Privacy Policy

1. About this policy

1.1 ECO Systems Holdings Pty Ltd (ABN 24 697 054 327) (“we”, “us”, “our”) operates the website fixyourbill.com.au (the “Service”). This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we hold and use it, who we disclose it to, and how you may access, correct or delete it.

1.2 We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and we treat ourselves as bound by the APPs in full.

2. Collection: comparisons without a bill

2.1 If you compare by postcode, we ask you questions about the property so that we can estimate its energy use. Depending on your answers, we collect your postcode; the fuel being compared and whether the supply is residential or business; details about the property (approximate age, size, energy rating, draught-proofing, gas connection); its heating, cooling and hot water systems; and its appliances and occupancy (pool or spa, clothes dryer, rooftop solar, electric vehicle charging, number of occupants, daytime occupancy).

2.2 If you elect to enter your own figures instead, we collect the figures you provide: your spend and billing period, the season, your usage if known, your current retailer, and whether you have solar.

2.3 None of the information described in clauses 2.1 and 2.2 is stored by us, with two exceptions: your postcode, whose retention is governed by section 10, and the figures you elect to save under clause 10.7, which are stored only if you ask. Your answers are used to produce the estimate you requested and are then discarded. They are not written to any database we operate, are not retained against your postcode, and are not disclosed to any retailer or advertiser. The only copy that outlives the calculation is held in your own browser, so that you can revise an answer, and it is removed when you close the tab.

3. Collection: uploaded bills

3.1 If you upload a bill, we receive and process the document you provide. A bill typically contains personal information. Depending on its contents, this may include your current retailer, plan name and billing period; your electricity or gas usage, tariff rates, supply charges, controlled load, solar feed-in rates, discounts and historical usage; your National Metering Identifier (NMI) and postcode; and any other text printed on the pages you upload, which may include your name, supply address and account number. We do not require those identifying details to produce your comparison, but where they appear on the pages you upload they are read as part of the document.

3.2 After the bill has been read, we ask a short set of verification questions: whether you have solar, a battery or an electric vehicle; your solar feed-in rate; whether you pay on time or by direct debit; and whether you hold any concession. Your concession answer does not affect your comparison. Its only effect is that, if you proceed to switch, the handoff screen provides a field for your concession card number so that it can travel with your other details to the retailer you choose. Neither your concession answer nor your card number is stored by us.

4. Collection: technical and usage data

4.1 We collect standard technical data when you use the Service: the pages you visit, the comparison results you view, and the IP address from which your requests arrive. Sections 10 and 12 set out how this data is held and for how long.

5. How your bill is processed

5.1 Location and custody. Your bill is processed in Australia on systems we own or control. The file you upload is placed in private storage in Australia for the sole purpose of being read, and is deleted from that storage as soon as the read completes. At no point does the document leave Australia.

5.2 Standard processing. Most bills are read by deterministic software. Our bill-reading engine locates the rates, usage figures and dates printed on the document and performs the arithmetic on them.

5.3 AI-assisted processing.Some bills are also read by a machine-learning language model. Where a bill's layout is unfamiliar, the model reads the text of the bill in order to determine how the page is structured: which figure is the supply charge, which block is the usage table, where the billing period appears. The following applies to that processing:

(a) The model runs on hardware we own, located in Australia. It is not an external service. No AI provider or other third party receives your bill or any part of it, and no per-document fee is paid to anyone.

(b) While your bill is being read, nothing about it leaves the machine. The text of your bill moves only inside that machine, between the programs doing the reading. It goes nowhere else: no copy of it, no part of one, and no report that a read occurred. Where the machine speaks to our own systems it does so over an encrypted connection, and to no third party. We have verified this by monitoring the machine's network activity while it performs reads.

(c) The program that runs the model makes one outbound connection of its own, and it is worth naming plainly. When that program starts up, which happens when the machine is switched on, it asks the company that supplies it whether a newer version exists. That happens before any bill is read and without any bill being involved. It carries no part of your bill and no record that you used the Service.

(d) Nothing from your bill is retained by the model, and nothing from your bill is used to train the model or any other system.

(e) The model does not determine what you pay. All figures shown to you are produced by deterministic code performing arithmetic on published rates. The model may propose where a figure sits on the page; it does not set a price, adjust a price, or influence which plans you are shown or their order.

(f) Every read, however produced, is checked against the totals printed on your own bill. Where the arithmetic does not reconcile, the read is refused and you are asked to enter your figures instead.

5.4 Reading by a person. Where our reader cannot make out your bill, that screen offers to send it to a person instead. If you choose it, the following applies:

(a) What is sent is the file or files you attach and the email address you give us, together with an optional note if you write one, the postcode if your bill named one, and our own reference for the failed read. Nothing else about you is collected and there is no account.

(b) It is sent to our own mailbox, at Fix Your Bill, and to nobody else. That mailbox is Google Workspace, hosted in Australia. It is carried there by our email provider, Resend, which transmits the message and does not read it. Resend is a United States company and the message passes through its systems in transit, so this is the one path on which a bill leaves Australia. It happens only because you chose this option, and it does not happen when your bill is read by the Service.

(c) A person at Fix Your Bill opens your bill and reads it. No model reads it and no automated system extracts from it. The comparison you receive is worked out by a person using the same published rates the Service uses.

(d) Your bill is not stored on the Service. It is not written to our database, it is not placed in our upload storage, and no copy of it is kept anywhere except the email you sent. That email and its attachment are deleted from the mailbox once your comparison has been sent back to you.

(e) The reply we send you stays in that mailbox as ordinary business correspondence, for two years, and is then deleted. It holds the comparison we worked out and your email address. It does not hold your bill, which was deleted under paragraph (d) when the reply was sent.

(f) We record that a request was made, as a count of files and their total size. That record holds nothing read from your bill, no address and no email address.

(g) You can ask us to delete any of it at any time, including before we have replied, by writing to the contact address in section 16. We will delete it and confirm that to you.

(h) Separately from all of the above, our contact address is published, correspondence sent to it is read by a person, and some people choose to send a bill by email that way. Where that occurs, a member of our staff opens and reads the document personally, and paragraphs (d) to (g) apply to it in the same terms.

5.5 What does not occur. When your bill is read by the Service, it is not disclosed to any external company, in whole or in part. It is not provided to any AI provider. It is not used to train any model. It is not sold and it is not shared. The single exception is the path you choose yourself under clause 5.4, where the file travels to our own mailbox through the email provider named there; even then it is not sold, not shared, and not used to train anything.

6. Automated processing and its effect

6.1 Two automated steps affect what you see. First, our bill-reading engine extracts the figures from your bill, with the assistance described in clause 5.3 where a layout is unfamiliar. Extraction can be imperfect; the figures we show you are an estimate based on that extraction, not a quote, and we display what was read so that you can correct it. Second, an algorithm ranks available plans by projected annual cost on your usage, cheapest first. The ranking is produced by that calculation alone.

6.2 No automated decision we make has a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Whether to switch is your decision, and any retailer you choose conducts its own onboarding process.

7. Purposes of collection and use

7.1 We collect and use personal information to: (a) read your bill and determine what you are currently paying; (b) compare your position against published plans and show you cheaper options; (c) improve the accuracy of our extraction and comparison; and (d) maintain the de-identified comparison records described in section 10, which we use to measure market outcomes and to show retailers how their pricing performs in aggregate.

7.2 We do not use personal information for advertising, and we do not sell or rent personal information.

8. Disclosure

8.1 We disclose personal information only as follows:

(a) Hosting and storage providers, which operate the Service and hold your bill in private storage in Australia for the period required to read it.

(b) A retailer you choose, and only if you choose to switch to it, limited to the details required to effect the switch. We do not disclose your information to any retailer you have not chosen.

(c) Our email provider, only where you ask us to email you something (a link back to your comparison, your saved session, or your switch summary), and only for the purpose of delivery. That provider is located outside Australia, so an email you request is handled overseas. Your bill is never attached to any email we send.

(d) Our analytics provider, Google (Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager), which loads on each page and receives standard web analytics data: pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP address, and browser and device type. It does not receive your bill or anything read from it. It is located outside Australia. Section 12 describes the cookies it sets.

8.2 Google Analytics is the only third-party tracking tool on this site. If we add another, we will name it in this policy before it operates.

8.3 We use HubSpot as our customer relationship system for messages submitted through the contact form, and for no other purpose. It performs no tracking on this site: nothing loads from HubSpot in your browser, and it receives no information about the pages you visit.

8.4 When you follow a link to a retailer's website, that retailer's own privacy policy applies from that point.

8.5 Other than as set out in clauses 8.1(c) and 8.1(d), we do not disclose personal information to overseas recipients. Your bill and the information read from it are not disclosed overseas in any circumstance.

9. Switching

9.1 If you choose to switch, the Service displays a screen showing what was read from your bill together with fields for details only you can supply: your mobile number, email address, date of birth and, so the retailer can verify your identity, one identity document number of your choice (driver licence, passport or Medicare card). The screen also asks whether anyone at the address relies on life support equipment, because the retailer and the network operator are required to know this before a transfer proceeds. That question is asked at the point of switching and nowhere else.

9.2 You complete that screen in your own browser. If you close the tab without acting, nothing on the screen reaches us, with one exception which operates only at your election: if you press the button to email yourself a copy, the details on the screen are transmitted to our server solely so the email can be sent. Those details are your name, date of birth, mobile number, email address, meter number, supply address, postcode, current retailer, usage, and the plan you selected with its rates.

9.3 Three items are excluded from that email and are not received by our server when you request one: your identity document number, your concession card number, and your life support answer. They remain on your screen, where you can copy them into the retailer's own form. The email is sent to the address you entered and to no other recipient, and we retain no copy of it.

9.4 For a small number of retailers whose sign-up forms accept it, limited details (your postcode, or the fuel you are switching) are carried in the web address of the link you follow, so the retailer's form opens pre-filled rather than empty. That link is opened by you, in your browser, to the retailer you selected. All other retailers control their own sign-up forms, and in those cases we display your details on screen for you to copy; nothing is transmitted.

9.5 We record that a switch occurred: the retailer, whether its form could be pre-filled, and whether the device used was a phone, tablet or computer. That record contains no name, address, meter number, email address or dollar amount, and nothing about life support. Clause 10.5 explains the extent to which that record is linked to other data and for how long.

10. Retention and de-identified records

10.1 Your bill. The uploaded file is held only for as long as the read takes, and is deleted when the read finishes, whether it succeeded or failed. As a second line of defence, any file left stranded by a system failure is deleted automatically within hours. Both mechanisms are tested.

10.2 Figures read from your bill. These are not retained on our servers once your results have been produced, other than as part of the de-identified record described in clause 10.3 and, only if you ask for a link back to your comparison, the fourteen-day record described in clause 10.6. Your results are returned to your browser rather than held by us.

10.3 The de-identified comparison record. After each comparison we retain a record of the comparison, not of the person: the postcode; the distribution network; the retailer and tariff compared; the usage and rates; whether solar is present; the annual cost calculated; the cheapest priceable alternative; and the processing duration. It contains no name, email address, phone number, street name or number, full address, meter number or account number. The meter number is replaced by an irreversible cryptographic code, which allows us to distinguish a repeat comparison from a new one without retaining the number itself.

10.4 Aggregate use.We may show a retailer how its pricing performs within that data, in aggregate form only: figures combined across many comparisons and grouped so that no individual household's details can be identified. We never provide a retailer with data about an individual customer. The only personal details that ever reach a retailer are those you supply yourself at the point of switching, as set out in section 9.

10.5 The 30-day identification window. For 30 days after a comparison, the record described in clause 10.3, and the switch record described in clause 9.5, remain linked to the IP address from which the comparison was run, together with the postcode. During that window the records are de-identified rather than anonymous. At 30 days the IP address and its link are deleted automatically, and what remains is market data with no route back to any person.

10.6 Coming back to a comparison. After your comparison is on screen, we offer to email you a link that runs it again whenever you open it. If you ask for one, we store the following for 14 days: your usage for the billing period, and the peak, shoulder and off-peak split where your bill printed one; the number of days the bill covered; your postcode; the distribution network your comparison was priced in; the name of your current retailer; what the bill came to; whether the account is a home or a business; and the email address the link was sent to. We do not store your bill, your meter number, your account number, your name, your address, the plan you are on, or the result of the comparison: opening the link runs the comparison again against the plans published on that day, and no earlier result is kept to show you. Fourteen days after the link is made, the record and the email address are deleted automatically, and the link stops working. The link is not protected by a password or a sign-in: anyone who holds it can open the comparison it points to, so treat it as you would the bill. Asking for a link is optional; if you never ask, nothing under this clause is retained.

10.7 Saved sessions on a postcode comparison. A comparison run from your postcode rather than a bill offers to save the figures it showed you. If you elect to, we store your email address and those figures: fuel, postcode, current retailer and plan where you named them, current annual cost, and the cheapest priceable alternative on the day. This is a record of the answer you were shown and it is not re-run; prices move, so a saved figure describes the day it was saved. It is kept until you delete it from the link in the email, or ask us to under section 13. Saving is optional; if you never save, nothing under this clause is retained.

11. Security

11.1 Your IP address is recorded when you run a comparison and is used to detect abuse of the Service and enforce usage limits. It is retained for a maximum of 30 days and deleted automatically on a schedule. Nothing read from your bill is stored with it, it is not used to build any profile of you, and it is not disclosed outside our own operations.

11.2 We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we hold. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

12. Cookies

12.1 We use essential cookies required for the Service to function. We do not use cookies for advertising, and we do not sell personal information collected through cookies.

12.2 Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, sets analytics cookies that tell us how the site is used: which pages are read, how visitors arrive, and whether pages function correctly. These are tracking cookies. You can block or delete them in your browser settings, and the comparison service functions fully if you do.

12.3 If you save your session, we set one cookie so your browser remains signed in. It holds a random value only, no address and no figures, and it is removed when you delete your saved session.

12.4 When you open a link to come back to a comparison (clause 10.6), we set one cookie for thirty minutes so the page can show it to you without the link staying in your browser's address bar. It holds the random value from the link and nothing else, it is sent only to that page, and it does not sign you in to anything.

13. Access, correction and deletion

13.1 You may ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, at any time and free of charge, by emailing hello@fixyourbill.com.au. We will respond within a reasonable period.

14. Complaints

14.1 If you believe we have mishandled your personal information, please contact us first at hello@fixyourbill.com.au. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

15. Changes to this policy

15.1 We may update this policy as the Service changes. The date at the top of this page records when it was last updated.

16. Contact

16.1 Questions about this policy: hello@fixyourbill.com.au.