Your privacy, in plain words

You do not have to give us any personal information to come to a Bring Your Bills event. Just turn up. This page explains, in plain words, what we ask for, why we ask, and what we do with it.

If you tell us you're coming

There's a form on this website called "Let us know you're coming". It's completely optional — it just helps us work out how many staff and interpreters to book. You are just as welcome if you never fill it in.

• Your name, phone and email are all optional. You can tell us you're coming without giving any of them.
• If you do give us your phone number or email and tick the box that says we can contact you, we may send you a message about upcoming Bring Your Bills events. That's the only reason we'd use it.
• If you don't tick that box, we won't contact you about future events at all.
• You can change your mind any time. Email byb@secl.org.au and say "please stop contacting me", and we will.
• What you tell us about the kind of help you need (energy, water, phone, or not sure) helps us invite the right services. It's a short tick-list, not a form about your money situation.
• Only SECL staff see any of this. It never goes on the website.

What we write down on the day

So we can keep these events running and show the people who fund us that they work, the workers who help you write down a short note about the kind of help you got — for example "help with an energy bill", or "referred to a lawyer". It's a tick-list on a phone or tablet, and it takes about twenty seconds.

• It has no name, phone number, address, or bills in it. Nobody reading it later can tell it was you.
• You can ask the worker not to write anything down. Just say so. You'll get exactly the same help either way — it makes no difference to us.
• We use it to count how many people we helped and with what, so we can plan the next event and report to our funder.
• If you'd rather ask about this in person, the concierge desk at the front of any event can explain it.

Who can see your information

• SECL staff — the people organising the event.
• The worker who helps you, and their own organisation, for the note described above.
• Nobody else. We don't sell it, we don't advertise with it, and we don't hand it to anyone who isn't helping you.

Like most websites, ours runs on services other companies provide — the forms and the website itself are hosted by companies called Netlify and GitHub, and the information you send is stored with a company called Supabase on computers in Sydney. Because of how the hosting works, information you type into a form passes through servers in the United States on its way to being stored in Australia. Our map page loads its map pictures from OpenStreetMap, which means they can see the internet address of anyone looking at the map.

How long we keep it

• Your name and contact details: deleted automatically once you haven't been to one of our events for 5 years. If you keep coming along, we keep them — so we're not asking you for the same details over and over.
• The anonymous note from the day: the written comments are cleared after about 18 months. The plain counts are kept longer for reporting, but there's nothing in them that points to you.
• Ask us sooner if you like. Email byb@secl.org.au and we'll delete your details straight away, without waiting.

Your choices, any time

Email byb@secl.org.au or ask at the concierge desk, and you can:

• See what we hold about you.
• Fix anything that's wrong.
• Have it deleted.
• Tell us to stop contacting you.

You don't need to give a reason, and it will never affect the help you get.

No tracking

This website has no accounts and no advertising trackers. We don't use cookies to follow you around the internet. We do count how often buttons like "Get directions" get clicked, so we know which parts of the site are useful — that's a count only, with nothing about who clicked.

If you're a service or partner organisation

If you register your service to attend an event, we keep your name, organisation, email and (if you give it) mobile so we can organise the day with you. Your organisation's name, logo and "how we can help" summary appear on this website's public event listing — email us if you'd like them changed or taken down. Your own contact details are never published. Full details are in the providers & partners guide.