Privacy Policy

01  ·  About this policy

This policy applies to Pear Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 94 624 986 554), 25 Gordonia Grove, Baulkham Hills NSW 2153. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Pear, and “you” and “your” mean the person whose personal information we hold.

We provide voice, data and internet services, and AI services for businesses and medical practices. This policy covers every way you deal with us — on the phone, by email, through our website, in person, through a dealer or partner, and through our AI services.

It covers the personal information we hold about:

• Customers — current, former and prospective — including the nominated contacts on a business account.
• People connected to an account: authorised representatives, secondary account holders, guarantors, and the holder of a card used to pay an account.
• People who use a service we provide to someone else — for example a patient who calls a medical practice that uses Aria.
• Suppliers, partners, contractors and their staff.
• Our employees and people who apply to work with us.

It sits alongside our Privacy Collection Statement, our Credit Reporting Policy, our Complaint Handling Policy and your Standard Form of Agreement. Where a service has its own collection statement, that statement gives you the detail for that service and this policy gives you the whole picture.

02  ·  The privacy laws we follow

We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) set out in it. The APPs set the minimum standards for collecting, using, disclosing and handling personal information in any form, on paper or electronically.

As a telco, other laws apply to us as well:

• The Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), which places its own confidentiality obligations on carriage service providers.
• The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.
• The Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth) and the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).
• The Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW) and equivalent state and territory health privacy laws.

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

Sensitive information means personal information about racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, professional or trade association memberships, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, health information, genetic information and biometric information.

We only collect sensitive information where you have consented, or where the law requires or allows us to collect it without consent.

03  ·  What we collect

How much we collect depends on what you are asking us to do. Someone asking a general question gives us very little; someone opening a business account on credit gives us more. We aim to collect only what we actually need.

• Identity and contact details — name, date of birth, address, email address and phone numbers.
• Proof of identity — driver licence, passport or other government identifier.
• Financial and credit information — bank account or card details, payment history and credit history.
• Occupancy and status documents — where we need them, a tenancy agreement, rates or utility notice, or relevant certificate.
• Service and usage information — account numbers, services, call and data usage records, network and device information.
• Public number customer details for the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND).
• Support and complaint records — contact with us, call recordings, notes, faults and complaints.
• Website information — IP address, browser and device information, and pages visited.
• Employment information — for staff, applicants and relevant credit assessments.

We do not collect your personal information from marketing lists, data brokers or data aggregation services, and we do not buy databases of prospective customers.

04  ·  Health information and our AI services

Some of our services — including Aria, our AI team member for medical practices — operate inside a practice’s phone system and, where the practice enables it, connect to its practice management software.

Where a practice uses those services, we may handle:

• Caller details and the reason for the call.
• Appointment and booking details.
• Limited clinical information the practice chooses to make available.

Voice recordings and transcripts of calls are held securely and kept only as long as we need them to deliver the service or as the law requires.

We do not use personal information, sensitive information or health information to train AI models unless you have expressly consented. We may use de-identified information to check quality and improve our services.

If you would rather we did not use your information even in de-identified form, email privacy@peartelco.com.au .

05  ·  Why we collect it

We collect personal information so that we can:

• Confirm who you are and decide whether we can supply the service.
• Connect, provision, change, move and disconnect services.
• Bill you, take payment, and manage credit and collections.
• Support you, answer questions, fix faults and handle complaints.
• Keep you informed about your service.
• Tell existing customers about our other products and services.
• Improve our services and check the quality of our work.
• Meet our legal obligations.

06  ·  How we collect it

Most of the time we collect information directly from you. We may also collect it:

• From someone acting for you.
• From our dealers, partners and suppliers.
• From a credit reporting body, bank or referee.
• From our own network and systems.
• From publicly available sources.

Where we need to collect information about you from a third party, we will ask for your consent first, unless the law authorises the collection without it.

You can deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym for general enquiries.

07  ·  How we use and disclose it

We use personal information for the purpose we collected it for, and for related purposes you would reasonably expect.

We disclose personal information to others where we need to, including:

• Carriers, wholesale suppliers and network operators.
• The operator of the Integrated Public Number Database.
• Credit reporting bodies and debt collection agents.
• Payment processors and banks.
• IT, cloud hosting, communications and support providers.
• Professional advisers.
• The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.
• Emergency service organisations, law enforcement and government agencies.

08  ·  Telecommunications obligations, the IPND and law enforcement

Some of our privacy obligations exist only because we are a telco. They are not optional and we cannot contract out of them.

IPND. The law requires us to give your name, address, service number and other public number customer details to the operator of the Integrated Public Number Database.

Emergency calls. Information needed to handle a call to 000 may be provided to emergency service organisations.

Law enforcement. We may be required to disclose information to law enforcement and national security agencies.

09  ·  Marketing, and how to opt out

Our marketing is modest and it is about our own services.

• We do not buy marketing lists or databases.
• We do not market other organisations’ products to you.
• We do not do door-to-door canvassing.
• We never use sensitive information for marketing.

You can opt out at any time by emailing hello@peartelco.com.au or calling 1300 007 327.

10  ·  Where your information is stored

Customer data is stored in Australia, on secure, encrypted servers, unless we have agreed something different with you in writing.

Your personal information does not leave Australia, and it is not accessed or processed from outside Australia.

Our systems are operated and supported from within Australia, and access to customer information is limited to Pear Australia and people working under our direct authority.

11  ·  How we protect it

• Encryption. Information in transit and at rest is encrypted.
• Access control. Access is role-based and protected by individual logins and MFA.
• Logging. Access and changes are logged and reviewed.
• Identity checks. We verify your identity before discussing an account.
• Staff training. Staff receive privacy and security training.
• Suppliers. Suppliers are contractually required to protect information.
• Disposal. Records are securely destroyed or de-identified when no longer needed.

12  ·  How long we keep it

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it, or for as long as the law requires us to keep it.

Account, billing and tax records are kept for the period required by tax and record-keeping law.

Complaint records are kept for at least two years.

13  ·  If something goes wrong — data breaches

We are covered by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). If personal information we hold is lost, or accessed or disclosed without authorisation, we act on it.

• Contain. We act to contain a suspected breach.
• Assess. We assess what happened and how serious it is.
• Notify. Where serious harm is likely, affected individuals and the OAIC are notified.
• Fix. We remediate the cause and record what we learned.

14  ·  Automated decisions

Pear does not use your personal information in a computer program to make, or to substantially help make, a decision that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you.

A person at Pear makes decisions about whether we can supply a service, credit applications, suspension or disconnection, complaints and hardship requests.

Our AI services, including Aria, use automated processing to understand a call, triage it, route it and handle bookings. They do not make clinical decisions.

15  ·  Seeing and correcting your information

You have the right to ask for the personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if it is wrong, out of date, incomplete or misleading.

We respond within 30 days. Access is generally free and correction is always free.

16  ·  Our website, cookies and social media

This policy also applies to information you email us, submit through our website, or send us through a social media page.

When you visit our website we record the IP address of your device and basic browsing information. We use it in aggregate to understand which pages are useful and how people find us.

Our website may use cookies and similar technologies for the same purpose.

17  ·  If you have a privacy complaint

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, tell us and we will look into it. It costs nothing to complain and it will not affect your service.

We will acknowledge your complaint promptly, investigate it, and tell you the outcome in writing within 30 days.

18  ·  Changes to this policy

We review this policy at least once a year, and whenever our practices or the law change. The current version is always available on our website.

If you would like this policy in another format — large print, or a plain-language summary — ask our Privacy Officer and we will provide it.