Privacy Policy

Connect Business Systems

1. Who We Are

This Privacy Policy is issued by Connect Business Systems (ABN 68 658 126 939) of Ipswich Rd, Rocklea QLD 4106, Australia ("CBS", "we", "us"). CBS's brands are Connect Business (including the Connect Business directory), Connect Workshops, EngineersBook, TransportBook, ConnectBooks, Stage7 and DataForge. This policy applies to all of them and to every product we offer through them, whichever brand or domain you use.

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

2. The Personal Information We Collect

  1. Account information: if you have an account, your name, email address, phone number, job title, business details, password (stored only in encrypted form) and two-factor authentication settings.
  2. Business contact information: our services hold information about businesses and the people who work in them, such as names, job titles, business email addresses, business phone numbers and business addresses, including details we infer (see 3.3).
  3. Enquiries and communications: what you send us through forms, email, phone or messages, and records of our communications with you.
  4. Your business and your requests: what you tell us about your business and the problem you want help with, so that we can consider it and refer you to the right expert.
  5. Bookings: workshop and event bookings, attendance and follow-up calls.
  6. Payment information: billing details for paid services. Card payments are processed by our payment provider; we do not store full card numbers.
  7. Usage information: when you use our websites, your IP address, browser and device details, the pages you visit and actions you take, and an approximate location derived from your IP address.

3. How We Collect It

  1. From you: when you create an account, list a business, make an enquiry, buy a service or contact us.
  2. From public and commercial sources: business contact information may come from publicly available sources (such as the Australian Business Register, business websites and online business listings), from mapping and address services, from data suppliers, and from customers who provide business data to us to be improved.
  3. By research and inference: we research businesses, and use software and AI to fill the gaps in what we find. Some details we hold are therefore inferred from other information rather than copied from one source, such as a likely role, email address or industry. Inferred information is personal information like any other, and you can ask us to correct it.
  4. Automatically: usage information is collected by our websites as you use them, including through cookies.

4. Why We Use It

  1. To provide our services: running your account, publishing directory listings, considering your requests and referring you to experts, connecting businesses, running workshops and events, maintaining ConnectBooks rosters, and supplying and improving business data.
  2. To keep accounts and services secure, including sign-in verification codes and preventing spam, abuse and fraud.
  3. To process payments and manage subscriptions.
  4. To respond to enquiries and provide support.
  5. To understand how our websites are used and improve them.
  6. To publish aggregated statistics and anonymous expert summaries, including on public web pages. A statistic combines information from at least three businesses, and neither a statistic nor a summary names a business or a person or includes contact details.
  7. To tell businesses about our services where they are relevant to their work, using business contact details, including those a business publishes. Every marketing message includes a way to opt out, and you can also ask us to stop at any time using the contact details below.
  8. To meet our legal obligations.

5. Cookies

  1. Sign-in cookies keep you signed in. They end when you sign out, after a period of inactivity, or when the service is restarted or updated. If you choose "Remember me", you stay signed in on that device for up to two weeks, until the service is next restarted or updated.
  2. Analytics cookies record visits so we can see how our websites are used. We record visits ourselves, and on websites where we use Google Analytics, Google sets its own analytics cookies.
  3. Security checks: some forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to tell people from automated traffic, which may set its own cookies.
  4. You can block or delete cookies in your browser, but parts of our websites, including signing in, will not work without them.

6. Who We Share It With

We do not sell account information. We share personal information only as needed to provide our services, including with:

  1. service providers who help us run our services: email delivery (Google Workspace, Amazon Web Services), SMS delivery (Twilio), payments (Stripe), maps, address and place data (Google Maps Platform), security checks and website performance measurement (Cloudflare), website analytics (Google Analytics) and AI and data processing providers;
  2. other businesses, including experts, where our services exist to connect you with them, such as when you make an enquiry or request a connection;
  3. customers of our business data services, who may receive business contact information and must use it lawfully, including under the Spam Act 2003; and
  4. authorities, where the law requires it.

Directory listings you publish are visible to the public, and so are the aggregated statistics and anonymous expert summaries described in section 4.

7. Automated Decisions

  1. The kinds of personal information used: account information, business contact information, what you tell us about your business and your requests, booking and payment history, and usage information.
  2. The kinds of decisions: computer programs, including AI, help us decide whether to approve an account, which businesses to suggest or refer you to, whether to accept a business as an expert or publish a listing or a change to it, and whether to approve a refund.
  3. Decisions made by computer alone: any of these decisions may be made by computer programs, including AI, without a person taking part.

8. Overseas Disclosure

Some of our service providers store or process information outside Australia, including in the United States and other countries where they operate. We choose providers that take reasonable steps to protect personal information.

9. Security and Retention

  1. We protect personal information with measures including encrypted connections, encrypted password storage, two-factor authentication and restricted access for staff.
  2. We keep personal information while it is needed for the purposes above or as the law requires, and then delete or de-identify it.

10. Access, Correction and Deletion

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected, or to have it deleted. Account holders can update most of their details in their account settings. You can also ask us where we got information about you, and we will tell you unless that is impracticable. We will respond within a reasonable time and may need to confirm your identity first. We may keep information we are legally required to retain.

11. Contact and Complaints

For privacy questions, requests or complaints, contact us at [email protected]. We will acknowledge your complaint and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always on this page, with the date it was last updated.

Last updated: 2 November 2026
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