Privacy policy

Who we are

The Energy Community and Supports (ABN 81 673 236 943) is a registered NDIS provider based in the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, working across the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay. We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, by the NDIS Practice Standards and the NDIS Code of Conduct, and by Queensland law on health and personal information.

This policy is about our website and the first contact you make with us through it. Once you become a participant, the information we hold about your supports is covered by the privacy and consent documents we go through with you in person, which are more detailed and specific to you.

What we collect through this website

When you send an enquiry

The enquiry form asks for your name, phone number and email address, who you are enquiring as (a participant, a family member or carer, or a support coordinator), the area you live in, the kind of support you are asking about, and anything you choose to write in the message box.

You decide what goes in the message. You do not need to include your NDIS number, your diagnosis or anything about your health to get an answer from us. If you do include health information, we treat it as sensitive information under the Privacy Act and handle it accordingly.

When you call us

If you call 1300 410 145 we may take a note of your name, number and what you asked so the right person can call you back. We do not record calls.

When you browse

Like almost every website, ours records basic technical information about visits: the pages viewed, the type of device and browser, the general region a visit came from, and the site or search engine that referred you. This is collected through Google Analytics and is described below. It does not identify you by name.

Why we collect it

• To answer your enquiry and, if you ask, to arrange a first conversation or a referral.
• To work out whether we are the right provider for what you need, and to tell you if we are not.
• To meet our record-keeping obligations as a registered NDIS provider.
• To understand which pages of the site are useful and which are not, so we can improve them.

We do not sell personal information, we do not share it with marketers, and we do not use it for any purpose you would not expect from a disability support provider.

Where your enquiry goes

When you press Send enquiry the form is delivered by email to our office inbox, hello@theenergy.au, and is read by our directors and office staff. It is not stored in a database on this website. Our email is hosted by Microsoft 365.

The form includes a hidden field that ordinary visitors never see; automated spam software fills it in, which lets us discard those submissions without emailing anyone. Nothing about you is collected by that field.

Cookies and analytics

This website uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits and understand how people move through the site. Google Analytics sets cookies (named _ga and _ga_…) that give your browser a random identifier so repeat visits can be counted as one visitor. We have IP addresses anonymised and we do not use Google Signals or advertising features. We record whether a visit was referred by an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, in the same way we record referrals from Google, so we know which channels people find us through.

Our hosting provider’s caching and content-delivery layer may set short-lived technical cookies needed to serve pages quickly and to protect the site from automated abuse. These are not used to track you.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and the site will still work. The Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on is available from Google if you prefer to opt out of Analytics everywhere.

Who else sees your information

We use a small number of service providers to run this website and our office: our web host (Hostinger), Microsoft (365 for email), Google (Analytics for site statistics), and the NDIS systems we are required to use as a registered provider. Each of them handles data under their own privacy terms and only for the purpose we engage them for. Some of these providers store data outside Australia, including in the United States and Europe.

We will disclose personal information without your consent only where the law requires or permits it: for example, a reportable incident under the NDIS rules, a serious risk to someone’s safety, or a lawful request from a court or regulator.

How long we keep it

Enquiry emails from people who do not go on to become participants are deleted within twelve months. If you do become a participant, your information becomes part of your support record, which we are required to keep for seven years after our services to you end, or longer for children.

Keeping it secure

This site is served over HTTPS, the form only accepts submissions from this site, and access to the office inbox is limited to staff who need it and protected with two-factor authentication. No system is perfectly secure; if we ever became aware of a breach that was likely to cause you serious harm, we would tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as the law requires.

Your rights

You can ask us at any time what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email hello@theenergy.au or call 1300 410 145. We will respond within thirty days, and there is no charge.

If you are not happy with how we have handled your information, tell us first and we will try to put it right. You can also complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or, about anything to do with your NDIS supports, to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission on 1800 035 544.

Children and young people

Some of our supports are for children and young people. Enquiries about a child should come from a parent, guardian or authorised representative, and we will confirm that before discussing anything specific. Where a young person is able to make their own decisions about their information, we respect that.

Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and change the date at the top. We will not apply a change to information we already hold in a way you would not reasonably expect without asking you first.

Contact

The Energy Community and Supports
Sunshine Coast, Queensland
hello@theenergy.au · 1300 410 145