Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Information You Provide

For Independent Consultants:

• Identity information: legal name, preferred name, ABN, company structure, contact details
• Professional information: CV/resume, work history, certifications, education, skills, languages, rates, availability, and work preferences
• Compliance information: insurance status, right-to-work documentation, security clearances, background check results
• Availability and preferences: calendar availability, preferred working hours, remote/onsite preferences, travel tolerance, rate expectations
• Referral information: referee names, relationships, and verification details
• Uploaded and derived information: parsed resume data, profile summaries, embeddings, search indexes, and compiled profile records generated from source materials you provide or authorise us to import

For Boutique Consulting Firms:

• Business registration details and ABN
• Contact information for key personnel
• Service offerings, capabilities, and team composition
• Project history and case studies
• Team, bench, and candidate information submitted for staffing, delivery, or business development purposes

For Clients:

• Business registration details and contact information
• Project requirements, budgets, timelines, briefs, RFPs, statements of work, and other procurement materials
• Feedback and satisfaction ratings
• Information contained in prompts, chat messages, uploaded files, comments, notes, and internal admin notes used in project scoping, shortlisting, and matching workflows

Information Collected Automatically

When you use our platform, we automatically collect:

• Device information (browser type, operating system, device identifiers)
• Log data (IP address, access times, pages viewed, referring URL)
• Usage data (features used, interactions with the platform)
• Cookies and similar tracking technologies

Information from Third Parties

We may receive information from:

• LinkedIn and other professional networks (with your consent)
• Referees providing feedback on consultants
• Background check providers
• Payment processors
• Data entered by your colleagues, team members, or administrators acting on behalf of your organisation
• Service providers that help us authenticate users, host data, process files, send communications, or run AI and search infrastructure

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Provide and Improve Our Services

• Match clients with suitable consultants and boutique firms
• Process and facilitate engagements and contracts
• Verify qualifications, experience, and referrals
• Generate AI-powered insights, recommendations, explanations, summaries, and shortlists
• Build, maintain, and refresh your professional profile, including compiled profile records, searchable text, metadata, and vector indexes used for discovery and matching
• Process uploaded files, notes, project briefs, and conversation history to support search, scoping, due diligence, and workflow automation

Communicate With You

• Send service-related notifications and updates
• Respond to enquiries and provide support
• Share relevant opportunities and matches

Ensure Platform Integrity

• Verify identity and prevent fraud
• Enforce our Terms of Use
• Maintain platform security

Improve Our Platform

• Analyse usage patterns and trends
• Develop new features and services
• Generate anonymised market benchmarks and insights
• Evaluate, tune, and quality-assure our search, matching, ranking, safety, and support systems using submitted content, feedback, and operational data

3. AI and Automated Processing

Pear uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, vector search, and rules-based automation to support core platform functions. These technologies may be used to:

• Parse CVs and build structured profiles
• Generate derived profile content, including summaries, classifications, evidence lines, searchable records, embeddings, and compiled profiles
• Match consultants, firms, and project opportunities based on skills, experience, availability, preferences, and other relevance signals
• Draft RFPs and job descriptions
• Support internal search, shortlisting, benchmarking, and recommendation workflows
• Provide rate guidance based on anonymised market data
• Flag potential delivery issues for quality assurance

These processes may involve third-party AI and search service providers, including model providers and vector search infrastructure. Pear may submit prompts, profile data, resumes, project materials, notes, and related metadata to those providers where reasonably necessary to operate the service.

Human Oversight: Pear uses human review in selected workflows, including referral verification, high-stakes shortlist validation, support, and quality assurance. Not every AI-assisted output is individually reviewed by a human before display or use. AI outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date and should not be treated as the sole basis for decisions. If an automated output significantly affects you, you may request review by contacting us.

4. How We Share Your Information

We may share your information with:

Other Platform Users

• Consultants: Your profile, availability, and relevant experience may be shared with clients and boutique firms seeking your services
• Clients: Your project requirements may be shared with consultants and boutiques in our matching process
• Boutiques: Information necessary to facilitate team assembly and project delivery

Service Providers

• Cloud hosting, storage, and database providers, including Amazon Web Services and Supabase
• Authentication and identity services
• AI, LLM, parsing, and search infrastructure providers, including OpenAI, OpenRouter, Google Gemini, and Pinecone
• Professional data enrichment and profile import providers
• Payment processors
• Background check services
• Communication and email providers, including Resend
• Workflow, analytics, support, and monitoring providers

Legal and Regulatory

• When required by law or legal process
• To protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property
• In connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets

With Your Consent

• When you direct us to share information
• When you use features that involve sharing (e.g., portable credentials)

We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

5. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as required to provide our services and comply with legal obligations:

• Active accounts: Your information is retained while your account remains active
• Inactive accounts: If your account is inactive for an extended period, we may delete or anonymise your data after providing notice
• After account deletion: We retain records for up to 7 years after account closure as required for legal, tax, and audit purposes
• Financial records: Transaction and payment records are retained for 7 years as required by Australian tax law
• Derived search and AI records: summaries, indexes, embeddings, compiled profiles, logs, and backups may persist for a reasonable period after source records are updated or deleted while we complete refreshes, backups, audit processes, or legal compliance activities

Referral badges and credentials may decay without fresh signals, as described in our platform guidelines. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time, subject to these legal retention requirements.

6. Your Rights and Choices

Under Australian privacy law, you have the right to:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Deletion: Request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal requirements.
• Portability: Your Pear-Verified credentials and profile can be exported and shared outside the platform.
• Opt-out: Unsubscribe from marketing communications at any time.
• Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

To exercise these rights, contact us at hello@pear.it.com.

7. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including:

• Encryption of data in transit and at rest
• Access controls and authentication requirements
• Regular security assessments
• Employee training on data protection

While we strive to protect your information, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

8. Data Breach Response

In accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme under the Privacy Act 1988, if we become aware of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm to any individuals whose personal information is involved, we will:

• Take immediate steps to contain the breach and assess the risk of harm
• Notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) as soon as practicable
• Notify affected individuals as soon as practicable, including information about the breach and recommended steps they should take

We maintain incident response procedures and conduct regular assessments of our data security practices.

9. Cookies and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies to:

• Keep you logged in
• Remember your preferences
• Analyse platform usage
• Improve our services

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect platform functionality.

10. International Transfers

Your information may be transferred to, stored in, or processed in countries other than Australia where our service providers operate infrastructure, support, or subprocessors. This may include:

• Australia: primary operations and some hosting or support activities
• United States: infrastructure, AI and model providers, search infrastructure, storage, communications, and support tooling, including providers such as Amazon Web Services, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Google, Pinecone, Supabase, and Resend
• Other countries: any country in which our providers, their affiliates, or subprocessors maintain infrastructure or personnel

Before disclosing personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure recipients handle that information in a manner consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles or another lawful basis for overseas disclosure applies. Depending on the provider and service used, your information may be subject to foreign laws and accessible to foreign courts, regulators, or law enforcement agencies.

11. Children's Privacy

Pear is not intended for individuals under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the updated policy on our platform and updating the "Last updated" date.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us:

For complaints about our handling of your personal information, you may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au.