StartYear Privacy Policy

About this policy

StartYear is an Australian app that helps parents and carers decide when their child should start kindy, preschool or school. It is operated by Digitalis Health Pty Ltd. This policy explains how we handle personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

It applies to parents and carers who use StartYear, to children whose information is entered, and to educators invited to add observations. When you create a StartYear we record the versions of this policy, the collection notice and the terms you accepted.

Information we collect

Your account: the identifier Sign in with Apple gives us, session records, and minimal security and audit information. We do not receive your Apple ID password.

Your child's StartYear: an optional first name, date of birth, state or territory, the stage you are deciding about, the proposed start year, your answers to 25 questions about everyday behaviour, saved drafts, and four optional questions about usual supports, how well they help, whether similar support is likely at the new setting, and how your child usually communicates. We do not ask for a diagnosis or medical history.

Educator observations: the educator name you enter, the invitation status and expiry, and the educator's answers to the same 25 questions. Educators never see your answers to the support questions.

Purchases: when you buy Full StartYear, Apple processes the payment. We receive a transaction record from Apple so we can unlock and restore your access. We do not receive or store your card details.

Privacy records: correction and deletion records, and a minimal deletion record that holds no child information, so a deletion can be reapplied if a backup is ever restored.

• Account and sign-in records
• Child profile and proposed start year
• Your observations and, if invited, an educator's observations, kept separately
• Optional support and communication answers
• App Store purchase records (no card details)
• Consent, correction, deletion and security records

Why we use it

To sign you in; save and restore your work; apply your state or territory's school-entry rules; produce your StartYear Decision Plan, preparation focus and review; let an invited educator contribute; unlock and restore purchases; provide privacy controls; keep the service secure; and fix faults.

The Decision Plan is decision support for families. It does not diagnose a child, certify readiness, approve an exemption or deferral, or make an enrolment decision.

We will not use your information for a materially different purpose without telling you first and, where required, asking for your consent.

Who can see it

Only you can see the StartYears on your account. An educator you invite can see your child's first name (or 'this child' if you left it blank) and the questions they are asked to answer, until the link is used or expires. The link proves someone holds it; it does not verify their identity or registration.

Our authorised staff can access the minimum information needed for support, privacy requests, security and keeping the service running. That access is limited by role and recorded.

Service providers: Apple (Sign in with Apple, App Store purchases and app distribution), DigitalOcean (application hosting and encrypted backups) and Supabase (database). The app, database and backups are hosted in Sydney, Australia. Apple may process sign-in and purchase information outside Australia under its own privacy policy.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share child profiles or observations with advertising, analytics, data-broker, research or generative-AI providers.

Storage and security

We use encrypted connections, hashed session and invitation credentials, ownership checks on every request, controlled database access, restricted infrastructure access, encrypted backups and audit records designed to exclude the content of your answers.

If we stop collecting information for a particular state, territory or stage, you can still view, export and delete what you have already saved.

How long we keep it

A StartYear with no changes for one year is deleted automatically. Saving a draft, editing the profile, submitting answers or educator activity counts as a change. You can download your StartYear at any time before then.

You can delete a StartYear, or your whole account, at any time. Deletion removes the child profile, observations, invitations and related records together.

Deleted information can remain in encrypted disaster-recovery backups for up to 7 days. If a backup is restored, deletions are reapplied before the service reopens. The minimal deletion record and security audit records contain no child profile or observation content and are kept only as long as needed to reapply deletions and investigate security incidents.

We keep App Store purchase records for as long as needed to provide your access and meet our tax and accounting obligations.

Access, download and correction

In the app you can download your StartYear, including the child profile, your and the educator's observations, support answers, saved responses and the consent versions you accepted. You can correct the child profile and delete a StartYear or your account.

If you can't do something in the app, or there is a dispute about who can manage a child's information, email us and we will help.

Questions and complaints

Email us to ask a question, request access, correction or deletion, report an invitation sent to the wrong person, or make a privacy complaint. Please don't include more of your child's information than you need to.

We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and give you a response within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/lodge-a-privacy-complaint-with-us

Changes to this policy

We version this policy. If we make a material change to how we handle information, we will tell you in the app before it applies to you, and ask for your agreement where required.