Terms of Service

  1. Youthrive Victoria (The Rural Foundation Ltd ABN 33 132 023 342) (we, us, Youthrive) operates the Rural Youth Network (RYN). The RYN is designed to help young people in rural and regional Victoria connect with other like-minded young people and share experiences and opportunities.
  2. These RYN Terms of Use apply to users (you) of the RYN. Users of the RYN must comply with these Terms of Use.

Collection

  1. Youthrive collects the information you provide to us or post on the RYN for the purpose of facilitating your participation on the RYN.  
  2. We need to collect certain information to allow you to join the RYN, including:
  • Name
  • Age
  • Email address
  • Town or region
  1. Because we take online safety seriously, we cannot allow users of the RYN to be anonymous.
  2. Because we want to grow our community to best support young people in rural and regional Victoria, we may use your email address you provide when creating an account to send you newsletters about our operations. 
  3. We will retain any reports or complaints made to RYN for a total of five years before we delete them.

Disclosure

  1. Generally, we do not disclose information that is posted on the RYN to other organisations. We will only disclose information as required by our legal obligations.  

Appropriate use

  1. The RYN is to be used for:
  • Connecting young people across rural and regional Victoria;
  • Sharing events in rural and regional areas for users to attend;
  • Sharing opportunities for training, volunteering and other youth programs; and
  • Creating groups and communities based on shared or similar interests.
  1. Only registered account holders can create, post or comment on content on the RYN.

Required behaviour

All users

  1. You must be at least 16 years old or older to create and have an account on the RYN.
  2. When creating the account, you must use accurate information and not create an account to impersonate another person without their permission.
  3. You must use the RYN for its intended purpose.  
  4. When you use the RYN, you must be respectful to all other users.
  5. Be thoughtful about other users before you post on the RYN.
  6. You must report any behaviour or content on the RYN which you reasonably believe is prohibited on the RYN reporting form.

Group or community creators

  1. If you have created a group or community, you will be responsible for:
  • monitoring the content posted on the group;
  • reporting any actual or suspected prohibited behaviour on the group; and
  • ensuring that the group is used in accordance with our Terms of Use.  

Prohibited behaviour

  1. You must not use RYN to:
  • cyber-bully another person;
  • harass and humiliate another person;
  • threaten another person;
  • discriminate against another person on the basis of their sex, gender, race, sexual orientation or disability;
  • commit a crime or encourage criminal activity;
  • impersonate another person without their consent;
  • deceive another person for your own financial or personal benefit;
  • inappropriately coerce, pressure or try to convince others to provide their contact details, or the contact details of other people without their consent;
  • do anything that is contrary to our values of [YouThrive to complete].
  1. You must not post prohibited content including:
  • offensive, abusive or explicit language and material;
  • hate speech;
  • violent or graphic content;
  • content encouraging self-harm;
  • content of a sexual nature including sexual exploitation or sexual abuse;
  • content which promotes or encourages crime or violence;
  • content promoting or encouraging drug use;
  • fake or deceiving events or opportunities; or
  • any other content that is contrary to our values.
  1. You must not:
  • encourage or assist another user to do any of the above;
  • create an account to impersonate another person;
  • gain access to or use another person’s account without their permission; or
  • post another person’s private or confidential information without their permission.

Reporting and complaint process

  1. We encourage RYN users to make a complaint or report a post, event, opportunity or other content that you believe:
  • is harmful to you or any other user; or
  • is prohibited behaviour or content as described above.
  1. You may also make a complaint about or report a user you believe is:
  • acting in a harmful or prohibited way; or
  • under the age of 16.
  1. All complaints and reports should made on the reporting page: https://www.ryn.org.au/create-report
  2. We recommend you also block the user if you do not want to see their content or be contacted by them.
  3. You may choose to report multiple posts or content.
  4. When we receive a complaint or report about a post, event or opportunity, we will take down the content as soon as reasonably possible.
  5. If the content relates to extremely harmful content such as content promoting child abuse, terrorism or violence and the report has indicated as such, we will remove the content within 24 hours of a report being made. Please ensure if the report or complaint is about this kind of material, you tick the correct box, so we are notified of the higher risk associated with the material you are reporting.
  6. We will then review the complaint or report and decide whether the content should remain removed from the site.
  7. The reporter will not be able to see the identity or account of the person who reported them. We will not disclose the identity or account of the person who has made a report to any other user, unless required to due to an investigation or similar process.

Potential consequences

  1. If we find content you have posted has breached our Terms of Use, we will take down the content from RYN as soon as reasonably possible.
  2. We may choose to temporarily suspend your account if we reasonably believe you:
  • have posted harmful content to the RYN; or
  • have breached our Terms of Use on multiple occasions;
  • which, in the opinion of RYN, is in breach of these Terms of Use and likely to cause harm or offence to other users; or
  • are under the age of 16.
  1. We may also take reasonable steps to prevent a user whose account has been permanently deleted from creating a new account.
  2. In the most extreme case, we may also be required to report the content and the user who posted the prohibited content to Victoria police or other relevant authorities. Examples of extreme cases will include child abuse material or pro-terror material where we believe there is a serious threat to a person or their safety.
  3. When providing a report, we may be required to provide your full name, date of birth and email as registered on the account to Victoria police or other relevant authorities.
  4. If you have breached our Terms of Use, there may be further consequences to your engagement with Youthrive and our other programs.
  5. If we find that the content posted has not breached our Terms of Use, we will allow the content to remain on the website.
  6. There will be no consequences for a user who has reported content unless we believe the user has made multiple reports in bad faith.

Data security

  1. We host the RYN on an Australian cloud service.
  2. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit.

Inactivity

  1. If your account has not be accessed over a 12 month period, your account may be deleted.

Contacting us

  1. You can contact RYN via the below details:
  1. If you have questions about how Youthrive handles your personal information, please address your correspondence to the Privacy Officer.
  2. If you have a complaint about how we have handled a report, please send an email to info@youthrivevic.org.au.
  3. Your complaint will not be handled by the same person who handled your original report.
  4. We will assess the handling of the report in accordance with our legal obligations.
  5. We will notify you of the outcome of the investigation within a reasonable timeframe.

Review

  1. We will review our Terms of Use annually and may make changes as often as we believe is reasonably necessary.
  2. Users are bound by the current version of the Terms of Use as updated from time to time.

Youthrive Victorias Collection Statement

Your personal information is being collected by The Rural Foundation (T/as Youthrive Victoria), info@youthrivevic.org.au, 85 Albert St., Creswick Vic. Tel: 03 6281 8303. The primary way we collect your information is via event and/or program registration and application forms.

The purpose of collecting your personal information is to assess your suitability or eligibility to participate in a Youthrive Victoria program as well as to enable Youthrive Victoria to exercise its duty of care towards you. Without accurate personal information Youthrive Victoria may not be able to make fully informed decisions that may affect you.

Your personal information will be disclosed to staff and program volunteers only on a need-to-know basis. Youthrive Victorias Office Manager/Company Secretary will be provided with the original of this form for safe storage. It is not likely that your personal information will be disclosed to any overseas recipients.

Please refer to Youthrive Victorias privacy policy for information on how to access, complain or request an amendment of your personal information.