Privacy policy

01Who we are and what this policy covers

Chimehill is an AI receptionist for independent allied-health clinics, such as physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, podiatry, massage, acupuncture and psychology practices, in Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. In this policy, "Chimehill", "we" and "us" mean Chimehill, the business that operates chimehill.com and the Chimehill service.

This policy explains what personal information we handle, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what choices you have. It covers:

• Our website. Visitors to chimehill.com, including people who fill in our forms.
• Clinics and their staff. People who contact us on behalf of a clinic, or who will use a Chimehill account.
• People who call a clinic. Callers whose calls Chimehill answers for a clinic. The call-answering service is not live yet; the parts of this policy about calls describe how it will work when it launches.

Chimehill is administrative only. It answers calls, answers questions from the clinic's approved information and helps with bookings. It never gives clinical advice and is not an emergency service.

02Our role: the clinic's information and our own

Caller information belongs to the clinic. When Chimehill answers a call for a clinic, the clinic decides what information is collected and why. Under UK law the clinic is the "controller" and Chimehill is its "processor". Under Australian and New Zealand law the clinic is the organisation responsible for the information, and Chimehill holds and uses it only to provide a service to the clinic, on the clinic's instructions.

The clinic's own privacy policy explains how it handles your information. If you called a clinic and have a question or request about your information, please contact the clinic first. If you contact us instead, we will pass your request to the clinic and help it respond.

Website and clinic account information is ours. For information about website visitors, people who send us enquiries, and clinic staff who use a Chimehill account, Chimehill decides how it is used and is responsible for it directly (the "controller" under UK law).

The agreement between Chimehill and each clinic, including how we process caller information for it, is set out in our terms of service, and we provide a data processing agreement on request.

03Information from our website

You can read chimehill.com without telling us who you are. We collect personal information on the website only when you give it to us in a form, or, if you accept analytics cookies, through our analytics tool.

• Demo requests. Your work email address, and if you choose to add them, your name, clinic name, phone number, practice software, number of practitioners, how you heard about us and a message.
• Software questions in the demo form. Which practice software your clinic uses, the page you started from, and, where present, the campaign tags and referring website in the link you followed. This step asks for no email address. We also record the country your visit came from, which our hosting provider works out from the connection; we do not store your IP address.
• Waitlist. Your email address, your practice software and how you heard about us, so we can tell you when Chimehill works with your software.
• Newsletter. Your email address and which page you signed up on.
• Contact form. Your name, email address, the topic, your message and, optionally, your clinic name. Please don't include patient or health details in a message.

Protecting our forms from abuse. To stop spam and repeated submissions, we count how often a form is sent from the same connection or email address. We never store the IP address or email address for this: we store only a scrambled, salted code that can't be turned back into either, and these counters are deleted after about a day.

Studio accounts. Studio is our internal tool for publishing the blog and glossary. Only people we invite have an account; there is no public sign-up. For each account we hold an email address, a password (stored by our database provider in a form we can't read) and a login session cookie.

04Information about clinics and their staff

When a clinic uses the Chimehill service, we will hold information about the clinic and the staff who manage its account:

• names, work email addresses and phone numbers of staff, and their login details
• clinic details, such as name, locations, opening hours, practitioners and services
• the answers and policies the clinic approves for Chimehill to use, and its call-handling settings
• the connection settings for the clinic's practice software
• billing details, and our emails and support conversations with the clinic

05Information about people who call a clinic

The call-answering service is not live yet. When it launches, Chimehill will process the following on behalf of the clinic a person calls:

• Call details. The caller's phone number, the time and length of the call, and how it ended (answered, booked, transferred, message taken).
• What is said on the call. The audio as it is processed live, a written transcript and a short summary. Whether calls are recorded will be a setting the clinic controls.
• Booking details. The details needed to find a patient's record or make, move or cancel an appointment, such as name, date of birth, contact details and appointment times, read from and written to the clinic's practice software.
• Health-related information. Callers sometimes mention why they are booking or a health concern. Health information is sensitive information under Australian law, special category data under UK law, and health information under New Zealand law, and it is handled with extra care. Chimehill does not ask for clinical details and does not give clinical advice; if a caller describes an emergency, they are directed to emergency help in line with the clinic's settings.

Where it comes from. Caller information comes from the caller, from the phone network (such as the calling number) and from the clinic's practice software. Before giving out or changing booking details, Chimehill checks it is speaking with the right person; the phone number alone is not treated as proof of identity.

06How we use information, and our legal reasons

We use personal information only for the reasons below. UK law asks us to name a legal reason (a "lawful basis") for each one; in Australia and New Zealand we use and disclose information for the purpose it was collected, or a related purpose you would reasonably expect.

• Replying to demo requests, waitlist sign-ups and messages. So we can arrange a demo, answer your question or tell you when we support your software. Legal reason: our legitimate interest in responding to people who contact us, or taking steps you ask for before an agreement.
• Sending the newsletter. Only after you confirm your sign-up. Legal reason: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Understanding how the website is used. Analytics and session recordings help us see which pages are useful and where people get stuck. Legal reason: your consent through the cookie banner.
• Providing the service to clinics. Setting up and running the clinic's account, answering its calls, supporting and billing it. Legal reason: our contract with the clinic.
• Processing caller information for clinics. Only on the clinic's instructions, to answer and log its calls. The clinic decides the legal reason for this, including the extra condition UK law requires for health information.
• Keeping things secure and meeting the law. Preventing abuse of our forms and accounts, fixing problems, keeping records the law requires, and responding to lawful requests. Legal reason: our legitimate interests and our legal obligations.

We do not sell personal information, we do not show ads on our website, and we never use caller information to market to callers.

07AI, call recordings and transcripts

When the call-answering service is live, a caller's speech will be turned into text, an AI language model will work out what the caller needs, and the reply will be spoken back in a synthetic voice. These steps will be carried out by specialist telephony, speech and AI providers working on our behalf. We will name them in this policy before the call service goes live, and clinics will be told about them in their agreement with us.

• Callers are told. Chimehill will introduce itself as the clinic's virtual receptionist at the start of each call, and a caller who asks for a person will be transferred or offered a callback, as the clinic has set up.
• The AI follows the clinic's rules. It will answer only from information the clinic has approved, and it will never tell a caller a booking is made until the clinic's practice software has confirmed it.
• Recordings are the clinic's choice. Whether calls are recorded will be a setting the clinic controls, and the clinic is responsible for telling callers when calls are recorded.
• No selling, no advertising. We don't sell caller information or use it for advertising.
• Decisions about people. Chimehill will not make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on callers. Bookings will follow the clinic's own rules and availability, and clinic staff will be able to review every call.

08Who we share information with

We use a small number of service providers to run chimehill.com. They handle personal information only to provide their service to us, under their terms with us, and not for their own purposes. These are the providers we use today:

The call-answering service will need further providers, for phone lines, speech, AI and connecting to clinics' practice software. We will add them to this list before the call service goes live, and clinics will be told about them in their agreement with us. We will also tell clinics before we add or replace one.

We may also share information when the law requires it, to protect people's safety or our legal rights, with professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants under a duty of confidence, or with a buyer if the business is sold, who would have to protect it in the same way. We never share one clinic's information with another clinic.

09Where information is stored and sent

Our providers run on cloud infrastructure in more than one country, so your information may be stored or processed outside the country you live in:

• Supabase stores our website database in the European Union.
• PostHog stores analytics data and session recordings in the United States.
• Vercel is a US company that serves the website from a global network, so requests may be handled in a data centre near you or elsewhere.

Australia. Before disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient, we take reasonable steps to make sure it handles the information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles (APP 8), for example through contractual commitments.

United Kingdom. When personal information leaves the UK, we rely on the safeguards UK law allows, such as UK adequacy regulations or contract terms approved for international transfers.

New Zealand. We disclose personal information overseas only where Information Privacy Principle 12 allows it, such as where the recipient is required to protect it in a way that, overall, gives comparable safeguards to the Privacy Act 2020.

10How long we keep information

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the reasons in this policy, or as long as the law requires, and then delete it or make it anonymous.

• Demo requests, waitlist entries and contact messages: while they are relevant to your enquiry or to telling you when we support your software. You can ask us to delete them at any time.
• Newsletter: until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your details.
• Form abuse counters: about a day.
• Session recordings: 30 days, then deleted automatically.
• Your cookie choice: kept in your own browser until you change it or clear your browser's site data.
• Studio accounts: while the person needs access; removed when they no longer do.
• Clinic accounts and call information: for as long as the clinic uses Chimehill and its agreement with us allows. When a clinic asks, or its account ends, we delete its call information unless the law requires us to keep it. Detailed retention periods for call information will be set out in each clinic's agreement before the call service goes live.

11How we protect information

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, change or disclosure. For example:

• the website is served only over encrypted connections (HTTPS)
• form submissions can be read back only by signed-in Studio admins; the public can send a form but never read one
• every database table has access rules, and each clinic's information will be kept separate so one clinic can never see another's
• logins are limited and paused after repeated failed attempts, and public forms are rate-limited
• we keep passwords, phone numbers, message content and health details out of our logs and analytics

No system is completely secure. If a data breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will act quickly to contain it and will notify the affected people, clinics and regulators where the law requires.

12Cookies, analytics and session recordings

Your choice comes first. When you first visit chimehill.com, a banner asks whether we may use analytics cookies and record visits. Nothing analytics-related loads, and no analytics cookie is set, until you choose Accept. Reject is shown the same way as Accept and is just as easy. You can change your mind at any time with the Cookie settings link in the footer of every page.

If you accept, we use PostHog to understand how the website is used:

• Analytics. Which pages you view, which buttons and links you click, and basic technical details such as browser, device type and approximate location. PostHog stores a cookie and local storage entry so it can tell repeat visits apart. We don't link this to your name or email address, and we don't send form contents as analytics.
• Session recordings. A replay of how you move around and click on our pages, which helps us spot confusing layouts. Everything you type into a form is masked, so typed details such as your email address are never recorded. Recordings are deleted after 30 days.

We never run analytics or recordings in Studio or on the log-in and password pages.

Always on, without cookies. We use Vercel Speed Insights to measure how fast our pages load. It doesn't use cookies. Your cookie choice itself is saved in your browser's local storage so we don't ask again on every page. Studio users also get a login session cookie, which is needed for Studio to work.

We don't use advertising cookies and we don't sell information about your visit. If you reject, or later switch analytics off, PostHog stops collecting.

13Newsletter and other emails

We send the newsletter only to people who have signed up and then confirmed by email. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link, and you can also email us to stop it. If you join the waitlist, we email you about the software you chose. We don't add people to marketing lists from demo requests or contact messages without asking.

14Children

Our website and accounts are for clinics and the people who run them, not for children, and we don't knowingly collect children's information through the website. When a parent or guardian calls a clinic about a child, the clinic decides how that information is handled, as it does for any other caller.

15Your privacy rights

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it. Depending on where you live, you may have more rights:

• Australia. Under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, you can ask to access and correct your information, and to stop receiving marketing.
• United Kingdom. Under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you can also ask us to delete your information, restrict or object to how we use it, or give it to you in a portable format, and you can withdraw consent at any time without affecting what was done before.
• New Zealand. Under the Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles, you can ask to access and correct your information.

To make a request, email privacy@chimehill.com. We may need to check your identity first. There is no charge for a request, and we will reply within the time the law in your country allows. If we can't do what you ask, we will explain why.

If your request is about a call to a clinic, please contact the clinic, because it controls that information. If you contact us, we will pass your request to the clinic and help it respond.

16Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please email privacy@chimehill.com first so we can try to put it right. We will look into it and reply in writing.

If you are not satisfied with our reply, you can complain to the privacy regulator where you live:

• Australia: the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), oaic.gov.au
• United Kingdom: the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), ico.org.uk
• New Zealand: the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC), privacy.org.nz

17Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the way we handle information changes, including before the call-answering service goes live. The new version will be posted on this page with its date. If a change significantly affects clinics, we will tell them directly before it takes effect.

18Contact us

For any question or request about privacy, email privacy@chimehill.com or use our contact page.