Privacy Policy

Account information: your name, email address, password (stored in hashed form), profile photo, and, where relevant, your preferred languages and time zone. Provider information: your qualifications, cultural background, service offerings, introduction video, and a government-issued identity document uploaded for verification. Booking and payment information: booking history, session times, and payment details processed on our behalf by Stripe. SeeCave does not itself store your full card number. Payout information (Providers): your bank or mobile-money account details, used to pay you for completed sessions. Content you submit: reviews, ratings, complaints, messages to SeeCave, and any Culture & Stories or social-feed submissions. Technical and usage information: device type, browser, IP address, and how you interact with SeeCave, collected automatically (including via cookies or similar technologies) to keep the platform secure and working properly.

We only collect sensitive information — such as the identity document Providers upload — where it's necessary for identity verification, and we do not collect more than that purpose requires.

We collect personal information directly from you when you create an account, complete onboarding, make or accept a booking, submit content, or contact us. We also collect some information automatically through your use of the platform, and, where necessary for payment or payout processing, from our payment and payout processors (Stripe and Wise).

We use your personal information to: create and administer your account, and verify Provider identity before a profile goes live; process bookings, payments, and Provider payouts, including any necessary currency conversion or cross-border transfer; facilitate session scheduling and video-call link handoff; moderate reviews and user-submitted content, and investigate complaints or reports; communicate with you about your account, bookings, and (where you've consented) SeeCave features or promotions; detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and safety risks, consistent with our obligations under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) and the Basic Online Safety Expectations; and comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including tax, anti-fraud, and record-keeping requirements.

We disclose personal information only where necessary to run SeeCave or as required by law, including to: payment and payout processors — Stripe (payments) and Wise (cross-border payouts) — who handle your payment or payout details directly; cloud hosting and infrastructure providers, who store platform data on our behalf under contractual confidentiality and security obligations; other users, but only to the extent your profile, reviews, or content are designed to be visible to them — your identity document, payment details, and payout details are never shared with other users; professional advisors, insurers, or regulators, where necessary for legal, accounting, or compliance purposes; and law enforcement or government bodies, where required or authorised by law. We do not sell your personal information.

Because SeeCave connects Customers and Providers across borders, and uses payment and payout processors that operate internationally, your personal information may be disclosed to, or stored by, recipients located outside Australia (including Stripe's and Wise's processing locations). Before doing so, we take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients handle personal information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, including through the processors' own contractual privacy and security commitments.

We store personal information, and in particular Provider identity documents, in a private, access-restricted location, and retain it only for as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected — including any period required for verification, dispute resolution, or legal and regulatory record-keeping. We use technical and organisational safeguards designed to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure.

Where SeeCave uses any automated process to make a decision that could reasonably be expected to significantly affect your rights (for example, an automated identity-verification or account-integrity decision), we will describe in this Policy the personal information used in that process, consistent with the transparency requirements coming into effect under the Privacy Act reforms.

If we send you marketing or promotional messages, we do so only with your consent, in accordance with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) — given either when you opt in or inferred from your existing relationship with SeeCave, and no more broadly than that relationship reasonably supports. Every marketing message identifies SeeCave as the sender and includes a functional unsubscribe facility. Transactional and service messages about your account or bookings are not marketing and will still be sent regardless of your marketing preference. You can manage your communication preferences in your account settings at any time.

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it's inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, by contacting us using the details in clause 13. We will respond within a reasonable period. We may need to verify your identity before actioning a request, and there may be limited circumstances in which we are permitted to decline a request under the Privacy Act — if so, we will explain why.

If you believe we've mishandled your personal information, you can lodge a complaint with us at the contact details below, and we will investigate and respond within a reasonable time. If you're not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au. Nothing in this Policy limits your right to seek a remedy for a serious invasion of privacy under the statutory tort introduced by the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (in force since June 2025), or to report doxxing conduct, which is a criminal offence under that same Act.

SeeCave accounts are held by adults, but a child may take part in a session as a participant under the direct supervision of the parent or legal guardian who holds the account and made the booking — for example, a parent booking a language or cultural session for their child. We do not knowingly collect account, payment, or independent profile information from a child. Any information about a child participant (such as a first name or age range provided when booking, to help match an appropriate session) is provided and controlled by the supervising parent or guardian through their own account, and is used only to arrange and deliver that session. We handle this information with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration, consistent with the Basic Online Safety Expectations, and we do not use it for profiling or marketing directed at the child. If the OAIC's forthcoming Children's Online Privacy Code imposes further requirements once finalised, we will update this Policy accordingly. If you believe a child has created their own account or given us personal information directly, without a parent or guardian's involvement, please contact us using the details in clause 13 and we will take steps to remove it.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be notified consistently with the notice provisions in SeeCave's Customer Terms & Conditions and Provider Terms & Conditions. Continued use of SeeCave after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

Questions about this Privacy Policy, or requests to access or correct your personal information, can be directed to onseecave@gmail.com.