Last Updated: March 2026
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1. Our Commitment to Your Privacy
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Hat Media is committed to providing quality services to you. This policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your Personal Information.We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The APPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure, and dispose of your Personal Information. A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.
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2. What is Personal Information and Why We Collect It
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Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Examples of Personal Information we collect include names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and social media addresses. We obtain this information in many ways, including meetings, correspondence, telephone, email, social media, messaging, via our website www.hatmedia.com.au, from your website, from publicly available sources, from third-party data providers, prospecting platforms (e.g., apollo.io, clay.com), and business intelligence tools (e.g., clay.com, which we also use as part of our internal operations platform), and from our clients in the course of providing services to them. We do not guarantee the website links or privacy policies of authorised third parties. We collect your Personal Information for the primary purpose of providing our services to you, and for our own marketing and business development purposes. This includes prospecting for new clients, sending you targeted marketing emails, and advertising to you on professional networks like LinkedIn.You may unsubscribe from our mailing/marketing lists at any time by clicking the "unsubscribe" link in the email or by contacting us in writing.
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3. Sensitive Information
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Sensitive Information is defined in the Privacy Act and includes information about an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, and health information. We will only use sensitive information for the primary purpose for which it was obtained, for a secondary purpose that is directly related to the primary purpose, with your consent, or where required or authorised by law.
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4. Personal Information Handled On Behalf of Our Clients
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In the course of providing our professional marketing services, our clients may disclose Personal Information about their own customers to us. This information may include personal or professional contact details, depending on our client's business and the nature of the services we are providing. In this scenario, we act as a data processor, handling the information solely on behalf of our client and for the specific purpose of the contracted service (e.g., sending an email campaign or managing a social media audience for that client). Access to this information is carefully controlled and restricted to authorised Hat Media staff members as required to deliver the contracted services.We are bound by confidentiality and will not use our client's customer data for our own marketing or any other purpose. Our clients are responsible for ensuring they have the necessary permissions and consents to disclose this Personal Information to us for the agreed-upon purpose.
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5. How We Collect Your Information
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Where reasonable and practicable, we will collect your Personal Information only from you.However, for our business-to-business marketing and prospecting, we may also collect Personal Information from third-party data providers, such as apollo.io and clay.com. The information we collect from these sources is limited to professional information, such as your name, job title, professional contact details, and information about your company or employer. When we contact you using information from these sources, we will take reasonable steps at the first point of contact to notify you of this collection and direct you to this Privacy Policy.
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6. Disclosure of Personal Information
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Your Personal Information may be disclosed in a number of circumstances, including to: Third-party service providers that we engage to help us operate our business. This includes: email and cloud storage providers (Google Workspace); CRM and marketing platforms (HubSpot, LinkedIn); database and infrastructure providers (Supabase, DigitalOcean); network and security providers (Cloudflare); data analytics and ingestion platforms (Windsor.ai, Google Analytics, DataForSEO); AI and automation platforms (Anthropic — see Section 8); and professional advisors (accountants, lawyers). Subcontractors or collaborators engaged to perform services as part of a project, such as freelance camera operators or editors. Other parties to whom you have provided your consent. Other parties where required or authorised by law.
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7. Cross-Border Disclosure of Personal Information
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We may use cloud-based software and services to store and manage your information. This means your Personal Information may be stored on servers located outside of Australia. We take steps to ensure that any overseas recipients of your Personal Information have privacy protections that are at least broadly similar to the Australian Privacy Principles. We use services including Google Workspace, HubSpot, Supabase (hosted in AWS ap-southeast-2, Sydney), DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, Windsor.ai, and Anthropic. Some of these services operate on a global scale. Therefore, we are likely to disclose Personal Information to recipients in the following locations: Australia (primary — our database is hosted in Sydney), USA (Anthropic, HubSpot, Windsor.ai, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare), Germany and other countries within the European Union (Google Workspace infrastructure), United Kingdom, Singapore, and other countries where our service providers operate global data centres. By providing your Personal Information to us, you consent to the transfer of that information to our third-party service providers located in those countries.
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8. AI and Automated Systems
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Hat Media uses artificial intelligence and automated systems as part of our internal operations platform (HAT OS). This section explains how these systems interact with your data. AI Tools We Use. We use the Anthropic Claude API to power AI agents that assist with internal tasks such as data analysis, workflow automation, and campaign management. These AI systems operate under human supervision — no irreversible action is taken by an AI agent without explicit approval from a Hat Media director. What Data AI Systems May Access. Our AI systems may process aggregated campaign performance data (such as impressions, clicks, and spend) and operational information required to deliver our services. We take care to minimise the use of personally identifiable information (PII) in AI processing. Where PII must be handled by an automated system, it is masked or de-identified in accordance with our data masking standards.AI Provider Data Practices. We use Anthropic as our AI model provider. Anthropic does not use data submitted via the API to train its models by default. Anthropic's privacy policy is available at https://www.anthropic.com/privacy.Automated Decision-Making. Hat Media does not use fully automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on individuals. All significant decisions affecting clients or their customers involve human review and approval.
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9. Cookies and Website Analytics

Our website uses cookies and other tracking technologies to improve user experience and analyse website traffic. A cookie is a small file placed on your device. Essential Cookies are necessary for the website to function properly. Analytics Cookies — we use services like Google Analytics to understand how visitors engage with our website, helping us understand traffic patterns. Marketing Cookies — we may use tracking pixels from platforms like Meta (Facebook) or LinkedIn to measure the effectiveness of our advertising.You can manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings, where you can refuse or delete cookies. Please note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our website.
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10. Security of Personal Information

Your Personal Information is stored using industry-standard security controls including encrypted databases, role-based access controls, multi-factor authentication on all key systems, network security provided by Cloudflare, and audit logging of access and automated actions. Our primary database is hosted in Sydney, Australia (AWS ap-southeast-2). Access to Personal Information is restricted to authorised Hat Media personnel and, where necessary, authorised automated systems operating under human supervision. When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it. However, most of the Personal Information is or will be stored in client files, which will be kept by us for a minimum of 7 years for legal and accounting purposes. Data collected for other purposes (e.g., a newsletter subscription) will be removed when it is no longer required.
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11. Data Breach Notification

We are committed to complying with the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme under the Privacy Act. In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm to individuals, we will assess the situation and, if required, notify the affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as soon as practicable.

12. Access to and Correction of Your Personal Information

You have a right to access the Personal Information we hold about you and to update and/or correct it, subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal Information, please contact us in writing. We will not charge a fee for your access request, but may charge a reasonable administrative fee for providing a copy of your Personal Information. To protect your Personal Information, we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information. We will take reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records.

13. Policy Updates

This Policy may change from time to time to reflect our business practices and any legislative changes. The current version will always be available on our website.

14. Privacy Policy Complaints and Enquiries

If you have any queries or complaints about our Privacy Policy, please contact us at: Nigel Houghton, Hat Media, 2 Ada Avenue, Brookvale, NSW 2100. Email: nigel@hatmedia.com.au. Phone: 0417 228 648. We take all complaints seriously and will respond to you within a reasonable timeframe. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).