Privacy Policy

1. Scope of this policy

PIME is a small Australian business and may, depending on our annual turnover and the nature of the services we provide, be subject to the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). Even where we are not strictly required to comply, we have chosen to apply the APPs as a baseline because our customers expect it and because privacy reforms currently underway in Australia are progressively removing the historic small-business exemption.

This policy applies to personal information we collect through our website, in email and telephone correspondence, through trade events, and in the ordinary course of supplying industrial minerals to Australian and international buyers. It does not apply to the websites or services of third parties, even if we link to them.

2. What personal information we collect

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us, and may include:

• Contact details — name, business email address, business phone number, job title and the company you represent.
• Enquiry content — the products, specifications, volumes, destination ports and any other information you include when you contact us.
• Correspondence — email threads, meeting notes and call notes relating to quotations, shipments and customer-service matters.
• Transaction and compliance records — purchase orders, invoices, packing lists, bills of lading, certificates of analysis, sanctions / export-control screening results, and other documents required for customs clearance.
• Technical data — limited, non-identifying information collected by our hosting and analytics providers, such as aggregate page-view counts, device type and approximate region.

We do not routinely collect government identifiers (such as passport numbers), health information, or other "sensitive information" as defined in the Privacy Act. If a specific customs or compliance process requires any such information, we will tell you why at the point of collection.

3. How we collect it

We collect personal information:

• Directly from you, when you submit our contact form, send us email, or speak with us by phone;
• From colleagues at your business who have referred or introduced you;
• From logistics providers, customs brokers, inspection agencies and banks involved in processing a shipment;
• From publicly available sources (for example, ABN Lookup, a company website, or LinkedIn) where we are verifying a counterparty or performing routine sanctions-list screening.

4. Why we collect it

We collect and use personal information to:

• Respond to your enquiry and provide a quotation;
• Negotiate, enter into and perform supply contracts;
• Arrange freight, customs clearance, inspection and payment;
• Meet our legal obligations under Australian tax, customs, export-control, anti-money-laundering and consumer-protection laws;
• Maintain our internal records and audit trail for each transaction;
• Improve our website and service, including by reviewing aggregate analytics data.

We do not add you to a marketing list on the basis of a contact-form submission or a one-off purchase. If we ever want to contact you with marketing communications, we will ask for your express opt-in consent first, in accordance with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

5. Third-party service providers

We use a small number of reputable service providers to run our website and communications. These providers process limited personal information on our behalf:

• EmailJS — when you submit the contact form on this website, the form content (name, email, phone, company, message) is transmitted through EmailJS's infrastructure and delivered to our info@pime.com.au inbox. See EmailJS's privacy notice at emailjs.com/legal/privacy-policy.
• Vercel — our website is hosted on Vercel and we use Vercel's privacy-respecting, cookie-free analytics to measure aggregate site usage. See Vercel's privacy notice at vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy.
• Email and productivity providers — our business email and document storage are hosted with mainstream providers under commercial terms that include appropriate security and privacy commitments.
• Freight, inspection and banking partners — to fulfil an order, we share relevant personal information (typically names, business contacts, port details and shipping documents) with our customs broker, the freight carrier, any independent inspection agency you nominate (e.g. SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek) and our bank.

6. How long we keep information

We only keep personal information for as long as we reasonably need it:

• Contact-form enquiries that do not become customers: up to 24 months, then deleted or de-identified.
• Customer records, contracts and correspondence: for the life of the commercial relationship and for at least 7 years after the final transaction, to meet Australian tax, customs and commercial record-keeping requirements.
• Aggregate website analytics: retained by our analytics provider in line with their standard retention policy.

7. Disclosure and overseas recipients

We may disclose personal information to:

• Our service providers listed in section 5;
• Government and regulatory bodies where we are required by law to do so (for example, the Australian Border Force, the Australian Taxation Office, AUSTRAC, or a court under a valid order);
• Professional advisers (lawyers, accountants, auditors) bound by confidentiality;
• A buyer or successor in connection with a sale or restructuring of our business.

Because we trade internationally, personal information may be disclosed to recipients located outside Australia — typically producers and service providers in India, logistics handlers in transit countries, and buyers in your destination country. Where this happens, we take reasonable steps to ensure the overseas recipient handles the information consistently with the APPs, usually through contractual commitments.

8. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps include access controls on our email and file storage, strong passwords, encryption in transit (HTTPS) where supported, and limiting access to business records to personnel and service providers who need them. No system is perfectly secure; if you believe your interactions with us have been compromised, please contact us immediately using the details in section 13.

9. Your rights — access, correction, complaints

You have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you;
• Correct information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading;
• Request deletion of information, subject to our legal record-keeping obligations;
• Complain if you believe we have mishandled your personal information.

To exercise any of these rights, please email info@pime.com.au with the subject line "Privacy request". We will acknowledge your request within 10 business days and respond substantively within 30 days. There is no charge for making a request; we may charge a reasonable cost-recovery fee if a request is particularly resource-intensive, and we will agree that fee with you in advance.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au.

10. Website analytics and cookies

Our website currently uses Vercel Analytics, which is designed to operate without setting cookies on your device and without tracking individuals across other websites. We collect aggregate information such as page views, device type, browser, and approximate region. We do not use advertising cookies, third-party social-media trackers or behavioural advertising networks on this site.

If we introduce cookies or additional analytics in the future, we will update this policy and, where required, add a consent banner.

11. Children

Our website and services are directed at businesses. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe we hold information about a child, please contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in law, our business, or the services we use. The "Effective date" at the top of the page shows when the current version took effect. Material changes will be flagged on the website; continued use of our services after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

13. How to contact us

For any privacy question, access request, correction request or complaint, contact us using the details below.