Privacy policy — Ideas Union

This policy explains how we handle your personal information. We have written it in plain English and grounded it in Australian law — principally the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

Who we are

Ideas Union Pty Ltd (“Ideas Union”, “we”, “us”) is an Australian company. You can reach us about anything in this policy at info@ideasunion.com. Privacy is one of our founding values — privacy by default. We treat the information you entrust to us, and especially the contents of your Comcept™ vaults, as confidential and access it only when you ask us to or a court requires it.

What we collect

Identity and contact details — such as your name, email address, phone number, business name and address.
Professional-association membership details — used to confirm your eligibility for membership.
Payment details — processed by our payment provider, Stripe. We do not store full card numbers.
Comcept™ vault contents — the material you upload to register and protect a concept. This is held encrypted and is not accessed by us unless you authorise it or a court requires it.
Correspondence — the emails and messages you send us and our replies.
Website usage data and cookies — basic information about how you use our site.

How we collect it

We collect personal information:

directly from you — through forms, registration, and email;
automatically — through cookies and basic analytics; and
from your professional association — where you ask us to verify your eligibility.

Why we use it

We use your personal information to:

provide and manage your membership and our services;
register, vault, and issue receipts for your Comcepts™;
process payments;
send you service communications;
pursue the legal enforcement you request on your behalf; and
comply with our legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information.

Disclosure

We disclose personal information only where necessary, to:

service providers who help us operate — payment processing, cloud hosting and storage, and email delivery;
our professional advisers; and
courts and regulators, where required.

Some of these providers store data overseas (for example, in the United States). Where information is disclosed overseas, we take reasonable steps — consistent with Australian Privacy Principle 8 — to ensure it receives a comparable level of protection. Our overseas storage arrangements are described further under “Where we store your information” below.

Public verification of registration numbers. We intend to offer a facility on our website that lets any person check whether a Comcept™ registration number is registered with us, and whether that Comcept™ is currently in active protection or is dormant. Publishing a description of your concept is optional and off by default: the description you write at lodgement is private, and a short public description — of up to about 100 words — is shown only if you choose to publish one. The facility does not disclose the lodgement date, your identity, how many Comcepts™ you have lodged, or the contents of your Comcept™. Because protection status is shown, a person searching a valid number belonging to a lapsed membership will learn that the Comcept™ is dormant. This is a forthcoming feature that is not yet available. See our terms and conditions for details.

Security

We protect your information with encryption in transit and at rest, along with access controls. Member vaults are readable by no one at Ideas Union without your authorisation.

Where we store your information

Ideas Union is a global organisation. We store and process your information — including Comcept™ data — in whatever jurisdiction, with whatever provider, and on whatever storage media we consider appropriate at the time. That may be in Australia or overseas, and it may change. We may move, duplicate, or archive your data between storage locations, providers, and media (including taking copies offline for safekeeping) at our discretion, and we do not undertake to notify you of such movements or to identify in advance the country in which your data is held. Wherever your data is held, we take reasonable steps to protect it, as described under “Security” above, and moving or archiving your data does not shorten the retention periods described under “Retention” below.

Where we disclose your information to a recipient outside Australia, we take reasonable steps — consistent with Australian Privacy Principle 8 — to ensure it is handled with a comparable level of protection, and we remain accountable for that information to the extent applicable privacy law requires. If you need to know the current storage location of your data, please contact us at info@ideasunion.com.

Data breaches

If a data breach occurs, we assess it and notify affected individuals and the regulator in line with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

Access and correction

You can ask us to access or correct the personal information we hold about you by emailing info@ideasunion.com. We will respond within a reasonable period.

Retention

We keep personal information for as long as we need it to provide our services and for as long as our legal obligations require. For Comcept™ data specifically, we retain the data associated with each Comcept™ for a minimum of seven years from lodgement, or for as long as your membership is current, whichever is longer, as set out in our terms and conditions. We do not retain Comcept™ data indefinitely, with one exception: where litigation concerning a Comcept™ is on foot, that Comcept’s data is placed under a litigation hold and retained indefinitely for so long as the hold remains in force.

If your membership lapses, your previously lodged Comcepts™ become dormant but continue to be retained for the applicable retention period. Dormant data is retained, not deleted — setting your active Comcept™ count to zero on rejoining does not mean your earlier data has been destroyed. When a retention period ends, we securely destroy the data.

Direct marketing

We send marketing communications only with your consent, and every one includes a way to unsubscribe, in line with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

Cookies

We use cookies minimally — essential cookies and basic analytics only.

Complaints

If you have a privacy concern, please contact us first at info@ideasunion.com so we can try to resolve it. If it remains unresolved, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available on this page.

This policy is currently under review by our legal advisers.