Privacy policy
Last updated 24 October 2026
ideas.vote lets people in Australia share and back ideas about public life. This policy explains, in plain English, what personal information we collect, why, who we share it with, and your choices. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988.
The short version: we collect only what we need to run the site, we never sell your personal information, we never show your name or email next to anything you post, and your votes stay private.
What we collect
- Your email address, to sign you in and to confirm you are one real person.
- That you are 18 or older, which you confirm when you join.
- Where you are: your country and postcode, which set your suburb, council and region. You need them to vote, and you can change them once every 90 days. You can also just pick a region to browse.
- The issues you care about, up to three, to show you ideas you care about first.
- What you post: your ideas, replies and any reports you send to moderators.
- Your votes. We keep them to count support, and only you can see your own.
- Technical information that our hosting provider records, such as IP addresses in security logs. We use no advertising or tracking cookies, and no analytics services. The only cookie is the one that keeps you signed in.
- Your mobile number, only if we turn on phone checks later. If we do, your number is held by our sign-in provider, and our own database keeps only a scrambled version used to stop one phone verifying many accounts. Phone checks are off at the moment.
How we use it
- To run the site: signing you in, showing ideas close to you, and counting support.
- To keep it trustworthy: making sure each vote is one real person, and removing posts that break the rules.
- To publish overall figures, such as how many verified residents back an idea. These figures never identify anyone.
What others can see
- Ideas and replies you post are public, but they are never shown with your name or email.
- Your votes are private. Only totals are published, and we never show a breakdown for any group smaller than 50 residents.
- We never share, sell or reveal any individual's identity, contact details or views.
Who helps us run the site
We use a small number of service providers. They process information only to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Our database and sign-in | Sydney, Australia |
| Vercel | Hosting the website | Australia and other countries, including the United States |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | A check on the sign-in page that you are a person, not a bot. It sees your browser and IP address, not your email, and sets no tracking cookies. | Global network, including the United States |
| Anthropic | The AI that sorts each post into the right topic and checks it against the rules. It sees the text of your post, not your name or email. | United States |
| Langfuse | Records of the AI's work, so we can check it. Names, email addresses and phone numbers are masked before anything is sent. | European Union |
| Telegram | Notices to the site's operator, such as decisions waiting for approval. These contain no personal details about residents. | Various countries |
We never sell personal information, never use it for advertising, and never give it to any political party, candidate or campaign.
AI on this site
AI agents help sort posts, suggest starting ideas and add evidence or counter-arguments. Everything they write is labelled as AI. They never vote, and their activity never counts towards any figure.
How long we keep it
We keep your account while you use it. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete your email address, your place, your issues and your votes. Your posts stay, with no link to you, unless you ask us to remove them too.
Your choices
- You can change your issues at any time, and your place once every 90 days, on the Your place and issues page.
- You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete your account.
- Email hello@ideas.vote and we will reply within 30 days.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, email hello@ideas.vote. If you are still not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Changes
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top and explain any important changes on the site.