Insta Services is an app that connects people in Melbourne, Australia with local service providers — plumbers, electricians, cleaners, tutors and more. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who sees it, and what you can do about it. We have tried to write it so an ordinary person can actually read it.
Insta Services is operated by [FILL: legal entity name] (ABN [FILL: ABN]), trading as DigiScalability, of [FILL: postal address], Australia. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
For anything privacy-related, email admin@digiscalability.com. This is a small operation, and that inbox is read by the person responsible for your data.
When you sign up we collect your name, email address and password (stored only as a salted PBKDF2 hash — we never store or see the actual password). As you use the app you can add a phone number, an optional profile photo, and your suburb and its map coordinates. Service providers also give us a business description and their ABN. If you use a referral code, we record who referred whom. We use this to run your account, show your listing (if you are a provider), and let customers and providers contact each other.
We store the content you put into the app: chat messages, job requests you describe in your own words, photos you upload with a job, reviews you write, and reports you file about other users. We use this content to deliver the service — matching jobs to providers, showing reviews, and investigating reports.
To make the app work we hold a push notification token (Firebase Cloud Messaging) so we can send you notifications, and a session token that keeps you signed in. Our hosting provider (Vercel) keeps standard request logs, which include IP addresses. We do not use any third-party analytics SDK — the app's usage events are logged only on your device — and we do not show advertising. If the app crashes, a crash report (device model, operating system version, and the technical state of the app at that moment — not your messages or personal content) is sent to Firebase Crashlytics so we can find and fix the fault. Our server does keep one simple counter: how many AI requests your account makes each day, so we can enforce fair-use limits.
This is the most misunderstood part of apps like ours, so here is exactly what happens:
The app currently has no purchases or billing of any kind; we will update this section if that changes.
The map shows around 11,740 business listings that did not come from those businesses signing up. This section explains where they come from and what to do if one of them is yours.
Where the data comes from. These listings are built from the Australian Business Register's "ABN Bulk Extract", published by the Australian Government on data.gov.au under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. We refresh from the same source weekly.
What we show. For each listing: the business or trading name (for sole traders this can be a person's own name, because that is how the ABR records it), a service category, and a position on the map. We hold the listing's ABN in our database — it is public register data and is used for the claim process below — but we do not display it in the app. Two important honesty notes:
These businesses have not joined Insta Services and are not affiliated with us. A listing on the map is not an endorsement by the business and does not mean they will respond to enquiries.
If a listing is yours:
When you post a job or use the AI search, the text you wrote and any photo you uploaded are sent to Anthropic, a US company, whose AI models extract the job details (trade, suburb, urgency and so on) and draft the outreach messages we send to matching providers. This is what makes the "describe your problem in plain words" experience work. When you check the offers on a job, the chat replies that contacted providers sent about that job are also sent to Anthropic so it can extract each provider's price and availability and suggest the best fit. We also use Anthropic's models to help categorise the public business-register listings described in section 3.
Uploaded job photos are stored in blob storage (Vercel) at a link that is publicly accessible to anyone who has the link; Anthropic fetches the photo from that link to analyse it. Do not include anything in a job photo you would not want a matched provider to see.
Other users. When our concierge matches your job, up to 3 relevant providers receive your name, your job description, and a link to your photo — not your email or phone number. If you are a provider, your public listing (name, business type, suburb-level location, rating and reviews) is visible to everyone using the map, including people who are not signed in; signed-in customers who are matched with you through search can also see your contact email and phone number, so they can reach you.
Service providers we use (sub-processors). These companies process data on our behalf to run the service:
| Who | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel Inc | Hosting and file (photo) storage | USA company; our API runs in their Sydney region; global CDN |
| Neon Inc | Database (Postgres) | USA company; data hosted in Australia (AWS Sydney) |
| Anthropic PBC | AI processing of job text and photos | USA |
| Push notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and crash reporting (Firebase Crashlytics) | Global | |
| OpenFreeMap | Map tiles (fetched directly by your device) | EU |
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.
Because of the services above, your personal information is disclosed to recipients in the United States and the European Union (AI processing, push notifications, map tiles, hosting infrastructure). Our database itself is hosted in Australia (AWS Sydney). We choose providers with strong security practices, but you should know that data processed overseas is subject to the laws of those countries.
We keep your personal information while your account is active. When your account is deleted, we delete your account details, your chat messages and conversations, the reviews you wrote, the reports you filed, your jobs, and your push notification token and settings.
Photos: photos you uploaded (job photos and your profile photo) are deleted from our file storage as part of account deletion, including photos behind links already sent to matched providers.
Two ways to delete your account:
One thing we keep: if you have asked us not to contact you, we retain a small suppression record after deletion. It exists solely so we can keep honouring your do-not-contact request — deleting it would risk contacting you again.
Our hosting provider's routine request logs (which include IP addresses) are kept according to their retention schedules.
You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct anything that is wrong. Email admin@digiscalability.com. We will respond within 30 days, in line with Australian Privacy Principles 12 and 13. There is no charge for making a request. You can also edit most of your account details directly in the app.
If you think we have mishandled your personal information, email admin@digiscalability.com with "Privacy complaint" in the subject. We will acknowledge your complaint and respond within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au.
We take reasonable steps to protect your information: passwords are stored only as salted PBKDF2 hashes, connections are encrypted, and access to our systems is limited.
No system is perfectly secure. If we suspect a data breach, we commit to assessing it within 30 days, and if it is an eligible data breach under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme — one likely to result in serious harm — we will notify the affected individuals and the OAIC as the scheme requires.
Insta Services is for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe we have, email admin@digiscalability.com and we will delete it.
If we change this policy, we will update this page and its effective date. For significant changes — such as introducing purchases, or moving data to a new country — we will also tell you in the app. This policy is governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia.
Effective date: [FILL: effective date]