Last updated 13 August 2026
Introduction
ABNAssist.com.au regards customer privacy as an important part of our relationship with our customers. The following privacy policy applies to all ABNAssist.com.au users, and conforms to Internet privacy standards. If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact our admin team on info@abnassist.com.au or 1800 546 526.
Collection of Information
In order to use the ABNAssist.com.au online payment service, we may require information from you in order to provide the best service possible. All correspondence may also be collected and stored, particularly in regard to sales, support and accounts, including Email. Any information collected by ABNAssist.com.au is collected via correspondence from you or your company. This may be via the telephone, Email, mail, fax or directly through our website or online payment service.
Use of Collection Information
Any details collected from ABNAssist.com.au customers is required in order to provide you with our online payment service, and a high level of customer service. Correspondence is recorded in order to provide service references, and to assist in our staff development.
Storage of Collected Information
The security of your personal information is important to us. Everything you send us travels over an encrypted connection. Card details are a special case: they are entered on Stripe's own checkout page and go straight to Stripe, so a complete card number never reaches us and there is nothing for us to store. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the rest of the information you submit, both in transit and once we hold it. If you have any questions about security, email us at info@abnassist.com.au.
Access to Collected Information
If your Personally Identifiable Information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by emailing us at info@abnassist.com.au.
Your tax file number
Our registration, reactivation and ride share forms ask for your tax file number. It is how the Australian Taxation Office matches an application to you, and we collect it only to lodge your application with the Australian Business Register.
Giving it to us is not compulsory and it is not an offence to withhold it. If you do not provide it, your application can still be lodged, but the ABR may put it through manual review, which can take up to 28 days instead of the usual same day.
Your tax file number is handled under the Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015, which is binding on anyone who collects one. We use it only to lodge and support your application, we do not use it to identify you for any other purpose, and access to it is restricted to the people who lodge applications and to management. It is never sent to our marketing system and it never appears in the confirmation email we send you.
Verifying your identity
Before we lodge an application on your behalf we have to confirm who you are. The Tax Practitioners Board requires every registered tax practitioner to take proof of identity steps before providing a tax agent service, and we are Registered Tax Agent 26076969.
We do this using Stripe Identity. You are asked to photograph a government-issued identity document, such as a driver licence or passport, and to take a selfie so that the photograph on the document can be matched to you. That match is done by automated biometric comparison.
Your document and your selfie go to Stripe, not to us. You submit them directly to Stripe, and we never receive the images, the biometric data, or the details Stripe reads off your document such as your date of birth or document number. Our access to Stripe is deliberately restricted so that we cannot read them even if we wanted to. What we receive is whether the check succeeded, and when.
A photograph used for automated biometric matching, and the biometric template derived from it, are sensitive information under section 6(1) of the Privacy Act 1988. Sensitive information may only be collected with your consent, so verification is something you choose to start: nothing is collected unless you begin the check yourself, and you can instead call us on 1800 546 526 to arrange another way to confirm your identity.
If you do not verify your identity, we cannot lodge your application. Your order and your payment are unaffected, and you can ask us for a refund of a service we have not lodged.
Stripe handles this information in the United States, and holds the images and biometric data under its own retention arrangements rather than ours. We keep our record of the verification, which is the fact that it happened and its date, for at least five years after our engagement with you ends, which is what the Tax Practitioners Board requires of proof of identity records.
Sources for the obligations described here: the Tax Practitioners Board’s TPB(GS) 42/2022 Proof of identity requirements for client verification, and the OAIC’s Australian Privacy Principles guidelines, Chapter B on what counts as sensitive information.
Website analytics and session recording
We use cookies, small text files placed on your device, to remember your preferences and to understand how the site is used. You can refuse them in your browser settings, though parts of the site may then not work as intended.
Our own site analytics. Every page on this site loads a small analytics script we run ourselves, at registrationoffice.com.au. It is operated by Australian Registration Office Pty Ltd, the same company behind ABN Assist, rather than by an outside analytics provider, and it is used across our sites. It sets no cookies. It records the shape of a visit and not its content: pages viewed, which buttons and links are clicked, when a form is started and submitted, how far down a page you scroll, how long you stay, any errors the page hits, and whether you are on a mobile, tablet or desktop screen. It gives each visit a random identifier that lives only until you close the tab. It never records what you type, the contents of any field, or your name, contact details, tax file number or payment details. Because it runs on our own hosting, what it collects goes to us and not to a third party.
We use Hotjar to understand how people move through our forms, so we can find the steps where they get stuck. Hotjar records pages viewed, clicks, scrolling, and how far through a form someone gets. It is configured so that what you type is not recorded, and so that the parts of a page that display your own details back to you are blocked before anything is sent. That includes your name, email address, phone number, address, the results of any ABN lookup, and your order confirmation. Your tax file number and your card details are never captured. You can opt out of Hotjar across every site that uses it at hotjar.com/opt-out. Hotjar also honours the Do Not Track setting in your browser.
Google Analytics and Google Ads. We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how people find and use the site, and Google Ads to measure which of our advertising leads to an order. Both set cookies. Google Analytics records pages viewed, clicks, how you arrived (including the search or advertisement you came from), your approximate location from your IP address, and your device and browser. When an order is paid, we send Google the order number, the amount and the services bought, so we can tell which advertising works. We do not send Google your name, email address, phone number, address, tax file number or card details. You can opt out of Google Analytics on every site that uses it with Google's browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, and you can control advertising personalisation at myadcenter.google.com.
This site may link to other websites. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, and we suggest reading their policies.
Who handles your information
We use a small number of service providers to run this site and process your application. Each one receives only what it needs:
- Stripe processes payments. Your card details go straight to Stripe and we never see or store a complete card number. We name Stripe because the protection above depends on who does it.
- Hotjar provides the session recording and analytics described above. We name Hotjar so you can use the opt-out link in that section, which only works if you know who to opt out of.
- Google provides the website analytics and advertising measurement described above, through Google Analytics and Google Ads. We name Google for the same reason as Hotjar: the opt-out links only work if you know who to opt out of.
- An order database provider stores your order so we can lodge it and answer questions about it later.
- An email delivery provider sends your tax invoice and confirmation email.
- A customer messaging platform holds your contact details so we can keep you updated about your application. Your tax file number is never sent to it.
- A website hosting provider serves this site.
- A business email provider carries the email our team works from.
- The Australian Business Register receives your application. It is an Australian government register and this is the purpose you gave us the information for.
These providers are not permitted to use your information for anything other than the service they provide to us. We describe five of them by what they do rather than by name, because the name changes when a supplier does and a policy naming an old one is worse than one that does not. If you want to know exactly who holds your information, email us and we will tell you.
The site analytics described above are not on this list because they are not a provider: that script is ours, run by Australian Registration Office Pty Ltd on our own hosting.
Information sent overseas
Some of the providers above operate outside Australia, so some of your personal information is stored or handled overseas. Where it goes:
- Your order is stored in Australia. The database holding your application sits in Sydney.
- Payments are processed by Stripe, in the United States. Identity verification is also handled by Stripe, in the United States, including your identity document and the biometric match.
- Your tax invoice and confirmation email are sent from Japan.
- The website is hosted in the United States.
- Session recording and analytics are held in Ireland, in the European Union.
- Google Analytics and Google Ads data are handled in the United States. Google also operates data centres in other countries and may process it in more than one of them.
- The Australian Business Register and our own team are in Australia.
Two we are still confirming, and will name here once we have them: the country the email platform our team works from stores its data in, and the region our own site analytics runs in. Providers may also use their own suppliers, some of whom are in other countries again.
Before using an overseas provider we take reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that it handles personal information to a standard comparable to the Australian Privacy Principles, as Australian Privacy Principle 8 requires. If you would like to know which country a particular provider holds your information in, email us and we will tell you.
How long we keep your information
We keep application records for at least five years, which is the period taxation law requires records of this kind to be kept. They are held securely for that period and are not used for any purpose beyond the one you gave them to us for.
Orders
If you order a service from us, we ask for the information needed to deliver it: your name, email address, phone number, postal address, date of birth, and the details of the business you are registering. Payment details are handled by Stripe rather than collected by us. We use what you give us to lodge your application, to raise your tax invoice, and to contact you if anything about the order needs sorting out.
Communications
ABNAssist.com.au uses Personally Identifiable Information for essential communications, such as Emails, accounts information, and critical service details. We may also use this information for other purposes, including some promotional Emails. If at any time a customer wishes not to receive such correspondence, they can request to be removed from any mailing lists by emailing us at info@abnassist.com.au. You will be notified when your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party.
Legal
We reserve the right to disclose your Personally Identifiable Information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Website.
Links
Links on the ABNAssist.com.au site to external entities are not covered within this policy.
Changes to Privacy Policy
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by Email, or by means of a notice on our homepage.
Payment security
Payments on this site are processed by Stripe. Your card details are entered on Stripe's own secure checkout page and are sent directly to Stripe, so ABN Assist never sees, handles or stores a complete card number.
- Payments are automated, with an immediate response.
- Your complete card number cannot be viewed by ABN Assist or any outside party.
- All traffic to and from this site is encrypted in transit.
- Stripe is certified to PCI Service Provider Level 1, the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry.
For more about how Stripe handles payment data, see stripe.com/au/privacy.
ABNAssist.com.au Refund & Returns Policy
If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with your purchase please email us at info@abnassist.com.au so that we can resolve any problems.