SXSW Sydney Privacy Policy

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WE RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY

At SXSW Sydney, the security of personal information that we collect is important to us. SXSW Sydney collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we handle your personal information, we are regulated by various Privacy Laws, including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and the Data Protection Act 2018 (and incorporated General Data Protection Regulations) (which applies to data in the United Kingdom) (GDPR).

You can find information about how we handle and manage your personal information in this Privacy Policy. Our aim is to provide this information to you in an open and transparent manner, so you can make informed decisions about your dealings with us. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we manage your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer.

We may update or revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. You can find the most current version on our website (www.sxswsydney.com/privacy-policy) or ask our Privacy Officer for a copy.

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WHAT KINDS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND HOLD?

The kinds of personal information that we collect will vary depending upon our interaction with you but may include:

your SXSW Sydney account username;
your name contact details (eg, telephone number, address and email address);
information you provided as part of your registration (eg, your job title, career level, organisation, industry, age group and photo);
transaction details relating to any purchase(s) that you have made by you or on your behalf;
credit card details, if you make a purchase with us or choose to have these stored in your online SXSW Sydney account to make the checkout process faster;
any preferences that you indicate to us;
your opinions about SXSW Sydney and the activities of our affiliates;
information regarding your attendance at SXSW Sydney events;
recruitment information (eg, your CV); and
any other personal information which may be required in order to facilitate your dealings with us.

We may also collect sensitive information about you such as:

if choose to share the information with us as part of a talent application or onboarding process and applications, your racial or ethnic origin, indigeneity, sexual orientation, membership of a professional or trade association, and/or membership of a political association; and
if you make an application to purchase credentials with accessible seating via SXSW Sydney, health information as required to assess your application for accessible seats and to manage future accessibility credentials purchases. We will only handle this data for the purpose of making accessibility arrangements and with your consent. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time.

Our services are neither directed nor intended for use by minors under the age of 16. SXSW Sydney does not knowingly collect personal information of such minors. Do not access or use SXSW Sydney's services if you are under the age of 16 unless you have the consent of your parent or guardian. We recommend reading the information relevant to the event(s) you are attending, to ensure you meet the minimum age requirements for that event.

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HOW DO WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Generally, we collect personal information when you:

make a purchase through us (eg, over the phone or via our website);
register your details on our website, mobile site or SXSW Sydney app;
participate in a survey, competition, promotion or marketing campaign;
make a submission via the SXSW Sydney Submissions Portal;
indicate that you wish to receive news, offers or other marketing material from us;
register to receive event specific updates from us;
make an inquiry or a complaint;
attend a SXSW Sydney event (eg, when we scan your credentials);
provide your business card to us at an event;
have dealing with us as a representative of your company or a government agency;
when you apply for a role with SXSW Sydney; and
have other dealings with us, for example, via social media or in person, over the phone or when you write to us.

Sometimes we collect personal information about you from other sources, for example:

our related companies which include TEG Pty Ltd, Ticketek Pty Ltd, TEG Dainty Pty Ltd, TEG Live Pty Ltd, Ovation Research Pty Limited, Eventopia Pty Ltd, St Jerome’s Laneway Pty Ltd, Handsome Tours Australia Pty Ltd, and our affiliates and any entities that may in future become part of the SXSW Sydney group of companies (“Group Companies”) or in which SXSW Sydney may have an interest;
agents who we engage to act as on our behalf to sell credentials to the SXSW Sydney;
people making a purchase on your behalf;
our business clients and partners;
persons and entities that represent you or promote your participation in SXSW Sydney events, such as your agent, industry bodies, and foreign embassies and consulates;
third party suppliers and contractors who assist us to operate our business such as:

information technology suppliers;
marketing and digital services suppliers;
research and development organisations;
data partners;
analytics consultants; and

publicly available sources of information.

In certain circumstances, we may also collect personal information about you in the course of combining and analysing different data sets which, in and of themselves, may not contain personal information.

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WHETHER INFORMATION HAS TO BE PROVIDED BY YOU, AND IF SO WHY

The provision of personal information (such as your name, address, email address, phone number etc.) is required from you to enable us to tailor communications and ensure you are up to date with information regarding any credential or event.

Where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will give you the option at the point of collecting information from you, of not providing personal information, or of using a pseudonym, when you deal with us. If you don't provide us with the personal information requested or the information provided is incorrect or incomplete, this could impact the level of service we are able to provide to you. For example, we will not be able to contact you in the case of an event cancellation or venue change, or your credentials may not be able to be matched to your name.

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HOW DO WE HOLD PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We may hold your personal information in electronic or hard copy format or a combination of both. This personal information may be combined or linked with other information held about you, or linked with other information held about or which we attribute to you, including:

information (personal or otherwise) that we collect from our website and mobile site (eg, using cookies) or from third parties; and
personal information we receive from our Group Companies and client businesses, who, in common with us, have a relationship with you and where we understand that you have consented to such Group Companies and client businesses sharing your personal information with us.

We have taken a number of physical, electronic and procedural steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. SXSW Sydney employs tools such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and virus scanning tools to protect against unauthorised persons and viruses from entering our systems. Our employees are required, as a condition of their employment, to treat personal information held by us as confidential, and to maintain the confidentiality of that personal information. They are also required to use a login and password when accessing our systems and to undertake training about how to manage personal information.

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WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE MAY COLLECT, HOLD, USE AND DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Generally, we only use personal information for the primary purpose for which we have collected it, or for another related secondary purpose. Those purposes include:

to process and fulfil your purchase with us;
to contact you if there is an event cancellation or change in event details, or for the replacement of lost credentials or other goods;
to get a better understanding of you, your needs, your behaviours and how you interact with us in order to identify ways in which we can provide you with a better service, or enhance your experience of our website and mobile site or other services;
to manage your dealings with us as a SXSW Sydney participant;
to evaluate your application as a SXSW Sydney speaker, performer or participant;
where you have consented to this, to allow us and our Group Companies and affiliates to promote products and services to you (including the products and services of third parties that we deal with);
where you have consented to this, for event networking purposes between participants;
detecting and preventing fraud and unauthorised on-selling of credentials or other goods;
for business research and the development of new products and services;
to facilitate the competitions, special offers and promotions that we or our partners run;
to display content and advertising that is customised to your interests, preferences and experiences, including through online targeted marketing, data and audience matching and market segmentation activities;
to verify your identity;
for the conduct of data analytics and predicting trends;
for marketing services in connection with the products and services we, our Group Companies and our partners provide;
accommodating your accessibility needs;
to assess your suitability for employment or service provision;
so that we can respond to inquiries and complaint handling;
to ensure the safety and security of attendees at our events; and
to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and enforce our legal rights.

The SXSW Sydney website uses cookies as a collection tool along with personal information that you share with SXSW Sydney to tailor marketing to your interests, deliver the goods/services you purchase from SXSW Sydney, and to enhance and customise your experience on the SXSW Sydney websites and at events.

Sometimes we will produce aggregated data. We may also receive aggregated data from third-party suppliers and contractors or business customers. This aggregated data does not identify individuals. We use, and may combine, the aggregated data we produce and receive for research purposes and in connection with products and services we provide to our business clients.

From time to time, there may be other purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information. We will tell you about these at the point of collection.

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MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES

As set out above, we may use personal information about you for marketing and research purposes. You can manage your SXSW Sydney communication and marketing preferences in a number of ways, eg within your SXSW Sydney account, or you can tell our Privacy Officer at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing material from us. In addition, the marketing communications that we send to you may contain information on how to unsubscribe from those communications.

You can also tell us at any time if you do not want us to disclose your details to other organisations such as our related companies or third parties for marketing purposes. To do this, you just need to contact our Privacy Officer.

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REASONS WE CAN COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We require a lawful basis for processing your personal information in relation to the processing in question.

The primary lawful basis we use is that the processing is for the purposes of legitimate interests of us or a relevant third party (such as the operation of our business and to provide the tailored services you would expect from a leading event for creative discovery and to prevent and detect fraud). For example, we would rely on this basis in order to provide you with services such as to process any credential or other purchase you may have made with us, and to contact you if there is an event cancellation or change in event details, or for the replacement of lost credentials. We may also rely on an additional basis that the processing in question is necessary for the performance of a contract for which you are a party or relates to steps taken at your request to enter into such a contract.

We rely on consent as a lawful basis where we require this in order to lawfully market you and to pass your data to third parties (such as venue operators, promoters and event partners) to allow them to do so. Where we are relying on your consent you are entitled to withdraw your consent for the processing in question at any time. Otherwise, we rely on our legitimate interests to process your personal information for marketing and promotional purposes.

We may also process your personal information where needed to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

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WHO MIGHT WE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO?

We may disclose your personal information:

to venue operators and event partners of the event for which you purchased or received credentials. We may disclose your personal information to such organisations for operational purposes. If you consent, these organisations may use this information to provide you with promotional and marketing material about the event via email. You may change your preference to receive email marketing at any time directly with the organisations which have obtained your information. If you do not have their details, you can contact our Privacy Officer directly;
to third party contractors and service providers who help us operate our business or provide a service to you. We may disclose your personal information to third party contractors and service providers who, for example, help us operate our computer systems, provide us with fraud prevention services, operate certain features accessible from our website, send out our mail/email and clean collected data and who perform data analysis to group demographic attributes of individuals. Such persons may include:

Ematter Technologies Pty Ltd to manage ticketing, registrations, credential access and access into SXSW Sydney app feature;
Hootsuite Inc to manage social media;
Braze Australia Pty Ltd to manage marketing communications;
Brella Ltd, Inc for talent, sponsor and session listings on our website and app and networking features within the SXSW Sydney app;
Amazon Web Services Australia Pty Ltd, for data and digital services (eg, a chat bot);
Snowflake Inc, for data storage;
Loadin Pty Ltd, for the collection of participant information relevant to SXSW Sydney events;
Work Perfect Group Pty Ltd for Monday.com session management and curation;
Microsoft for Microsoft 365 for file storage, and email;
The Appointment Group (Australia) Pty Ltd for travel bookings and related services;
Workable for the purpose of recruitment; and
Restly, Inc. for submission made through Fillout;

to other event participants if you have opted in to certain networking features on our SXSW Sydney app or at events;
to individuals and organisations that assist us in evaluating your application as a SXSW Sydney speaker, performer or participant.
to event partners, venue operators, sponsors and promoters if they require this information to fulfil or administer services to you;
to authorised onsellers of credentials or other goods or services who (unless they obtain a separate consent from you) use it for operational purposes only, for example, to provide you with additional information about the event or venue that you are attending;
to our Group Companies and affiliates (eg, SXSW LLC) and their contractors and service providers (such as data management providers). We may disclose your personal information to these organisations to enable them to provide products and services to you and for the purposes of ensuring that information collected is accurate, complete and up to date, producing anonymised and aggregated information for the benefit of our Group Companies, and enabling us and our Group Companies to better understand and meet your needs and interests;
persons and entities that represent you or that are involved in your participation in SXSW Sydney events, such as your agent, industry bodies, and foreign embassies and consulates;
enforcement agencies, such as the NSW Police and Federal Police, as part of safety and security measures or as legally required; and
to any third party in connection with the sale or transfer of our business.

Otherwise, we will only disclose your personal information:

where we are required to do so by law;
if the disclosure is permitted under Privacy Laws, including the APPs, or the GDPR (as it applies); or
if you have consented to the disclosure.

We also send de-identified (hashed) information to performance media platforms (including but not limited to Meta, LinkedIn, Snapchat, X, Reddit, Snapchat, Google - YouTube, DV360, Google Ads, Pmax).

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DO WE DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION TO OVERSEAS RECIPIENTS?

Some of the recipients to whom we disclose personal information may be located overseas, most likely in the England, Finland, Canada, United States of America, Japan and New Zealand.

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HOW LONG YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WILL BE KEPT?

We will only keep your personal information for (a) until it is no longer needed to fulfil the purpose for which the information can be used or disclosed (eg, as long as is reasonably required to provide services to you and to keep you informed in accordance with your communication preferences selected in your SXSW Sydney account); and (in any event) (b) for as long as we are required to do so for legal, accounting or tax purposes. For more information on our data retention periods please contact our Privacy Officer.

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YOUR RIGHTS

Your rights under Privacy Laws will vary depending on your location.

In Australia, under the APPs, you have a right to request access to the personal information that SXSW Sydney holds about you and seek its correction. You may be able to correct some of your personal information through the SXSW Sydney app. Otherwise you can contact our Privacy Officer. We aim to respond to requests for access or correction within 30 days. There are certain situations under the Australian Privacy Principles where we may refuse to provide you with access to or correct your personal information, but we will always let you know in writing if this is the case.

In the UK, under the GDPR, you have the right to:

fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information that this Privacy Policy is already designed to address;
access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information;
require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold;
require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations;
receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations;
object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing;
object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you;
object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information; and
otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

In either location, you also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time where we are relying on your consent as the legal basis for our processing (eg, direct marketing).

SXSW Sydney may, in its absolute discretion, extend rights provided under the GDRP to you regardless of your location. However, this is not a legal requirement.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided at the bottom of this policy;
let us have enough information to identify you by sharing your name and email address that you hold an account with; and
let us know the information to which your request relates for example, an order confirmation ID or the date and details of your transaction.

If you would like to unsubscribe from any marketing emails you can follow the information included in your marketing email as to how to unsubscribe from those communications (eg, click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of the marketing email). If you have created a SXSW Sydney account, this will direct you to your account unsubscribe page which can also be visited at any time to unsubscribe from marketing emails. It may take up to four working days for this to take place.

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COMPLAINTS AND HOW TO CONTACT OUR PRIVACY OFFICER

Our Privacy Officer can be contacted by:

e-mail at privacy@sxswsydney.com
letter to GPO Box 1610, Sydney NSW 2001.

If you feel that we are not complying with this Privacy Policy, the APPs or the GDPR, please put your concerns in writing and send them to our Privacy Officer by one of the methods set out above.

We will always endeavour to investigate your complaint and respond to you as soon as practicable after receipt, generally within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may refer the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or the Information Commissioner’s Office, as applicable.

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Last updated 11 April 2025

*SXSW Sydney means SXSW Sydney Pty Ltd (ACN 661 937 980).