This privacy policy applies to all Personal Information collected by Wait Mate Foundation Limited (ACN 694 143 274) (We, Us or Our) through any website, subdomain, form or service we operate, including waitmate.org.au, sa.waitmate.org.au, and any page we use to take donations or bookings (together, the Website).
1. What information do We collect?
The kind of Personal Information that We collect from you will depend on how you use the Website. The Personal Information which We collect and hold about you may include:
- Your first name;
- Your email address;
- Your mobile telephone number;
- Your child’s (or children’s) or guardian’s (or guardians’) first name(s) and surname initial(s);
- The names of the school(s) attended by your child (or children) or guardian (or guardians) and applicable year group(s); and
- Your until-year commitment selection.
- If you donate: your name, email address, phone number and the amount donated. Card details are handled by our payment provider and are not held by us.
- If you subscribe to our newsletter: your name, email address, and your role if you tell us.
- If you book an information session: your name, email address, phone number if you give it, the school your child attends, and the number of seats booked.
2. Types of information
The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) defines types of information, including Personal Information and Sensitive Information.
2.1 Personal Information
Personal Information means information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:
- whether the information or opinion is true or not; and
- whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.
If the information does not disclose your identity or enable your identity to be ascertained, it will in most cases not be classified as “Personal Information” and will not be subject to this privacy policy.
2.2 Sensitive Information
Sensitive Information is defined in the Privacy Act as including information or opinion about such things as an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional body, criminal record or health information.
We will not collect any Sensitive Information.
3. How We collect your Personal Information
- We may collect Personal Information from you whenever you input such information into the Website, related app or provide it to Us in any other way.
- We may also collect cookies from your computer which enable Us to tell when you use the Website and also to help customise your Website experience. As a general rule, however, it is not possible to identify you personally from Our use of cookies.
- Where reasonable and practicable We collect your Personal Information from you only. However, sometimes We may be given information from a third party, in cases like this We will take steps to make you aware of the information that was provided by a third party.
4. Purpose of collection
- We collect Personal Information to run the service and to keep in touch with you. Specifically, we use it to:
- set up and manage your commitment, and connect you with other committed families in your child's year group;
- process donations, issue receipts, and meet our record-keeping obligations;
- manage bookings for information sessions;
- send you news and updates, if you have asked us to; and
- publish statistics about participation, in a form that does not identify anyone.
5. Sharing with other committed families
Wait Mate works by connecting families who have made a commitment for the same year group at the same school.
When you make a commitment, we email you the first name and last name initial of the children whose parents or carers have also committed for that year group at that school. Your child's first name and last name initial are shown to them in the same way, including to families who commit after you.
We do not share your child's surname, contact details, photograph, date of birth, class, or any other information about them. We do not publish your own details either: your name, email address and phone number are not shown to other families. Your year group has a shared email address, and how addresses work there is explained in the next section.
We are not able to verify that everyone who makes a commitment is a parent or carer at the school they nominate. Schools hold enrolment records; we do not, and they are not available to us for checking sign-ups.
We take a number of steps to protect the families who take part. Everyone who commits must confirm that they are the parent or carer of the child. Every commitment is visible to the rest of the year group, so a name that families don't recognise can be reported to us, and we take that commitment off the list while we check it. We apply limits on where commitments can be made from and how many schools can be added to one account. And we keep what we share to a minimum: a first name and an initial, with no contact details, so a list can't be used to reach a child.
You can delete your commitment at any time through Manage your commitment. When you do, your child's first name and last name initial are removed from the list and your commitment is no longer counted in the year group total. Deleting your commitment stops your child's name appearing in future emails, but we cannot recall emails that have already been sent.
6. Your year group's group email
When you make a commitment, we also add you to a group email address for your child's year group at that school. It lets you reach the other committed families without anyone having to hand out their email address.
Members can't see each other's email addresses, and we don't publish a member list. If you send a message to the group, the families who receive it will see the address you sent it from, so it's worth keeping that in mind before you post.
You can leave the group at any time by unticking "Year group email" in Manage your email preferences, and keep your commitment. You'll also be removed if you delete your commitment. Once you leave, other families in your year group won't be able to reach you, and you won't be able to message them.
7. Sharing with schools
Where we work in partnership with your child's school, we tell the school how many families in each year group have made a commitment. Where your school has asked us to, we may also confirm that your family has made a commitment.
We do not give schools your email address or phone number, and we do not give them any information about your child beyond what you have told us in your commitment.
8. Statistics we publish
We publish figures showing how many families have made a commitment, by school and by year group, on our website.
These are counts and percentages only. We never publish names, or anything that identifies a family or a child. Where we show that a commitment has recently been made at a school or in a year group, we don't say who made it.
Enrolment figures used to work out percentages come from published data about Australian schools, and are not information about any individual.
9. News and updates
We only send you news, campaign updates and fundraising messages if you have chosen to receive them. You can stop these at any time through Manage your email preferences, which you'll find linked in every email we send.
Separately, while your commitment is active we send you messages about the commitment itself: your year group's list, and families who join after you. These are how the service works rather than marketing. You can change how often you receive them, or stop them, through Manage your email preferences.
Stopping emails does not remove your child from your year group's list. Your child's first name and last name initial stay on the list, and your commitment stays in the year group total, unless you delete your commitment through Manage your commitment.
Our Terms of Use set out the rest of the conditions on which the service is provided.
10. Security, access and correction
- We store your Personal Information in a way that reasonably protects it from unauthorised access, misuse, modification or disclosure.
- The Australian Privacy Principles (APP):
- permit you to obtain access to the Personal Information We hold about you in certain circumstances (APP 12); and
- allow you to correct inaccurate Personal Information subject to certain exceptions (APP 13).
- Where you would like to obtain such access, please contact Us in writing on the contact details set out at the bottom of this privacy policy.
11. How long we keep your information
We keep the details you give us for as long as your commitment is active.
If you delete your commitment, we delete everything held against it, including your child's first name and last name initial and your own contact details, and your commitment is no longer counted in your year group's total.
We keep year group records so that we can continue to run the service for those school communities.
Where tax, charity reporting or fundraising law requires it, we keep records of donations and financial transactions for seven years. These records do not contain information about children.
12. Where your information is held
Our main servers, data storage and processing are in Australia.
We also use service providers to send our emails, host parts of our website, take donations and help us understand how the service is used. We use Stripe to process donations, and Stripe stores and processes payment information in the locations it normally operates from, which include countries outside Australia. Other providers, or their sub-processors, may also store or process information outside Australia, most commonly in the United States. Providers sometimes change the locations they operate from, so we can't guarantee that information never leaves Australia.
Before we use a provider we take reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that they handle information to a standard comparable with the Australian Privacy Principles, and we remain accountable to you for information we pass to them.
13. If something goes wrong
If information about you or your child is lost, or accessed or disclosed without authorisation, and this is likely to cause serious harm, we will tell the affected families and, where the law requires it, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
14. Where the service is available
Wait Mate is for families at Australian schools, and commitments can only be made from within Australia. If you're temporarily overseas and your child attends an Australian school, email us at hi@waitmate.org.au and we'll set your commitment up for you.
15. Complaint procedure
- If you have a complaint concerning the manner in which We maintain the privacy of your Personal Information, please contact Us on the contact details set out at the bottom of this privacy policy.
- All complaints will be considered by our privacy officer and We may seek further information from you to clarify your concerns. If We agree that your complaint is well founded, We will, in consultation with you, take appropriate steps to rectify the problem. If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome, you may refer the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
16. How to contact Us about privacy
If you have any queries, or if you seek access to your Personal Information, or if you have a complaint about Our privacy practices, you can contact Us here.
This policy is issued by Wait Mate Foundation Limited (ACN is 694 143 274) of 180 Ocean Street, Suite 602, Edgecliff NSW 2027. If you have a question or complaint about privacy, contact us at privacy@waitmate.org.au and we will respond within 30 days.
Dated: 20/08/2026