Terms and Conditions – Creating your USI or accessing your USI account

To create your USI or before you can access your USI account you must tick the box where it says ‘I agree to the terms and conditions’.

It is important that you understand and agree to these terms and conditions before using the USI Registry System.

The full terms and conditions are detailed below.

Privacy

The personal information that you provide to the Student Identifiers Registrar is protected by the Privacy Act 1988. The collection, use and disclosure of your USI is protected by the Student Identifiers Act 2014. Further information about the protection of your information, including how you can access and seek correction of your personal information held by the Student Identifiers Registrar, how to make a complaint about a breach of your privacy and how such complaints are handled, is contained in the Student Identifiers Registrar's Privacy Policy.

Privacy notice

The information provided by you through the USI application process:

• is collected by the Student Identifiers Registrar for the purposes of:
  • processing my application for, verifying and giving a USI;
  • resolving problems with a USI, and
  • creating authenticated VET transcripts;
• may be disclosed to:
  • Commonwealth and State government departments and agencies, Boards of Study, and specified Higher Education and VET-related bodies for:
    • the purposes of administering and auditing VET and Higher Education, including education and training providers, VET programs, and higher education courses
    • education related policy and research purposes; and
    • to assist in determining eligibility for education and training subsidies, funding or financial assistance;
  • VET and Higher Education Regulators to enable them to perform their VET and Higher Education regulatory functions;
  • VET Admission bodies for the purposes of administering VET and VET programs;
  • Tertiary Admission Centres (TACs) for the purposes of administering Higher Education courses;
  • current and former registered education and training providers to enable them to deliver VET and Higher Education courses to meet their reporting obligations under the VET and Higher Education standards and government contracts and assist in determining eligibility for training subsidies and higher education funding;
  • schools for the purposes of delivering VET courses and reporting on these courses;
  • the National Centre for Vocational Education Research for the purpose of creating authenticated VET transcripts, resolving problems with USIs and for the collection, preparation and auditing of national VET statistics;
  • researchers for education and training related research purposes;
  • any other person or agency that may be authorised or required by law to access the information;
  • any entity contractually engaged by the Student Identifiers Registrar to assist in the performance of his or her functions in the administration of the USI system; and
• will not otherwise be disclosed without consent unless authorised or required by law.

Personal information

The Student Identifiers Act 2014 authorises the Student Identifiers Registrar to collect personal information about you. When you apply for a USI you will be asked to provide some personal information without which a USI cannot be assigned to you. This will include:

• your name, including first or given name(s), middle name(s) and surname or family name or one name if you have just one
• your date of birth
• your city or town of birth
• your country of birth
• your gender
• your contact details.

The reason that you are asked to provide personal information is to ensure that your USI is correctly assigned to you and so that, if you forget your USI, the Student Identifiers Registrar can easily provide it to you if you need it.

Before the USI is assigned to you, you must activate the USI account by setting password and check questions. This ensures that your USI information is protected from unauthorised access.

Identification

When you apply for a USI or update your personal details on your existing USI account, you will also need to verify your  identity through the USI Registry System using the Document Verification Service (DVS) or a Digital Identity. You can choose to provide your identity information from a range of documents including your Australian passport, non-Australian passport (with Australian visa), Australian birth certificate, Australian driver’s licence, Medicare card, certificate of registration by descent, citizenship certificate or ImmiCard.

The information you provide as evidence of your identity in your application will be checked automatically by the document issuing agencies (for example, Medicare Australia).

If you do not have any of these identity documents available, please contact your training organisation for assistance.

International Students

When you apply for a USI or update your personal details on your existing USI account, you will also need to verify your identity through the USI Registry System using the Document Verification Service (DVS) or a Digital Identity. This will enable us to:

• confirm your Visa status
• determine whether you have landed in Australia and have gone through customs. 

Note: if the fact arises that you are not entitled to be in Australia, the Commonwealth may use this information to locate you.

Disclaimer

The Student Identifiers Registrar:

• strives to protect information you provide on the USI Registry System. We will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that the USI Registry System and your information are not compromised. However, we cannot guarantee that no Harmful Code will enter the USI Registry System. You should be aware of the risks associated with using systems or websites.
• recommends that you use appropriate and up-to-date firewall and anti-virus software to protect your computer systems.
• advises that if you experience a problem or loss that is caused by the information you send to or via the USI Registry System, your computer being compromised in some way or by something beyond our control, we cannot take responsibility for causing the problem. We will do our best to help you if we can.
• advises that where connection to a system or website outside our control compromises the objectives of the USI Registry System we may sever links to that system or website.

Definitions

• Harmful Code: any form of harmful surreptitious code or other contaminants, including viruses, bugs, trojan horses, spyware or adware.
• Loss: loss, damage, cost or expense (to any person or property) including consequential or indirect loss or any loss of profits, data or revenue.
• You and your: the user of the USI Registry System.
• Our, us and we: the Student Identifiers Registrar.

Security statement

The Student Identifiers Registrar will make every effort to ensure that:

• the data you give us will be safe
• your data is stored at a secure facility
• regular backups of data are performed to ensure it can be recovered in case of a disaster
• all access to the system is logged
• if any unauthorised behaviour occurs, the logged data will assist us in identifying and resolving the issue.

Protecting your computer

You should:

• install and activate security software on your computer
• ensure your security software includes anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall and anti-spam filter
• run regular scans of your computer for viruses
• remember to update your security software to ensure you are always running the current version.

Other steps you should take help protect your computer include:

• check your Internet browser’s security settings for ways to make your browsing more secure
• do not open email attachments if you do not know the sender
• only download files from reputable websites
• be wary when exchanging files with colleagues or friends
• never click on hyperlinks in emails received from unknown sources.

Protecting your password

You should:

• never share your password with anyone
• never send your password via email
• make sure your password is as strong as possible
• change it periodically.

Accessibility

Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Australian Government agencies are required to ensure information and services are provided in a non-discriminatory accessible manner.

The Student Identifiers Registrar website and the USI Registry System have been designed to meet the Australian Government standard established in respect of this requirement.

The USI Registry System is currently compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 1 (WCAG 2.0) standard. WCAG 2.0 is a technical standard developed under the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

If any information or service provided by the Student Identifiers Registrar is inaccessible to you or you are experiencing problems accessing content for any reason, please look at our accessibility page or contact us.

False or misleading information

Giving false or misleading information in relation to your USI account is a serious offence under Division 137 of the Criminal Code Act 1995.

Report any suspicious or unauthorised activity

Please contact us to report any suspicious or unauthorised activity relating to your USI or the USI Registry System.