Privacy Policy
Introduction
Habitus Insight Pty Ltd T/A Ground Truth (ABN 18 657 254 950) respects and upholds your rights under the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) ("Privacy Act"). Ground Truth also adheres to the Privacy (Market and Social Research) Code 2014 (“Code”).
This Privacy Policy lets you know what personal information of yours we hold, what we do with it, who we will disclose it to and how you can access the personal information we hold about you. You can also find out here how to change inaccurate personal information and how to opt out of receiving communications from us.
Basically,
We're Ground Truth, and we follow Australian privacy laws to protect your information. This policy explains what info we have, what we do with it, and how you can control it.
What personal information do we collect and hold?
The information Ground Truth collects could include types of personal information and identifiable research information e.g. name, DOB, occupation, opinions and feedback in relation to products, brands etc.
When providing personal information, you have the option of remaining anonymous or use a pseudonym to be identified by. However, in certain circumstances, such as where we receive your contact details from a third party or where the research data itself may potentially allow for identification, this will not always be practicable.
Depending on the nature of the research we conduct, we may also collect sensitive information from you, for example, political opinion, health information etc. Sensitive information will only be collected with your prior consent and only if it is directly related to, or reasonably necessary for, the research we conduct.
Basically,
We might collect basic details (like your name or date of birth) and your opinions for our research. We'll only collect sensitive info (like health or political views) if you agree to it.
How we collect your personal information?
Ground Truth will generally collect your personal information directly from you in the course of you participating in our research and/or surveys. However, we may also from time to time collect personal information about you from third parties, when provided to us by a client or organisations that specialise in providing contact lists for example from the white pages.
If so, our policy is to receive and use only personal information that is publicly available or that you would have consented to be used for research purposes.
Such consent would have been given to our client who would have provided us the contact lists. In these instances, we will inform you as soon as practicable of this collection and the circumstances of this collection.
Basically,
We're Ground Truth, and we follow Australian privacy laws to protect your information. This policy explains what info we have, what we do with it, and how you can control it.
Why we collect your personal information?
We will only use and disclose your personal information for the purposes of conducting our research and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We will never use or disclose your personal information for the purposes of advertising, promotions or direct marketing activities. If you declined to participate in our research, we may use your personal information to re-contact you for a research purpose if we have valid reasons to believe a genuine research concern warrants such re-contact.
If you have participated in our research, we will only re-contact you if you were informed of this or we have valid reasons to believe a genuine research concern warrants such re-contact.
If you would like to opt out of participating in any of our research please send us an email at hello@ground-truth.au or call us on 0490039350.
Basically,
We use your info only for research. We will never use it to advertise or market to you.
Who will we share your personal information with?
We will never disclose any personal information we collect from you unless you have provided express prior consent. In most instances, we will only report the information you provide in an aggregate form that will not personally identify you.
We will not disclose any personal information or personally identifiable research information to a third party for a purpose other than conducting our research unless you have provided express prior consent or we are required to do so by an Australian law or court/tribunal order.
In the course of conducting our research we may be required by our client to use third party service providers who are located overseas, to host or store the data we collect. In most cases, this survey data and research information will not be personally identifiable.
We will also take reasonable steps to ensure any service providers (and their employees and contractors) comply with the Privacy Act and this Privacy Policy and/or are subject to similar privacy laws and you have the ability to enforce those rights.
Basically,
We won't share your personal details unless you give us clear permission. We usually report our findings in a way that no one can be personally identified.
Security of your Personal Information
Ground Truth will take reasonable steps to protect your personally identifiable information as you transmit your information from your computer to our website and to protect such information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure, alteration, or destruction.
However, you should keep in mind that the transmission of information over the Internet is not completely secure or error-free. In particular, email sent to or from this website may not be secure, and you should therefore take special care in deciding what information you send to us via email.
Basically,
We do our best to protect your info, but remember that sending things over the internet is never 100% secure.
Ground Truth Website
When visiting the Ground Truth website, the site server makes a record of the visit and logs the following information for statistical and administrative purposes:
The user’s server address: to consider the users who use the site regularly and tailor the site to their interests and requirements;
The date and time of the visit to the site: this is important for identifying the website’s busy times and ensuring maintenance on the site is conducted outside these periods;
Pages accessed and documents downloaded: this indicates to Ground Truth which pages or documents are most important to users and helps identify important information that may be difficult to find;
Duration of the visit: this indicates to us how interesting and informative the Ground Truth site is to visitors;
The type of browser used: this is important for browser specific coding
Visiting domain name or IP address, Computer Operating System, Browser Type and Screen Resolution: in order to optimise the Ground Truth web site and better understand it’s usage
A cookie is a piece of information that an Internet website sends to your browser when you access information at that site. Cookies are either stored in memory (session cookies) or placed on your hard disk (persistent cookies). The Ground Truth website does not use persistent cookies.
Upon closing your browser, the session cookie set by this web site is destroyed and no personal information is maintained which might identify you should you visit our web site at a later date.
Retention and destruction of Personal InformationGround Truth will destroy or de-identify your personal information as soon as practicable once it is no longer needed for our research purposes.
However, we may in certain circumstances be required by law to retain your personal information after our research has been completed. In this case, your personal information will continue to be protected in accordance with this Policy. If we destroy personal information we will do so by taking reasonable steps and using up-to-date techniques and processes.
Basically,
When you visit our site, we log some basic technical info (like your browser type) to see how the site is being used and improve it. We don't use cookies that track you after you leave.
Access to your Personal Information
ou have the right to request access to any personal information we hold about you. You can request this information by contacting the Director of Ground Truth via the details listed below.
Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will respond to your request in a reasonable time and endeavour to provide you with a suitable range of choices as to how access is provided (eg, emailing or mailing it to you). A fee may be charged to cover the cost of retrieval. However, this fee will not be excessive and will only apply to the facilitation of your request.
If at any time you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request amendment of it and we will either amend the information or make a record of your comment, as we think appropriate.
Basically,
We get rid of your personal info as soon as we're done with the research, unless the law requires us to keep it.
Questions or complaints about our Privacy Policy
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or believe that we have at any time failed to keep one of our commitments to you to handle your personal information in the manner required by the Privacy Act, the APPs or the Code, then we ask that you contact us immediately using the following contact details:
Helen Osborne
Director, Ground Truth Pty Ltd
Post: Level 1, 242 Victoria Street, Brunswick, 3056
Phone: +61 (0) 490 039 350
Email: hello@ground-truth.au
We will respond and advise whether we agree with your complaint or not. If we do not agree, we will provide reasons. If we do agree, we will advise what (if any) action we consider it appropriate to take in response. If you are still not satisfied after having contacted us and given us a reasonable time to respond, then we suggest that you contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by:
Phone: 1300 363 992 (local call cost, but calls from mobile and pay phones may incur higher charges).
If calling from overseas (including Norfolk Island): +61 2 9284 9749
TTY: 1800 620 241 (this number is dedicated to the hearing impaired only, no voice calls)
TIS: Translating and Interpreting Service: 131 450 (If you don’t speak English or English is your second language and you need assistance and ask for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner)
Post: GPO Box 2999 Canberra ACT 2601
Fax: +61 2 9284 9666
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Basically,
If you have any questions or problems, contact our Director. If you're still not happy, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
Miscellaneous
In this policy "personal information" has the same meaning as under the Privacy Act.
This policy is effective from 23 October 2025. We may change this policy from time to time. Although we intend to observe this Privacy Policy at all times, it is not legally binding on Ground Truth in any way. From time to time we may regard it as necessary or desirable to act outside the policy.
Ground Truth may do so, subject only to any other applicable contractual rights you have and any statutory rights you have under the Privacy Act or other applicable legislation.
Basically,
This section just covers legal details, like the policy's effective date and the fact that it can change.
