Privacy Policy

ValiCred values and respects the privacy of the people we deal with. ValiCred is committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and other applicable Australian privacy laws and regulations. This Privacy Policy (Policy) describes how we collect, hold, use, and disclose your personal information, and how we maintain the quality and security of your personal information.

"Personal information" means any information or opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. In general terms, this includes information or an opinion that personally identifies you either directly (e.g., your name) or indirectly.

The personal information we collect about you depends on the nature of your dealings with us or what you choose to share with us. The personal information we collect about you may include:

• Name;
• Email address;
• Phone number;
• Academic transcripts and course syllabi;
• Employment history, shift logs, project artifacts, and resumes;
• Payment and billing information;
• User-submitted text, queries, or prompts provided during the use of our services;
• Official university outcome notices and correspondence (e.g., when applying for a refund or cash-back reward).

Anonymity & Pseudonyms: You do not have to provide us with your personal information. Where possible, we will give you the option to interact with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym. However, if you choose to deal with us in this way or choose not to provide us with your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our services or otherwise interact with you.

We collect your personal information directly from you when you:

• Interact with us online (such as submitting an Expression of Eligibility, Document Verification, Refund/Cash-Back forms, or Tally form);
• Interact with us over the phone or via email;
• Process a payment through our secure payment gateways.

We use personal information for many purposes in connection with our functions and activities, including the following purposes:

• Provide you with information or services that you request from us including unit waiver strategies (The Drop), and credit mapping (The Stack);
• Process and analyze your academic and professional data to generate custom strategic reports;
• Deliver to you a more personalised experience and service offering;
• Internal administrative purposes;
• To verify the authenticity of refund or cash-back claims.

When you submit university outcome decisions or applications to us (for example, to claim our 10% Data Contribution Cash-Back), your data undergoes strict sanitization. All Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is permanently stripped and de-identified before it is processed for AI training. Our systems only learn from the underlying, anonymized academic logic (e.g., industry experience duration, unit codes, and the university's institutional reasoning).

We may disclose your personal information to third parties in accordance with this Policy in circumstances where you would reasonably expect us to disclose your information. For example, we may disclose your personal information to:

• Our third-party service providers (for example, our IT providers, form processors like Tally, and payment gateways like Stripe);
• Google Gemini AI Infrastructure: To deliver high-quality, customized strategic reports, ValiCred leverages Google’s Gemini AI to assist in analyzing academic and professional data. We partner with established, industry-leading providers like Google, which employ robust security measures. As part of Google's standard operations, data processed through this service may be used to help improve their AI models in accordance with the Google Privacy Policy. As a general best practice, we simply recommend that users omit highly sensitive financial or deeply personal details from the documents they submit;
• Our professional services advisors.

Some of the third-party service providers we disclose personal information to may be based in or have servers located outside of Australia, including in the United States (such as our payment processors and AI service providers, including Google). Where we disclose your personal information to third parties overseas, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that data security and appropriate privacy practices are maintained.

ValiCred will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we hold about you is kept confidential and secure, including by:

• Taking measures to restrict access to only personnel who need that personal information to effectively provide services to you;
• Having technological measures in place (for example, secure online forms and 256-bit encrypted payment gateways);
• Mandating the de-identification of data before it is utilized for internal AI training or system improvements.

The ValiCred website uses cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers the website puts on your device if you allow it. These cookies recognise when your device has visited our website(s) before, so we can distinguish you from other users of the website. This improves your experience and the ValiCred website.

We do not use cookies to identify you, just to improve your experience on our website(s). If you do not wish to use cookies, you can amend the settings on your internet browser so it will not automatically download cookies. However, if you remove or block cookies on your computer, please be aware that your browsing experience and our website's functionality may be affected.

We will not keep your personal information for longer than we need to. In most cases, this means that we will only retain your personal information for the duration of your relationship with us unless we are required to retain your personal information to comply with applicable laws, for example record-keeping obligations.

ValiCred will endeavour to keep your personal information accurate, complete and up to date. If you wish to make a request to access and/or correct the personal information we hold about you, you should make a request by contacting us and we will usually respond within 30 days.

ValiCred website(s) may contain links to websites operated by third parties. If you access a third party website through our website(s), personal information may be collected by that third party website. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party provider or website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party provider or website. Third party providers/websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

For complaints about how ValiCred handles, processes, or manages your personal information, please contact [email protected]. Note we may require proof of your identity and full details of your request before we can process your complaint.

Please allow up to 30 days for ValiCred to respond to your complaint. It will not always be possible to resolve a complaint to everyone's satisfaction. If you are not satisfied with ValiCred's response to a complaint, you have the right to contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au to lodge a formal complaint.

If you have any questions or concerns in relation to our handling of your personal information or this Policy, you can contact us at: