Undoubtedly, one of the most underappreciated legal aspects of business is “Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions.” Effective and well-written policies and conditions can save your business if an unsatisfied customer files a lawsuit against your brand. Sounds meta but highly important.
This blog article will tackle what it is, how it protects your business and how you can get it. Let’s start, shall we?
What is a Privacy Policy?
A Privacy Policy is an agreement between the owner and the users with how a business handles their personal information. Personal information may include:
- Name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Payment details
- Photos
- Address and location.
Through this agreement, business owners specify what information they need from users, how they use the information, and how they will store it safely. In short, privacy policies show users how businesses will keep their personal information private.
A Privacy Policy becomes a legal requirement if the agency or organisation is covered under the Privacy Act 1988. The Privacy Act covers institutions operating in Australia with turnovers exceeding $3 million annually. You technically don’t need to have a Privacy Policy if you don’t have a turnover greater than $3 million. Nevertheless, small businesses should still do this despite not being required, as it helps build trust, confidence, and transparency.
You technically don’t need to have a Privacy Policy if you don’t have a turnover greater than $3 million. Nevertheless, small businesses should still do this despite not being required, as it helps build trust, confidence, and transparency.
What are Terms and Conditions?
Terms and Conditions, on the other hand, specifies a contractual relationship between you and the user. This is the long block of text typically lazily read, where users immediately tick the “I agree to the terms and conditions” button without reading the material thoroughly. Regardless, your aim here is to clarify and discuss the conditions of use for the service you are providing to prevent legal problems in the future.
Other terms for this document are “End-User License Agreement” (EULA), “Terms of Service” (ToS), “Legal Notes”, “Terms of Use”, or “General Conditions”.
How Privacy Policy & Terms and Conditions protect businesses
The main purpose of Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions is to protect your business from any legal problems, should users file lawsuits against your brand. But how exactly do these help your company?
For starters, your website needs a Privacy Policy because it increases transparency that helps users build their trust and confidence in your brand, and will likely continue to adhere to your brand in the future. Since sharing of personal information should be done cautiously, seeing a Privacy Policy as a consumer builds confidence and urges them to trust the brand. Essentially, this type of policy protects the user, not the business owner.
The Terms and Conditions page is equally as important as the Privacy Policy since this now protects you as the business owner from potential liabilities. While you cannot stop claims to be made against your business, a proper Terms and Conditions page limits casualties and liabilities, meaning that you are not liable for any damage, loss, or dissatisfaction while they were using your website.
Not to mention, establishing your website as safe and secure helps with SEO, as trusted sites get better indexes and positions in Google search results. Having pages like the Privacy Policy page and Terms and Conditions page greatly help in making a website safe and trusted.
In Australia, only 6% of the population read the privacy policies applicable to them, where the main culprit lies in the way of creating the write-ups. Most of those that prefer not to read the entire document state that privacy policies and terms and conditions are often hard to understand, so they opt to ignore those altogether and blindly agree instead. This is why it is important for Australian business owners to properly write these, which will be discussed in the succeeding parts of this blog.
What is in a Privacy Policy & Terms and conditions
A poorly written Privacy Policy could leave your business unprotected. It is good to know what should be included in your Privacy Policy. I don’t want to bore you to death as it gets meta really quickly. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! I’ve included main key points and some points that may be missed.
You most likely have to:
- Include a brief introduction
- State the effectivity date
- Governing law under your state or country
- Link to your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions
- Limitation on liabilities
- Rules of conduct
- User restrictions
- Grounds for account termination and withdrawal
What types of information are being collected?
Be sure to be as detailed as possible in listing all types of information needed to avoid misunderstanding on the users’ end. State here if you need to collect their demographic data, bank account details, and even user content. The key is to be as specific and detailed as possible:
What were the methods of collection?
Include all forms of collecting data such as contact forms, and even invisible tracking of IP addresses and location. Be sure to list all of these.
How is the data used?
List the exact motives behind collecting the users’ data. State if these will be used for improving content, for marketing purposes, or to contact previous customers. The users need to know how their personal information is being used.
Protocol for minors
State the type of content you provide. Regardless of whether your target audience includes minors below the age of 14, it is still important to make a statement on gathering information from 13-year-olds and below.
Told you it gets boring and complicated really quickly!
Should you write my own Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions?
There is no “one size fits all” for creating such documents. You must tailor these according to the nature of your brand. You can create your Privacy Policy as you know exactly what your brand needs from your users. But should you? If you get it wrong, you risk your business not being protected.
Long story short, best to get professionals to write them.
Can’t I copy and paste the Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions from others?
This is highly not recommended. Their Privacy Policy and Terms and conditions are written for their website and company, not yours. You need one tailored to your company and the way you operate.
How to get a Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions written for you?
Those are just a few tips on what to expect in your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. While it is true that you can create your own, a lack of expertise could potentially lead to disastrous events on unforeseen gaps that could result in losses and liabilities. We don’t want that to happen to your brand. You could also look for templates online but you never know how reliable or frequently updated they are.
Auto-update Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions written by lawyers
Our Privacy Policy and Terms and conditions are written by lawyers and are updated automatically once new laws and regulations are made. Yes, it’s that magical. Just sit back and relax as we make your website trusted and secure, all the while protecting it as well from potential legal liabilities.
A good reputation goes a long way. Start your reputation on a good note by leaving a lasting impression on your prospective users. You’d be surprised with how effective a little trust and confidence goes in your favour.
Over To You
While not all businesses may not be required to create Privacy Policies, being cautious never hurts anyone, so go the extra mile and invest in creating proper Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions to protect your business. Earn the trust and confidence of your users, and make sure to minimise your losses as early as you can. Get professionals to write it for you to save yourself the stress and hassle.
Ready to safeguard your business? Kindly book a Clarity Call, so we can get started.
Checkout our Cheatsheet as well.
Have questions? Book in a call
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