Privacy Policy

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy outlines how Ethical Prospecting Pty Ltd ( “Comparable”, “we”, “us”, “our”) collects, uses, stores, and discloses personal information across all service verticals, including:

• Energy (electricity and gas)
• Telco (broadband and internet)
• Health insurance
• Finance (including mortgages and related products)

We are committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and where applicable, the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth).

This policy applies to all interactions with Comparable, including through our website, call centre, digital platforms, and third-party channels.

2. Information We Collect

We may collect personal information when you:

• Request a quote or comparison
• Upload a bill or provide usage details
• Contact us for support or enquiries
• Schedule a call with our advisors
• Sign up for updates or marketing communications
• Apply for or enquire about products or services

Types of Information Collected

We may collect:

• Identity information (name, date of birth)
• Contact information (email, phone number, address)
• Service-related information, including energy usage data (NMI/MIRN), broadband details, and health insurance preferences
• Financial information (income, expenses, assets, liabilities)
• Verification information (e.g. driver's licence, Medicare, concession details)
• Technical information (IP address, device, usage behaviour)
• Interaction data (call recordings, chat logs, consent records including OTP/EIC)
• Marketing preferences and behavioural data

We may collect information directly from you or from trusted third parties, including partners and publicly available sources.

3. Health Insurance and Sensitive Information

When you compare or apply for health insurance, we may collect sensitive information, including health-related information. Sensitive information is handled in accordance with stricter legal requirements under Australian privacy law.

What Health Information We May Collect

• Healthcare needs and usage preferences (e.g. dental, optical, physiotherapy)
• Information about existing cover or usage patterns
• Family composition (e.g. singles, couples, dependants)
• Eligibility for government rebates or schemes
• Information required to recommend suitable policies

We do not collect unnecessary medical history or clinical records.

Why We Collect This Information

We collect sensitive information to provide accurate and personalised health insurance comparisons, recommend policies suited to your needs, and connect you with relevant health insurers.

How We Handle Sensitive Information

• Only collect sensitive information with your explicit consent
• Use it only for the purpose it was provided
• Restrict access to authorised and trained personnel
• Apply enhanced security and data protection controls

Sharing Health Information

We may share sensitive information with health insurers or authorised partners for quoting and application purposes. All recipients are required to handle your information in accordance with applicable privacy laws.

Your Control

You may choose what information to provide and withdraw consent at any time. However, if you choose not to provide certain information, we may not be able to provide accurate comparisons.

4. Finance, Credit Reporting and Lending Disclosure

When you request comparisons or assistance with finance products, additional privacy and disclosure obligations apply.

4.1 Information We Collect for Finance

• Income, expenses, and employment details
• Assets and liabilities
• Credit history information (where authorised)
• Loan requirements, objectives, and preferences

4.2 Credit Reporting

With your consent, we or our partners may access your credit information from credit reporting bodies such as Equifax, illion, or Experian to assess creditworthiness.

4.3 Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR)

Credit information may include Comprehensive Credit Reporting data such as repayment history information, types of credit accounts, and credit limits.

4.4 Disclosure to Lenders and Brokers

We may share your personal and financial information with licensed mortgage brokers, credit representatives, lenders, and aggregators to assess eligibility and process applications.

4.5 Consent

By providing your information, you consent to sharing your information with brokers, lenders, and credit reporting bodies, and understand that a credit check may impact your credit score.

4.6 Your Rights (Credit Reporting)

You may access your credit information, request corrections, or request a ban period for fraud protection.

5. How We Use Your Information

We use your personal information to provide comparisons, facilitate switching, connect you with providers, verify identity, communicate with you, and comply with legal obligations.

6. Disclosure of Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may disclose it to energy retailers, telcos, insurers, lenders, brokers, and technology providers supporting our platform.

Overseas disclosure. Some parties we share information with are located outside Australia, or store data outside Australia. In particular, we disclose limited online identifiers and hashed contact details to Google and Meta (United States) for advertising and analytics (see Section 8), and our back-office support team in India accesses limited customer information to help deliver and quality-check our services. Before disclosing personal information overseas we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient handles it consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles (APP 8). We also use Anthropic (United States), an artificial intelligence service provider, to help our staff analyse and summarise business records and draft internal documents. This can involve personal information held in our systems, which Anthropic processes on our behalf under contract and does not use to train its models.

7. Consent and Marketing

By providing your information, you consent to its collection and use as outlined. You may opt out of marketing communications at any time.

8. Cookies and Analytics

We use analytics and advertising technologies from Google (Google Analytics and Google Ads) and Meta (the Meta Pixel and Conversions API), including cookies and tag-based events, to understand website usage and to measure and deliver advertising. We may also share hashed (irreversible) contact details with these providers to match audiences. These providers are located in the United States. We never include sensitive information (such as health information), financial details, or identity or government-related identifiers in any advertising audience. You can manage tracking through your browser settings.

When you visit our health insurance pages, we use the Meta Pixel (provided by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram) to record that a page was viewed and, if you submit an enquiry, that an enquiry was made. We also send the enquiry notice from our servers using Meta's Conversions API. With the enquiry we send your email address and phone number in hashed (scrambled) form, Meta's click and browser identifiers, your IP address and browser type, the page address and a conversion value. We may use the fact that you visited our health insurance pages or made an enquiry to show you our ads on Facebook and Instagram, or to stop showing you ads once you have enquired. We never send any answer you give in our health insurance questionnaire, including cover type, who is covered, your state, age range, hospital tier, planned health needs, Medicare levy surcharge status or preferred call time. Sensitive information, such as health information, is never used to build any advertising audience.

For phone enquiries generated from online advertising (for example, our move-in connection page), the number shown may be a call-tracking number provided by Google rather than our standard number. Google records the call's duration, start time, connection status and, for calls lasting more than 15 seconds, the caller's phone number, so we can measure which ads and search terms lead to genuine enquiries. This applies only to visitors who arrive from a Google ad; every other visitor sees our standard number, 1300 754 155. We do not use call tracking on health insurance pages.

Where you visit our website from a Google advertisement, we may later tell Google, in an automated way tied to that visit's click identifier, whether your enquiry led to a qualified lead or a completed sale, and an estimate of what that sale is worth to us. That estimate is never your premium or bill amount. For health insurance, we never share your health information, cover selections or any other sensitive detail, and this information is never used to build advertising audiences. This helps Google measure which ads lead to real outcomes rather than just enquiries.

9. Data Security

We take reasonable steps to protect your information through secure systems, encryption, access controls, and staff training.

10. Data Retention

We retain information only as long as necessary for service delivery, legal requirements, or audit purposes. Information is then securely deleted.

11. Your Rights

You have the right to access your information, request correction, withdraw consent, or make a complaint.

12. Third-Party Links

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party websites linked from our platform.

13. Updates to This Policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated periodically. The latest version will always be available on our website.

14. Contact Us

Comparable (Ethical Prospecting Pty Ltd)

• Email: it@comparable.com.au
• Phone: 1300 754 155

15. Version Control