Privacy Policy

Who we are, and what this policy covers

Official Translation is a registered Australian business name (ABN 76 411 541 532), operating at officialtranslation.com.au. We handle your personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. This policy covers everything you give us through the website, by email, or through our order, enquiry, translator and referral forms. It does not cover other websites we link to, including the government and rental-company pages we quote; those have their own policies. For anything in this policy, contact support@officialtranslation.com.au. Read it alongside our Terms & Conditions.

What we collect, and where it comes from

From you, when you order. Photographs or scans of the document you want translated, which can show your name, date of birth, address, photograph, signature and document numbers, and sometimes details of family members. Your first, middle and last name, your email address, and a phone number with its country code. We use the phone number only to ask you about your document, such as an unclear page or how a name is spelt. Without a first and last name, an email address and a phone number the order cannot be placed. The choices you make on the order page: the languages, document type, page count, delivery speed and certification option.

From you, when you write to us. Whatever you put in the contact form, an email to support@, or a call or text to our business number.

From you, at a visit. If you book a visit, the photographs of your documents that we take with you on a business phone, and the suburb and times you give us to arrange it.

From you, when you apply to translate for us. The translator application form asks for your full legal name, email address, mobile number (optional), NAATI practitioner number, the languages you translate into English, your ABN, the name of your company or trust if you trade through one, and whether you want to be paid fortnightly or per job. We check your practitioner number and credential against NAATI’s public online directory.

When you accept the Panel Translator Agreement. The form records your typed signature, the version of the agreement you accepted, the date and time you accepted it, the address of the page you accepted it on, and your browser’s user-agent string, which names your browser and operating system. We keep that record as evidence of what was agreed. We do not record your IP address.

If we approve your application. We ask for your account name, BSB and account number so we can pay you, and we confirm them with you by phone before the first payment. We never ask for bank details before an application is approved. After that, we hold the invoices you send us and our records of paying them.

From Stripe, when you pay. Confirmation that a payment succeeded, the amount, the email you gave at checkout and, from Stripe, the last four digits of the card. We never see or hold your full card number; payment is processed entirely by Stripe under their own privacy policies, and Stripe emails you its own receipt directly.

From referral partners. If you join our referral programme we hold your name, email, partner code, and our records of the commission you earn and the gift cards we send you. We do not ask for bank details: your commission is sent as a gift card to your email. If a partner claims a referral by order number, they send us an order number and the name on that order; we use it only to check it against our own records and to credit the partner, and we do not send the partner any other details about that order.

Automatically, in small amounts. Our website host keeps standard server logs (your IP address, browser type, the pages requested and when) for security and to keep the site running. We also use Google Analytics and Google Ads conversion tracking to see how people find and use the site, described below.

What stays in your browser

The order page keeps a draft of your order — your name, email and the options you chose — in your browser’s local storage so you do not lose it if you refresh; it never stores your document photos. When you go to pay, a reference for your order is kept for seven days so the confirmation page can show you your order number; it is written to your browser’s local storage, to its session storage, and to one first-party cookie. If you make a cookie choice on our banner, that choice is kept in local storage for a year.

If you arrive through a referral partner’s link, the partner’s code is kept for 90 days so we can credit them if you order. If you arrive from our licence checker or document checker, a note of which tool sent you is kept for 30 days and comes to us with your order. Apart from the Google cookies described next, that is the whole list. None of it is shared with advertisers, and you can clear it at any time through your browser settings; the site works without it.

Google Analytics and Google Ads

Every page of our site loads Google’s tag, which runs Google Analytics and Google Ads conversion tracking. Like any file your browser fetches from Google, that request gives Google your IP address, the page you are on and your browser type.

Google Analytics records how the site is used: the pages you view and for how long, what you click, how you arrived (a search, an ad, a link or typing our address), your device, browser and screen size, and your approximate location, such as the city, worked out from your IP address. Google Analytics does not store the IP address itself.

It sets cookies named _ga and _ga_ followed by our property code, which last up to 2 years and let it tell a returning visitor from a new one. Google keeps the detailed visit records for no longer than 14 months. We see reports, such as how many people visited a page and where they came from; we do not see who you are.

Google Ads conversion tracking sets cookies that last up to 90 days: _gcl_au on any visit, and _gcl_aw, _gcl_gs and, on some devices, _gcl_gb when you arrive by clicking one of our ads; they hold that click’s ID. When Stripe confirms your payment, the confirmation page tells Google the order number and the amount paid, so the sale can be matched to the ad and appear in our reports.

We never send Google Analytics or Google Ads your name, email address, phone number or documents. Remarketing, ad personalisation and Google signals are switched off, so none of this is used to follow you around the web with our ads. Google may also use its own cookies under Google’s own policies.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we ask first. A banner offers Accept and Reject, and until you choose, none of these cookies is set; Google still receives a cookieless signal that the page was viewed, but stores nothing in and reads nothing from your browser. If you reject, it stays that way. We keep your choice in your browser for a year.

Anyone, anywhere, can change or withdraw their choice here: Change my cookie choice

You can also block or clear cookies in your browser, and the site and ordering work the same without them. Google offers a browser add-on that turns Google Analytics off, and its ad settings are at My Ad Center.

How we hold it

Your document photos stay on your device while you build your order. They travel to us when you tick the box agreeing to the terms and go on to payment, over an encrypted connection, into our two order mailboxes. At a visit, we take the photographs through the order page on a passcode-locked business phone, so they are held only by the browser until the order is placed and are not saved to the phone’s photo library or backed up to any cloud account; they reach us the same way, and no photographs stay on the phone once the order is placed.

Your document images are also held in a folder on one password-protected work computer, which syncs to our private Apple iCloud Drive account; they stay there until they are deleted under “How long we keep it” below. We do not keep document images on a web server or in a public storage bucket; nothing you send us has a web address. When an AI tool is used on your translation, the images are also sent to that tool’s provider, as described under “Who sees it” below. Our order mailboxes are access-restricted and protected by two-factor authentication. Payment details never touch our systems.

Why we use it

To prepare, certify and deliver your translation; to re-send it when you ask; to send you the confirmation and the finished work; to answer your enquiries; to arrange and carry out a visit you book; to run the referral programme; to assess translator applications, verify credentials, engage and pay the translators we work with, contact them about jobs, and keep evidence of the agreement we have with them; to keep the records tax law requires; and to keep the website secure.

That is all. We do not sell personal information, we do not send marketing email, and we never use your documents for anything other than translating them. If we ever start a newsletter, it will be opt-in, with an unsubscribe link in every message.

Who sees it

• The translator engaged for your order, or an AI translation tool. To produce your translation we provide your document images to the translator handling the job, who is NAATI-certified when you choose the NAATI certified option. A Standard translation may instead be done with an AI translation tool. We use Anthropic’s Claude (United States) with its model-training setting switched off, so your documents are not used to train it. Translators are engaged under confidentiality obligations and may use your documents only to perform the translation. They may use AI tools to help, but only under settings or terms that stop the provider keeping your documents for its own use or training on them. We do not give translators your email address or phone number: they receive your document images and the order details needed to do the work, such as the languages, the document type, the page count and how a name should be spelled. A translator may have an assistant help prepare a draft; that person is bound by the same confidentiality obligations, and the certifying translator remains responsible for the work.
• If you translate for us, the customer and whoever they present the translation to. A certified translation carries the translator’s name, credential number and stamp, so those details go to the customer with the finished translation, and on to the authority or company they give it to. We never give customers your email address, phone number, ABN or bank details.
• Our service providers, each of which handles data only to provide its service to us: Stripe (payment), Resend (sending our transactional email), Google (the service that receives orders and website forms, one of our mailboxes, Google Analytics, and Google Ads conversion tracking), Microsoft (our support mailbox), Netlify (website hosting), Apple (the iCloud Drive account the work computer syncs to), Anthropic (Claude, the AI tool described above, which also helps us check translations and manage orders and email), and the company that issues the gift cards we send referral partners (it receives the partner’s name and email address so the card can be delivered).
• Authorities, only where the law requires it.
• A buyer of the business, if we ever sell or transfer it, in which case the records needed to keep serving you would pass to the new owner under this same policy.

We do not publish customer stories, reviews or documents. The worked examples on our guides pages are illustrative and do not describe any customer.

Overseas disclosure

Some of the providers above store data outside Australia: Stripe, Google, Microsoft, Netlify, Apple and Anthropic in the United States, and Resend in Japan and the United States. Each operates under its own security program and privacy policy. The translators we engage are independent contractors; where a translator works outside Australia, your document images go to them there, and the same confidentiality obligations apply wherever they work. An AI tool a translator uses may also process your document images outside Australia. By ordering, or by applying to translate for us, you agree that your information may be handled by these providers in those places for the purposes described here.

How long we keep it

• Document images: deleted from our systems within 90 days of delivering your translation. Ask earlier and we delete them then; email us with your order number.
• Document images sent with an order that is never paid for: held in the same two order mailboxes, and deleted as soon as you ask us to.
• Your finished translation: kept securely so we can re-send it whenever you need it, and deleted whenever you ask.
• Order, payment and referral records, and translators’ invoices and payment records: kept for 5 years as Australian tax law requires. These do not include document images.
• Accepted translator agreements: the details given in the application and the record of acceptance are kept while the translator is on our panel and for 6 years after the agreement ends. That is how long a contract claim can be brought under Queensland law, and it lets either side show what was agreed.
• Translators’ bank details: kept while the translator is on our panel, then deleted once the final payment has been made, apart from what our payment records must show.
• Enquiries, visit bookings and the messages that arrange them, and translator applications we do not approve: kept for as long as they are being dealt with, then deleted.

Deleted data can persist for a short time in our providers’ backups before it is overwritten.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email support@officialtranslation.com.au with your order number if you have one; we respond within 30 days and do not charge for it. Where the law requires us to keep a record, or we need one to show what was agreed (for example a payment record, or an accepted translator agreement), we will tell you what we have to keep and why. Please also tell us if your details change while we are working on your order.

Keeping it secure, and if something goes wrong

The site is served only over HTTPS with strict security headers, we hold no card data, and document images are never stored on a public server. If you suspect that your information has been misused or accessed without permission, email us straight away. If a data breach were ever likely to cause you serious harm, we would notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner promptly, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.

Complaints

If you have a privacy concern, raise it with us first and we will do our best to resolve it. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version appears on this page with an updated date. This policy is governed by the laws of Queensland and the Commonwealth of Australia.