1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how DPC Broker Pty Ltd trading as Simple Loans (ABN 13 613 195 387), your finance comparison tool, collects, holds, uses, discloses and protects your personal information and credit-related information.

We are bound by, and committed to complying with, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act), the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act, and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2024 (CR Code) registered under section 26N of the Privacy Act.

This Policy applies to all services offered by Simple Loans through our website, telephone, and any other channel through which we interact with you. We may amend this Policy from time to time; the current version will always be available on our website.

2. Anonymity & Pseudonymity (APP 2)

Where practicable, you may deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym, for example, when browsing our website or making general enquiries. However, if you wish to apply for credit assistance, we are required by law to verify your identity, and anonymity will not be possible.

3. Information We Collect (APPs 3 & 5)

We collect only the personal information reasonably necessary for our functions. Depending on the service you require, this may include:

3.1 Personal Information

Your name, date of birth, residential and postal address
Contact details (phone, email)
Proof of identification (driver's licence, passport, Medicare card)
Employment details and income information
Marital status and number of dependants
Bank account and financial details
Details of existing assets and liabilities
Information about the financial products you have or are interested in
Website usage data and analytics information

3.2 Sensitive Information (APP 3.3)

We will only collect sensitive information (such as health information, criminal record, or ethnic origin) where you consent and it is directly relevant to our assessment of your application, or where otherwise required or permitted by law.

3.3 Credit-Related Information (CR Code, Part IIIA)

As a credit assistance provider, we may collect and hold:

Credit information, identification information, consumer credit liability information, repayment history, default information, payment information, court proceedings information, personal insolvency information, publicly available information, and credit scores derived from credit reporting body (CRB) data
Credit eligibility information, information disclosed to us by a CRB (such as credit reports), and information we derive from that data
Credit-related personal information, financial hardship information and Repayment History Information (RHI) as defined in the CR Code

4. How We Collect Information (APP 3)

We collect personal and credit information through lawful and fair means, including:

Directly from you, via our website forms, phone calls, emails, text messages or in-person meetings
From credit reporting bodies (CRBs), when you authorise us to obtain a credit report
From credit providers/lenders, during the application and assessment process
From third parties, such as employers, accountants, referees, referral partners, publicly available sources, and government registries

Where reasonable and practicable, we collect personal information directly from you (APP 3.5). If we collect information from a third party, we will take reasonable steps to notify you of the collection (APP 5).

5. Unsolicited Personal Information (APP 4)

If we receive personal information that we did not solicit, and we determine that we could not have lawfully collected it, we will destroy or de-identify it as soon as practicable.

6. Why We Use and Disclose Information (APP 6)

We use and disclose your personal and credit information for the primary purpose for which it was collected, including:

Providing credit assistance, comparing loan options, preparing quotes, and submitting applications on your behalf
Conducting responsible lending assessments under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009
Verifying your identity (Anti-Money Laundering / Counter-Terrorism Financing obligations)
Communicating with you about your enquiry or application
Compliance with legal and regulatory obligations
Internal record-keeping and improving our services
Resolving complaints and disputes

We will not use or disclose your personal information for a secondary purpose unless you consent, or an exception under APP 6 applies (e.g. required by law, enforcement, or to prevent a serious threat to life, health, or safety).

7. Direct Marketing (APP 7)

We may use your personal information to send you marketing communications about our products and services where you have consented or where you would reasonably expect to receive such communications.

You may opt out of direct marketing at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer at privacy@simpleloans.au or by using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. We will action your request within a reasonable period.

We do not use or disclose credit eligibility information for direct marketing purposes (CR Code, paragraph 21.2).

8. Cross-Border Disclosure (APP 8)

Our primary operations are in Australia and our core customer database is hosted in an Australian data centre. Some of the technology service providers we rely on may store or process personal information outside Australia. The categories of processing that may involve overseas recipients are:

Cloud hosting, infrastructure and content delivery, including platform administration and backups
Email, SMS and other messaging delivery
Artificial intelligence processing, used to help read and summarise documents you upload and to assist our team with application handling
Business productivity, staff email and document collaboration tools
Payment processing, where a payment is required
Website analytics, error monitoring and security tooling

Before personal information is handled by an overseas recipient, we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient handles it consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, or that an exception under APP 8 applies. Our arrangements with these providers include contractual privacy and security obligations.

Where documents or application information are processed by artificial intelligence, we minimise the information sent, apply redaction to remove identifying details where practical, use the results only to assist with your enquiry or application, and require that your information is not used to train the provider's models. Analysis of uploaded files is performed on a short-lived basis and the working copy is deleted once the analysis is complete.

Credit eligibility information obtained from credit reporting bodies, and bank statement information obtained through a data service you authorise, are handled by Australian providers and remain in Australia. We do not disclose credit eligibility information to overseas recipients unless you consent and we are satisfied the recipient is subject to substantially similar privacy protections, consistent with the CR Code.

If you would like more detail about the countries in which a particular provider may hold information, contact us using the details in section 18 and we will provide it.

9. Government-Related Identifiers (APP 9)

We will not adopt, use, or disclose government-related identifiers (such as Tax File Numbers or Medicare numbers) as our own identifier, unless required or authorised by law.

10. Data Quality (APP 10)

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal and credit information we collect, use, and disclose is accurate, up-to-date, complete, and relevant. If you believe any information we hold is inaccurate, please contact us so we can correct it.

11. Security of Information (APP 11)

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Our security measures include:

Industry-standard encryption (TLS/SSL) for data in transit
Encrypted database storage with role-based access controls
Staff training on privacy and data-handling obligations
Regular review of our security systems and procedures
Secure destruction or de-identification of information no longer needed

11.1 Data Retention

We retain personal information and credit-related information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, or as required by law. Under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, we are required to retain credit assessment records for at least 7 years. When information is no longer needed, we securely destroy or de-identify it (APP 11.2).

11.2 Notifiable Data Breaches

In the event of an eligible data breach that is likely to result in serious harm, we will comply with the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme under Part IIIC of the Privacy Act. We will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) as soon as practicable. We maintain a data breach response plan and conduct regular assessments of our data-handling practices.

12. Access to and Correction of Information (APPs 12 & 13)

You have the right to:

Request access to the personal and credit information we hold about you
Request correction of any information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading
Request a copy of our Privacy Policy

We will respond to access requests within 30 days. In some circumstances, we may refuse access, for example, if it would unreasonably impact another person's privacy or if required by law. We will provide reasons for any refusal and advise you of your right to complain.

If we correct information that has been previously disclosed to a third party, we will take reasonable steps to notify them of the correction, unless it is impracticable to do so.

12.1 Erasure and De-identification

You can ask us to delete the personal information we hold about you. Where we are not required by law to keep it, we will permanently delete it or irreversibly de-identify it across our systems, including any working copies held by our service providers. Where we are required to keep records, for example the seven year credit assessment record required under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, we will tell you what we must keep, why, and for how long, and we will restrict access to it and delete the rest.

We do not use your information to train artificial intelligence models, and our AI providers are contractually prevented from doing so, so there is no model training dataset your information needs to be removed from. To make an erasure request, email privacy@simpleloans.au. We respond within 30 days.

13. Automated Decision-Making and Artificial Intelligence

We use automated and AI-assisted systems to help process enquiries and applications. This section explains what those systems do, what they do not do, and what you can ask us for.

13.1 Where Automation Is Used

Lender matching. We compare the information on your enquiry against published lender policy and produce a shortlist of lenders most likely to consider your situation.
Document reading. We use AI to read and summarise documents you upload, such as payslips and bank statements, so a person does not have to key the details in manually.
Servicing and eligibility calculations. We apply rule-based calculations, including household expenditure benchmarks, to estimate borrowing capacity.
Contact prioritisation. We score engagement signals to decide how quickly to follow up with you. This does not affect whether finance is offered to you or on what terms.

13.2 What Automation Does Not Do

No automated system approves, declines, prices or conditions a loan. We are not the credit provider. Every recommendation and every submission to a lender is reviewed and made by a person. Lenders make their own credit decisions under their own policies and privacy terms.

13.3 Your Right to an Explanation

You can ask us how an automated system reached an outcome that affects you. We keep a record of each automated decision, including the categories of information considered, the rules or model applied, the outcome, and whether a person reviewed it. On request we will give you a plain English explanation, and you can ask for a human review of any outcome you disagree with. Email privacy@simpleloans.au and we will respond within 30 days.

13.4 How We Protect Your Information in AI Systems

Identifying details are automatically removed before information is sent to an AI system, including names, contact details, dates of birth, tax file numbers, licence and passport numbers, and bank account numbers.
Only the minimum information needed for the immediate task is sent.
Every AI request is logged, including what categories of information were removed and why the request was made.
Our providers are contractually prevented from retaining your information or using it to train their models.
Sensitive information is not sent to public, general purpose AI tools.
Credit information obtained from a credit reporting body and bank statement information you authorise remain in Australia.

14. Credit Reporting (Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2024)

14.1 Credit Reporting Bodies (CRBs)

We may disclose your credit information to the following CRBs:

Equifax , www.equifax.com.au | 138 332
Experian , www.experian.com.au | 1300 783 684
illion , www.illion.com.au | 1300 734 806

Each CRB has its own privacy policy explaining how it handles your credit information. You can access these on the CRB websites listed above.

14.2 Your CRB Rights

Under the CR Code and Part IIIA of the Privacy Act, you have the right to:

Access and correct your credit-related information held by CRBs and us
Request a CRB not to use your information for the purpose of pre-screening or direct marketing assessments (a "ban period" of up to 12 months, or indefinitely for fraud victims)
Request a CRB not to use or disclose your information if you believe, on reasonable grounds, that you have been or are likely to be a victim of fraud
Request your credit reporting information from any CRB (you are entitled to one free report per year from each CRB)

14.3 Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR)

Under Australia's comprehensive credit reporting regime, CRBs may hold positive credit information (such as repayment history) in addition to negative information (such as defaults). This allows lenders to make more informed assessments. We support this system and comply with all CR Code obligations regarding the handling of repayment history information (RHI) and financial hardship information (FHI).

14.4 Financial Hardship Information

If you enter into a financial hardship arrangement with a credit provider, information about the arrangement may be included on your credit report. Under the CR Code 2024, this information must be handled in accordance with specific requirements, and you may request the CRB to annotate your file if you believe the information is incorrect or misleading.

14.5 Credit Information Complaints

If you believe your credit-related information has been handled incorrectly by us or a CRB, you can lodge a complaint with us (see Section 15 below) or directly with the relevant CRB. If the issue is not resolved, you may escalate to AFCA or the OAIC.

15. Complaints (APP 1.4(f))

If you believe we have breached the APPs, the CR Code, or otherwise mishandled your personal or credit information, you may lodge a complaint with our Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer

DPC Broker Pty Ltd trading as Simple Loans

Email: privacy@simpleloans.au

Phone: (07) 3060 8179

We will acknowledge your complaint within 7 days and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may escalate your complaint to:

Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). 1800 931 678 | www.afca.org.au
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). 1300 363 992 | www.oaic.gov.au

16. Cookies, Analytics & Tracking

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to improve your browsing experience and analyse site usage. Cookies are small text files stored on your device. We use:

Essential cookies, required for site functionality (e.g. session management)
Analytics cookies, help us understand how visitors interact with our site so we can improve it

You can manage cookie preferences through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may limit some functionality of our website. We do not use cookies to collect credit information.

17. Third-Party Websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any external sites you visit.

18. Contact Us

For any questions about this Privacy Policy, to request access or correction, to opt out of direct marketing, or to make a complaint, please contact: