Privacy Policy
How COMPASS Advocacy handles your information on this website.
Last updated: 31 May 2026
1. About this policy
This policy covers the personal information we collect through this website, including when you make an enquiry or browse the site. Once you engage COMPASS as a client, a fuller privacy policy applies to how we handle your claim and health information. We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.
2. Who we are
This website is operated by Compensation Advocacy Support and Services Pty Ltd (ABN 81 686 930 889), trading as COMPASS Advocacy, an Australian veterans compensation advocacy practice. For any privacy question or request, you can contact our Privacy Officer, Charlotte Gawthorne, at support@compassadvocacy.com.au.
3. What we collect through this website
When you contact us through the website, we collect the details you provide, such as your name, email address, phone number, and the content of your enquiry. We also collect limited technical information automatically, such as your IP address, device and browser type, and how you use the site, through cookies and analytics.
4. How we use it
We use this information to respond to your enquiry, work out whether and how we can help, contact you about your enquiry, and operate, maintain, and improve the website. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for unrelated marketing without your consent.
Please do not send sensitive information here. Please avoid sending detailed medical, health, or other sensitive information through the website enquiry form or live chat. If you become a client, we will collect that information securely and explain how we handle it at that time.
5. Cookies and analytics
Our website uses session cookies that are necessary for the site to work, and Zoho PageSense to help us understand how visitors use the site. If we enable live chat, that tool may also set cookies. You can set your browser to refuse or delete cookies, though some parts of the site may not work as intended.
6. Who we share it with
We use Zoho as our business platform for enquiry forms, client relationship management, analytics, and chat. Information collected through the website is held in Zoho's Australian data centres. Zoho is headquartered overseas, and its support staff outside Australia may have limited access to our account for support purposes, governed by Zoho's data processing terms. We require our service providers to protect your information to a standard consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles.
7. Storage and security
We hold website information within Zoho's Australian infrastructure and protect it with measures including multi-factor authentication, access controls, and encryption of data in transit and at rest.
8. AI Use Policy Statement
We use AI carefully, privately, and only to support our advocacy work for veterans.
Our AI tools are used to find, search, organise, and collate relevant information and reports. This helps us work through large amounts of material more efficiently, identify relevant references, and prepare clearer summaries for human review.
Our AI systems run locally and offline on servers hosted on our own premises. These servers are not accessible from the internet. We do not upload personal, private, identifying, medical, or client information into cloud-based AI tools.
The reference databases used by our AI systems are built from publicly available veteran service, support, and general medical information. These databases help us locate relevant information faster, but they do not replace human judgement.
AI does not make decisions about a veteran's claim, eligibility, medical condition, or outcome. It does not provide final advice by itself. AI supports research, searching, collation, drafting, and summarising, but all advocacy work remains subject to human review and responsibility.
Our approach is simple:
- Veteran information stays private.
- AI runs locally and offline.
- No personal information is loaded into cloud AI tools.
- Our servers are hosted on premises and are not internet-accessible.
- AI helps find, search, organise, and collate information.
- AI supports our team, but does not replace human judgement.
- Final advice and advocacy remain the responsibility of people, not software.
We believe AI can be useful when it is handled responsibly. Our priority is to protect veterans privacy, maintain trust, and use technology only where it improves the quality, clarity, and reliability of our advocacy.
9. Access, correction, and complaints
You can ask us for access to the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is wrong or out of date, by contacting us at the email above. If you have a privacy complaint, please contact us first. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.
10. Data breaches
If a data breach occurs that is likely to cause you serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is dated at the top of this page.