Privacy Policy
Last updated 29 July 2026
The Focus on Ability Short Film Festival is run by NOVA Employment (PLACEHOLDER — insert full legal entity name and ABN). This policy explains what personal information we collect through this website, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how you can access or correct it.
We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
What we collect, and when
| When you… | We collect | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Vote for a film | First and last name, email address, country, your IP address, your browser’s user agent, and a device fingerprint generated in your browser | To record your vote and to detect and prevent duplicate or automated voting |
| Create a filmmaker account | First and last name, email address, country, and a password (stored only as a salted hash, never in readable form) | To create and secure your account and to contact you about your entry |
| Sign in | The email address used and the IP address it was used from, for both successful and failed attempts | To rate-limit sign-in attempts and protect accounts |
| Submit a film | Your film file, any profile photo you upload, and the details you enter about the film | To publish and judge your entry |
| Leave a comment | The name you give and the text of your comment | To display the comment on the film page. Comments are checked automatically before publication, and some are held for a person to review |
| Donate | The donation amount. Your card details are entered directly into Stripe and never reach our servers. | To process your donation |
| Browse the site | Standard analytics data — pages viewed, approximate location, device and browser type | To understand how the festival is being used and improve it |
Who we share it with
We do not sell personal information. We share it only with the services that make this site work:
- Stripe — payment processing for donations.
- Google Analytics 4 — website analytics.
- Cloudflare Turnstile — checks that voting and registration are done by a person rather than a script.
- OpenAI — automated checking of visitor comments before they are published, so that abusive or spam comments do not appear on film pages. Only the text of the comment is sent; no name, email address or IP address is included. OpenAI processes it in the United States. PLACEHOLDER — confirm against OpenAI’s current API terms before publishing whether to state that API content is not used for model training. It is their stated default for API traffic, but it is a claim about a third party in a privacy policy, so verify it rather than take this wording on trust.
- Amazon Web Services — storage for submitted films and profile photos.
- YouTube — video playback. Films are embedded using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, which does not set tracking cookies unless you press play.
PLACEHOLDER — confirm which of these store or process data outside Australia, and disclose those countries here as required by APP 8.
Cookies
This site uses cookies for:
- Session — keeping you signed in to your filmmaker account.
- Security — a short-lived token that protects comment and form submissions from being forged by other sites.
- Analytics — Google Analytics, to count visits and page views.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser. Signing in to a filmmaker account will not work without session cookies.
How long we keep it
Votes and entries are retained as a record of each festival year. Account details are retained while your account is active. PLACEHOLDER — insert specific retention periods and the deletion process.
Accessing or correcting your information
You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Contact us through the contact page (PLACEHOLDER — add the privacy officer’s name, postal address and direct email). We will respond within a reasonable period.
Complaints
If you believe we have mishandled your personal information, contact us first so we can try to resolve it. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last changed.