Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Trustrade is operated by TR. Trade Pty Ltd (ABN 14 702 631 472 · ACN 702 631 472). We follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), whether or not the Act would otherwise require us to.

2. What we collect

• About you: your name, email address, phone number and, for tradies, your business name, ABN, licence details and the account that releases are paid to (held by the payment provider).
• About the job: the site address, the stages, prices and dates, the job agreement and when it was agreed, variations, invoices and receipts.
• What is said and done: messages in the job chat, files and photos you add, holds and how they were resolved, and a time-stamped history of each stage.
• About payments: the amount, the time, the status and a reference from the payment provider. We do not receive or store full card numbers or bank login details.
• Technical information: the device and browser you use, IP address, and logs of sign-ins and actions, kept for security and fault-finding.

We do not ask for sensitive information (such as health information), and you should not put it in the job chat.

3. How we collect it

Mostly from you. Some of it comes from the other party on your job: a tradie who invites a client gives us that client's name, email address and site address so that the invitation can be sent. If you are invited to a job and do not want to use Trustrade, tell us and we will delete the invitation details. We also receive payment and identity-check results from the payment provider.

4. What we use it for

• to run the service: set up jobs, show each party what they need to see, and pass funding, release and refund instructions to the payment provider;
• to send you the emails and notifications about your jobs, such as a stage being funded, a release being requested, a hold, or a new message;
• to keep the record of the job that both parties can rely on if they disagree;
• to provide support, prevent fraud and misuse, and meet legal obligations, including those of the payment provider under anti-money-laundering law;
• to improve Trustrade, using information that does not identify you wherever we can.

We do not use your information for advertising and we do not sell it.

5. Automated summaries

If a stage is placed on hold, Trustrade may use an AI model to produce a short, neutral summary of what each side has said, to help the people involved read a long conversation. No decision about your money is made by software. Money only moves in the ways set out in the Terms of Use. If we use an outside AI provider for this, it processes the text under contract, for that purpose only, and may not use it to train its models.

6. Who we share it with

• the other party on your job, who can see the job, its stages, chat, documents and history;
• the payment provider, to hold, release and refund money and to verify identity;
• companies that run our systems under contract: web hosting, our database and sign-in service, and our email delivery service;
• our professional advisers and insurers, in confidence;
• courts, tribunals, regulators and law enforcement, where the law requires it or where both parties to a disagreement ask us to provide the job record.

7. Where it is stored

Our database is hosted in Australia (Sydney). Some of the companies that run our systems process information in other countries, including the United States. We only use providers that commit by contract to protect personal information to a standard at least equal to Australia's.

8. How long we keep it, and how we protect it

We keep job, payment and invoice records for seven years after a job finishes, because tax and financial-services laws require records to be kept and because either party may need them. The job chat is kept with the job for the same period. You can ask us to close your account sooner; we will delete or de-identify what the law does not require us to keep.

Information is encrypted in transit and at rest. Each person can only reach their own jobs, and that rule is enforced in the database itself as well as in the app. Staff access is limited and logged. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm we will tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

9. Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to keep you signed in. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

10. Seeing and correcting your information

You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it, at hello@trustrade.co. We will respond within 30 days. Messages in a job chat cannot be edited, because the chat is a shared record, but we can add a correction to it.

If you have a complaint about how we have handled your information, contact us first. If you are not satisfied with our answer you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au).

11. Changes

We will post any change here and, if it matters to how your information is used, tell you by email before it takes effect.