Privacy Policy

Who we are

This policy applies to DriveSafe Mechanical Pty Ltd (ABN 18 701 026 048), a motor vehicle repair business trading as DRIVESAFE from 15 Edgar Street, Northgate QLD 4013, and to this website, www.drive-safe.com.au.

We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. Small businesses under $3 million turnover are not always bound by that Act. We follow it anyway. You're handing us your name, your number and details of your car, and the standard shouldn't depend on how big we are.

What we collect

Only what we need to quote your job, do the work, and get back to you. We don't ask for a date of birth, an address, a licence number or a payment card anywhere on this website.

When you request a booking

The booking form on our book a service page collects:

• Your name and mobile number. So we can call or text you back to confirm.
• Your vehicle. Registration number, make, model, year and current odometer reading. If the car is unregistered you tell us that instead of a rego, and we don't collect one.
• The service you want, and whether you want it at our workshop or as a mobile visit.
• Your preferred day and time window. A preference, not a locked appointment.
• Whether you're interested in a courtesy vehicle, if you chose the workshop.
• Any promo code you used, along with which advertisement or campaign supplied it and the price you were shown at the time.

When you send a quick enquiry

The short enquiry form collects:

• Your name and mobile number.
• Your registration number.
• Your message, whatever you choose to type. Please don't include information you wouldn't want us to hold. A few words about the car and the symptom is genuinely enough.

Your email address

Neither form has an email field. If a form fails to send, we offer you a one-tap email fallback with your details pre-filled. If you choose to use it, we receive your email address. That's the only way this website collects one.

Advertising and website data

When you arrive from an online advertisement, your browser may carry identifiers in the web address. We record them so we can tell which advertising actually works and stop paying for the advertising that doesn't. Specifically, we capture and store in your browser:

• Google click identifiers: gclid, gbraid and wbraid.
• Campaign tags: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content.
• The page you landed on and the date and time you landed.

These are held in your own browser's local storage under the key ds:attrib and are attached to your enquiry only if and when you submit one. We keep the first set we see and never overwrite it. If you never submit a form they never leave your device, and clearing your browser data removes them.

Forms that have not sent yet

If your connection drops mid-submission, your form is saved on your own device (local storage key ds:pendingLeads) and retried, so a dropped signal doesn't cost you the booking. It's deleted from your device the moment it reaches us. Clearing your browser data removes it too, and it won't then be sent.

What we do not do

• We don't build profiles of you, and we don't make automated decisions about you.
• We never sell your personal information. Not to anyone, at any price.

Why we collect it

• To contact you about your booking or enquiry, quote the job, and confirm a time.
• To carry out the work, order the right parts, and keep a service history for your vehicle.
• To issue quotes, invoices and receipts, and to meet our tax and record-keeping obligations.
• To send you service reminders and offers, where you've agreed to that when submitting a form. You can stop these at any time. See Marketing and how to stop it below.
• To measure which advertising produces real bookings.

If you don't give us your name, number and vehicle details, we can't quote or book your job. That's the only consequence of withholding them.

Where your information goes

We're a small workshop and we use ordinary business software to run it. When you submit a form, your details pass through the following services. This is the real list, not a generic one:

• Vercel. Hosts this website.
• n8n Cloud. Receives the form submission and routes it to us.
• Google Sheets (Google Workspace). Where the enquiry is recorded.
• Telegram. Sends an instant alert to the owner's phone so your enquiry is seen quickly.
• Twilio. Carries our phone line, and texts the owner an alert if a form fails to reach us. We don't use it to message you.
• Supabase. Our customer and job records. Your details reach this only if you become a customer and we open a job for you. An enquiry that never becomes a job is not entered here.
• Google Analytics. Counts visits and how people move through this site (pages viewed, links and downloads clicked, how far down a page you read, and whether a form was started). It is told that those things happened; it is never sent the name, mobile or rego you type into a form.
• Microsoft Clarity. Records a replay of your visit to this site (where you moved, what you clicked, how far you read), which we watch back to find what is confusing and fix it. What you type into a form is hidden from those recordings. Microsoft also sets an identifier it uses across its own sites, including Bing.
• Google Ads. When you book, enquire or tap our phone number, we tell Google that it happened. If you reached us through one of our Google ads, Google credits it to that ad, so we can see which ads are worth paying for. On a booking or an enquiry, the Google tag in your browser also sends your email address and mobile number as one-way hashed codes (SHA-256). The codes are made inside your browser, the readable email and number never leave it, and Google can only compare a code with the accounts it already holds to credit the booking to the ad that person clicked. Google does not receive your name, rego, vehicle or anything else you typed, and it reports to us only how many bookings each ad produced, never who.

Each of these can access your information only to provide that service to us. Beyond them, we disclose your information only to a contractor working on your vehicle where that is necessary to do the job, or where the law requires it.

Information sent overseas

Several of the providers above are based outside Australia, and your information may be stored or processed overseas, including in the United States and the European Union, on their infrastructure. By submitting a form you consent to that disclosure. We take reasonable steps to use reputable providers, but we cannot guarantee that an overseas recipient will handle your information in the way the Australian Privacy Principles require, and you may not be able to seek redress under the Privacy Act in respect of an overseas recipient.

Cookies and tracking

Here is everything this website puts on your device, who sets it, and what it is for.

The rows below marked “Us” are stored in your own browser and never leave your device. Clearing your browser data removes them. The rest are set by the provider named beside them, and reach that provider.

If that ever changes, say we add an advertising tag, this table changes with it. The page is built from the list, not from a sentence someone has to remember to update.

How long we keep it

• Customer and job records: 7 years. This covers our tax and record-keeping obligations, and the period in which a consumer guarantee claim about our work could reasonably be made. It also means we can look up what we did to your car years later, which is often the point.
• Enquiries that never became a job: 2 years, then deleted.
• Advertising identifiers. Held in your own browser until you clear it. They're sent to us with a form you submit, but we don't keep them against your record.

If you ask us to delete your information sooner, we will. The exception is where the law requires us to keep a record, such as a tax invoice we've already issued to you. We'll tell you if that applies, and exactly what we've kept.

Marketing and how to stop it

Where you've agreed when submitting a form, we may send you service reminders and occasional offers by SMS or email. Every marketing message we send identifies us and includes a way to opt out, as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) requires.

To stop them, reply STOP to any text, or ring or email us and say so. We'll take you off the list and keep you off it. Opting out of marketing doesn't affect messages about a job you've actually booked. We'll still text you about your own car.

Keeping it safe

Your form is sent over an encrypted connection. The services we use are access-controlled, and only the people who need to see your details in order to do your job can see them.

No system is perfectly secure, and we won't pretend otherwise.

If a breach ever happened that was likely to cause you serious harm, we'd notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.

Getting your information, or having it deleted

You can ask us at any time to:

• Show you what personal information we hold about you.
• Correct anything that's wrong or out of date.
• Delete it, subject to the records we're legally required to keep.
• Stop marketing messages.

Call or email us using the details below. There's no charge, and no form to fill in. We may ask a question or two to confirm it's really you, because we're not about to hand someone's details to whoever asks for them. We aim to respond within 7 days and will finish your request within 30 days.

If you're not happy with how we handled it

Tell us first. Call or email using the details above and we'll look into it and come back to you within 30 days. Most things are a misunderstanding and get sorted in a phone call.

If you're still not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or on 1300 363 992. They're free, independent, and you don't need our permission to contact them.

Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or who we share it with, we update this page and change the date at the top. The version published here is always the one that applies. If a change materially affects information we already hold about you, we'll tell you directly rather than leaving you to re-read this page.

Related: our Terms of Service and our Refunds & Cancellations policy.