Privacy Policy

The Construction Contracts Co. ("TCCC", "we", "us", "our") operates the QLD Subcontract Risk Scanner (the "Scanner") and Adjudicate Pro, our payment dispute assessment tool ("Adjudicate Pro"), together the "Tool". This Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information collected through both.

This Policy is written to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

When you use the Tool, we collect:

• Email address: supplied by you to receive your report or assessment;
• IP address: automatically captured by our server for security and abuse-prevention purposes;
• Browser identifier (user agent): automatically captured for compatibility and abuse-prevention purposes;
• File metadata: the file name and file size of any document you upload;
• Timestamp: the date and time the scan or assessment was run.

Where your visit came from. If you arrive through one of our links, we note the channel it came from (for example LinkedIn, YouTube or our newsletter) and the first page you landed on. Your browser remembers this for up to 30 days, and it is saved with any scan or assessment you run, so we can tell which channels are useful to subcontractors. Separately, we count visits and uploads started, once per browser session, recording only the channel, the page and the time. Those counts contain no IP address, email address or cookie and cannot be linked to you.

When you use Adjudicate Pro, we additionally collect the details you choose to give us about your dispute:

• Questionnaire answers: the state, the amount in dispute, how you describe the relationship with the builder, your preferred outcome, the dispute type, how long it has been outstanding, and the agreed payment terms;
• Pasted correspondence: any email or message text you paste instead of, or as well as, uploading files. We treat pasted text exactly as we treat an uploaded document.

Builder Check: when you ask for a Builder Check report, we store your email address, the builder name you typed, and the ACN or ABN of the register entity you picked, with the time, so we can email the report and improve the name matching. The report quotes public registers (ASIC datasets, the QBCC licence register, ABN Lookup) and is sent only to you. We never publish, score or share who anyone looks up. Where the entity you pick is a sole trader or partnership, the register information in the report may include an individual's name as published on the Australian Business Register or ASIC's business names register; we hold only the entity name and number you picked, and only for the purposes above.

Builder Watch: if you ask us to watch a builder, we store your email address and the ABN or ACN you enter, and the public-record status of that entity, so we can email you when it changes. We use them for nothing else and never publish who anyone watches. Unconfirmed requests are deleted after 7 days; stopped watches after 30 days. Every email has a link to stop.

Optional business profile and negotiation positions (Scanner). While a scan runs you can choose to tell us about your business (trade, role, team size, turnover band, home state, your goal for the job) and the positions you normally negotiate for. It is optional and you can skip it. We use it to check the contract against your positions and to tailor how your report reads, and your answers are sent to Anthropic with the contract for that check. The business details and positions are saved against your email address so your next scan uses them automatically. Details about a single job (your goal for it, the contract sum, the programme length) are used for that scan only. Your saved profile is never shown to someone who simply types your email address into the Scanner. You can change or delete it at any time using the "Edit your saved positions" link in your report email, or by asking us (see section 9). A saved profile left untouched for twenty-four (24) months is deleted.

We store everything you upload in private, access-controlled storage located in Sydney, Australia. It is never made publicly available, never indexed by search engines, and never shared with any other user of the Tool.

Scanner: we keep an uploaded subcontract for up to twelve (12) months from the date of the scan and then delete it permanently. We use it to generate your report, to improve the accuracy of the Tool, and to produce de-identified market benchmarks: aggregate statistics about what is and is not normal in Australian subcontracts, segmented by state. Benchmarks never identify you, your business, the document, or any party named in it.

Adjudicate Pro: dispute documents (payment claims, correspondence, photographs, contracts) and pasted text are more sensitive, so we keep them for a shorter period: up to one hundred and eighty (180) days from the date of the assessment, and then delete them permanently. We use them to generate your assessment and to improve the accuracy of the Tool.

You can ask us to delete your documents and your records at any time. See section 9.

We collect the information described in section 2 to:

• deliver the report or assessment to you;
• generate the assessment itself, since Adjudicate Pro's output depends on the dispute details you provide;
• enforce fair-use limits so the Tool stays available and free for everyone;
• detect and prevent abuse, including circumvention of use limits;
• communicate with you about the Tool, including responses to support enquiries;
• understand how the Tool is used so we can improve it; and
• produce de-identified market and dispute benchmarks, as described in sections 3 and 10.

By providing your email address, you consent to us sending you occasional emails about the Tool, updates to The Construction Contracts Co., new resources, or related products and services we think may be useful to you. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time using the unsubscribe link in the email or by emailing mat@theconstructioncontracts.co.

Two optional email features work only if you ask for them: a reminder you can request on your phone from the upload page (the anti-screw checklist straight away, then one reminder at 7am the next morning, then nothing; we keep the channel you arrived from so we know which posts work), and a free 7-day email course you can sign up for on our guides and resources pages (seven emails, one per day, then it stops, you are not added to any other list). Both carry a one-click stop link in every email, and stopping takes effect immediately.

We use the following third-party service providers in the operation of the Tool. Personal information may be processed by these providers in the course of providing their services to us:

• Anthropic, PBC (United States): provides the AI model that analyses uploaded documents, images, pasted text, and questionnaire answers;
• Vercel Inc. (a United States company, running the Tool's servers in Sydney, Australia): hosts the Tool and runs the server code that processes your uploads;
• Supabase Inc. (with data hosted in Sydney, Australia): stores records and uploaded documents;
• Resend, Inc. (United States): delivers the email copy of your report or assessment, when you ask for one, and Builder Watch emails.

We do not sell your personal information to any third party. We do not share your personal information with any third party for that party's own marketing purposes. We do not disclose your documents, your dispute details, or your assessment to any other party to your contract or dispute.

Records (email, IP, file metadata, questionnaire answers, timestamps) and uploaded documents are stored on Supabase infrastructure located in Sydney, Australia. Uploaded documents sit in private buckets that are not readable without server-side credentials. The Tool's server code runs on Vercel infrastructure in Sydney, Australia.

For the AI analysis step, the content of your uploaded documents and images, your pasted text, and your questionnaire answers are transmitted to Anthropic's servers (United States) for processing by the AI model and are not retained by Anthropic for training purposes under their commercial API terms.

Scanner documents are deleted permanently within twelve (12) months of the scan. Adjudicate Pro documents and pasted correspondence are deleted permanently within one hundred and eighty (180) days of the assessment.

We retain scan and assessment records (your email, IP address, file metadata, timestamps, and, for Adjudicate Pro, your questionnaire answers and the generated assessment) for up to twenty-four (24) months, after which they are deleted or de-identified.

We may retain de-identified data extracted from documents and disputes (such as payment terms, liquidated damages rates, notice periods, dispute types, amount ranges, and assessment outcomes by state) and anonymised, aggregated usage statistics indefinitely, for benchmarking, operational, and reporting purposes. This data contains no personal information and cannot be used to reconstruct your documents or identify your dispute.

You have the right to:

• request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• request correction of any personal information that is inaccurate or out of date;
• request deletion of your personal information, your uploaded documents, your scan or assessment records, and any saved profile and negotiation positions;
• withdraw consent to marketing communications.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at mat@theconstructioncontracts.co. Deletion requests are actioned within seven (7) days, no questions asked. We will respond to any other request within thirty (30) days.

Separately from your personal information, we derive structured commercial data from what runs through the Tool. From Scanner contracts: figures such as payment terms, liquidated damages rates, retention percentages, and notice periods, together with the trade, the project type, the contract value, and the name of the head contractor or principal named in the contract. From Adjudicate Pro assessments: the state, the dispute type, the amount range, and the shape and outcome of the assessment.

This data describes the contract or the dispute, not you. It carries no name of yours, no business of yours, no email address, and no link back to you in anything we publish. We keep it indefinitely and use it to produce aggregate benchmarks and to improve the Tool. The licence under which we do this is set out in section 9 of our Terms of Use.

We publish benchmarks only in aggregate, drawn from many contracts and disputes. We do not publish, sell, or disclose the terms of any individual contract or the facts of any individual dispute, and we do not publish benchmarks that name a head contractor, principal, builder, or any other party.

If we become aware of unauthorised access to, or disclosure of, personal information we hold, and that access or disclosure is likely to result in serious harm, we will assess it and notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

We use industry-standard technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), encrypted storage of credentials, and access controls. No system is completely secure, however, and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of any information transmitted to or stored by the Tool.

A plain-English summary of where uploads are stored, who can access them, and how long they are kept is on our Security and data handling page.

If you believe we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles or otherwise mishandled your personal information, contact us at mat@theconstructioncontracts.co. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated version will be posted on this page with a revised "Last updated" date. Changes do not apply retrospectively to material you uploaded before the change: the policy in force at the time of upload continues to govern that material.