Vision Super defends new but 'archaic' policy

Vision Super has defended a policy not to share member information to anyone it believes are located offshore, however the way in which the fund allegedly determines the location of an individual has caused a stir.

Lifestyle Solutions Financial Planning's Daniel Boce told Financial Standard he was surprised when his personal assistant - who is located in the Philippines - was denied information relating to a third-party authority sent to the fund.

Allegedly, a Vision Super representative declined to deal with the employee after asking where she was physically located.

Boce said when he rang the call centre to ask why the information was not given, he was taken aback by the answer.

"The staff member told me [Vision Super] had a new policy not to provide information to anyone offshore. I said that was ridiculous - half the practices in Australia use offshore staff to keep costs down, including licensees," Boce said.

"He told me the policy was introduced because they were worried about releasing information to offshore facilities that could be hacked."

When he enquired as to how the fund could police this, he claims he was told "one of the ways to identify if someone is offshore is whether or not they have an Australian accent."

Vision Super - which performs its own administrative services in-house - denied that it considers someone's accent when determining if they are located offshore. However, the super fund did confirm the new policy.

"Vision Super is committed to complying with the Privacy Act 1988. Australian Privacy Principle (APP) 8 outlines that before disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient, reasonable steps must be taken to ensure that the recipient does not breach the APPs in relation to that information," a Vision Super spokesperson told Financial Standard.

"To uphold these obligations, we have a standard operating procedure for all third-party authority interactions. Our Member Services team must verify the identity of the caller, the member in question, and the caller's location - onshore or offshore - for every enquiry.

"This is not based on an individual's accent, the procedure is every call, every time. If a caller confirms they are located offshore, Vision Super requests that a member of their onshore team contact us to complete the account-related discussion."

Looking at the Privacy Act, APP 8.19 also outlines that an entity may disclose personal information to an overseas recipient if the entity reasonably believes that the recipient is "subject to a law, or binding scheme, that has the effect of protecting the information in a way that, overall, is at least substantially similar to the way the APPs protect the information".

APP 8.21 adds that an overseas recipient may be subject to a law or binding agreement in the case that they are subject to an industry scheme or privacy code that is enforceable.

In this sense, Boce said regardless of allegedly determining whether an individual is on or offshore based on their accent, the policy is "ridiculous".

"It is an archaic policy to say, 'we're not going to deal with offshore staff'. How on earth does that protect Vision Super? If you've got offshore staff, I've got cyber insurance for all that type of stuff, there's no indemnity or liability to Vision Super because the clients have signed the form to give access," he said.

"I would understand it more if they said the policy was that the information needs to go to the adviser's email or the client's email first, then fair enough. But they would not give her any information. They refused to talk to her."

Boce said his staff member was "a bit upset" about the incident, which he labelled "just bizarre".

"I don't think they were rude, but maybe quite formal with her. This is not something she has come across before, so when you do it's understandable that someone might take it a little bit to heart," he said.

Financial Standard asked Vision Super if it had investigated the claim that a staff member said someone speaking with a "non-Australian accent" was a factor used to identify offshore personnel, but the fund declined to answer.