Last updated: 2 October 2026
This policy describes what our system actually does with information, rather than restating a template. The cross-border section below is the part with real obligations attached, and it is worth reading in full.
Who we are
OB Automation runs AI phone intake for Australian law practices. If you have contacted a law firm and your enquiry was answered or captured by our system, this policy explains what happened to your information.
OB Automation is a registered business name of Bramley Nicholas Kayler-Thomson, ABN 51 705 846 965.
Contact: bramley@ob-automations.com · 0485 074 874
Whose information this covers
Two groups:
Our clients. The law practices who pay for the service, and their staff.
Enquirers. People who contact one of those practices. If you rang a law firm or filled in its enquiry form, this section is about you.
For enquirers, the law practice you contacted is responsible for your information. We handle it on their behalf, under their instructions.
What happens on a call
When you ring the firm, our automated receptionist asks what’s happening, in your own words, so it can work out what kind of matter it is and pass you to the right place. It then asks for your name, your phone number, the name of the other person or business involved (so the firm can check it has no conflict of interest), and any court date or deadline.
Everything you say is converted to text and processed live, during the call, by the speech and AI providers listed below. After the call, the conversation is read once more to pull out the details in the next section.
What goes into your enquiry record is a short list of fields, not your story. Your description of what happened is not saved as a field in the enquiry record. It is kept only if the firm has switched on call transcripts (see below).
What we collect from enquirers
Your enquiry record holds:
Your name
Your phone number and email address
The category of matter, as a label only (for example: family, commercial, wills and estates, or “other”)
The name of the other party, if you gave one, for the firm’s conflict check
Whether the enquiry is urgent, and a time that suits you for a callback
The date and time of the call, and a reference number for it
A flag if something you said suggested you might be unsafe, so the firm can respond appropriately
Any appointment you book
Call transcripts. We never record the audio of a call. A firm can choose to keep a written transcript of its calls. This is off unless the firm switches it on. Where it is on, the transcript holds everything said on the call, by you and by the receptionist, and is automatically deleted after 7 days. If a firm uses our system to call you back about a website enquiry, a transcript of that callback is kept on the same 7-day basis.
The enquiry form. The form has one optional message box. By default, what you write there is kept with your enquiry until the firm has dealt with it, and the start of it may be sent to the firm by text message. The firm can choose not to keep it at all. Please don’t include anything you wouldn’t want on file.
Website visitors. We collect standard analytics and advertising measurement data, including the page you arrived on, the search or advertisement that brought you, and a click identifier from Google where one is present.
How we use it
Enquirer information is used for one purpose: passing your enquiry to the law practice you contacted, so they can respond, and, where the firm has set one up, texting you a booking link.
After your call we may send you one text message confirming the firm has your details, which may include a link to book a time, and confirmations or reminders about an appointment you booked. You can reply STOP to the confirmation text to opt out.
We do not sell your information. We do not use it to market other services to you. We do not build profiles, and we do not share it with anyone beyond what is described below.
Automated handling of your enquiry
Your first contact with the firm may be handled by an automated system rather than a person. The assistant does not announce that it is automated unless the firm has chosen to switch that on, but if you ask whether you are speaking to a person it will tell you it is an AI assistant. That system takes your details and, where the firm has set one up, texts a booking link. It does not make decisions about your matter, it does not assess your enquiry, and it does not give legal advice. A code-level guard checks caller questions against seven categories of prohibited legal topics and refuses them before the AI is involved, and a second check stops the AI’s own replies from straying into advice. This is enforced in code, not by instructing the AI to be careful.
Every enquiry is passed to a person at the law practice.
If you email a law practice that uses Lucy. Some law practices let Lucy read the enquiries that arrive at an email address they choose, with the practice’s permission, and answer them. If you email such a practice:
Lucy may read your email and write a reply. The reply is written by an AI model. The subject and the text of your email (up to the first 6,000 characters) are sent to Anthropic in the United States to write it. We do not send your email address or your display name to Anthropic. Where a practice prefers, it can switch this off so that every sender gets the same fixed reply and nothing goes to the AI model.
Our software checks every reply against rules (no legal advice, no promises about timing, no invented fees or links) before it is saved as a draft for a person at the practice to send, or, if the practice has chosen it, sent automatically.
The practice decides what the reply says and what questions it asks you. You do not have to answer them.
We do not keep a copy of your email. Your email stays in the practice’s own mailbox, under the practice’s own policy. We keep only a message reference so we don’t answer the same email twice.
If you email OB Automation directly
If you email OB Automation (for example at the enquiries address on our website), our assistant, Lucy, may draft a reply, using an AI model in the United States, which a person at OB Automation reads before it is sent. We delete emails to and from that inbox after about 7 days (they go to the mailbox’s Bin, which Google empties after a further 30 days, so up to about 37 days in all).
Where your information goes, and who processes it
This is the section worth reading properly.
To run the service, your information passes through providers located outside Australia:
United States (Virginia)
Runs the receptionist. Holds a backup of each enquiry record for 7 days after we pass it to the law practice (then only a stripped-down record with no personal details), call transcripts where the firm has switched them on (7 days), and system logs, which can include your phone number and the words the receptionist spoke to you (including your name and number if it read them back)
Singapore
Our client dashboard. It holds each enquiry record until 7 days after we pass it to the law practice; after that it keeps only a stripped-down record with no personal details (when it arrived, its matter type and urgency flags), so we can report to the practice how many enquiries it received.
United States
Carries the call and text messages
United States
Converts what you say into text, live, during the call
United States
The AI that understands the call and replies, live; afterwards it reads the conversation again to extract the enquiry record. It also handles the wording of an email enquiry (its subject and body, up to the first 6,000 characters), when a law practice has switched on email replies written by AI
United States
Turns the receptionist’s replies into speech. It receives only the receptionist’s side, which can include your name or number if it reads them back
United States
Only if the law practice connects its own GoHighLevel account to us. We no longer send enquirers’ details to any GoHighLevel account of our own.
United States and elsewhere
Only if the firm connects a Google calendar: appointment details (your name, phone and matter category). It also handles the law practice’s email inbox, when it has asked us to read and reply to its enquiry emails (see the “Email” section above)
United States and elsewhere
Only if the firm connects a Microsoft calendar: appointment details (your name, phone and matter category). It also handles the law practice’s email inbox, when it has asked us to read and reply to its enquiry emails (see the “Email” section above)
This means personal information you provide is disclosed to and stored by overseas recipients. Under Australian privacy law this is a cross-border disclosure, and the law practice you contacted remains accountable for how those recipients handle your information.
We chose these providers for reliability, and each is bound by its own contractual and security obligations.
What crosses the border. During a call, everything you say passes through the speech and AI providers above in the United States. What is stored overseas is the enquiry record listed earlier (for up to 7 days after we pass it to the law practice, then only a stripped-down record with no personal details), system logs, and, only where the firm has switched them on, call transcripts for 7 days. By default we keep the stored record to a short list of fields for that reason: the substance of a legal matter belongs in your solicitor’s own files, not in our systems.
Systems chosen by the law practice. A law practice can ask us to send each new enquiry to its own systems (for example a CRM, practice-management software or an automation tool such as Zapier), at an address the practice gives us. The details sent are the ones listed under “What we collect from enquirers”. We sign what we send so the practice can check it came from us, and we do not keep a copy of it. Once it arrives, it is held by the practice and its provider, not by us, and the practice is responsible for it.
If you would rather your information were not handled this way, contact the firm directly by phone to a person, by email, or in person instead.
How long we keep it
Call transcripts (text only; we don’t keep audio): where the law practice has switched transcripts on, and for calls Lucy makes back to someone who filled in a practice’s enquiry form, the transcript is deleted automatically after 7 days.
Your enquiry details (your name, phone number, email address, the other party’s name if you gave one, and what you told us): we remove these from our systems 7 days after we pass them to the law practice. We keep only a stripped-down record with no personal details (a count and a time), so we can report to the practice how many enquiries it received. The law practice keeps its own copy under its own policy.
Enquiry form messages: deleted when the callback has been made or has failed, usually within a day.
Text messages: the content of the texts we send you is deleted from our messaging provider’s records 7 days after it is sent. If you reply STOP (or otherwise ask us not to contact you), we keep a record of that, with your number, indefinitely, so that we never contact you again.
Email: see the “Email” section above.
If you want your information deleted sooner, email us and we will remove it, subject to the law practice’s own record-keeping obligations, which may require them to retain certain records independently of us.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
tell you what information we hold about you
correct anything that is wrong
delete your information
Email bramley@ob-automations.com and we will respond within a reasonable time. Where the information belongs to a law practice’s client file, we will refer you to that practice.
If you are not happy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Security
Access to enquiry records requires a username and password, and is limited to the relevant law practice and to OB Automation. Data is transmitted over encrypted connections and encrypted at rest.
No system is perfectly secure. If something goes wrong we will tell affected people and the relevant law practice promptly.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. Material changes affecting how enquirer information is handled will be communicated to our clients, who may need to update their own privacy policies in turn.
1 October 2026: shorter retention (7 days), email enquiries, and sending enquiries to a practice’s own systems.