Privacy Policy

Connect-ME Privacy and Security Policy

Connect-ME cares about your privacy. For our business to work, we need to collect your information. We think it’s vital that you know when we’ll collect information from you, what we’ll collect, how we’ll store it, and how it will be used. In other words, we want to ensure you know what’s happening with your personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”). This Privacy Policy covers Connect-ME's treatment of Personal Information and other data that Connect-ME gathers when you are accessing our Service. Anything we collect from you will be kept safe and secure, and we’ll make sure we use your information lawfully. 

What we collect

When you register with us, we will collect relevant Personal Information from you, and store it securely in our database. This will include your name, email address, and may include (but not be limited to) address details, phone number and Facebook username, information regarding your use of our Service, and browser information. We’ll also keep a record of your email address, username, password, and your company details (if you’re a company) and IP address so we can identify you when you come back and visit us.  We automatically receive your location when you use the Service. The Personal Information you provide is used for such purposes as allowing you to set up a user account and profile that can be used to interact with other users through the Service, improving the content of the Service, customising the advertising and content you see, and communicating with you about specials and new features. We may also draw upon this Personal Information in order to adapt the Services of our community to your needs, to research the effectiveness of our network and Services, and to develop new tools for the community.

When you use the Service, we automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser or mobile platform, including your location, user name, each business you’ve checked into and the time and date that you checked in, IP address, cookie information, and the page you requested.

We may share aggregated, anonymous information with our partners about how our users, collectively, use our site, so that our partners may also understand how often people use their services and our Service.  

How Connect-ME uses your Personal Information

At Connect-ME, we will only use any Personal Information you give us for the purpose it was collected for. 

The main purposes we collect information for are to:

-Complete your registration for connect-me.com.au

-Tailor the information you get from our website

-contact you with any questions or issues concerning your listing or contributions

-Identify businesses, products and services that may be of interest to you and communicate with you about them

-analyse non-personalised information about the use of our website to improve it continually and to improve our customer service

-Update your public user profile on our website to show when you have checked in to a business

-Inform you about the Connect-ME website development

-Administer promotion, surveys and other services

-obtain feedback or views about the Connect-ME services

-respond to any queries, feedback or other correspondence with your business organisation

-gain an understanding of your business needs

-Provide data matching, verification and appending services

-Provide data to related parties who offer services that may generate sales opportunities for you outside of the Connect-ME platform

-generally operate the Connect-ME business

-prevent and detect any misuse of, or fraudulent activities involving and of our products and services

-maintain and develop the business systems and infrastructure, including testing and upgrading these systems. Sometimes we might ask you if we can collect information for another purpose not covered in the list above - but we will only do it if you expressly agree we can.

How do we contact you?

We will contact you by electronic direct message through our website, by email or using other contact details, including mobile phone text SMS.

If you no longer wish to receive a particular type of email from us, click on the UNSUBSCRIBE link in the email received.

If you do not wish to receive future text SMS messages, please contact us, and we will honour your request to unsubscribe within five working days.

We’ll also use your email address to confirm your registration details when you request a new password and to communicate with you if there are any issues with your account.

At all times, we’ll ensure we only use your information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) , or as otherwise required or permitted by law.

How is my information shared?

The location and time of each of your posts, first name and last initial, photo, location, links to your social media accounts (if you have connected them to your Connect-ME account), a list of your followers, any lists you create and your posts will be available on your public profile.  Individuals reading this information may use it or disclose it to other individuals or entities without our control and your knowledge. We therefore urge you to think carefully about including any specific information you may deem private in posts or other content (location or otherwise) that you create in the Service.  

Information such as your first name, last name, initial and photo, a list of your followers, lists and posts are shared by default with the public.  Please remember that if you choose to provide personal information using certain features of the Service, that information may be available to the wider Connect-ME community or may be published on the Connect-ME website, which is subject to indexing by third party search engines.  We are not responsible for any third party's use of information you publicly disclose through our Service.

In addition to the data sharing described above, we enter into relationships with a variety of businesses and work closely with them. In certain situations, these businesses sell items or provide promotions to you through Connect-ME's Service. In other situations, Connect-ME provides services, or sells products on behalf of these businesses. You can easily recognise when one of these businesses is associated with your transaction, and we will share your Personal Information that is related to such transactions with the relevant business.

If Connect-ME or substantially all of its assets are acquired, or in the unlikely event that Connect-ME goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party.

 We may release Personal Information when we believe in good faith that release is necessary to comply with the law, including laws outside your country of residence; enforce or apply our conditions of use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Connect-ME, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Facebook

If you connect your Connect-ME account to Facebook, we will access information about you and your Facebook friends on an on-going basis, unless you disconnect. We will import, use, disclose and retain this information to, among other things, customise and improve the Connect-ME Service for you, your friends and others. In addition, by connecting your Connect-ME account to Facebook, we will automatically post your activity to Facebook, including what you watched.  Your friends and others who have access to view information about you on Facebook will also be able to see (on Facebook and on Connect-ME) that you're a Connect-ME member as well as what you've recommended, and other information about your use of the Connect-ME Service. You’ll also be able to see similar information about your Facebook friends who are connected with Connect-ME. Please note that Facebook will import, use and retain this information. See Facebook's privacy policy for details, including how they treat information. You can disconnect from sharing future information by visiting "Your Account." You may also control how certain information is shared in your Privacy Settings on Facebook. Please note that your privacy settings on Facebook do not control information disclosure on Connect-ME. As a result, if you choose to connect your Facebook and Connect-ME accounts and enable sharing, then all of your Facebook friends who are also connected will be able to see your Connect-ME activity when they use Connect-ME. We and Facebook are continually making changes and improvements to this feature, and therefore the available features and information that are shared may change from time to time. 

Tailoring information you get from our website

Sometimes, Connect-ME may tailor advertising or other content available to you on our website, to help make sure you are getting information that is relevant to you.

Posting information on our website

Connect-ME provides a great opportunity for you to keep an eye on goings on in your area and to post your own tips and opinions. If you choose to post content on our website, your public user profile and the contents of your post and any corresponding comments will be public.

Following

Any other registered user can choose to follow you on Connect-ME. This means that, as your follower, they will get a feed showing your user generated content (so if you recommend

a great business, they’ll know about it too!). They will also see information that’s available on your public Connect-ME user profile, like who you follow and who follows you, and which businesses you have checked in at.

Cookies

Connect-ME gathers information through the use of “cookies”. These are small packets of information that a website stores on your computer. Our system accesses and reads the cookies on your computer when you visit our website. Cookies are not used to gather or allow the gathering of any personally identifiable information. Generally, cookies allow us to use the information we collect to customise your experience, so that your visit to Connect-ME is as relevant and as valuable to you as possible. If you want to disable these cookies, you can do so in your own computer settings, but you may not be able to use all of the functions on our website.

 Connect-ME uses Google Analytics and other analytics software to better understand who is using the Service, and how people are using it.  These tools use cookies to collect and store anonymous information such as time of visit, pages visited, time spent on each page of the website, IP address, and type of operating system used.  We use this information to improve the Service and make it appealing to as many users as possible. 

How Connect-ME protects your information

At Connect-ME, we want to make sure any information you provide us is safely kept. We have physical, electronic and managerial processes in place to help us do that. We protect our data by using secure passwords and other measures. 

Your Connect-ME account Personal Information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You need to prevent unauthorised access to your account and Personal Information by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account.

Connect-ME endeavours to safeguard user information to ensure that user account information is kept private. However, Connect-ME cannot guarantee the security of user account information. Unauthorised entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time. In the event that any information under our control is compromised as a result of a breach of security, we will take reasonable steps to investigate the situation and where appropriate, notify those individuals whose information may have been compromised and take other steps, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

You shouldn’t tell anyone else your username or password and should ensure your computer is free of viruses and other computer nasties.

The Service may contain links to other sites. Connect-ME is not responsible for the privacy policies and/or practices on other sites. When linking to another site, you should read the privacy policy stated on that site. This Privacy and Security Policy only governs information collected on the Connect-ME Service.

How you can access and update your information

Connect-ME allows you to change the information you provide during registration. If you are a registered user, you may login and access the Edit Profile page from your Dashboard to add, change, or delete Personal Information or to reset your personal preferences. 

If you are having trouble accessing and updating your Personal Information, please contact us by completing the Contact Us form online. You can request the information we hold about you, and request corrections to it, at any time by contacting us.

How do I delete my account?

Should you ever decide to delete your Connect-ME account, you may contact us by completing the contact us form on the site.

How is information removed from my account?

Even after you remove information from your account or profile, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere, to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. Removed and deleted information may remain on backup media indefinitely until we remove it.

Updating this policy

We may update this policy sometimes. When the updates are significant, we will give you reasonable warning in advance by posting a notice on the Connect-ME home page. 

Version 1.1: Last updated  May 2024