Privacy policy

Who we are

This policy covers Instant Energy Pty Ltd as trustee for the Progressive Plans Trust, trading as Progressive Plans (ABN 56 587 923 527), of 16 Bowling Green Lane, Avalon Beach NSW 2107. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean the studio.

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with and how you can reach it.

What we collect

We collect only what we need to answer you and to design your home. Depending on how you deal with us, that can include:

• Your name, email address and phone number.
• The address of your property and what you have in mind for it, such as the type of project, your brief, your budget and your timing.
• Information about your property that is publicly available, such as the planning controls the NSW Planning Portal publishes for your address.
• Our correspondence with you, notes of our calls and meetings, and the documents we prepare or receive for your project.
• Payment details, which are handled by our payment provider; we do not store your card details.
• How you use our website, collected by Google Analytics through cookies (see Cookies and analytics below).

How we collect it

• When you fill in a form on our website, such as an enquiry or a property report request.
• When you call, email or meet us, or book a time with us.
• From people you ask to deal with us for you, such as your builder, your agent or a referral partner, and from consultants, certifiers and councils working on your project.
• Automatically, when you visit our website.

How we use it

• To answer your enquiry and talk through your project.
• To prepare your property report, proposal and fee estimates.
• To design, document and lodge your project, and to coordinate the consultants, certifiers and councils involved.
• To invoice you and keep the records the law requires.
• To understand how people find and use our website, so we can improve it.

We use software tools, including artificial intelligence, to help us summarise and sort the enquiries we receive. A person at the studio reads every enquiry and makes every decision about it.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for marketing you have not asked for.

Phone calls

Calls to and from the studio run through our phone provider, Dialpad. We do not record calls. Dialpad transcribes them so we have an accurate note of what was discussed, and we say so at the start of every call to our main line. The transcript and a short summary are kept with our records of your enquiry or project, where only our team can see them.

If you would rather a call was not transcribed, tell us at the start and we will not transcribe it.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only as far as we need to, with:

• Consultants, certifiers, councils and builders working on your project, with your knowledge.
• The service providers that run our systems, such as website hosting, data storage, email, phone calls, payments, website analytics and the software that helps us summarise enquiries.
• Our accountants, insurers and lawyers, when we need their advice.
• Anyone the law requires us to tell.

Information held overseas

Our website, our database and our email are hosted in Australia. Some of our service providers process information overseas, in the United States and Japan. We choose providers that protect information to a standard similar to the Australian Privacy Principles.

Cookies and analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics, which places cookies in your browser to tell us, in aggregate, which pages are visited, how people arrive and whether an enquiry was sent. Google Analytics does not give us your name. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or use Google's opt-out add-on, and the website will still work.

How we keep it safe

We keep personal information in secure, password-protected systems that only our team can reach. We keep project records for as long as we need them for your project and for the periods the law and our professional obligations require, and then we delete or de-identify them.

Seeing and correcting your information

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is wrong. Email us and we will reply within 30 days. If we cannot give you access, we will tell you why.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question or a concern about how we have handled your information, please email hello@progressiveplans.com.au or call 02 9052 4825. We will look into it and reply within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the way we handle information changes. The date below shows the latest version.