1. Information We Collect
If you request a consultation, the form asks for your name, company, email, phone, industry, requested service, and optional budget, timing, and message. The sponsor offer form asks for your name, email, phone, sponsorship level and an optional message. If you email us, we receive the details you choose to include.
When you call our business phone number, or we call you from it, we keep a basic record of the call: your phone number (unless it is withheld), our number, the time, how long it lasted, its outcome, which of our team phones answered, and whether the call was recorded. Calls you make to us may be recorded after a notice at the start of the call, as described in section 3. For recorded calls we also keep the call audio and a written transcript, and may keep a short summary where our summary service is enabled, as described in section 3.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use these details to understand and respond to your enquiry and arrange a follow-up conversation, which may be by email or phone. The consultation and sponsor forms do not subscribe you to a marketing list. Our Facebook and Instagram ad forms include an optional box for offers, and we send marketing only if you tick it. To stop us contacting you about a request, email info@citizentechies.com.au and we will stop.
We use call records to link your calls to your enquiry, follow up on calls we missed, and keep track of our conversations with you. Submitting a website enquiry or calling us does not subscribe you to marketing.
3. Phone Calls, Recording & AI
We don't record calls we make to you. When you call us, we tell you before recording: at the start of the call you hear a short notice that the call will be recorded for training and summarised by A.I. If you don't want to be recorded, email us at the address below instead of calling.
Twilio records the call, with each side of the conversation on its own audio channel. We copy the recording to private storage and then ask Twilio to delete its copy. An AI speech-to-text service (OpenAI, accessed through Vercel AI Gateway) turns the recording into a written transcript. Where our summary service is enabled, an AI language model accessed the same way also writes a short summary for your enquiry record. Transcripts and summaries are made automatically, can contain mistakes, and are reviewed by our team before we rely on them. They are not used to make automated decisions about you.
A recording can contain anything said during the call, so please avoid sharing passwords, card details or other highly sensitive information. If you change your mind during a recorded call, tell us: we will end the call and can continue unrecorded. You can also ask us to delete a recording, its transcript and its summary at any time.
Our AI phone assistant may answer calls to our business number first. It tells you it is an AI before you say anything. Twilio carries the call audio to a live AI voice model accessed through Vercel AI Gateway, which listens and speaks directly. A separate AI model through the same Gateway can help with the enquiry. We keep the text of the conversation with your call record and, after the call, add an AI summary to your enquiry record. If you are a new caller, details you give, such as your name, company, email and what you need, may be filled in on your enquiry. Your conversation with the assistant is transcribed but its audio is not recorded; if we connect you to our team, that part of the call is recorded as described above. If you would rather speak with a person, ask the assistant and it will try to connect you with our team; if no one is free, we keep your enquiry and call you back. If you would rather not speak with the assistant at all, hang up and we will call you back. The assistant only takes a message: it does not quote prices, make commitments or make decisions about you.
If you call our WhatsApp number, the same AI assistant may answer. It tells you it is an AI before you say anything, and the call audio is not recorded. The call runs through Meta's WhatsApp calling service and our own call server, which passes the audio to the AI voice model through Vercel AI Gateway. We keep the text of the conversation and an AI summary with your enquiry, as for phone calls, and retain them as set out in section 10. If you ask for a person, a member of our team may take the call in our system. We may also ask, by WhatsApp message, whether we may call you on WhatsApp; we only call if you allow it, and you can change that at any time in WhatsApp. Calls our team makes to you on WhatsApp are not recorded or transcribed.
Calls to or from our team's other numbers do not go through this service and are not recorded by it.
4. Facebook and Instagram Ads and Messages
If you submit a form on one of our ads on Facebook or Instagram, Meta passes us what you enter, such as your name, mobile number, trade, suburb and your answers to our questions. We use it to contact you about the free review you asked for, by phone or text, and to book it. If you tick the optional box, we may also send you occasional offers by email or text. If you message us on Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, we receive your messages and your profile name, and we reply there.
5. Text Messages and Email
Our messages say who we are. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP to a text or using the unsubscribe link in an email. We stop as soon as we can, and within five business days at the latest. We keep a record of your consent and of any opt-out so that we don't contact you again.
6. When We Work for a Client
Citizen Techies builds and runs business systems for small and medium businesses in Australia, mostly builders, trades and other local service businesses. When we build or run a system for a client, we handle personal information about the client's own customers and enquirers on the client's behalf. Each client has its own private system. With the owner's permission, the client connects its own Facebook Page, Instagram account, WhatsApp number and, where used, Meta advertising account. We use the information Meta provides only for that client, to:
- bring new enquiries from Facebook and Instagram into the client's own lead list;
- let the client read and reply to customer messages from one inbox, and send follow-ups to people who have contacted them; and
- prepare and publish the posts the client approves, and create and manage the client's ad campaigns through our GrowthOS app.
Clients choose what to connect, review content before it goes live, and can disconnect at any time. Each client's data is kept separate, used only to provide that client's service, and never sold or shared with other clients or third parties, other than the providers we use to run the service (see Data Sharing below). We do not use it for our own marketing. We do not sell Meta Platform Data, use it for unrelated advertising, or use it to train general-purpose AI models. Data is deleted on request, as set out under Your Rights below and on our data deletion page. When a client ends the service, we delete or return its data as agreed. If you are a client's customer and want your information accessed, corrected or deleted, contact the business you dealt with, or email info@citizentechies.com.au and we will pass it on.
7. Cookies & Analytics
We do not use analytics or advertising cookies on this website.
8. Data Sharing
When you submit a consultation request, the site validates the form details on the server and sends them to info@citizentechies.com.au through Hostinger Mail API. Your email address is included in the message so we can respond to you.
Before delivery the site runs two automated spam checks. Vercel BotID checks that the request comes from a real browser. Jev, an AI spam-filtering service accessed through Vercel AI Gateway, reads your name, company, email, industry, service, budget, timeline and message to flag spam. Your phone number is not sent to it. These providers process the details only to run the checks and may keep request records under their own policies. A flagged submission is still delivered, with a note in the subject line.
Phone calls are connected by Twilio, our telephony provider. When you call us and speak with our team, Twilio records that part of the call after the notice at the start of the call, as described in section 3. Calls are routed through Twilio's Australian (Sydney) edge, but Twilio may process call details and recordings in the United States. Recordings, and files you send us that we attach to your enquiry, are stored privately in Vercel Blob storage. Recordings are transcribed and summarised by AI services accessed through Vercel AI Gateway. For our AI phone assistant, Twilio carries the call audio and AI services accessed through Vercel AI Gateway process it, as described in section 3. WhatsApp calls are carried by Meta and our own call server, hosted with Hetzner, with call signalling through Ably. These providers process the information to provide their service to us and may keep request records under their own policies.
Vercel, Neon, Hostinger, Twilio, Meta, Hetzner, Ably and the AI services we use may store or process information outside Australia, including in the United States, depending on the service and its configuration.
We also send a short confirmation email to the address you enter, through the same Hostinger mailbox. It uses your first name and the service you chose, and nothing else from your submission. If an enquiry is flagged as likely spam, no confirmation is sent.
So that an enquiry is not lost if an email fails, we also save what you submit, together with the result of the spam check, in a Postgres database hosted by Neon.
9. Data Security
The site keeps its email-provider and database credentials on the server. It validates submissions, saves them to a Postgres database, and sends consultation details by email. Copies may remain in the database, the mailboxes and the provider systems used to deliver them. Do not include passwords, payment details, or other highly sensitive information in the form.
Call recordings, transcripts and files are kept in private storage. They can only be opened by signed-in members of our team who work on your enquiry, and are never shared through public links.
10. Data Retention
We do not currently apply an automatic deletion period to consultation records, email copies, call records, recordings, transcripts or summaries. We retain them while they are needed to respond to and manage the enquiry, and may keep records where required for legitimate business or legal purposes. You can ask us to delete an enquiry by email; some copies may remain in provider backups for a limited period.
11. Your Rights
You can ask us to access, correct, or delete information we hold about you, including your call records, recordings, transcripts and summaries, or complain about how it was handled, by emailing us. To delete what we hold from WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram, see our data deletion page. We may ask for reasonable information to confirm we are dealing with the right person. Deleting a recording does not affect your enquiry; we will still respond to it. We aim to respond to a privacy complaint within 30 days. If it remains unresolved, you may be able to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.
12. Children
This website is intended for business enquiries and is not directed to children.
13. Changes
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes are effective when posted on this page, with the updated “Last updated” date. We encourage you to review this page periodically.
14. Contact Us
Questions about this policy or your data? Email us at info@citizentechies.com.au or visit our Support page. Our Terms and Conditions apply alongside this policy.