Academy Business Services is committed to providing quality services to you and this policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your personal information. We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act).
The APPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your personal information. A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
1. What is personal information, and why do we collect it?
Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.
Depending on our relationship with you, this may include:
- your name, address, email address, and phone number;
- if we provide bookkeeping or payroll services to your employer or business: your date of birth, tax file number, bank account and BSB details, salary and wage information, superannuation fund details, and employment classification; and
- business and financial transaction information, where we provide bookkeeping, payroll, or systems development services to a business.
We obtain this information through correspondence, telephone, email, our website, cookies, and from third parties (including the business we're providing services to, where you are one of their employees). We use cookies and tracking technologies to improve user experience and analyse website traffic — you can manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings. We don't guarantee the content of external website links or third-party privacy policies.
We collect personal information for the primary purpose of providing our bookkeeping, payroll, and development services. Where we process your information as an employee of one of our business clients (for example, to process your pay or superannuation), we only use it for that purpose and to comply with our legal obligations — not for our own marketing, and not to share with our other clients.
Separately, if you are a contact, prospective client, or website visitor of Academy, we may also use your details for closely related purposes you'd reasonably expect, including telling you about our services. You can opt out of these communications at anytime using the "unsubscribe" link in our emails or by contacting us directly.
Where appropriate and possible, we'll explain why we're collecting your information and how we plan to use it at the time we collect it.
2. Sensitive information
Sensitive information is defined under the Privacy Act to include things like an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, political association membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union or professional body membership, criminal record, or health information. We will only use sensitive information:
- for the primary purpose for which it was obtained;
- for a directly related secondary purpose;
- with your consent; or
- where required or authorised by law.
3. Third parties
Where reasonable and practicable, we collect your personal information directly from you. In some circumstances, we may receive it from a third party instead — for example, from the business we provide bookkeeping, payroll, or development services to, where you are their employee, customer, or contact. We'll take reasonable steps to make you aware that we've received your information this way.
4. Disclosure of personal information
We may disclose your personal information to:
- software and cloud service providers we use to deliver our services (for example, accounting and payroll platforms, and hosting providers);
- the Australian Taxation Office, where we lodge Single Touch Payroll reports or other tax information on behalf of a client;
- AI tool providers, as described in section 11 (Use of AI tools);
- our own staff and subcontractors who help deliver our services, including those based overseas (see section 5, Overseas disclosure);
- our professional advisers (for example, our accountant, lawyer, or insurer), where reasonably necessary;
- third parties where you've consented to the disclosure; and
- anyone else where required or authorised by law.
5. Overseas disclosure
We may store or process personal information through third-party service providers located outside Australia, including cloud storage, cloud accounting/payroll platforms, and AI tools — most commonly in the United States and the UK. We also engage staff and subcontractors based in the Philippines to help deliver our services, who may access personal information as part of that work.
Where we disclose personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure it continues to be handled in a way that's consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles —including by using providers with appropriate data protection terms in place, and by requiring our overseas staff and subcontractors to comply with confidentiality and data-handling obligations under a written agreement with us.
6. Data breach notification
If we experience a data breach involving your personal information that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the OAIC in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under the Privacy Act.
7. Security of personal information
Your personal information is stored in a way that reasonably protects it from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. When it's no longer needed, we take reasonable steps to destroy it or permanently de-identify it. We retain most personal information in client files for a minimum of 7 years, in line with tax and employment record-keeping requirements (including the Fair Work Regulations 2009 (Cth)).
8. Access to your personal information
You may access the personal information we hold about you and request updates or corrections, subject to some exceptions. If you'd like to access your information, please contact us in writing. Academy Business Services will not charge for your access request itself, but may charge a reasonable administrative fee for providing copies. To protect your information, we may require identification before releasing it.
9. Maintaining the quality of your personal information
We endeavour to keep your personal information accurate, complete, and up to date. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know as soon as practicable so we can correct our records.
10. If you are an employee of one of our clients
If we process payroll or bookkeeping data on behalf of your employer, we generally don't have a direct relationship with you and haven't collected your information for our own purposes — we're processing it strictly to deliver the services your employer has engaged us for (for example, paying your wages, remitting your superannuation, or lodging Single Touch Payroll data with the ATO). This policy still applies to how we handle your information in that context, including your rights to access and correct it under section 8. If you have a question about your pay or entitlements, we'd suggest raising it with your employer first, since we generally act on the information and instructions they give us.
11. Use of AI tools
As part of delivering our services — including bookkeeping, payroll processing, and software/app development — we may use tools and platforms that use artificial intelligence (AI) to help with tasks such as data processing, drafting correspondence, testing, and process automation.
Where practical, we use businessor enterprise-tier AI tools that offer stronger data protection terms —including, where available, a commitment that your information won't be used to train the provider's models — rather than free consumer-tier tools. We take reasonable steps to avoid inputting highly sensitive identifiers (such as tax file numbers or full bank account details) into a third-party AI tool where we can reasonably avoid doing so.
Many of the AI tools we use process information on servers located overseas — see section 5 (Overseas disclosure) for how we handle this. We take reasonable steps to ensure the AI providers we engage have appropriate safeguards in place to protect your information, consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles.
12. Policy updates
This policy may change from time to time to reflect how our practices develop, and the current version is always available on our website. We'll update the "last updated" date below whenever we do.
13. Privacy policy complaints and enquiries
If you have a complaint about how we handle your personal information, please contact us using the details below. We will acknowledge your complaint within 7 days and aim to resolve it within a reasonable time — for straight forward matters, generally within 14 days; more complex complaints may take longer. If you remain dissatisfied, you may escalate your complaint to the OAIC, or call 1300 363 992.
Academy Business Services
Suite 2, 4 Bligh St, North Tamworth NSW 2340
hello@academybusiness.au
02 6763 3475
Last updated: 25 September 2026
