Privacy Policy
Last updated 10 August 2026
The Focus on Ability Short Film Festival is run by NOVA Employment Limited (ABN 94 253 356 513), a charity registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. 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, for donation payments.
- Google Analytics, for website statistics.
- Cloudflare, which checks that voting and registration are done by a person rather than a script, and delivers the site.
- An automated content-checking service, which reviews visitor comments before they appear so that abusive and spam comments are kept off film pages. Only the text of the comment is sent. Your name, email address and IP address are not. This service is operated outside Australia.
- Amazon Web Services, which stores submitted films and profile photos on servers in Australia.
- YouTube, for video playback. Films are embedded using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, which sets no tracking cookies unless you press play.
Information sent overseas
Some of the services above are run from outside Australia, which means part of your information is handled overseas. Those are Stripe, Google Analytics, YouTube, Cloudflare and the comment-checking service, all of which operate from the United States.
These are global networks, so your information may also pass through other countries where those companies run equipment. We use established providers who state that they handle personal information to a standard comparable to the Australian Privacy Principles. Once information is with them it is subject to the laws of the countries they operate in as well as ours.
What stays in Australia: the festival’s own database, holding votes, filmmaker accounts, film details and comments; and the films and profile photos themselves, which are stored in an Australian region.
Cookies
This site uses cookies for:
- Session. Keeps 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
The festival keeps a permanent public record of every year it has run, going back to its first in 2008. That shapes most of what follows.
- Entered films and their details. Kept indefinitely. The catalogue is a permanent archive and past entries stay available to watch.
- The filmmaker’s name shown with a film. Kept for as long as the film is in the catalogue, because it is the credit on the work.
- Votes. The vote itself is kept indefinitely as the record of that year’s result. The technical data collected alongside it to stop duplicate voting (your IP address, browser user agent and device fingerprint) is only needed while a voting window is open, and is cleared once the festival year closes.
- Published comments. Kept with the film they were left on. Comments rejected in moderation are deleted.
- Filmmaker accounts. Kept while the account is active. An account with no entries that has not been signed in to for two years may be closed and its details deleted.
- Sign-in attempt records. The email address and IP address of each attempt, kept for 12 months so we can investigate attacks on accounts.
- Donations. We keep the amount and date for seven years, as tax law requires. We never hold your card details. Stripe does.
- Analytics. Held by Google Analytics for the retention period set on the account, then deleted automatically.
When something no longer needs to be kept we delete it. Where it is bound up with a record we must keep, we remove the parts that identify you.
Accessing, correcting or deleting your information
You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it.
Privacy enquiries are handled by Martin Wren, Chief Executive Officer of NOVA Employment Limited, as our privacy officer. You can reach us:
- through the contact page, marking your message for the privacy officer;
- by post to the Privacy Officer, NOVA Employment Limited, PO Box 795, St Marys NSW 1790, Australia.
We will acknowledge your request and aim to respond within 30 days.
Two limits are worth knowing before you ask. If your film has been published in the catalogue we can remove it from this site and from our YouTube channel, but we cannot undo screenings that have already taken place or recover material other people have shared elsewhere. And we will not delete a vote after a result has been announced, because that would change the published record of a competition. We will remove the technical data held against it instead.
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.