Effective as of 4th October 2008
Please read the following Terms and Conditions carefully before you agree to them,
as they govern your access and use of CSAonline (www.csaonline.gov.au).
Definitions
CSA, us, we - means the Child Support Agency.
You, the customer - means the user of the (CSAonline) service,
a customer of the Child Support Agency.
Your Agreement
Accessing, browsing and/or using CSAonline signifies your acceptance of these Terms
and Conditions. Additionally, by accepting these Terms and Conditions you agree
to receive CSA email updates.
We may modify these Terms and Conditions from time to time. We advise you to check
the Terms and Conditions’ effective date each time you access CSAonline.
CSA email updates
Sometimes, CSA may use the email address you have provided for CSAonline to send
you important updates regarding CSAonline, the CSA or the Child Support Scheme.
We may also send you invitations to participate in email surveys, which will help
us to improve our services to you.
How do I unsubscribe from CSA email updates?
Please Note: You will still receive CSAonline email notifications
if you unsubscribe from CSA email updates. This is because CSAonline email notifications
are sent to advise you that you have new information in your CSA account.
How do I confirm that emails are from the Child Support Agency?
To help protect your security, CSA will never request your CSAonline or other passwords,
personal information or bank account details via an email message. If you receive
an email requesting you to re-register to CSAonline or enter sensitive personal
or banking details, forward it to CSAFraudTipOffs@csa.gov.au
or notify the Australian Government Services Fraud tip-off line on 13 15 24
or report it online using our report fraud form.
CSAonline Interactive Products
CSA maintains this website to provide electronic and interactive self service for:
- employers who provide payroll services of Child Support Deductions for their employees
- anyone who pays or receives Child Support
Occasionally, we may add or remove services from CSAonline. We may notify and/or
offer you other CSA or CSAonline products and services by post or a CSA email update.
After you have enrolled you will receive most future CSA correspondence via CSAonline.
We will email you when you have new mail to read (this is a CSAonline email notification).
Contact the CSA on 131 272 if you do not want
to receive your mail this way.
What is phishing?
Phishing refers to email-based fraud where internet thieves ‘fish’ for your personal
details by using hoax emails claiming to be from a company or government agency.
Hoax emails are often generated overseas, and are sent in bulk. The email asks the
recipient to provide sensitive information such as a username, password, Customer
Support ID or bank account details by reply email or through a fake website, enabling
thieves to gather the details for later fraudulent use.
How do I reduce the risk of being a victim of a phishing fraud?
You can minimise your chances of being a victim of phishing by:
- Retyping hyperlinks into your web browser instead of clicking on them in email messages.
- Treating all emails requesting personal log-on information such as username, password
or customer ID with extreme caution.
Authentic CSA and CSAonline emails will never request
personal details or log-on information.
- Immediately deleting emails of unknown origins, no matter how innocent or provocative
the subject headings sound.
- Changing your CSAonline password on a regular basis.
- Keeping your anti-virus programs and firewalls up-to-date and performing regular
scans of your computer.
Availability of CSAonline
CSA makes all reasonable efforts to ensure CSAonline is available for use when required.
CSA however, does not guarantee to provide continuous or uninterrupted access to
CSAonline. If CSAonline is malfunctioning or if for any other reason you are unable
to use the CSAonline service to undertake transactions, please call CSA
on 131 272 (International customers call +61 131 272)
for assistance or to arrange an alternate method to complete your transactions.
Using CSAonline does not change any of your obligations to provide information to
the CSA. You are not excused from providing information when required if you cannot
access CSAonline for any reason.
Information available through CSAonline concerning your child support may not always
be completely up to date. In most cases the information should reflect transactions
up to the close of business on the previous working day.
Your security
CSA complies with the Commonwealth of Australia Protective Security Manual
and its security standards and makes all reasonable efforts to protect CSAonline
from unauthorised access.
You should be aware that the World Wide Web is a public network and there is a potential
risk that your transactions are being viewed, intercepted or modified by third parties
or that files which the person downloads may contain computer viruses, disabling
codes, worms or other devices or defects.
Your access
CSA will provide you with a Child Support Reference Number and password to access
CSAonline. By using CSAonline you agree to:
- keep passwords and/or any supplied security device confidential
- change your password regularly and/or when prompted
- keep your unique Child Support Reference Number confidential and secure.
CSA will assume that any online transaction using your Child Support Reference Number
and password was undertaken by you.
If you know or suspect that your Child Support Reference Number or your password
has become known to someone else or is lost or stolen please call us immediately
on 131272 (International customers call +61 131 272). We
will provide you with a new Child Support Reference Number and/or password.
Where the CSA believes or detects that an unauthorised access to CSAonline has or
may occur, we will (with or without prior notice to you):
- limit, restrict or deny access to CSAonline until the risk has been removed
- change your Child Support Reference Number and password and notify you of this change.
We recommend that you do not access CSAonline from computer terminals that are shared
with other people (e.g. internet cafes, public computers) as it is difficult to
ensure these computers are free from malicious and 'hacker' type programs that may
trace or record your personal information.
CSA reserves the right to correct any Child Support Agency business record or information
that has been affected by any instruction made by you or any transaction caused
by use of CSAonline.
Links to other external websites
Any link to an external website is provided for your information and convenience
only. CSA does not endorse, monitor or control such sites (or any associated organisation,
product or service) and is not responsible for their content, or your access or
use of them.
Your Privacy
CSA is required by law to collect certain information about you and your family
for child support purposes. We understand that some of this information is sensitive
and we place great emphasis on protecting your privacy.
CSA is bound by the
Information Privacy Principles of the Privacy Act 1988. There are 11 Information Privacy
Principles which regulate the treatment of personal information. They set out the
standards for information collection, storage, security, correction, use, disclosure
and access.
CSA is also subject to the secrecy provisions in our legislation. These restrict
the communication of our customers’ personal information and specify when and to
whom CSA can lawfully release information.
Who does CSA pass your information to?
We are required by law to pass on some of your information to the other parent,
such as information we use to work out your assessment.
This is so that they understand how the assessment has been calculated.
Under no circumstances are contact details disclosed to the other party of a child support case.
CSA may provide your information to other government agencies or collect and verify
your personal information from a third party source. such as (but not limited to):
- Centrelink
- Australian Taxation Office
- The Social Security Appeals Tribunal
- The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
- Services Australia
- The Department of Veterans’ Affairs
- The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
- The Attorney-General’s Department
- A law enforcement agency
- Commonwealth investigation or auditing agencies, such as the Ombudsman, the Privacy
Commissioner or the Australian National Audit Office
- Road Traffic Authority
- Financial Institutions
- Employers
More information about why CSA shares information
For employer customers the organisational Tax File Number (TFN)
will be checked in Australian Tax Office (ATO) systems, to confirm its identity.
CSA may provide your contact details to people contracted by us to deliver services
to separated parents, or to carry out research to help improve our services. You
are not obliged to participate in any programs or research.
Find out more For more information about the Privacy Act and privacy
generally, see the Privacy Commissioner’s website at: www.privacy.gov.au.
For more information about our collection, use and disclosure of information, see
chapter 6.3 of The Guide in the Legal section of CSA’s website at www.csa.gov.au.
IT Security
When you visit CSAonline the following information will be recorded by CSA (or its
IT service providers) for statistical purposes:
- your IP address
- the top level domain name (for example, .com, .gov, .au)
- the date and time of your visit to the site
- the pages accessed and documents downloaded
- the previous site visited and
- the type of browser that you use.
We do not use cookies
in any area of the site that is accessible to the public.
No attempt will be made by the CSA to identify people by their browsing activities
except where we are investigating offences committed against the CSA, or required
to do so due to other legal circumstances.
Disclaimer
While the Child Support Agency has used all reasonable endeavours to ensure the
information on this website is as accurate as possible, it gives no warranty or
guarantees that the material, information or publication made accessible is accurate,
complete, current, or fit for any use whatsoever. No reliance should be made by
a user of the material, information or publication accessed via this website.
If relying on the material in CSAonline, users should independently verify its relevance
for their purposes, and should obtain any appropriate professional advice.
CSA reserves the right to vary the material, information or publications in the
CSAonline website without notice.
Limitation of Liability
CSA, its employees and agents accept no liability or responsibility for any loss
or damage whatsoever suffered as a result of direct or indirect access, use or application
of any material, publication or information made accessible via its website or in
connection with any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion,
delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, disabling codes, worms or other
devices or defects, line system failure, loss of data or loss of use related to
the website.
Copyright
© Commonwealth of Australia 2008
This service is protected by copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce
this material in unaltered form for your personal, non-commercial use or use within
your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968
all other rights are reserved. Requests for further authorisation should be directed
to the Attorney-Generals Department, Commonwealth Copyright Administration at www.ag.gov.au/cca
Linked Information
How do I unsubscribe from CSA email updates?
To unsubscribe follow the instructions in the footer of email updates or send an
email to Webmaster@csa.gov.au with ‘unsubscribe’
in the subject heading.
For parent customers the purposes are:
- data matching in the administration of Child Support
- gathering of information, such as income and assets when determining a child
support assessment or collecting Child Support debts
- disclosure of personal information to the Federal Police or a mental health crisis
unit in response to a threat
- disclosure of information on a ‘needs to know basis’ to international agencies related
to the administration and collection of Australian child support
- disclosure of Tax File Numbers (TFNs) would only occur in limited circumstances
involving data exchange with other Government agencies such as Centrelink and the
Australian Taxation Office.
TFNs are used to verify:
- a customer’s identity and ensure that we have the correct individual as a party
to a child support case, and
- to verify incomes for assessments.
Cookies and CSAonline
The Cookies that CSAonline uses are for security purposes only - to protect you
and CSA. They are not invasive and do not act in a malicious way. They contain securely
encrypted details that allow CSA to ensure you are authorised to use the CSAonline
services. The cookies enhance the security of CSAonline and the protection of your
information.
What are cookies?
There are two types of cookies:
- Persistent cookies - Those that are saved to a user’s hard disk
and may remain there for long periods. These are used by numerous websites and provide
customisation of the site each time the user visits e.g. when you go to a website
several days after first viewing it; it remembers who you are or what you previously
viewed.
- Session cookies - those that are only stored in memory for
a single customer session. When the browser closes or the user logs off they are
destroyed and NEVER saved to disk.
CSAonline only uses the second type of cookies, session cookies.
They disappear from your computer system when you log-out of CSAonline and do not
collect or store any information about you.
This is similar to many online banking systems and other government agencies. They
are the most secure approach, with extra security added by strong encryption.
Are the cookies CSA uses malicious?
You may have installed monitoring software that can detect cookies. As the monitoring
software attempts to examine the contents of the cookie, it can’t as the cookie
is encrypted. The software may then lead you to believe the cookies are malicious
for this reason.
You can be assured that CSAonline cookies are not invasive. Your monitoring software
helpline should be able to confirm this.