, videos viewed, pages views.

Note: You can browse the site anonymously without signing up.

Why do we collect this information?

To collect and collate your feedback to inform better policy
The principle reason for collecting this information is to help inform the creation of better policy. The information is therefore provided to Hobsons Bay City Council for analysis and interpretation at their discretion.

To send you periodic emails
The email address you provide for registering on the site may be used by either Social PinPoint or Hobsons Bay City Council to send you information and updates pertaining to the issues discussed on this site or any other site that we feel may be of interest to you. Note: If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include a simple unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email.

To protect the integrity of the discussion
By monitoring the information you provide we are able to protect the integrity of the discussion from individuals and groups who may attempt to unduly influence the outcomes of the consultation process.

To improve the website & software
The principle use of this information by Social PinPoint is to help us to improve this website and the software that underpins it. We are continually striving to improve the experience of our participants based on your feedback.

Who has access to this information?

When you sign up for a user account you provide three types of information:

  1. Publicly available information
  2. Information available to both Hobsons Bay City Council and The Hive
  3. Information available to Social PinPoint only

Publicly available information

Publicly available information is limited to your username and any comments you leave under that name in the forums or other tools on the site.

Individual survey responses, voting patterns and quick poll responses will not immediately be made available publicly on the site, however, feedback (including overall results of polls and surveys, and in some instances, unidentifiable and randomly chosen quotes or comments from surveys) may be published in publicly available reports at the end of the consultation period.

Please also keep in mind, however, that under most local Freedom of Information laws formal submissions uploaded to this site can be made available for public viewing by Hobsons Bay City Council at its own volition or at the request of a member of the public.

Information available to both Hobsons Bay City Council and The Hive includes:

  • All information from the Sign Up form.
  • Comments
  • Survey, Quick Poll, and comment voting responses
  • General site activity such as document downloads and page views

Information Available to The Hive only
Information which is available only to Social PinPoint is restricted to your IP address for site security purposes.

Do we disclose any information to third parties other than Hobsons Bay City Council?
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect our or others rights, property or safety.

However, we may from time to time notify you about other sites we are managing when we feel they may of direct relevance and interest to you. Please note that you can easily unsubscribe from these notifications at any time.

Third Party Links
Occasionally Hobsons Bay City Council may include links to third party sites. These third parties have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites.

Terms of Use

Please also visit our Terms of Use section establishing the use, disclaimers, and limitations of liability governing the use of our website.

Your consent

By using our website, you consent to this Privacy Policy.