Website Information

Accessibility

Townsville City Council (TCC) websites aim to be as inclusive as possible, especially with users who may use assistive technologies.

Additionally, our site has been:

• Tested with various diagnostic and evaluation tools, and we are constantly striving to improve the way content is accessed.
• Developed to display adequately on all commonly used browsers.
• Designed to suit a minimum screen size of 1024 by 768 pixels.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 compliance

Wherever possible, we follow the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative Guidelines and TCC is in the process of formulating policies for our website in order to improve accessibility.

Where practical, the WCAG 1.0 have been addressed, and endeavours, where possible, to meet the requirements of WCAG 2.0. TCC has incorporated a process of subjective assessment regarding which of the current Guidelines are still appropriate or applicable.

Disability and Languages

Council recommends using a third party screen reader or translation service for people with a disability or if English is a second language.

Online Payments

When you choose to make an online payment here on our website, you will be redirected to our payments provider, BPOINT*, for the completion of your transaction. Council does not view, store or retain any of your credit card details.

We do provide alternative methods of payment, including face to face, telephone, mailing and paper forms if you are uncomfortable with transmitting your payment online.

* Please refer to section below for supported Internet browsers

Internet Browsers

Please note that from 22 April 2018, Internet browsers that use TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 will no longer be supported by BPOINT to ensure compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS).

You will need to be using one of the below versions of your preferred Internet browser in order to make online payments via BPOINT:

Recognising a secure site

A "secure" area is recognised by the closed padlock or an unbroken key coming into view in the bottom status bar in your web browser. You can also check to make sure that a valid site certificate is being used. A site certificate is used to validate a site's authority to use SSL and authenticates the website's state of security. This enables you to check the site's validity yourself. You can do this by double clicking on either the closed padlock or the unbroken key.

As the Internet is essentially a large global network of computers, owned by many different individuals and businesses, there are no definitive regulations, legislation or security mechanisms in place to protect personal information sent via the Internet from misuse by third parties.

Conditions of Use, Notices and Revisions

If you choose to visit our website, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Notice and our legal information, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the law of the State of Queensland. If you have any concerns about privacy whilst visiting our website, please send a thorough description to Information technology Services, Townsville City Council, 103 Walker St, Townsville 4810. Please check our website frequently to view recent changes.

For further information about your privacy, please visit the Right to Information page or view our Information Privacy Policy.

Privacy and Security

Council is committed to protecting your privacy. This notice describes our privacy policy.

By visiting our website, you are accepting the practices described in this Website Privacy and Security Statement.

View our Information Privacy Policy.

For the purposes of this statement, personal information refers to any information that may enable the identification of an individual visitor to the website.

• Information Privacy Brochure (PDF, 184.9 KB)
• Information Privacy - Frequently Asked Questions (PDF, 111.1 KB)

For more information and to access a range of useful privacy protection resources, visit the Office of the Information Commissioner’s website.

Collection of personal information

As a visitor to our website, you will not be required to disclose personal information to visit or browse our site unless you voluntarily choose to do so, for example by making a payment, emailing us or choosing to complete a survey.

When you visit our website, the following information is recorded for the purpose of gathering statistics, in order to monitor usage of the website and provide the optimum online service to our customers:

• Your IP address
• Your operating system (e.g. Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Mac OS X)
• Your browser type, including version (e.g. IE8 - 10, Firefox 3.6)
• The date and time of your visit
• Pages accessed and files downloaded
• The time spent on individual pages and the site overall

This information gathered by us as a result of your visit to our website will not be used in any way to identify individual users. The information gathered (outlined above) helps us continually improve your experience while visiting our site.

Any personal information will only be stored in the event that you voluntarily provide it to us, such as making an online payment, the completion of an online survey or form, by submitting an email enquiry or maintenance request. This information will be used for the purpose for which it was provided and will not be disclosed to other persons or organisations without your prior approval or if authorised or required by law.

Pages or applications on the our website that require you to voluntarily disclose personal information are governed by the following collection notice.

Collection notice

Townsville City Council (Council, we, our, us) collects and manages personal information in the course of performing its activities, functions and duties. We respect the privacy of the personal information held by us. The way in which council manages personal information is governed by the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld). We are collecting your personal information in accordance with Local Government Act 2009 so that we can provide the services, functions and business of Townsville City Council. Except in specific circumstances, we will not disclose your personal information outside of Council unless we are required to do so by law, or unless you have given us your consent to such disclosure.

Where we collect your personal information you will be provided with a specific collection notice outlining the relevant legislation and the purpose for which we are collecting your details within the scope of the Information Privacy Act 2009. For further information about how we manage your personal information please see our Information Privacy Policy.

Automatic information (“Cookies”)

To improve your experience on our site, we may use 'cookies'. Cookies are an industry standard and most major web sites use them.

A cookie is a small text file that our site may place on your computer as a tool to remember your preferences. Our website uses Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers in the United States. Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. We use reports provided by Google Analytics to help us understand website traffic and webpage usage.

Social and ad-serving tracking cookies may also be used to track both members and non-members of social networks for additional purposes such as behavioural advertising, analytics, and market research.

Although most browsers automatically accept cookies, you can choose whether or not to accept cookies via your browser's settings (often found in your browser's Tools or Preferences menu). You may also delete cookies from your device at any time. However, please be aware that if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to fully experience some of our web sites' features.

External websites

From time to time, our website may direct you to external websites which we believe may enhance your experience or provide additional information. Council may not have control over the content on these sites and advises you to view the relevant privacy and security statements for those sites. Linking to the website does not necessarily mean that council endorses that site or any of its content or affiliates.

PDF documents

Where possible, TCC has provided information on the website as HyperText Markup Language (HTML) based content or other equally accessible formats. In some cases, however, we do have a range of resources and documents that are provided most efficiently as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.

PDF is the open standard for electronic document distribution worldwide. Adobe PDF is a universal file format that preserves all of the fonts, formatting, colours, and graphics of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. Adobe PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with the free Adobe Acrobat Software.

Adobe offers a number of resources to aid in accessing PDF documents including an online conversion of PDF documents to plain text or HTML documents, as well as providing free downloads of Adobe Reader.

Where documents are above a file size of 1MB, the file size will accompany the link to that file. All documents exceeding 4MB in size will be accompanied by a disclaimer. Large files above 4MB are recommended for download only by a broadband connection. All documents can be viewed in person by contacting council. Where practical, links to PDF documents will also be accompanied by a file type icon and (PDF).

Maintaining documents in PDF format has been employed by TCC due to the nature of the documents, and the requirement for preserving their integrity.

Scanned Acrobat documents

For technical reasons and to meet some legal requirements, this website provides some PDF documents that cannot be provided in HTML or plain text, and subsequently are not accessible via screen reader software. These are usually scanned hard copy documents that have been submitted to TCC and may also contain a large number of images and diagrams. In most instances, hard copies of these documents are available from Council and this information is provided on relevant pages.

For more information on PDF document accessibility, please go to Adobe's website.

Other Legal Information

Website Disclaimer

Whilst we have made every reasonable effort to ensure all the information contained within this site is both accurate and current, users should contact council if they have any concern in relation to information presented. Council does not accept any liability for any statements or opinion, or for any errors or omissions contained within this site. All users accessing the site are responsible for assessing the relevance and accuracy of its content. Links to other web sites are provided purely for convenience and do not constitute endorsement of any material contained within these sites.

No reliance should be placed on information contained or to be implied or inferred from this website without checking out the details with an authorised officer of Townsville City Council.  We reserve the right to monitor all use of its computer systems and communication networks through authorised Systems Administrators.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

The information contained herein is the property of the Townsville City Council. Information may be downloaded, displayed, printed and copied in an unaltered form only. It is not to be distributed or used for commercial purposes without the written permission of the Chief Executive Officer of the Townsville City Council. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved.

Trademark

All Trademarks displayed on this site are subject to the legal rights of Townsville City Council or the other Trademark owners and the unauthorised use of any Trademark displayed on this site is strictly prohibited.

Contracts

This site may only be used for lawful purposes and Council reserves the right to deal or refuse to deal with any user.  No contract will be made or deemed to be entered into unless confirmed in writing by Townsville City Council.