Privacy policy

Last updated October 2026

North Coast Cat Rescue (ABN 71 689 545 908) respects your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, and how we look after it. We aim to follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988.

What we collect

We only collect information we need to run the rescue. Depending on how you deal with us, this may include your name, email address, phone number, suburb or address, details about your home and other pets (for adoption and fostering), and your donation history.

We don't collect card or bank details when you donate online. Payments are handled securely by our payment provider (PayPal), and we only see your name, the amount and the date. If you donate by bank transfer, our bank statement shows the name and reference you use.

How we collect it

We collect information when you send us an adoption enquiry, sign up to foster or volunteer, email or phone us, donate, or talk to us at events. This website doesn't use tracking or advertising cookies.

Contact forms

When you send us a form on this website (to foster, volunteer or ask about adopting a cat), your details are emailed straight to our [email protected] inbox so we can reply to your enquiry. If you ask about adopting a cat, we also keep your enquiry (your name, contact details, suburb, the cat and your message) in our secure, login-protected volunteer system so we can arrange a first chat; we delete it 6 months after you get in touch, unless we’re still talking with you or you go on to apply. We don’t store other form details on the website itself. To keep out spam, our forms use Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that a real person is sending the form.

If you tick ‘Keep me posted’ on a form, we’ll email you occasional NCCR news. You can stop these at any time by emailing [email protected].

Adoption applications

After a chat with one of our volunteers, we may send you a personal link to our online adoption application. The link works once and runs out after 14 days; it holds the name you gave us and the cat’s name so the form can fill them in. Your answers are kept on your own device while you fill it in, so you can finish later. Nothing reaches us until you press Send. You can clear your answers at any time with “Clear my answers”, and they’re cleared from your device once sent.

When you send it, we save your application in our secure, login-protected volunteer system so our team can assess it. It includes your contact details, address, age range and the answers you give about your household, home, pets and lifestyle. Only our committee and the volunteers we choose to help with adoptions can see it. We email ourselves a short notice with your reference number (not your answers), and we send you a short email to confirm we’ve received it. The form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a real person is sending it.

To help our volunteers prepare, your answers are also read by an AI tool (Meta’s Llama model, run by Cloudflare) that gives a suitability rating with a short reason. It is not given your name, contact details, street, suburb or postcode. Only our committee sees the rating, and it is only a guide: a person always makes the decision.

If your application is declined or withdrawn, we delete it 12 months after the decision. If you adopt, we keep it with the cat’s adoption record. You can ask us to delete your application at any time by emailing [email protected].

Games

Our Purrfect Guess game remembers your best score and whether you’ve played today on your own device only; we can’t see it. If you choose to join the daily leaderboard, we save only the two initials you type, the city or country you pick from our list, and your score, and show the day’s top scores to other players. The highest scores ever, and the best score from each place, stay on all-time lists in the game (initials, place, score and date); email [email protected] if you’d like yours removed. To save scrolling, the list may start on the country your internet connection appears to be in; that guess isn’t saved. A random number stored on your device stops the same device entering twice in one day, and a scrambled code made from your internet connection limits each connection to two entries a day. Neither is linked to you, the code can’t be turned back into your connection address, and both are deleted the next day. The leaderboard uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a real person is sending the score.

How we use it

We use your information to respond to enquiries, assess adoption and foster applications, organise volunteers, process donations and send receipts or thank-yous, keep records we're required to keep, and let you know about the rescue if you've asked us to.

We'll never sell, rent or trade your personal information.

Who we share it with

We only share your information when it's needed to care for a cat or required by law. For example, when you adopt a cat we update the microchip and pet registration records with your details, and we may share relevant information with our vets. Our email, storage and payment providers may store data on servers outside Australia.

How we keep it safe

Only volunteers who need your information can access it. We store it in password-protected accounts and delete or de-identify it when we no longer need it.

Accessing or correcting your information

You can ask to see the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it (unless we're required to keep it). Contact us at [email protected] and we'll respond within 30 days.

Questions or complaints

If you have a concern about how we've handled your information, please contact us first at [email protected].