Privacy policy
Last updated: 19 October 2026
Longreach Local is a community business directory for Longreach, Queensland. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It is written to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Who we are
Longreach Local is operated by Nicholas John Sharp (ABN 42 521 587 266), a sole trader in Queensland. The easiest way to reach us is the contact page — we reply to your email address.
What we collect
Only what each part of the site needs to work:
- Enquiries to a business — the name, email address, optional phone number and message you type into an enquiry form, plus the business you sent it to.
- Messages to us — the name, email address and message you send through our contact page.
- Business accounts — your email address, a password (stored in scrambled form, never as plain text), and the listing details you choose to publish: business name, description, address, opening hours, phone, website, photos and logo.
- Local alerts — if you switch them on, a device identifier issued by your browser, the alert topics you pick, and the businesses you choose to follow. We do not collect your name or phone number for alerts.
- Subscriptions — the plan you choose and the payment status we receive back from our payment provider. We never see or store your card number, expiry date or security code.
- Abuse prevention — a one-way scrambled (hashed) copy of your IP address, kept so a single device cannot flood the enquiry and contact forms. It cannot be turned back into an IP address.
We do not use advertising trackers on this site, and we do not sell your personal information to anyone.
Why we use it
- To pass your enquiry to the business you chose, and to reply to messages sent to us.
- To publish and maintain listings, and to let the owner of a business manage their own listing.
- To send the alerts you asked for, and only about the topics you ticked.
- To take payment for a plan, issue receipts, and keep a record of what was paid for.
- To stop spam, fake submissions and abuse of the forms.
- To meet our record-keeping obligations, including tax records.
Who we share it with
Enquiry details go to the business you contacted — that is the purpose of the form. Beyond that, we share only with the small number of services needed to run the site: our hosting and database provider, our payment provider (Stripe, which handles card payments on our behalf), and our email delivery provider so confirmation and reply emails actually arrive. Each of these is bound to use your information only to provide that service. We may also disclose information where we are required to by law, or to investigate fraud or a serious threat to safety.
Overseas storage
Some of our providers store data on servers outside Australia (for example in the United States and Europe). Where that happens we remain responsible for the information, and those providers apply their own security and privacy controls.
How long we keep it
Enquiries and contact messages are kept while they remain useful as a record of the conversation, and payment records are kept for the period Australian tax and business rules require. If you ask us to remove your information and there is no legal reason to keep it, we remove it.
Your choices
- Alerts — you choose whether to receive them, which topics you want, and which businesses to follow. Turning them off (on the local alerts page, or in your browser or phone settings) stops them immediately and withdraws your consent.
- Business accounts — you can correct your listing at any time, and ask us to close your account and remove your listing.
- Nothing is compulsory — you can browse the directory, read categories and see What's On without giving us anything at all.
Access and correction
You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct anything that is wrong. Send your request through the contact page and tell us which email address or listing it relates to. We respond within 30 days, and we will tell you if we cannot give access and why.
If something goes wrong
If you believe we have mishandled your information, tell us first through the contact page so we can put it right. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.
Keeping it safe
Access to the database is restricted to the people who need it, privileged actions are checked on our servers rather than in your browser, passwords are stored in scrambled form, and the site is served over an encrypted connection. No system is perfect — if a breach ever leaves you at real risk of harm, we will tell you as required by the Privacy Act.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page is updated and the current version is always available here.