Privacy Policy (Draft)
This policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect personal information when a business uses Hey Marge to text its customers, or when you deal with us directly as a client business. It's written to be consistent with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). If a client business has turnover under A$3 million a year, it may not be strictly bound by the Privacy Act, we're choosing to follow it anyway as good practice.
1. Who this applies to
- Customers - anyone a client business texts quotes, reminders, invoices or review requests to using Hey Marge.
- Clients - the business owners (tradies, removalists, cleaners, pest controllers and similar) who pay for the Service.
2. What we collect
From customers, as part of a quote, booking or invoice:
- Name, phone number, suburb/address and a description of the job - only what's needed to send a quote, invoice or reminder.
- The text messages exchanged with the client business through the Service.
From clients, when they sign up:
- Business name, ABN, contact details, licence number (where relevant), service area, pricing and billing information.
We don't ask customers for anything beyond what's needed to action the quote, booking or invoice. We don't collect sensitive information (health, etc.) on purpose, though a customer might mention something in passing, if that happens, it's stored only as part of the job record and used only to understand the job, never for any other purpose.
3. How we use this information
- To send quotes, 24h booking confirmations, invoices, payment reminders and review requests, in the client business's own name.
- To follow up automatically if a quote or invoice goes quiet, on the schedule the client business has agreed to.
- To send the client business a summary of what's happening with their jobs.
- To improve Marge (e.g. reviewing message exchanges to fix mistakes or awkward wording), never to build a marketing profile of individual customers.
- To meet our own legal, accounting and dispute-resolution needs.
We do not sell personal information. We do not use customer data for advertising or share it with third parties for their own marketing.
4. Who we share it with
- The client business the customer is dealing with (that's the whole point of the message).
- Our service providers who help run the Service, the SMS/telephony provider, payment processor and hosting providers, only to the extent needed to operate the Service. These providers may process data on servers located outside Australia; we only use providers with reasonable security and privacy commitments, though this should be checked against APP 8 (cross-border disclosure) in the legal review.
- Law enforcement or other parties, only if required by law.
5. Data retention
- Job and message records are kept for {X months - confirm an actual figure before publishing} to allow for dispute resolution and quality review, then deleted or de-identified.
- Invoices and quotes sent to a customer are the client's own business record once sent; we don't control what they do with them after that.
- Client business/billing records are kept for as long as needed for accounting and legal obligations (commonly 7 years for financial records under Australian tax law).
- Customers can ask us to delete their record earlier, see section 7.
6. Security
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, including relying on our service providers' own security measures (encryption in transit, access controls). No system is 100% secure, and we can't guarantee against every possible breach, but we'll notify affected clients and, where required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and affected individuals, if a breach occurs that's likely to cause serious harm.
7. Access, correction and complaints
Anyone (customer or client) can ask us:
- what personal information we hold about them,
- to correct it if it's wrong, or
- to delete their record, subject to our legal retention obligations above.
Contact {business email} to make a request. We'll respond within a reasonable time (aim for 30 days). If someone's not happy with how we've handled their information, they can also complain to the OAIC (oaic.gov.au).
8. SMS messages and the Spam Act
Quote, 24h booking confirmation and invoice texts are transactional, about an existing job a customer already asked the business about, not marketing. Review requests and 12-month service reminders are treated as marketing-style messages under the Spam Act 2003 (Cth): every one of these carries the client business's identity and a clear, easy opt-out ("Reply STOP"). A customer who opts out of marketing-style messages still receives transactional messages about an active job unless they ask the business to stop entirely.
9. Children
This service is not directed at children and we don't knowingly collect information specifically from or about children beyond what a customer might mention incidentally during a normal job exchange.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The "last updated" date at the top will change, and material changes will be communicated to clients.
11. Contact
Questions or requests about this policy: {business email/phone}.