Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 October 2026

1. Who we are

Hospo Pulse (hospopulse.com.au) is operated by Australian Business Consulting Services Pty Ltd (ABN 58 298 951 711) ("we", "us", "our"). Hospo Pulse sends email alerts and digests summarising new activity on Australian liquor-licensing and planning registers — new liquor licence applications, and development applications and complying development certificates for hospitality premises — drawn from public government sources, to compliance and legal professionals conducting due diligence, parties monitoring a register's objection or notice window, industry bodies, and hospitality suppliers and brokers.

The states and territories we currently cover are listed on our website; coverage grows over time as we add sources.

Questions about this policy or your personal information can be sent to hello@hospopulse.com.au.

2. Our commitment to the Privacy Act

We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and we comply with the Act in full.

Some small businesses (generally those with an annual turnover of AUD $3 million or less) are exempt from the Privacy Act. We do not rely on that exemption. Because Hospo Pulse charges subscribers for alerts and digests that can include individuals' personal information drawn from public registers, we treat ourselves as an organisation that discloses personal information for a benefit — a "trader in personal information" under section 6D of the Privacy Act — which is covered by the Act regardless of turnover. Even if that did not apply, we have chosen to comply with the Act in full because it is best practice and because our subscribers and partners expect it.

This policy is our APP 1 privacy policy: it explains what personal information we collect, why, how we hold it, who we disclose it to (including overseas), how we use automated tools, and how you can access it, correct it, or complain.

3. Personal information we collect about subscribers

We deliberately collect very little. If you subscribe to Hospo Pulse, we collect and hold:

• your email address;
• your chosen coverage (which states/territories you want alerts for);
• your plan tier (free or paid);
• a Stripe customer identifier, if you are a paid subscriber;
• email delivery and unsubscribe records; and
• a consent record for each signup (the date/time, the signup source, the IP address used, and the exact consent wording shown to you), which we keep as evidence of consent under the Spam Act.

We collect this information directly from you when you subscribe (APP 3). There are no passwords and no user accounts.

What we never collect: we do not see or store your payment card details. Payments are processed entirely by Stripe, Inc. on Stripe's own checkout pages. We do not collect sensitive information and we ask you not to send it to us.

4. Why we collect it, and how we use it (APP 6)

We collect, hold and use subscriber information only to:

1. deliver the alert and digest emails you signed up for, matched to your chosen states and plan tier;
2. manage billing for paid plans (via Stripe);
3. process unsubscribes and honour your communication preferences;
4. respond to your enquiries, and to access, correction, deletion or takedown requests; and
5. meet our legal obligations.

We do not sell subscriber personal information, use it for third-party advertising, or use it to train AI models.

5. Register data about other people

Hospo Pulse republishes information from public government liquor-licensing and planning registers. That register data can include the names of individuals — for example, where an applicant or licensee is a sole trader or other natural person rather than a company. This is more common in some jurisdictions than others. Australian privacy law does not exclude publicly available information from the definition of personal information, so we treat register data about individuals as personal information and handle it accordingly. We collect those names from the register, but we do not publish them (see below).

How we handle register data:

• Source and lawful, fair collection (APP 3). We collect it from published government registers, not from the individuals themselves, and only from the register the government publishes for public transparency and objection purposes — which the publishing authority makes available for reuse under an open-data licence (for example, Creative Commons Attribution; Queensland is CC BY 3.0 AU, New South Wales is CC BY 4.0, and the ACT is CC BY 4.0). That open-data licence governs copyright in the register; it does not remove our obligations under the Privacy Act, so we still treat register data about individuals as personal information and handle it under this policy. We do not defeat access controls, and we prefer formal or sanctioned access arrangements with the source agency where these are available.
• We do not publish an individual's name. Where the applicant or licensee on an entry is a natural person, we do not publish their name or any direct phone number — including inside an "as trustee for" or "trading as" description. We show only the venue name, premises suburb or address, licence type, status, key dates and application reference, with a link to the official record and the date we captured it. Where a venue or trading name itself appears to be a person's name, we withhold it too; that check is automated and can occasionally miss a name, which we remove promptly when told (see section 5.1). Where a small-scale licence held by an individual is likely to be at their home, we show the suburb rather than the street address. We do not apply our automated significance score or automated summary to entries about individuals.
• AI processing (entries about companies). For entries where the applicant or licensee is a company, we use an AI service (Anthropic) to add a venue category, a significance score (1–5) and a one-sentence summary. Only register data is ever sent to this service — never subscriber data. These enrichments are automated and may contain errors.
• What we deliberately exclude. We do not republish individuals' personal contact details (such as personal phone numbers or personal email addresses), even where a government register exposes them.
• Accuracy (APP 10). For entries about individuals, our reasonable steps are: reproducing only the factual fields of the official register rather than characterising it, linking to the source record, date-stamping each entry, not adding an automated score or summary, and correcting or suppressing entries promptly on request (see section 5.1). The official register always prevails.

5.1 Correction, suppression and takedown

If you are named in register data we republish — or you are the business an entry is about — and you believe it is inaccurate, out of date, or you want it corrected, suppressed or removed, you can ask us — free of charge — under our Corrections, Suppression & Takedown Policy, or by emailing hello@hospopulse.com.au. We aim to acknowledge requests within 5 business days. We can correct entries, suppress an entry so it no longer appears in our emails or on our site, or remove it. Suppression or removal by us does not change the underlying government register. We give priority to requests that raise a personal-safety concern. We do not use automated processes to make decisions about individuals: every correction, suppression and takedown request is decided by a person.

6. Who we disclose personal information to

We disclose personal information only to the service providers we use to run Hospo Pulse, each acting on our instructions: Stripe (payment processing), Resend (email delivery), Neon (database hosting), Vercel (website hosting), GitHub (data-pipeline execution), and Anthropic (AI classification — register data about companies only, never subscriber data). We may also disclose personal information where required or authorised by law.

7. Overseas disclosure (APP 8)

Several of our service providers store or process data outside Australia, including in the United States. Before disclosing personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps — including relying on our providers' contractual commitments and security certifications — to ensure the information is handled consistently with the APPs, as required by APP 8. We generally remain accountable for how these overseas providers handle your personal information.

8. Marketing emails and the Spam Act

Our emails are governed by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth): we only send our alert and digest emails to people who signed up themselves (express consent) and we keep a consent record for each signup; every email identifies Australian Business Consulting Services Pty Ltd as the sender and includes contact details; and every alert and digest email contains a one-click unsubscribe (link plus RFC 8058 one-click headers) that stops all email from us and remains functional for at least 30 days.

We may also email hospitality media, publishers and industry organisations at business contact details they have published, to propose partnerships or listings for Hospo Pulse. We use those details only for that purpose. We don't add them to our subscriber emails or share them with anyone. To stop hearing from us, reply "unsubscribe" or email hello@hospopulse.com.au, and we'll act on it within 5 business days.

9. Cookies and analytics

Our website does not set advertising or analytics cookies. Payment pages are hosted by Stripe. Standard hosting logs may record technical data such as IP addresses, used only for security and to operate the service. If we add analytics in future, we will update this policy first.

10. Security and retention (APP 11)

We take reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold — collecting minimal data, encryption in transit, access controls, and established providers. We keep subscriber information only while you are subscribed and for a reasonable period afterwards to meet legal obligations, then take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it.

11. Data breaches

We comply with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. If we suspect a data breach, we assess it promptly and within 30 days. If we conclude it is likely to result in serious harm and we cannot prevent that risk, we notify affected individuals and the OAIC as soon as practicable.

12. Access, correction and deletion (APPs 12 and 13)

You can ask us at any time, by emailing hello@hospopulse.com.au, to access, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you. We respond within a reasonable period (our target is 30 days). The Privacy Act does not currently contain a general right to erasure, but our practice is to honour deletion requests unless we are legally required to retain parts of your record (for example, payment records), and we will tell you if anything must be kept and why. Individuals named in register data should use the process in section 5.1.

13. Complaints

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, contact us first at hello@hospopulse.com.au; we will acknowledge, investigate and respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): www.oaic.gov.au · 1300 363 992 · GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be available here with its "last updated" date. Material changes affecting subscribers will be flagged by email.

15. Contact

Australian Business Consulting Services Pty Ltd · ABN: 58 298 951 711 · Email: hello@hospopulse.com.au