Privacy Notice

1. About this notice

LITA (Little India Traders Association Inc) is a member-led, not-for-profit association representing Indian-origin businesses across Melbourne. This notice applies to personal information collected through lita.net.au, including membership applications, the contact form, event registrations and the member portal. We handle personal information consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles.

2. What we collect

• Membership applications. When you apply for membership, we collect your full name, email address and, optionally, your mobile number. If you are applying on behalf of a business or organisation, we also collect your organisation name, Australian Business Number (ABN), business type, industry category, business address, and a description of your connection to the City of Melbourne, along with your chosen membership tier and the rules, event-credit and privacy declarations you make when applying.
• Contact form. When you use our contact form, we collect your name, email address and the content of your message, along with any additional fields shown on our Contact page.
• Directory profiles. If you are a member and choose to publish a public directory profile, we collect and display the business name, category, short description, contact methods, external links, location and images you choose to add.
• Technical information. Like most websites, our hosting provider collects standard technical information, such as IP address and browser type, needed to operate and secure the site.

3. How we use your information

We use personal information to assess and manage membership applications, administer active memberships (including renewals and annual event credit), deliver events you register for, reconcile membership and event payments, respond to enquiries submitted through our contact form, and send necessary account and membership communications, such as application status updates or event logistics.

Promotional communications, such as newsletters or event promotion, are separate from this necessary administration and are sent only in line with the communication preferences you set. You can update these preferences, or withdraw consent to promotional communications, at any time by contacting us.

4. Where your information is stored and processed

This website is built on Supabase, a hosted Postgres database and authentication service, and is hosted on Vercel. Membership, contact and event data is stored in our Supabase database, and member portal sign-in is handled by Supabase Auth. Transactional emails, such as application confirmations and event notices, are sent using Resend. These providers act as our data processors and only handle personal information on our instructions, to operate the site and deliver the services described in this notice.

5. The public directory

LITA’s public and member directory is a curated publishing surface, not a copy of our statutory membership register. It shows only the business name, category, short description, contact methods, external links, location and images a member has actively chosen to publish, and only after LITA reviews the listing. We never display a member’s private mobile number, payment status, membership dates, internal notes, or committee or administrator roles in the public or member directory. The platform is designed to show members which profile fields are public, member-only or private before they save changes.

6. Cookies and the member portal

The member portal, accessed via Member Login, uses cookies to keep you signed in securely between pages. We do not use these cookies for advertising or third-party tracking. If LITA introduces analytics or marketing cookies in future, this notice will be updated accordingly.

7. Sharing your information

We do not sell personal information. We only share it with the service providers named in this notice (Supabase, Resend, and our hosting provider Vercel) to the extent needed to operate the site, or where we are required to do so by law.

8. Data retention and deletion

We retain personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this notice, including any record-keeping obligations that apply to an incorporated association, and we delete or de-identify it when it is no longer required. You can ask us to access, correct or delete your personal information at any time, and we will respond within a reasonable period.

9. Security

We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, including role-based access controls that restrict which volunteers, committee members or systems can view member records. No online system can guarantee complete security, and we continue to review our practices as the site develops.

10. Your rights and how to contact us

You can ask what personal information we hold about you, request a correction, or ask us to delete it, by emailing privacy@lita.net.au. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

11. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice as LITA’s website and services develop. The date at the top of this page reflects the last update.