Our Privacy Policy

1. About this document

By accessing and using our website or by submitting information to us, you consent to us using and disclosing your information in the ways described in this Privacy Policy.  

Terminology:

Course means the online Safe Ministry Check course(s), including the videos and scripts, as amended from time to time.   

Entity means the organisation or legal entity that has been registered to use the Trainee Management Tool and Courses.   

Entity Representative and Representative means the person who registers an Entity and the person(s) listed as the Entity’s Safe Ministry Contacts.   

Master Account means an account held by a denomination, diocese, network or other parent body that is linked to one or more Entities.

Master Account Holder means the organisation that holds a Master Account, and its authorised administrators.

Referee means the natural person that is asked to provide a referee verification for a Trainee.   

Trainee means the natural person that registers for the Course and undertakes the training.   

Trainee Management Tool means the Safe Ministry Check online application used by an Entity to oversee their associated Trainees’ progress through the Courses.   

We, our, and us means Safe Ministry Check.   

You and your means the Trainee, Entity or Entity Representative that uses the Safe Ministry Check website, including but not limited to the Courses and Trainee Management Tool.  

2. What kinds of personal information do we collect and hold about you?

We may collect and hold a variety of personal information, which may include:

• names
• current and previous addresses, and other contact details, such as email addresses
• dates of birth
• gender
• marital status
• employment and occupation details
• Course results
• any other information we think is necessary

In limited circumstances, we may collect and hold sensitive information about you (for example, information about your religious beliefs or affiliations, or information about your criminal history). We only collect sensitive information from you if it is necessary in the circumstances, and you have consented to that collection (unless we are required or permitted by law to collect that information).

We may collect and hold a variety of information about Trainees’ Referees on behalf of the Trainee’s associated Entity, including the Referee’s name, phone number, e-mail address and any data associated with the Referee’s response to questions about the Trainee.

3. How is your personal information collected?

We may collect personal information about you in a number of ways, including:

• directly from you – for example, when you send us an email, or you complete and submit an online form   
• from third parties – for example, the Entity, the Trainee, our related companies, a Referee or your Representatives   
• when legally required to do so   

One of the ways we may collect information about you is through the use of an internet session record (commonly called a “cookie”). A cookie is a text file that your internet browser may provide to us to improve your experience of using our services by keeping you logged in to your session with us and, among other things, tracking the pages you have visited, remembering your preferences and storing personal information.   

You can adjust your internet browser to disable cookies or to warn you when cookies are being used.  However, if you disable cookies, you may not be able to access certain areas of our website(s) or take advantage of the improved website experience that cookies offer.   

When you visit our website(s), our web servers may record other information about or relating to you, such as the time and date of your visit or the IP address assigned to the computer you are using to access the website.  We cannot and do not use this information to identify you – rather, we use this information to track and improve the performance of the websites.   

4. Why do we collect, hold, use, and share your personal information?

We may use your personal information in several ways, including:

• to give Trainees access to the Courses and other features of our website   
• to give Entity Representatives access to the Trainee Management Tool   
• to give Entities and their Representatives data about their associated Trainees, including their personal information, Course progress and data inputs, and information provided by Referees
• to give a Master Account Holder information about the Trainees in its linked Entities (see section 6A)
• to give Referees the ability to provide information
• to give Trainee information to an Entity’s legal advisers, an Entity’s insurance provider(s), and to government authorities   
• to inform you of changes to our website(s), or our business 
• to support our internal business processes   

5. Business without identifying you

If you choose not to provide personal information to us, we may not be able to provide access to our Trainee Management Tool and Courses, and we may not be able to provide the associated Entity with details about the Trainee. 

6. Sharing your personal information

We may disclose your personal information (including a Representative’s personal information) to other organisations, including:

• to our insurance provider(s)   
• to our professional advisers, including our legal advisers and accountants   
• to government and regulatory authorities   
• to others with whom we have business arrangements   
• to organisations that purchase all or part of our assets or businesses or our assignees
• to a Master Account Holder that your Entity is linked to (see section 6A)

If any of these organisations are located outside Australia, we ensure that the receiving entity will handle your personal information in a way that is consistent with the Privacy Act, and that allows us to continue to comply with our obligations under the Privacy Act.   

We may disclose your personal information to your nominated Referee(s) for the limited purpose of obtaining a referee verification; in which case, the minimum amount of your personal information is shared with the Referee. If you are a Trainee, when you provide contact details for a Referee, you consent to us and the Entity contacting the Referee and asking them to provide information, which may be personal information regarding you.   If any of a Referee’s personal information is collected it is also handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

6A. Denominations and networks (Master Accounts)

Some Entities belong to a denomination, diocese, network or other parent body that uses a Master Account to oversee safe ministry across its member organisations.

If your Entity is linked to a Master Account, the Master Account Holder’s authorised administrators can see and export the information we hold about the Trainees in your Entity in the Trainee Management Tool. This includes contact details, date of birth, Course progress, screening and Working With Children Check details, disclosures, referee responses and activity history. They use it to support and check safe ministry across their member organisations, and they must handle it in line with the Privacy Act.

To find out whether your Entity is linked to a Master Account, ask your Entity Representative or contact us.

6B. Booking, analytics and advertising services

We use a small number of third-party services on our websites:

• Calendly, to let you book a call with us. When you book, Calendly receives the name, email and answers you enter, and the campaign labels of the page you came from. We keep a record of your booking in our own systems so we can follow up.
• Google Analytics, to understand how people use our websites, such as which pages are visited and which buttons are clicked.
• Google Ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram), to measure whether our ads lead to sign-ups, free trials and booked calls, and to show our ads to people who have visited our websites. This can include an ad click identifier.
• Mailchimp, to send the emails you sign up for, such as guides and updates. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
• PostHog, to understand which steps people take on our website. We do not record sessions or the contents of forms, and we do not send your name, email or organisation to PostHog.

We set our own cookie that remembers which ad, email or link brought you to our website, for up to 90 days, so we can tell which campaigns work.

When you sign up with us, or if you are already a customer, we may give Google and Meta a scrambled (hashed) copy of your email address or phone number. They use it to match you to their own users so they can tell us whether our ads worked and decide who sees our ads, under their customer data terms. We never give them screening results, police check results, Course results or child safety information.

These services may store information outside Australia. You can block cookies in your browser, turn off personalised ads in your Google and Meta settings, or email us to ask that your details are not shared with them.

6C. AI tools we use

We use AI tools, including Claude by Anthropic, to help our team with work such as drafting replies, summarising feedback and preparing reports.

• We only give these tools the information a task needs.
• We do not put screening results, police check results, passwords or child safety concerns into these tools.
• We use business accounts that we control, and we train our staff on these rules.
• We do not use AI tools to decide whether a person is cleared to serve.

These tools may process information outside Australia. Where they do, we take reasonable steps to make sure your information is handled in a way that is consistent with the Privacy Act.

7. Storage and security

We may store your personal information in hard copy, digital or electronic records. We take information security seriously.  We will take reasonable steps to maintain the security of and to prevent unauthorised access to or disclosure of your personal information. We employ a range of measures to ensure that your personal information is protected from misuse or unauthorised assess, such as: 

• imposing confidentiality requirements on staff, service providers and other people we deal with
• training staff on privacy and information security
• imposing security requirements on document storage and retention
• monitoring online security systems
• using electronic security such as firewalls, data encryption and anti-virus software

None of the above reasonable measures amounts to a guarantee that unauthorised access to your personal information will not occur, either during transmission of that information to us or after we receive that information.   

8. Accessing and correcting your personal information

You have a right to access and correct your Trainee, Entity and Representative information, subject to some exceptions allowed by law. If you would like to do so, please contact us.   

9. Further information and complaints

If you wish to complain about how we have used your personal information, please contact us via email at support@safeministrycheck.com.au.   

If we do not resolve your complaint within 30 days, you may bring your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/individuals/how-do-i-make-a-privacy-complaint.   

Last updated 26/10/26.