Privacy policy

Who we are

Schools Near Me (schoolsnearme.au) is run by Schools Near Me. We are responsible for the personal information described in this policy. Contact us about privacy at privacy@schoolsnearme.au.

What we collect

• Parents who enquire: your name, email, phone number if you give it, your child's first name, year level, start date and your message.
• School staff: your name, work email, job title, and the details you add to your school's profile and billing records.
• Everyone: a count of how many times each school page is viewed each day. This count uses no cookies and does not identify you. We also keep daily totals of which other pages are viewed and what is typed into the site search (anything that looks like an email address or phone number is not kept), with no cookies and nothing that identifies you. We also keep short-lived technical logs, and a one-way hash of your IP address to limit abuse of the enquiry form.

We collect information directly from you. School listings come from public data published by ACARA (the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority) and by state education departments, and from what schools tell us. We do not collect sensitive information, and we ask you not to include it (for example health details) in an enquiry message.

Why we collect it

We use your information to pass your enquiry to the schools you choose, to send you a confirmation, to run school accounts and billing, and to keep the site secure. We do not use it for any other purpose without your consent, unless the law allows or requires it.

How enquiries are disclosed to schools

When you enquire, your details go only to the schools named on the button you press, and to no one else:

• “Send to <school> only” sends your enquiry to the school you started from, and nothing more.
• “Send to all N schools” sends it to the school you started from plus every school still ticked in the list at the moment you press it. Any school you untick receives nothing.

Each school receives your enquiry by email, at the addresses the school itself has chosen, and in its dashboard. Once a school has your enquiry it handles that copy under its own privacy obligations, and it may contact you directly to reply. We send you one confirmation email listing every school your enquiry went to.

We never sell your personal information, and we never disclose it to any school you did not choose, or to advertisers. We do not use it for direct marketing.

Your shortlist and shortlist emails

Schools you save to your shortlist are kept in your own browser (its local storage), not on our servers. When you open your shortlist page, the ids of the saved schools are part of that page's address. If you ask us to email your shortlist, we keep only your email address and the ids of the schools on it, to send you the list once and a reminder 7 days and 1 day before each school's next open day. Nothing is sent until you press Confirm in the email we send you, and an address that is not confirmed is deleted after 48 hours. Every shortlist email has a one-click unsubscribe, which deletes your address, your list and our copies of the emails straight away. Shortlist emails contain no tracking.

Overseas disclosure

Our servers are in the European Union (Germany). Emails are sent through Cloudflare, which may process them in other countries, including the United States. Card payments are handled by our payment provider; we never see or store full card numbers. We take reasonable steps to make sure these providers protect your information to a standard consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Keeping it safe, and how long we keep it

Access to personal information is limited to the people who need it, over encrypted connections. Enquiries are kept for 24 months and then deleted. School accounts are kept while the school uses the service and for up to 12 months after. Invoices and payment records are kept for seven years, as Australian tax law requires.

Cookies and analytics

Page-view counts are first-party and cookieless. Parents browsing the site get no cookies unless they accept analytics. See our cookie policy.

Access, correction and complaints

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it. Email privacy@schoolsnearme.au and we will respond within 30 days. To have a school correct or delete its copy of your enquiry, contact that school directly.

If you have a complaint about how we have handled your information, tell us first and we will 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.

Changes

We will update this policy when our practices change and show the date at the top. Last updated 29 October 2026.