AFL and AFL Clubs Privacy Policy

1. Who are we

This Privacy Policy covers the Australian Football League (ABN 97 489 912 318) (AFL) and each of the 18 AFL Clubs listed in paragraph 11 of this Privacy Policy (AFL Clubs). When used in this document, depending on the context, "we," "our" and "us" refers to AFL and/or the AFL Clubs.

AFL Clubs may collect, use, store and disclose your personal information in connection with products and/or services that are conducted independently of the AFL and that sit outside the scope of this Privacy Policy. In those circumstances, the AFL Club will make you aware of the privacy terms applicable to such collection, use, storage and disclosure at the point of collection of your personal information.

2. About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy provides information about how the AFL and AFL Clubs collect, use, hold, disclose and otherwise handle your personal information. Personal information is information that identifies you or could reasonably identify you.

Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to complying with all applicable privacy laws and standards in the handling of your personal information, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and applicable privacy laws in other jurisdictions (e.g. the European General Data Protection Regulation).

Protecting personal information is fundamental to the AFL’s and AFL Clubs’ relationship with our supporters, employees, players and business partners. All personal information received in connection with an AFL or AFL Club product or service, or in the conduct of the AFL’s or AFL Clubs’ business, is therefore treated seriously, having regard to the AFL’s and the AFL Clubs’ legal obligations and commitments under this Privacy Policy.

3. Consent

By providing us with personal information, you consent to that information being collected, used, disclosed and stored in accordance with this Privacy Policy and any additional privacy collection notice. If you do not give personal information to us, it may affect our ability to provide you with products and/or services.

4. How is personal information collected

Subject to applicable laws and where it is practicable for us to do so, you have the option to engage with the AFL and/or AFL Clubs, or to lodge a privacy complaint, on an anonymous basis or using a pseudonym. The AFL and AFL Clubs will only collect your personal information where it is reasonable to do so.

Generally, we will collect personal information directly from you via your use of the products and services on offer, use of AFL Online, if you apply for a position with us, any registration you make to participate with or receive information from us (including registration and/or participation in Australian football matches and competitions) and any business relationship between you and us (including via email). 

If you are under the age of 18, we will collect your personal information from a parent or legal guardian. A person under the age of 18 should only use AFL Online with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian and should not register with AFL Online or otherwise provide us with any personal information without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

“AFL Online” refers to the AFL website with its top-level domain located at http://www.afl.com.au/, all related sub-domains and any other AFL website (including any AFL Club website) that provides an AFL and AFL Club product, AFL or AFL Club service or AFL-related product or service including related mobile applications.

Information from third parties

During the course of business, the AFL and AFL Clubs may also collect personal information that is given to them by a third party (for example, from or on behalf of corporate partner of the AFL or AFL Clubs or information that is on a publicly maintained record). This information forms part of the personal information described in this Privacy Policy.

We may also receive information about you from third parties in relation to other websites. For example, you may choose to participate in a third party application or feature as part of our services (such as logging in through Facebook or otherwise linking to the services from another website or interactive service) or on a third party website or service through which you allow us to collect (or the third party to share) information about you, including personal information. When you choose to participate, you may be opting to link your activity on AFL Online services with that third party website or service, which may then collect information about your visits to AFL Online and may publish that activity as you request to your "profile" or similar feature with that third party (such as if you choose to share content you find on AFL Online with your "connections" on the third party's website or service).

The personal information we collect is subject to this Privacy Policy. However, the personal information collected and stored by the third party remains subject to the third party's privacy practices, including whether the third party continues to share information with us or with other third parties, the types of information shared, and your choices with regard to what is visible to others on that third party's website or service. The third party may allow you to remove the application or feature, in which case we will no longer collect information about you through the application or feature, but we may retain the information previously collected. In addition, we may receive information about you if other users of a third party website or service give us access to their profiles and you are one of their "connections" or information about you is otherwise accessible through your "connections'" web page, profile page, or similar page on a social networking or other third party website or interactive service.

5. What personal information is collected

The personal information which the AFL and AFL Clubs may collect and hold includes:

• your name, age and/or date of birth, residential, billing and/or shipping address, email address, gender, ethnicity and/or cultural heritage, occupation, telephone number(s) and the AFL Club you support;
• information on your dealings with us in relation to our offers, products and services, (e.g. club of support, or membership or ticketing history), or your participation in competitions, promotions, activities and programs administered by the AFL or AFL Clubs; and
• opinions and beliefs provided via surveys and questionnaires.

In addition, you may also provide to us and we may collect and hold additional personal information, such as:

• your credit card information; and
• details of the items ordered or purchased from us.

We also may collect additional non-personally identifiable information (for example, browser version, IP address), regarding your general use of AFL Online.

The AFL will not collect information about you which is considered ‘sensitive information’ under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (such as racial or ethnic origin, health information, religious beliefs or affiliations, sexual orientation or practices) unless:

• you specifically consent to such disclosure;
• collection is required or authorised by applicable privacy laws; or
• the AFL is specifically permitted to do so under the AFL Rules, Regulations or the AFL and AFLW Collective Bargaining Agreement, including for health, medical and anti-doping testing purposes and investigation of disputes.

 

6. Personal information security and storage

The AFL and AFL Clubs will take reasonable steps to protect all personal information within their direct control from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. The AFL and AFL Clubs will take reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form in access controlled premises or in electronic databases requiring logins and passwords.

Wherever reasonably practicable, the AFL and AFL Clubs will store personal information on data servers that are owned and/or controlled by the AFL and AFL Clubs and are located within the geographical borders of Australia and require their third party service providers to do the same. However, some of your personal information may be transferred, stored, processed, used or disclosed overseas by the AFL or AFL Clubs, or by the AFL's or AFL Clubs' third party service providers. In particular, at the date this Privacy Policy was most recently updated, your personal information may be disclosed to recipients in the USA, Central America, South America, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Singapore and Japan.  

This may happen if our service providers are located overseas, or if transactions, information, services or products have an overseas connection. Where such parties are located overseas, you may have rights to enforce such parties' compliance with applicable data protection laws, but you may not have recourse against those parties under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) in relation to how those parties treat your personal information. 

You agree to the disclosure and use of such personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and consent to its disclosure overseas and its use by third parties, including our service providers, in the USA, Central America, South America, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Singapore, Japan and such other countries in which those parties or their computer systems may be located from time to time, where it may be used solely for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.  Where the AFL and AFL Clubs use cloud computing services we will use our reasonable endeavours to ensure that such disclosures are in compliance with Australian privacy laws.

Except where we are otherwise required to retain your personal information in accordance with applicable laws or court order, we will destroy or permanently de-identify your information when it is no longer needed for any purpose for which the information was disclosed. You can also request deletion of your personal information from our databases by contacting us using the contact details set out in paragraph 10. Please note however, that in fulfilling a deletion request, you may no longer be able to receive some AFL and/or AFL Club products and services

7. Use and disclosure of personal information

The AFL and AFL Clubs collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the primary purpose of administration of Australian football competitions and conduct of its related business operations, without limitation:

• to verify your identity;
• to improve AFL Online;
• to facilitate AFL, AFLW, state and territory league and community competitions and programs;
• to provide, and to assist us with providing, products and services to you (including in respect of conduct of AFL matches), to manage and account for the products and services, and to improve the products and services;
• to manage AFL and AFL Club’s relationship(s) with you;
• to facilitate the internal business operations of the AFL and the AFL Clubs;
• to undertake research and data analysis in order to improve AFL and/or AFL Club products and services (such as by anonymised data matching against AFL and/or AFL Club partner data sets);
• to enable AFL and AFL Club corporate partners and sponsors as well as their related bodies corporate, to market and promote their products and services to you (provided always that you have consented to receive marketing communications from those partners);
• to provide to our third party service providers in connection with any of the above;
• to monitor compliance with AFL rules and regulations;
• where your personal information is disclosed to us in connection with wagering activities conducted by the AFL’s approved wagering partners, to protect and maintain the integrity of Australian football matches and competitions administered by the AFL; and
• management of our sites and events.

The AFL may disclose your personal information to AFL Clubs, and AFL Clubs may disclose your personal information to the AFL.  Where you provide your personal information directly to one AFL Club, although it may be disclosed to the AFL, that personal information will not ordinarily be shared with a different AFL Club.  However, there may be some circumstances where this personal information is shared between AFL Clubs.  For example:

• if, in a transaction you purchase merchandise relating to two AFL Clubs, that transaction may be disclosed to both AFL Clubs;
• from time to time, the AFL and/or AFL Clubs may share your personal information (or subsets of information you have disclosed to us) with each other via a secure environment for data analysis in order to improve AFL and AFL Club products and services, provided always that your information will be used in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy; and
• we may also use your personal information in conjunction with artificial intelligence and/or machine learning tools to facilitate our internal business functions and in order to improve AFL and AFL Club products and services.

Where it is reasonably practicable for us to do so, the AFL will provide you with details of the primary purpose of collection of your personal information at the time that your personal information is collected.

We will only use your personal information for the primary purpose it was collected, a related secondary purpose, in accordance with any additional consent you have given to us, or otherwise in accordance with applicable laws.

Direct Marketing Communications

The AFL and AFL Clubs may use your personal information for the secondary purpose of sending you information, including promotional material, about the AFL or AFL Clubs, or the AFL or AFL Clubs' products and services, as well as the products and services of AFL or AFL Club partners (Direct Marketing Communications), provided that, prior to sending you a Direct Marketing Communication:

• the AFL and/or AFL clubs have collected your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy;
• you would reasonably expect your personal information to be used or disclosed for the Direct Marketing Communication;
• the AFL and or AFL/Clubs have provided a clear and simple way for you to ‘opt-out’ of receiving the Direct Marketing Communication; and
• you have not opted out of receiving the Direct Marketing Communication.

Where you would not reasonably expect us to use your personal information for Direct Marketing Communications or your information has been collected from a third party (e.g. an AFL or AFL Club partner, vendor or supplier), the AFL and/or AFL Clubs may only use your personal information for Direct Marketing Communications if:

• you have expressly consented to the use or disclosure of your personal information for Direct Marketing Communications by ‘opting-in’ to receiving those communications via one or more of direct mail, email, SMS, MMS messages, social media, telephone, or during registering an AFLiD account, or it is otherwise impracticable for us to seek your consent before use for those purposes;
• you have not advised us that you do not wish to receive any Direct Marketing Communications;
• in any Direct Marketing Communications you receive from us, there is a clear and simple way for you to ‘opt-out’ of receiving those Direct Marketing Communications; and
• any Direct Marketing Communications you receive from us contain the AFL and/or AFL Club (as applicable) contact details, including business address, telephone and email addresses.

Opt-out/unsubscribe

If we send you Direct Marketing Communications in accordance with this Privacy Policy, you can opt-out at any time by using the “unsubscribe” or other similar feature included on all electronic Direct Marketing Communications.

If you have a registered AFLiD account, you can also update your marketing preferences via your AFLiD account settings and unsubscribe from distribution lists for particular AFL and/or AFL club products you no longer wish to receive.

Alternatively, you can easily unsubscribe at any time you want to our Direct Marketing Communications by contacting us using the contact details specified in paragraph 10 of this Privacy Policy. Once such a request is received, we will ensure you are unsubscribed from applicable mailing lists within 5 business days.

For the avoidance of doubt, by opting–out or unsubscribing yourself from a mailing list of an AFL or AFL Club product or service, this will ensure your removal from that particular mailing list but will not guarantee your removal from all other AFL or an AFL Club mailing lists that you may have previously subscribed to and which may store your details separately as a result of your engagement with those other services or products

Sharing personal information with third parties

We engage third parties to perform services in connection with the operation of our business. Examples of these services include ticketing services in connection with AFL/AFL Club events, payment processing and authorisation, fraud protection and credit risk reduction, product customisation, order fulfilment and shipping, marketing and promotional material distribution, website evaluation, AFL and AFL Club fan data research and analysis and, where applicable, data cleansing.

We may need to share personal information with these third parties so that they can perform these services, however, we limit the personal information that we give to them and authorise them to use this information only for the purpose of performing those services.

We may share elements of personal information collected pursuant to this Privacy Policy in aggregated form (such as demographic information about AFL/Club fan bases) with and as between the AFL and AFL Clubs, and their partners, agents, agencies or third party vendors so that they can provide marketing analysis and consult on advertising strategies. This information does not identify individual users. We also may share non-personal information, such as the number of users who visited AFL Online during a specific time period or who purchased a specific product through the website, with our marketing partners, advertisers and others from time to time. This information generally is shared in an aggregated form.

The AFL and AFL Clubs will not otherwise disclose personal information without your permission, unless the disclosure is:

• in accordance with this Privacy Policy, a privacy collection notice, or any other agreement you enter into with us; or
• required or authorised by law, including without limitation the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

 

8. Accessing AFL Online

You are not required to disclose your identity to the AFL or any AFL Club in order to visit AFL Online, but you may voluntarily disclose personal information (including by registering an AFLiD Account in connection with AFL Online, and related AFL and AFL Club products and services). However, the AFL or AFL Club internet server may automatically record details about any computer used to access AFL Online (such as the IP address, domain name and browser type), the date and time of access, and details of the information downloaded. This information is used for internal statistical purposes and to improve AFL Online.

Cookies

The AFL or AFL Clubs may use “cookies” on AFL Online. A cookie is a small text file that AFL Online may place on your computer. Usually, cookies are used as a means for our websites to remember your preferences and are thus designed to improve your experience of AFL Online. Cookies may collect and store personal information about you.

You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent.  Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

If you disable the use of cookies on your web browser or remove or reject specific cookies from our website or linked sites, then you may not be able to gain access to all of the content and facilities on AFL Online.

Website analytics

When you visit and browse AFL Online, our website host and some third party service providers may collect information for statistical, reporting and maintenance purposes.

This information is used to administer and improve the performance of AFL Online and will not be used to identify you.  The information may include:

• the number of users visiting our website and the number of pages viewed;
• the date, time and duration of a visit;
• visiting patterns of individuals accessing AFL Online;
• the IP address of your computer; and
• the path taken through our website.

The AFL or AFL Clubs use website analytic services to help analyse how you use AFL Online (Website Analytics). Website Analytics generate statistical and other information about website use by means including but not limited to cookies which are stored on users' computers. The information generated is used to create reports about the use of AFL Online. Our third party providers of these services may store this information. The AFL or AFL Clubs will not (and will not allow any third party to) use Website Analytics to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to AFL Online. The AFL or AFL Clubs will not associate any data gathered from AFL Online with any personally identifying information from any source as part of the AFL's or AFL Clubs' use of Website Analytics.

The AFL and AFL Clubs treat personal information that may be obtained through cookies and any other information supplied to us (for example if you send us an email) in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Links

 

AFL Online may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices. 

9. Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme

In the event of any loss, or unauthorised access or disclosure of your personal information that is likely to result in serious harm to you, the AFL and/or AFL Clubs will investigate and notify you and the Australian Information Commissioner within 72 hours of becoming aware of an actual or suspected unauthorised access or disclosure in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

10. Contacting us regarding access, correction and privacy complaints

The privacy laws of some jurisdictions give individuals the right to access, amend or delete their personal information or, in some circumstances, to restrict or object to the processing of their personal information.

Information we hold about you should be up-to-date and accurate. If you have an AFLiD account, you can access and update your personal information in connection with that account registration via your account settings.

Alternatively, you can advise the AFL of any changes to your information using the contact details set out in this paragraph 10.

An individual may:

• request access to and seek the correction of their personal information held by the AFL and/or AFL Clubs at any time;
• request the AFL to identify the source of personal information that the AFL and/or AFL Clubs uses for direct marketing purposes or have otherwise shared with their partners for direct marketing purposes in accordance with this Privacy Policy;
• make a complaint in relation to an alleged breach of privacy; or
• submit a query or concern about this Privacy Policy or the AFL or AFL Clubs' information handling processes,

by contacting the AFL by email at privacy.officer@afl.com.au or the relevant AFL Club’s Privacy Officer by email at the corresponding address below:

 

Alternatively, you may write to the AFL via AFL Privacy Officer, AFL House, 140 Harbour Esplanade, Docklands, Victoria 3008 or telephone on 03 9643 1999.

Access

You will be required to provide proof of identity in order to obtain access to your personal information. If you would like to request a copy of your personal information, or would like to take steps to exercise your rights, please contact us as set out in this paragraph 10. The AFL may charge an administration fee where access is provided. The AFL may refuse to provide access if permitted to do so by law.  The AFL will provide access to your personal information within 30 days of a valid request.

Complaints

If you have a complaint in respect of the AFL’s or an AFL Club’s use of your personal information, you can contact the AFL by email at privacy.officer@afl.com.au or the relevant AFL Club by email using the contact details set out in this paragraph 10 to raise that complaint.

At all times, privacy requests and complaints:

• will be treated seriously;
• will be dealt with promptly;
• will be dealt with in a confidential manner; and
• will not affect your existing obligations or affect the commercial arrangements between you and the AFL.

The AFL’s or AFL Club’s Privacy Officer will commence an investigation into your complaint.  You will be informed of the outcome of your complaint within a reasonable period of time following completion of the investigation. If we are unable to resolve your complaint or you are unhappy with the outcome, you can contact the Office of Australian Information Commissioner via its enquiries line 1300 363 992 or website http://www.oaic.gov.au/ to lodge a formal complaint.

11. AFL Clubs

For the purpose of this policy, “AFL Clubs” means the following:

Adelaide Football Club Limited ACN 008 101 568;

Brisbane Bears – Fitzroy Football Club Limited t/a Brisbane Lions Australian Football Club ACN 054 263 473;

Essendon Football Club ACN 004 286 373;

Carlton Football Club Limited ACN 005 449 909;

Collingwood Football Club Limited ACN 006 211 196;

Fremantle Football Club Limited ACN 066 055 249;

Geelong Football Club Limited ACN 005 150 818;

GCFC Limited ACN 144 555 822;

Western Sydney Football Club Limited ACN 130 190 242;

Hawthorn Football Club Limited ACN 005 068 851;

Melbourne Football Club Limited ACN 005 686 902;

North Melbourne Football Club Limited ACN 006 468 962;

Port Adelaide Football Club Limited ACN 068 839 547;

Richmond Football Club Limited ACN 065 563 011;

St Kilda Saints Football Club Limited ACN 005 174 836;

Sydney Swans Limited ACN 063 349 708;

West Coast Eagles a division of Indian Pacific Ltd ACN 009 178 894; and

Footscray Football Club Limited t/a Western Bulldogs ACN 005 226 595.

12. Updates to Privacy Policy

We may vary this Privacy Policy from time to time, by posting an updated Privacy Policy accessible via the AFL and AFL Club websites.  This Privacy Policy was last updated in August 2025.