THE GROW SOCIETY

CHILD & YOUNG PERSON PRIVACY NOTICE

Last updated: 12 August 2026

Your Privacy Matters

The Grow Society helps kids, families, schools and communities learn about things like:

🌱 gardening
🥕 growing food
♻️ sustainability
🍂 composting
🌻 caring for our environment

Sometimes we need information about you to help our programs, website or app work.

This page explains what that means.

What Does "Personal Information" Mean?

Personal information is information that can tell someone who you are.

It might include things like:

  • your name;

  • your school;

  • your email address;

  • a photo of you;

  • where you live;

  • activities you participate in; or

  • other information about you.

We try not to collect information about children unless we actually need it.

What Might Grow Society Know About Me?

If you participate in a Grow Society program, we might have information such as:

  • your first name;

  • a participant number;

  • your school;

  • whether you attended Garden Club;

  • activities you completed;

  • plants you helped grow;

  • gardening projects you participated in;

  • achievements;

  • feedback you provided; or

  • a photograph if appropriate permission has been given.

Different Grow Society activities may need different information.

Do You Need My Full Name?

Not always.

Whenever we reasonably can, we try to use less identifying information.

For example, we might count:

25 children attended Garden Club

instead of keeping a public list of all 25 children's names.

Why Do You Collect Information?

We might use information to:

  • run Garden Club;

  • organise activities;

  • keep appropriate attendance records;

  • help schools manage programs;

  • provide gardening activities;

  • help our gardening tools work;

  • measure how Grow Society programs are helping;

  • improve our activities;

  • keep our systems safe; and

  • help Grow Society understand the difference its programs are making.

What Is Impact Tracking?

Impact tracking helps us measure good things happening through Grow Society.

For example, we might count:

🌱 how many plants were grown

👩‍🌾 how many children participated

🏫 how many schools joined

🍂 how much food waste was composted

🥕 how much food was harvested

🙋 how many volunteers helped

We usually don't need to tell people which child did each activity.

Instead, we can combine the numbers.

For example:

"320 children participated in Grow Society programs this year."

This lets us tell people about our impact without unnecessarily identifying individual children.

Who Might See My Information?

Depending on the program, some information may be seen by authorised people such as:

  • your parent or guardian;

  • your teacher;

  • authorised staff at your school;

  • authorised Grow Society staff; or

  • trusted technology providers that help us operate our systems.

Not everyone can see everything.

We aim to give people access only to information they need for their role.

Can Other Schools See My Information?

Grow Society school portals should be designed so schools can only access information they are authorised to see.

Another school should not be able to simply log in and see your school's private participant information.

Authorised Grow Society staff may have wider access when they need it to run programs.

What About Volunteers?

Grow Society volunteers should only be able to access information they need to do their authorised volunteer role.

Being a Grow Society volunteer does not automatically mean someone can access children's personal information.

Do You Sell My Information?

No.

The Grow Society does not intend to sell children's personal information to advertisers or data brokers.

Do You Make Advertising Profiles About Kids?

We do not intend to use children's Grow Society activities to create behavioural advertising profiles.

We want children's information to be used to help deliver Grow Society programs — not to follow children around the internet with advertising.

What About Cookies?

Websites and apps sometimes use small pieces of technology called cookies.

They can help things work, such as:

  • keeping someone logged in;

  • remembering settings;

  • protecting an account; or

  • understanding whether a website works properly.

We aim to minimise unnecessary tracking in parts of Grow Society services that children use.

You can learn more in our Cookie Policy.

Does Grow Society Track Where I Am?

Some gardening tools may ask for your postcode.

Why?

Because different plants grow at different times in different parts of Australia.

Your postcode can help us work out things such as:

🌱 what to plant

📅 when to plant it

☀️ what season suits a plant

We generally don't need to know your exact home address to do that.

Grow Society does not need to continuously track where children are just to provide a postcode-based planting calendar.

If a future app feature needs access to a device's precise location, the appropriate permission will be requested where required.

What About Photos of Me?

Photos deserve extra care.

A photo being taken during a Grow Society activity does not automatically mean we can put it on Instagram, Facebook or our website.

Appropriate permission must exist before identifiable photographs of children are used publicly.

Different permission may be given for:

  • internal program records;

  • school communications;

  • the Grow Society website;

  • social media;

  • funding reports; or

  • promotional materials.

Your parent, guardian or school may help manage these permissions.

Will You Put My Full Name With My Photo?

We aim to avoid publishing a child's full name alongside an identifiable photograph unless there is an appropriate reason and permission to do so.

What If I Don't Want a Photo Taken?

If you are uncomfortable with a photograph being taken during a Grow Society activity, you can tell:

  • your parent or guardian;

  • your teacher;

  • a Grow Society staff member; or

  • another trusted adult.

What About Feedback?

Sometimes Grow Society might ask what you thought of an activity.

For example:

Did you enjoy Garden Club?

What was your favourite activity?

What would you like to grow next?

Your answers may help us make our programs better.

Where possible, feedback used in public reports should not unnecessarily identify you.

Can I Ask What Information You Have About Me?

Yes.

You can ask questions about your information.

Your parent or guardian may also be able to ask on your behalf.

Can My Information Be Fixed?

Yes.

If information about you is wrong, you or an appropriate adult can ask us to correct it.

Can I Ask for Information to Be Deleted?

You, your parent or guardian may be able to ask us to delete information about you.

Sometimes we may need to keep certain information because of things like:

  • child safety;

  • legal requirements;

  • insurance;

  • financial records; or

  • important program records.

If we can't delete something straight away, we can explain why where appropriate.

What Happens When I Stop Using Grow Society?

We don't want to keep children's personal information forever just because we can.

Information that is no longer reasonably needed should be deleted or changed so it no longer identifies you, subject to legitimate legal and recordkeeping requirements.

Combined statistics may remain.

For example, if you attended one Garden Club session, the overall number:

"26 children attended"

may remain even after information identifying you is removed.

How Do You Keep Information Safe?

Grow Society aims to use safeguards such as:

🔐 secure accounts

🔑 passwords

✅ different access levels

📱 protected devices

🛡️ security controls

📋 staff rules

🔍 access monitoring where appropriate

People should only access information they are authorised to use.

What If Something Goes Wrong?

If Grow Society thinks personal information has been lost, stolen or accessed by someone who shouldn't have it, we will investigate what happened and take appropriate steps to protect affected people.

Information involving children will be treated particularly carefully.

Who Makes Decisions About My Account?

Some Grow Society digital services may be managed by:

  • your parent or guardian;

  • your school; or

  • another authorised adult.

We don't expect children to understand complicated legal documents just to participate in an ordinary gardening activity.

You Can Ask Questions

If something on this page doesn't make sense, that's okay.

You can ask:

  • a parent;

  • guardian;

  • teacher;

  • Grow Society staff member; or

  • another trusted adult.

You can also ask The Grow Society directly.

Contact The Grow Society

The Grow Society
Western Australia, Australia

Email: hello@thegrowsocietyau.com

You can also read our full:

Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Cookie Policy

A Note for Parents and Guardians

This notice is intended to explain Grow Society privacy practices to children and young people in accessible language.

It should be read alongside The Grow Society's full Privacy Policy.

Parents and guardians can contact The Grow Society regarding access to, correction of or appropriate deletion of a child's information.

© The Grow Society. All rights reserved.