Privacy Policy

The short version

If you only read one section, read this one. The detail below does not contradict it.

• You can use the whole site without telling us who you are. Personal information is only collected if you fill in a form.
• We use your email address to send the thing you asked for, and then occasional emails about suburb costs until you unsubscribe.
• We never pass your details to a mortgage broker unless you tick a box asking us to. We record the wording you agreed to and when.
• If you do ask for a broker introduction, the broker may pay us a referral fee. That costs you nothing and we do not recommend lenders or loan products.
• We do not sell personal information, and we run no advertising.
• Analytics and session recording run on this site. Form fields are masked, so what you type is not recorded.

Our obligations

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

A small business with turnover under $3 million is often exempt from the Privacy Act. We do not rely on that exemption. One reason is practical: we think a site that asks for your details should be accountable for them regardless of its size. The other is legal: the exemption does not apply to a business that discloses personal information about another individual for a benefit, and our mortgage broker referral arrangement is exactly that.

Being anonymous

Every cost figure, comparison, council rates page, calculator and article on SuburbCost works without an account and without giving us your name. There is no login and there are no passwords.

You only need to identify yourself for two things: having a report emailed to you, and asking to be introduced to a mortgage broker. Both are optional, and the second is never a condition of the first.

What we collect, and when

When you ask for a suburb report

Your email address, your first name if you choose to give one, the suburbs on your shortlist, and whether you are looking at a house or a unit. The first name is optional and the report works without it.

When you ask to be introduced to a mortgage broker

Your first name, email address, phone number if you give one, your suburb shortlist, the state those suburbs are in, whether you are looking at a house or a unit, and when you are looking to buy or move. You may also tell us how you plan to pay, which is optional.

We also record that you ticked the consent box, the exact version of the wording you were shown, and the time you submitted it. That record exists so that if the wording is ever questioned, we can show precisely what you agreed to rather than what the page says today.

When you ask to be told about rate rises

Your email address, and which council or topic you asked about.

With any of these requests

The first time you give us your email address, we also record the page you sent the request from, the first page you opened on that visit, and how you reached the site, such as the search engine or website that linked to us, or "direct" if you typed the address. We use this to see which pages and sources lead people to ask for a report. It is not updated on later requests.

When you just read the site

Your approximate location, device type, browser, which pages you visited, how long you stayed and how you arrived. This comes through analytics and is covered in its own section below. Our host also keeps standard web server logs, which include your IP address.

What we deliberately do not collect

No payment details pass through this site. We do not ask for your address, your income, your date of birth, your employer or any government identifier. We do not ask what you can borrow or what you earn, because we are not licensed to act on that and have no use for it.

The report page has a field where you can enter where you work, and a field for your land valuation. Neither is sent to us. Both are used in your browser to recalculate the figures on your screen and are gone when you close the tab.

Why we collect it

To send you the report or update you asked for. To make the report relevant to the suburbs you chose. To introduce you to a mortgage broker, if and only if you asked us to. To understand which parts of the site are useful and which confuse people. To keep the site running and to investigate faults.

We do not use your information to build a profile of you, to score you, or to make any automated decision about you.

Who else sees your information

The services below process personal information on our behalf. Each one receives only what it needs.

That is the complete list. We do not run advertising, so no advertising network receives anything through this site. We do not sell personal information, and we do not trade, rent or share it for anyone else's marketing.

We may also disclose personal information where the law requires it, for example in response to a court order.

Mortgage broker referrals

Nothing about a broker happens unless you ask. The offer appears after your report is generated, the consent box is unticked, and the form cannot be submitted without ticking it. Our server independently refuses any submission that does not carry consent, so a lead cannot reach us by any other route.

If you ask for an introduction and go on to use the broker, the broker may pay us a referral fee. This costs you nothing and does not affect your interest rate, your loan or the terms you are offered.

We make an introduction and nothing more. We are not a credit provider, we are not licensed to give credit or financial advice, and we do not recommend lenders or loan products. The broker is separately licensed and is responsible for any advice they give you. You are never obliged to proceed.

If you change your mind after submitting, email us and we will tell the broker to delete your details. We cannot undo a conversation that has already happened, but we can stop it going further.

Information sent overseas

Most of the services above are in the United States, as the table shows, and MailerLite also stores data in the European Union. Sending your information to them is a cross-border disclosure under Australian Privacy Principle 8.

Two are not. Supabase, which holds SuburbCost Pro data, is hosted in Sydney, and the mortgage brokers we introduce you to operate in Australia. Pro data and broker referrals stay onshore.

We choose providers that publish their own privacy and security commitments, and we take reasonable steps to ensure they handle your information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles. We cannot control what a foreign government may lawfully compel a provider in its jurisdiction to disclose.

Marketing emails

If you give us your email address to get a report or an update, we will also send you occasional emails about suburb running costs and changes to the site. That is the arrangement, and it is stated at the point you give us your address.

Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link and we honour it immediately. You can also email us and ask to be removed. We do not need a reason.

Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop a report you have already requested from being delivered.

Analytics and session recording

Google Analytics records which pages are visited, roughly where from, on what kind of device, and how people move through the site. IP addresses are anonymised before storage. You can opt out across all sites using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Microsoft Clarity and PostHog additionally record session replays and heatmaps: pages viewed, clicks, scrolling and mouse movement. This is how we find the parts of a page where people give up.

Form fields are masked in both tools. Your name, email address and phone number are not captured in a recording. Recordings are not linked to your name or email address, and we do not use them to identify individual people.

Cookies

Google Analytics sets cookies to tell returning visitors from new ones and to group page views into sessions. These do not identify you by name.

Our own site sets one cookie, sc_land, holding the first page you opened on a visit and how you reached the site. It is deleted when you close your browser, and it is only stored with your details if you then ask for a report or an update.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The site works normally without them, and no feature is withheld if you refuse.

SuburbCost Pro

SuburbCost Pro is a separate paid tool for property professionals. If your agency uses it, we store your agency's details, its logo, and the reports it generates in a database we operate through Supabase.

A Pro report can carry a client's name, entered by the agency so the report can be addressed to them. If you are that client, we did not collect your name from you. Your agency gave it to us to produce a document for you, and your agency decides how long it is kept. If you want it removed, ask your agency, or contact us and we will deal with it directly.

Pro report data is not used for marketing, is not combined with anything from the public site, and is never passed to a broker.

How long we keep things

Email addresses stay on our list until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. An unsubscribed address is retained only as a suppression record, so that we do not email you again by accident.

Consent records for broker referrals are kept for seven years after the referral. That is deliberately longer than we would otherwise hold the data: the whole point of a consent record is to be able to produce it if the referral is ever questioned, and deleting it early would defeat that.

Analytics and session recordings expire on the schedules set by Google, Microsoft and PostHog, which are measured in months rather than years. Server logs are kept short term for fault diagnosis.

Keeping it secure

The site is served over HTTPS. Credentials for the services above are held as encrypted environment variables and are not in our source code. There is no login and no password for the public site, so there is no password of yours to lose.

No security is absolute, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. What we can say is that the amount of information we hold about any one person is deliberately small, which limits what any failure could expose.

If there is a data breach

If personal information we hold is lost or disclosed without authorisation, and it is likely to cause you serious harm, we will tell you and notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.

We will tell you what happened, what information was involved, and what you can do about it. We will not wait for certainty before warning you if waiting would leave you exposed.

Seeing and correcting what we hold

You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you by emailing contact@suburbcost.com.au. We will respond within 30 days, and there is no charge.

If something is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.

If you ask us to delete your information, we will do it within five business days, except where we are required to keep it. A broker referral consent record is the main exception, and we will say so plainly rather than quietly keeping it.

If we refuse a request, we will tell you why in writing and explain how to complain.

Complaints

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, email contact@suburbcost.com.au with "Privacy" in the subject line. Tell us what happened and what you would like us to do.

We will acknowledge your complaint within five business days and respond substantively within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can take the complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which handles privacy complaints in Australia, at oaic.gov.au or 1300 363 992. You do not need our permission to do this.

Children

SuburbCost is a property research tool for adults making property decisions. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe we hold information about a child, tell us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

When we change how we collect or use personal information, we update this page and change the date and version at the top. Past versions are kept in our source control history, so a specific version can always be produced.

If a change materially affects you, we will say so in an email rather than relying on you noticing a new date.

Contact

Privacy questions, access requests and complaints: contact@suburbcost.com.au

SuburbCost
ABN 29 765 906 768
Bowen Hills QLD 4006
Australia