Privacy Policy.

1. Who we are

Akuna Estate is an adults-only luxury glamping retreat at Running Stream, New South Wales, operated by Helen and Toby. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Akuna Estate, including Akuna Estate Weddings.

This policy explains how we handle personal information collected through akunaestate.com.au, by email or phone, and in the course of hosting you. As a small business, we are not currently bound by the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). We have chosen to follow them anyway, and this policy describes what we actually do rather than what any law obliges us to do.

2. What we collect

We only collect what we genuinely need. Depending on how you interact with us, that may include:

• Contact details — your name, email address and, where you give it, your phone number.
• Enquiry details — whatever you choose to write to us: your dates, group size, questions, and any accessibility or dietary needs you tell us about so we can look after you properly.
• Wedding enquiry details — your name and your partner’s name, contact details, preferred date and time, and guest numbers.
• Creator application details — your name, contact details, location, audience location, social handles and links to your work.
• Gift voucher details — the purchaser’s and recipient’s names and email addresses, and the order details. Card payments are processed by our voucher provider; we never see or store your full card number.
• Website usage information — your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you view, how you reached us, and cookie and pixel identifiers. See Cookies & tracking.

Some of what you tell us — a health condition, an accessibility requirement, a dietary restriction — is sensitive information under the Privacy Act. We collect it only when you volunteer it, only to make your stay work, and we do not use it for anything else.

We do not take accommodation bookings on this website. Booking details, including payment, are collected by our booking platform on its own site under its own privacy terms.

3. How we collect it

Directly from you, in almost every case: when you fill in a form on this site, email us, call us, join our mailing list, buy a gift voucher, or talk to us during your stay.

We also collect website usage information automatically when you browse the site, as described below. We may receive information about you from a platform you booked or reviewed us through, and, if you contact us on social media, from that platform.

You can deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym if you prefer — though we may not be able to confirm a booking or reply to an enquiry without a name and a way to reach you.

4. Why we use it

• To answer your enquiry, quote on a wedding, or assess a creator application.
• To confirm and prepare for your stay, including any needs you have told us about.
• To issue and redeem gift vouchers.
• To send you our newsletter, if you have asked for it.
• To understand how our website is used, and to measure and improve our advertising.
• To meet our legal, tax and insurance obligations.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not rent or trade our mailing list.

5. Cookies & tracking

Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. Our own site uses a very small number of them, plus similar storage, to remember things like whether you have already seen our newsletter popup this visit. Nothing in that is used to identify you.

We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used — which pages people read, how they found us, roughly where in the world they are, and what device and browser they are on. Google Analytics stores a randomly generated identifier in a cookie so it can tell a returning visitor from a new one. It tells us things like “forty people read the weddings page this week”; it does not tell us who you are, and we do not use it to identify you. You can opt out of Google Analytics on every website at once with Google’s browser opt-out add-on.

We also use a third-party advertising tool — the Meta Pixel — which does collect information capable of identifying you. Because that is the part of our tracking that matters most, we have given it its own section.

You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings at any time. The site will still work; the newsletter popup may simply reappear.

6. The Meta Pixel

We use the Meta Pixel, a piece of code provided by Meta Platforms (the company behind Facebook and Instagram), on every page of this website. It helps us understand whether our Facebook and Instagram advertising is actually reaching people who are interested in staying with us.

More precisely: we may use pixels, web beacons and other storage technologies from third parties, including Meta, to collect or receive information from this website and from elsewhere on the internet. Those third parties, including Meta, use that information to provide measurement services and to target and deliver advertising.

What it collects

When you visit this site, the pixel sends the following to Meta:

• Your IP address, browser and device information.
• The page you are on and the address of the page that referred you.
• Meta cookie identifiers, which Meta can match to your Facebook or Instagram account if you have one.
• A record of certain actions on the site: viewing a page, clicking through to our booking platform, submitting an enquiry form, joining our mailing list, clicking our email or phone links, and completing a gift voucher purchase (including the voucher amount).

Why we use it

To measure which advertisements lead to genuine interest, so we spend our (small) advertising budget sensibly, and to show our advertising to people who are most likely to want a stay like ours.

Advertising audiences

We ask Meta to show our advertising to people who have visited this website, and to people who resemble them. To build those audiences we may also give Meta contact details we already hold — the email addresses of people who have joined our mailing list, and only those. If you sent us an enquiry but never joined the list, your details are never used this way. Where we do, the details are converted into a scrambled code before they leave us, and Meta uses that code only to look for a matching account. Meta deletes the details once that matching is done, and does not use the audience to add to what it already knows about you or to build a profile of your interests.

You can ask us to leave you out of advertising audiences at any time, and stay on our mailing list if you want to — they are separate choices. Email hello@akunaestate.com.au and we will take you out, including out of any audience we have already built.

How to switch it off

• In your Meta account: Facebook and Instagram both offer ad preference controls covering activity collected off their platforms. Look for “Ad preferences” then the off-Meta or off-Facebook activity settings.
• In your browser: block third-party cookies, or use a browser or extension that blocks trackers. Safari, Firefox and Brave block much of this by default.
• Industry opt-out tools: the Digital Advertising Alliance's aboutads.info/choices and youronlinechoices.eu let you opt out of interest-based advertising from many companies at once.
• Ask us: email hello@akunaestate.com.au and we will help.

Meta keeps the event data we send for up to two years, and keeps any advertising audience we build until we delete it. Meta handles the information it receives under its own terms. You can read Meta’s Privacy Policy and its Cookies Policy for the detail.

7. Who we share it with

We share personal information only with the service providers that help us run the business, and only with what they need to do their job:

We may also disclose personal information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect someone’s safety or our legal position. Otherwise, we do not hand your information to anyone else.

8. Overseas storage

Several of the providers above store information outside Australia, as noted in the table. In practice this means your name, email address and enquiry may be stored on servers in the United States, the United Kingdom or elsewhere. We choose established providers with published privacy and security terms, but once information is held overseas it is subject to the laws of that country, which may differ from Australian law.

If you would rather not have your details pass through these systems, call us on (+61) 414 642 100 or email us directly instead of using the website forms.

9. How we keep it safe

Our website is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). Enquiries reach us as email, held in accounts protected by strong, unique passwords and multi-factor authentication. Payment card details are handled entirely by our voucher and booking providers — they never reach us.

We keep enquiries and contact details for as long as we may still be of use to each other, and we do not delete them on a routine schedule. If you would like your details removed, just ask — see Access, correction & deletion — and we will remove them, except where we are required to keep a record. Guest and financial records are kept for the period Australian tax law requires, generally five years.

No system is perfectly secure. If a data breach ever occurred that was likely to cause you serious harm, we would tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the law requires.

10. Marketing emails

We email you only if you asked us to, or if you have stayed with us and would reasonably expect to hear from us. Every email carries an unsubscribe link, and it works immediately. You can also just reply and ask, or email hello@akunaestate.com.au.

11. Access, correction & deletion

You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct anything that is wrong or out of date, and ask us to delete your details altogether. Email hello@akunaestate.com.au and we will respond within 30 days. There is no charge. We may need to confirm your identity first.

If we cannot give you access — which is rare, and only where the law allows us to refuse — we will tell you why in writing.

You can also ask Meta directly for a copy of the activity data this website has sent about you; we have agreed with Meta that it may provide this on request.

12. Complaints

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, please tell us first: email hello@akunaestate.com.au with the details. We will acknowledge within 5 business days and give you a written response within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner publishes guidance on privacy rights and how to complain: oaic.gov.au, or 1300 363 992. Because we are a small business, the Commissioner may not be able to investigate a complaint about us — which is all the more reason to bring it to us directly, so we can put it right.

13. Children

Akuna Estate is an adults-only retreat. This website is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has given us their information, contact us and we will delete it.

14. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when what we do changes — a new tool, a new service, a change in the law. The date at the top always shows the current version. If a change materially affects how we handle information you have already given us, we will tell you.

15. Contact us

Questions about this policy, or about your information, come straight to us:

• Email: hello@akunaestate.com.au
• Phone: (+61) 414 642 100
• Post: Akuna Estate, Running Stream NSW 2850