Privacy policy.

The Story Code Co Pty Ltd (ABN 84 638 757 767) (“we”, “us”, “our”) respects your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It applies to our websites thestorycode.co and markjones.au, our newsletters and scan reports, and the way we work with clients, prospects, event organisers and speaker bureaus.

markjones.au is the speaking website of Mark Jones CSP – keynotes, event hosting and professional event facilitation. It is owned and operated by The Story Code Co Pty Ltd, and this policy applies to it in exactly the same way. When you make an enquiry, request the speaker kit or subscribe to the Mark My Words newsletter on markjones.au, your information is collected and handled by The Story Code Co Pty Ltd as described here.

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). If you’ve got a question about any of this, email us at hello@thestorycode.co (or mark@thestorycode.co if you came to us through markjones.au) – we’re happy to talk it through.

The personal information we collect

We only collect what we need to do our work and stay in touch with the people who want to hear from us. Depending on how you engage with us, that can include:

• Contact details – your name, email address, phone number, business name and role, when you subscribe, fill in a form, request the speaker kit, or get in touch.
• Enquiry and engagement information – what you tell us when you contact us, book a call, or work with us as a client, including notes, correspondence and, where relevant, records of meetings or calls. For speaking and hosting enquiries this includes event details such as dates, location, format, audience, budget guidance and the speaker bureau or agency you are working with.
• Subscription preferences – which of our newsletters (including Mark My Words and Codebreakers) or Five Worlds scans you’ve opted into, whether you’ve requested the speaker kit, and your subscribe and unsubscribe activity.
• Technical information – standard website data such as your browser type, device and general location, collected automatically when you visit our sites.

We don’t generally collect sensitive information (things like health, race, religious or political views). Please don’t send us sensitive information unless it’s genuinely necessary, and if you do, we’ll treat it as consent to handle it for the purpose you gave it to us.

How we collect it

Mostly, you give it to us directly – when you subscribe, complete a form, request the speaker kit, email us, or engage us for work. Sometimes we collect it automatically when you use our sites (see Cookies and analytics below), and occasionally from third parties like event organisers, speaker bureaus and agencies, or referrals, where you’d reasonably expect that.

Why we collect it and how we use it

We use your personal information to:

• send you the newsletters and scan reports you’ve subscribed to
• respond to your enquiries and deliver our services to you
• send you the speaker kit when you request it, and follow up with you about your event
• manage our relationship with clients, prospects, event organisers and bureaus
• run, maintain and improve our websites and content
• meet our legal and record-keeping obligations

We’ll only use your information for the purpose you gave it to us, a directly related purpose you’d reasonably expect, or where you’ve consented.

Marketing and how to opt out

If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter or scan, we’ll email you that content. We only add you to a newsletter list if you’ve asked us to – requesting the speaker kit or making an enquiry doesn’t subscribe you to anything unless you tick the box. Every email we send has a working unsubscribe link, and we honour unsubscribe requests promptly – within five business days at the latest, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). You can also email hello@thestorycode.co any time to be removed. We don’t buy or sell email lists, and we don’t share your details with anyone for their own marketing.

Who we share it with, and overseas disclosure

We don’t sell your personal information. We do share it with trusted service providers who help us run our business – for hosting, storing data, sending email, protecting our forms from spam, and managing our client records. Some of these providers are based overseas, mainly in the United States, which means your personal information may be stored or processed outside Australia.

Where we disclose information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure it’s handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, including relying on those providers’ data-protection commitments. The main providers we use are:

If you book Mark through a speaker bureau or agency, we’ll also share booking details with that bureau so they can manage the engagement, and they’ll share yours with us.

Artificial intelligence

We use AI tools – including Anthropic’s Claude – to help us research, draft and analyse the content we publish, such as our Five Worlds scans and newsletters. Where we use AI in a way that involves personal information, we take reasonable steps to limit it: we don’t put sensitive information into AI tools, and our AI provider is engaged under commercial terms that don’t use our inputs to train their models.

Our scan reports analyse publicly available news and commentary – they don’t make automated decisions about you. We don’t use your personal information to make automated decisions that have a significant effect on you.

Cookies and analytics

Our websites use essential cookies to work properly, and we use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use them so we can improve them. Google Analytics sets cookies and collects information such as your device, browser, general location and the pages you visit – this is processed by Google, including in the United States. You can opt out with Google’s browser add-on, or set your browser to refuse cookies, though some parts of the sites may not work as well if you do.

Our forms also use Cloudflare Turnstile to block automated spam. Turnstile may set a cookie and collects limited technical information about your browser, which is processed by Cloudflare in the United States.

Keeping your information secure

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access – including access controls, encryption in transit, and limiting who can see what. No system is perfectly secure, but if a data breach ever occurred that was likely to cause serious harm, we’d assess it and notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes above or to meet our legal obligations, then we take reasonable steps to delete or de-identify it. If you unsubscribe, we’ll stop emailing you and remove or de-identify your details when we no longer need them. Enquiry details for events that don’t go ahead are kept for a reasonable period in case you come back to us, then removed.

Accessing and correcting your information

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it if it’s wrong or out of date. Just email hello@thestorycode.co and we’ll respond within a reasonable time. There’s normally no charge, and if we can’t give you access for some reason, we’ll explain why.

Making a complaint

If you think we’ve mishandled your personal information, please tell us first – email hello@thestorycode.co and we’ll look into it and get back to you. If you’re not satisfied with how we’ve handled it, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be on this page, with the “last updated” date at the top. The same policy is linked from markjones.au.