Privacy Policy

Bell Real Estate is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the thirteen Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) it contains. This policy explains how we meet those obligations, and applies to every Bell office and to this website.

“Personal information” means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or one who is reasonably identifiable. “Sensitive information” is a subset of that — health information, and information about racial or ethnic origin, political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation or criminal record — which attracts stronger protection and which we collect only with your consent and only where it is genuinely necessary.

• Contact details — name, address, email, phone number.
• Property information — the properties you own, are selling, are interested in, or occupy.
• Transaction information — offers, contracts, settlement details, and records of what was discussed.
• Identity information — the documents required to verify who you are for a sale or purchase, including date and place of birth and government-issued identification details such as a driver licence, passport or Medicare card number.
• Biometric information — a facial image or short video, where it is used to verify your identity. This is sensitive information and we collect it only with your consent; see the identity verification section below.
• Financial information — for renters, income and affordability details; for buyers, funding and source-of-funds information where the law requires it.
• Rental history and references, where you apply to rent a property.
• Enquiry and browsing information generated when you use this website or contact us through it.

You can deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym where it is lawful and practical to do so — for example, when making a general enquiry or attending an inspection. It is not practical once a transaction or tenancy is on foot.

Usually directly from you: an enquiry or appraisal form on this website, an inspection register, a rental application, a sale authority, a phone call or an email. We also collect information from third parties where that is reasonable — property portals that pass on an enquiry, referrers, your representatives, tenancy databases, public registers, and identity-verification services.

To provide the service you have come to us for, and to meet the legal obligations attached to it. In practice that means marketing and selling property, managing rentals and maintenance, assessing rental applications, arranging inspections and appraisals, responding to enquiries, verifying identity where the law requires it, keeping the records we are required to keep, and — unless you tell us otherwise — keeping you informed about property that may interest you.

We do not sell personal information. We do disclose it where it is necessary to provide the service, or where the law requires it. The organisations that receive it are named below rather than described by category, because a category is not something you can act on.

MRI Box+Dice

Our customer relationship system. Enquiry, buyer, seller, renter and landlord records are stored here, and it is the source of the listing data shown on this website.

First AML (AMLHUB)

Verifies identity documents for buyers and sellers, as required by anti-money laundering law.

APLYiD

Electronic identity verification, including checks against government records through the Document Verification Service, and biometric checks where you consent to one. APLYiD may use its own authorised sub-providers.

Commonwealth and State record holders

Through the Australian Government's Document Verification Service — passport offices, driver licence authorities, the Department of Home Affairs, and Births Deaths and Marriages. They receive the identity details you gave us and return only a match result.

MovingHub

Arranges connection of utilities and services when you move. Details are passed only where you have asked us to arrange a connection — see the section below.

realestate.com.au and Domain

Property portals we advertise listings on. They receive property information and, where you enquire through them, your enquiry details.

Tradespeople and service providers

Contractors engaged to inspect, repair, photograph, style, clean or maintain a property receive the contact and access details needed to attend.

Government and statutory bodies

Including AUSTRAC, Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority, VCAT, the Land Registry and, where required by law, police.

Professional advisers and financial institutions

Conveyancers, solicitors, accountants, insurers, banks and brokers involved in a transaction you are party to.

Google

Google Analytics measures how this website is used. Google receives page views, referral source, approximate location and device information.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram)

The Meta Pixel reports actions taken on this website so we can advertise to people who have looked at property with us, and measure whether that advertising worked.

Technology and communications providers

Cloud hosting, search, email delivery and website infrastructure providers that operate the systems this site and our office systems run on.

Bell offers a service that arranges connection of electricity, gas, water, internet and other services when you move. It is delivered by MovingHub, an Australian connection provider.

If you ask us to arrange a connection, we pass MovingHub your name, contact details and the address you are moving to or from, so that they can contact you and arrange it. MovingHub then handles your information under its own privacy policy.

If you are buying or selling, we are required by law to verify your identity before we can act. Identity information is collected and checked through accredited electronic identity verification providers, and must be retained for seven years after we stop providing the service — which overrides any request to delete it during that period.

To do that we may collect government-issued identification details: your full name, date and place of birth, residential or business address, and the details of a document such as a driver licence, passport or Medicare card.

Checking your documents against government records (DVS)

Where you have consented, your name, date of birth and identity document details are sent securely to the Commonwealth or State authority that issued the document, through the Australian Government’s Document Verification Service (DVS). That may include passport offices, driver licence authorities, the Department of Home Affairs, Births Deaths and Marriages, or other authorised record holders.

Those authorities check only whether the details you gave us match the records they hold. We do not receive a copy of your government records — the authority returns a match result, yes or no, and nothing else.

Biometric information

As part of identity verification we may collect biometric information — a facial image, or a short video of you holding your identification document. It is used to confirm that you are a real person and physically present, to match your image to the photograph on your document, and to reduce the risk of fraud and identity theft.

Biometric information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act, which gives it stronger protection than ordinary personal information. We collect it only with your consent, and use it only for identity verification and the compliance obligations attached to it.

Your consent, and withdrawing it

By providing your information and completing identity verification, you consent to its collection, use and disclosure for identity verification and AML/CTF purposes; to the collection and use of biometric information for that purpose; to your details being checked against Commonwealth and State records through the DVS; and to your information being shared with our accredited identity verification providers.

That consent is voluntary and you can withdraw it at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer using the details below. If you do not consent, or do not provide what we need, we may not be able to verify your identity electronically — in which case we may need to verify it another way, or may not be able to act for you.

Read the full explanation of the AML/CTF requirements — what is collected, when, and why. Renters and landlords are not affected.

We use your contact details to send property alerts, market updates and information about our services. Every email carries an unsubscribe link, and you can opt out at any time by using it, by replying to the message, or by contacting our Privacy Officer using the details below. Opting out of marketing does not stop the operational messages we have to send about a transaction or tenancy you are party to.

Some of what this site stores in your browser is simply how it works — remembering a display preference, for example. That stays on your device and is never sent to us. The rest is described below, because it does leave your device.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used: which pages are viewed, how visitors arrive, roughly where they are (derived from IP address, at city level), and what device and browser they are on. Google sets cookies on your browser to do this. We use it in aggregate — to see that a suburb page is being read, not to see that you read it — and we do not use it to identify you by name.

You can opt out for every site you visit with Google’s browser opt-out add-on.

Meta Pixel

We use the Meta Pixel, which records actions taken on this site — pages viewed, an enquiry started — and reports them to Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. It does two things for Bell: it lets us show our advertising to people who have looked at property with us, and it tells us whether that advertising led anywhere. Where you are logged in to Facebook or Instagram, Meta is able to match that activity to your account.

You can limit this through your Meta ad preferences, or by blocking third-party cookies and tracking in your browser. Doing so does not affect your use of this site.

Forms on this site send what you enter to Bell so we can respond to you. External links — to portals, vendors or government sites — lead to sites we do not control and whose privacy practices are their own.

Some of the providers listed above store or process information outside Australia, as is normal for cloud-based software. Where we disclose personal information to an overseas recipient we take reasonable steps to ensure it is handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, including through our contracts with those providers.

We protect personal information with access controls on our systems, confidentiality obligations on our staff, secure storage of physical documents, and encrypted transmission of information submitted through this website.

We keep information for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for, or for as long as the law requires — seven years for AML/CTF records, and the periods set by the Estate Agents Act 1980 and the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 for transaction and tenancy records. After that it is destroyed or de-identified.

You can ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is wrong. Write to our Privacy Officer using the details below. We will acknowledge your request within a few business days and respond within 30 days.

We may need to verify your identity first, and there are limited grounds on which access can be refused — for example, where it would unreasonably affect another person’s privacy, or where the information relates to a legal dispute. If we refuse, we will tell you why and how to challenge it. If we decline to correct something, you can ask us to attach a statement noting that you disagree.

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, tell our Privacy Officer. We will acknowledge the complaint promptly and aim to resolve it within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can take it to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

Privacy Officer, Bell Real Estate
privacy@bellrealestate.com.au
Bell Real Estate, 1616 Burwood Highway, Belgrave VIC 3160

You can also reach us through any of our offices. We review this policy at least annually, and whenever our systems or the law change.