Legal
Cobalt59 holds very little personal information. This page sets out plainly what we hold, why we hold it, and what you can ask us to do with it.
This website has no contact form, no analytics and no tracking cookies. Almost everything we hold about you is something you chose to send us — an email or a phone call. This page explains what happens to it.
Cobalt59 Pty Ltd (ABN 53 613 360 348) is an independent evaluation consultancy. This policy covers personal information we collect through this website and in the ordinary course of our business. It does not displace the privacy terms of any contract we hold with a client agency: where a contract or a project privacy protocol applies, that document governs the information collected under it.
There is no contact form on this site. If you get in touch it is because you emailed us or called. You give us whatever you choose to include — usually your name, your organisation, an email address or phone number, and the substance of your enquiry. We treat all of it as personal information.
The site is hosted by Webflow, which keeps standard server logs including IP addresses, browser type and the pages requested. Typefaces are served by Adobe Fonts and Google Fonts, so those services also receive your IP address when a page loads. We do not run Google Analytics or any equivalent, we set no advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not build profiles of visitors.
Evaluation work often involves personal information about people who are not our clients — interview participants, survey respondents, program staff and community members. That information is collected under the terms of the particular project, with its own consent arrangements, ethics approvals or privacy protocols where those apply, and it is handled accordingly. We do not use it for any purpose beyond the engagement it was collected for.
Enquiry information is used to respond to you, to scope and quote for work, and to keep a record of who we have dealt with. Information collected during an engagement is used to carry out and report that engagement. We do not sell personal information, we do not trade in it, and emailing us does not put you on a marketing list.
Our email and document storage run on commercial cloud services, so those providers hold our correspondence in the course of hosting it. We sometimes work with associates and subcontracted specialists; where they need access to project information they are bound by the same confidentiality and privacy obligations we are. Beyond that, we disclose personal information only where you would reasonably expect it, where you have agreed to it, or where the law requires it.
Some of the services we rely on — website hosting and cloud email among them — store data on servers outside Australia, including in the United States. We take reasonable steps to use reputable providers with appropriate safeguards, but information handled by those services may be stored or processed overseas.
We use access controls, encrypted connections and reputable providers, and we limit who inside Cobalt59 can see what. No system is perfectly secure and we do not claim otherwise. If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.
We keep enquiry correspondence for as long as it remains relevant to the relationship. Project records are kept for as long as our contractual, professional and legal obligations require — for many government engagements that is seven years from the end of the engagement. When information is no longer needed for any of those purposes, and we are not required to retain it, we destroy it or de-identify it.
You can ask what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email brian@cobalt59.com.au. We will respond within a reasonable period — normally 30 days — and there is no charge for making the request.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, tell us first — we would rather fix it. If our response does not satisfy you, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.
The Privacy Act 1988 does not automatically apply to businesses with annual turnover under $3 million. It does apply, regardless of turnover, to contractors providing services under a Commonwealth contract, and a substantial part of our work is for government. Rather than argue the threshold, we apply the Australian Privacy Principles to everything we do.
We update this page when our practices change. This version was published in September 2026.
Privacy enquiries, access requests and complaints go to our principal contact. We aim to acknowledge any request within two business days.
Cobalt59 Pty Ltd — ABN 53 613 360 348
Independent, evidence-based evaluation of complex environmental, government and public benefit programs.