Terms & conditions

1.1 This website and related digital infrastructure (collectively, the "Platform") are owned and operated by Prickly Health Pty Ltd. Through the Platform, Prickly provides a clinician-led STI screening service, together with related follow-up telehealth consultations and care (collectively, the "Service").

1.2 By creating an account, interacting with our digital clinical pathways, submitting health information, or requesting the Service, you ("the Patient", "User", "you") enter into a legally binding agreement governed exclusively by these Terms & Conditions. You will also be asked to confirm your acceptance of these Terms & Conditions by tick box each time you request an STI screen or book an appointment. If you do not accept these Terms & Conditions in their entirety, you must immediately cease all use of the Platform and the Service.

1.3 No immediate duty of care: You explicitly acknowledge that your initial access to the Platform, completion of any questionnaires, or submission of payment does not automatically create a practitioner-patient relationship or impose a clinical duty of care upon Prickly or its clinical employees. While the Platform interface may display an estimated review timeline (e.g., "1 day"), this refers strictly to standard business days (Monday to Friday, 9:00am–5:00pm Melbourne time, excluding public holidays). Submissions received outside these hours will not be reviewed until the following business day. A formal practitioner-patient relationship and clinical duty of care are only established if and when an Australian-registered Medical Practitioner formally reviews, validates, and accepts your STI screening request within our Electronic Medical Record (EMR).

1.4 Platform vs. independent clinical accountability: You explicitly acknowledge that Prickly Health Pty Ltd provides the digital infrastructure, administrative logistics, and EMR platform interface. While clinical evaluations are performed by Australian-registered Medical Practitioners employed or engaged by Prickly, those clinicians exercise independent professional clinical judgment. Each practitioner remains individually accountable under national health practitioner regulation laws (including Ahpra) for their clinical decisions, diagnostic validations, and treatment paths.

2.1 Emergency medical assistance: The Service is strictly not an emergency service, acute care provider, or a substitute for urgent medical intervention. If you are experiencing an acute medical crisis, life-threatening symptoms, or a severe medical emergency, you must not use the Service. You are directed to immediately:

• Call 000 (triple zero) for emergency services; or
• Present immediately to the nearest physical hospital emergency department (opens in new tab).

2.2 Asymptomatic screening boundaries: To mitigate the risk of delayed diagnostic outcomes in complex or acute medical cases, Prickly operates strictly as a low-risk, asymptomatic screening service. Our onboarding questions are designed to surface "red flag" clinical markers. If any such indicator is identified – whether by the screening questions or on practitioner review – your request will not proceed and you will be redirected to a more appropriate service. If your request is declined at practitioner review, we will notify you promptly, and your fee will be refunded in full where your answers were given in good faith (see Section 7). Every request that does proceed is reviewed, and accepted or declined, by an Australian-registered Medical Practitioner.

2.3 Exclusion criteria & clinical redirection pathways: You must not use the Service, and will be restricted from proceeding through the onboarding infrastructure, if you fall into any of the following categories. In accordance with clinical governance standards, excluded users are directed to alternative care networks as outlined below:

• Potential HIV exposure in the last 72 hours requiring Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP): You are directed to visit www.getpep.info to find the PEP hotline for your state or territory, call the Australian Government's general health advice line 1800MEDICARE (1800 633 422), or present directly to a sexual health clinic (opens in new tab), hospital emergency department (opens in new tab), or urgent care facility (opens in new tab). If the exposure occurred without your consent, 1800RESPECT (opens in new tab) (available 24/7) also provides free, confidential support and can connect you with your state or territory sexual assault service.
• Symptomatic presentations: If you exhibit physical clinical signs or symptoms of a sexually transmitted infection – including but not limited to dysuria (painful urination), abnormal anogenital discharge, anogenital sores, ulcers, lesions, lumps, or acute pelvic or abdominal pain – you are directed to seek an in-person diagnostic evaluation at a GP clinic (opens in new tab) or public sexual health clinic (opens in new tab).

3.1 To utilise the Service, you must be at least 16 years of age.

3.2 You acknowledge and consent to the platform cross-referencing your demographic details with national digital health systems, including the Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) service. This measure is executed strictly to ensure clinical safety, accurate pathology reporting, secure delivery of electronic prescriptions, and seamless digital health record integration in compliance with federal healthcare identifier legislation.

3.2A Documentary identity verification: Where the platform cannot adequately verify your identity against national digital health systems, or where a practitioner considers it clinically necessary, you may be required to securely upload photographic identity documentation through the Platform before your screening request is accepted. Requests will not proceed until verification is complete.

3.3 Identity integrity, location restraints, and fraud escalation: You warrant that all information provided during registration, eligibility assessment, and anatomical mapping is entirely truthful, accurate, current, and your own. You explicitly declare that you are requesting and utilising this Service strictly for yourself; you are strictly prohibited from utilising the Service on behalf of, or as a surrogate for, any third party. Furthermore, you must be physically located within Australia at the time of requesting the Service, completing the questionnaires, and utilising the specimen collection equipment.

Falsifying clinical data, intentionally manipulating risk questions to bypass clinical safety cut-offs, misrepresenting your identity, or attempting to register under a fraudulent persona constitutes serious fraudulent behaviour, a material breach of this contract, and a direct threat to public safety. Prickly reserves the right to immediately suspend or terminate any account suspected of identity fraud. Furthermore, we reserve the right to report confirmed instances of digital identity fraud, medical impersonation, or deceptive attempts to obtain pathology referrals to relevant law enforcement agencies, state health care complaints commissions, and national digital health system operators.

3.4 Zero-tolerance policy for abuse: We are committed to maintaining a safe, respectful environment for our digital workforce. We enforce a strict zero-tolerance policy for abusive, aggressive, threatening, profane, discriminatory, or offensive communication directed at our clinical, administrative, or support staff via email or any platform communication channel. If this clause is breached, Prickly may restrict or end communication with you and decline to provide further services. If your screening has not yet been clinically actioned at that point, your fee will be refunded; where your care is already underway, it will be completed or safely handed over, and any refund will fairly reflect the services already delivered. Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

3.5 Explicit consent for collection of sensitive and contact information: By initiating our digital triage and onboarding workflows, you grant your explicit, unambiguous consent for Prickly to collect, store, and process:

• Your sexual health history, clinical symptoms, and anatomical mappings; and
• Your general medical history, prescription history, and clinical data relevant to evaluating and delivering your screening and/or providing treatment.

If you do not consent to the collection of this sensitive clinical and contact data, you cannot use the Service and must exit the Platform.

4.1 Prickly is a digital-first, clinician-led service. One hundred percent (100%) of STI screening requests and incoming laboratory reports are manually reviewed, validated, and signed off by an Australian-registered Medical Practitioner.

4.2 We strictly reject the use of decentralised or fragmented internal databases. Prickly utilises a secure cloud Electronic Medical Record (EMR) as its sole practice management and operational architecture (Halaxy). All demographic data, clinical intake answers, clinical notes, pathology results, and payment records are securely consolidated and processed natively within this single environment. Card payments themselves are processed by a secure, PCI DSS-compliant third-party payment gateway integrated with Halaxy; Prickly does not store, capture, or have access to your full card details. We maintain no database architectures external to the secure EMR for core service delivery. To protect data integrity and reduce handling errors, all incoming laboratory pathology reports are transmitted directly from our partner laboratory (4Cyte Pathology) into our EMR via an encrypted, automated secure clinical messaging network (Medical-Objects).

5.1 The two-phase hybrid screening protocol: You explicitly acknowledge and understand that the screening package dispatched to you utilises two completely distinct testing methodologies which run concurrently:

• Phase 1: At-home self-testing (HIV): You will receive a fingerprick HIV self-test, included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG), to be executed and interpreted by you autonomously at home. If the fingerprick self-test indicates a Positive, Indeterminate, or Invalid ("Did not work") result, you are directed to follow the specific safety and advisory instructions enclosed within the device manufacturer's packaging. You may book a Telehealth follow-up consultation via the Platform at any time to discuss these findings with a practitioner.
• Phase 2: Laboratory-returned molecular testing (chlamydia & gonorrhoea): Independently of your Phase 1 self-test outcome, you are provided with self-collection swabs and/or urine collection vessels to test for separate bacterial STIs. A Positive, Indeterminate, or Invalid fingerprick self-test result does not prevent you from executing your Phase 2 collection. You are fully authorised to complete your swab/urine sampling and post these specimens back to our partner laboratory using the provided return-paid packaging to ensure comprehensive screening for all requested pathogens.

5.2 Patient compliance obligations: You agree to follow the STI Screening Self-Collection Guide (prickly.com.au/guide) supplied with your equipment, as well as the manufacturer's specific instructions for each individual medical device – always follow the directions for use. If the online Guide is updated after your equipment ships, the guide supplied with your equipment and the manufacturer's instructions remain the correct versions for you to follow. Careful collection matters: a poorly collected or contaminated sample can produce an invalid or inaccurate result, and the home-read fingerprick self-test must be performed, timed and read as the manufacturer directs. If anything is unclear, contact us before collecting – replacement collection equipment is available where a collection goes wrong.

5.3 Referral and equipment expiry: In accordance with national healthcare standards, clinical pathology referrals issued through the EMR are valid for a maximum period of twelve (12) months from the date of practitioner authorisation. You explicitly acknowledge that the physical specimen collection equipment shipped to you possesses an independent manufacturer shelf life and expiry date, which will likely be shorter than the 12-month referral window. It is your responsibility to utilise the specimen collection equipment and return your molecular specimens to the laboratory before the physical specimen collection equipment expires; we recommend completing your screen as soon as your equipment arrives. If your specimen collection equipment expires unused because you did not complete the test in time, the equipment cannot be used, and a new clinical questionnaire and payment will be required to re-initiate the service. This clause does not limit any rights you may have under the Australian Consumer Law, including where equipment is supplied with inadequate remaining shelf life.

5.4 Specimen handling & return: You must execute and sign the enclosed pathology request form and return all self-collected Phase 2 molecular specimens to our partner laboratory. You are responsible for ensuring the specimens are packed as instructed within the return-paid packaging to satisfy federal "Exempt patient specimen" postal regulations. Prickly is not responsible for the performance of third-party postal or courier services; if a specimen is lost, structurally compromised, or delayed in transit, we will arrange replacement collection equipment at no charge so you can re-collect. Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

6.1 To satisfy strict public health regulator guidelines regarding diagnostic tracking, Prickly operates a closed-loop care pathway to prevent patients from being lost to follow-up.

6.2 Negative results: If your laboratory PCR results return negative, you will be alerted via a manual notification email stating that your results are negative. To maximise your privacy, this email will contain no further clinical information. You retain the option to book a Telehealth follow-up consultation via the EMR to discuss these results.

6.3 Positive and indeterminate results: Any indeterminate or invalid laboratory PCR test result is processed with the identical clinical urgency and pathway as a confirmed positive result. If an action-required result occurs, you will receive a manual, generic notification email stating that a result requires your attention. This email will contain no sensitive clinical data.

6.4 Mandatory follow-up & delineated treatment pathways: Upon receiving an action-required notification, you are contractually and clinically mandated to book and attend a Telehealth follow-up consultation via our secure platform. You explicitly acknowledge and agree that treatment models differ significantly by infection type, imposing the following legal realities:

• Chlamydia: Reviewing clinicians may issue an electronic prescription directly to your email, alongside a secure digital summary of care. You may have it dispensed at any pharmacy of your choice or, at your request, delivered to your home through Chemist2U, an independent pharmacy delivery service whose partner pharmacies dispense and deliver your medication. You may also request that your secure digital summary of care be forwarded to your regular GP, with your preference and consent captured at the time of booking your follow-up appointment.
• Gonorrhoea: Standard clinical guidelines mandate injectable antibiotic therapy. Prickly clinicians cannot directly prescribe or dispense oral treatment for this condition via telehealth. A formal summary of care and referral will be securely issued to you via the EMR to facilitate in-person treatment with a local physical healthcare provider. You may also request that your secure digital summary of care be forwarded to your regular GP, with your preference and consent captured at the time of booking your follow-up appointment.
• HIV: A positive or indeterminate diagnostic profile requires immediate confirmatory venous testing and specialist evaluation. A formal summary of care and referral will be securely issued to you via the EMR to facilitate in-person care with a local physical healthcare provider. You may also request that your secure digital summary of care be forwarded to your regular GP, with your preference and consent captured at the time of booking your follow-up appointment.

6.5 Chronological escalation welfare safety net: If a positive or indeterminate result is not successfully addressed via a Telehealth consultation within 14 calendar days of notification, Prickly's clinical team will initiate a strict, tiered escalation protocol to ensure public health compliance. This safety net will be deployed sequentially as follows:

• Tier 1 (the patient): We will first exhaust direct manual contact attempts to you using your primary phone number and registered email address.
• Tier 2 (public health authorities): If direct patient contact fails, and where legally mandated by state and federal statutory disease notification frameworks, Prickly will directly report the unresolved infectious risk to the relevant state Public Health Department.
• Tier 3 (correspondence): If all alternative contact avenues are entirely unsuccessful and the clinical risk remains unaddressed, Prickly reserves the right to dispatch an administrative letter to your registered residential address. To protect your statutory privacy rights under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), Prickly will never disclose any clinical data, test outcomes, or the specific nature of the medical service to any third party during this tier; communications will strictly state that an urgent administrative health matter requires the patient's immediate attention.
• Consent directive: By utilising this Service, you consent to Prickly using your email, telephone number and physical address collected at intake to execute this sequential welfare safety net. This safety net is a core clinical safety feature of the Service: its use is also authorised under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) permitted health situations, and it may be executed where necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to health or safety even if you later withdraw your consent.

6.6 Third-party pharmacy fulfilment and medication delivery disclaimer: Where clinically appropriate and in accordance with Section 6.4, you may elect to have your electronic prescription securely directed to our third-party partner pharmacy fulfilment service for home delivery. By selecting this option, you explicitly acknowledge and agree to the following legal and operational boundaries:

• Independent commercial entity: The partner pharmacy network operates completely independently of Prickly Health Pty Ltd. Once a prescription is transmitted, the dispensation, pricing, payment collection for the medication, and physical fulfilment are governed strictly by the partner pharmacy's own terms of service and professional obligations.
• Delivery logistics: Medication delivery is executed via third-party courier services arranged by the partner pharmacy, and delivery issues are handled under the pharmacy's own terms of service – contact the pharmacy in the first instance for a delayed, lost, or damaged delivery. If your treatment is delayed for any reason, contact us and a clinician will help you arrange an alternative supply, such as an eScript for a local pharmacy. Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or excludes liability Prickly may have for its own acts or omissions.
• Patient choice (informed consent): You are under no obligation to use our partner pharmacy fulfilment service. You retain the right to receive your electronic token (eScript) directly via email or SMS to be dispensed at any physical or online Australian-registered pharmacy of your choice.
• Dispensing authority: The transmission of a prescription from a Prickly clinician to a partner pharmacy does not guarantee dispensing. The independent dispensing pharmacist retains ultimate clinical and statutory authority to refuse to dispense a medication if they identify a clinical contraindication, safety risk, or regulatory barrier.

7.1 Upfront eligibility check: To eliminate financial risk for ineligible patients, our eligibility check – built on peer-reviewed clinical criteria – occurs prior to the display of any payment gateway. Financial transactions are exclusively processed for individuals who have been provisionally cleared by the platform infrastructure to proceed.

7.2 Inaccurate or contradictory data (assessment fee): If a reviewing practitioner is unable to approve your request because information you provided during onboarding was false, materially inconsistent, or appears to have been deliberately altered to bypass a clinical safety cut-off, your order will be cancelled. Where this arises from honest error or an incomplete answer, made in good faith, we will refund your fee in full. Where we reasonably determine the inaccuracy was deliberate or reckless – including intentionally manipulating risk questions to avoid an exclusion – we may retain the portion of the fee that fairly reflects the clinical and administrative work already performed in reviewing your request, and will refund the balance.

7.3 Insurance and out-of-pocket pathology liabilities: Initial digital triage reviews do not qualify for Medicare or OSHC/OVHC benefits to protect against sham consultation compliance risks; this fee is entirely private and non-rebatable. Your follow-up Telehealth consultation (where required under Section 6.4) carries no out-of-pocket cost: it is included for every patient, and will be bulk billed to Medicare where you hold Medicare and are happy for it to be used. Laboratory pathology is billed according to your screen type: bulk billed to Medicare for a Medicare screen; billed to your insurer for an OSHC/OVHC screen (where your policy excludes pathology or your insurer rejects the claim, you are privately liable for that cost); and included in the upfront fee for a Private screen. Verifying coverage under reciprocal health care frameworks is your sole responsibility.

7.4 Change of mind: If you change your mind, make a wrong selection, or decide you no longer require the Service after payment has been processed, contact us at hello@prickly.com.au. If your request has not yet been clinically reviewed and your equipment has not been dispatched, we will cancel your request and refund your fee in full. Once clinical review has occurred or equipment has been dispatched, we may retain the portion of the fee that fairly reflects the work already performed and costs already incurred, and will refund the balance.

7.5 Australian Consumer Law (ACL): Our services and goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), including that services will be provided with due care and skill. Nothing in these Terms & Conditions excludes, restricts or modifies those guarantees, or any other right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

8.1 If your package arrives structurally compromised, is visibly defective, or is officially declared lost in transit by Australia Post or our couriers, we will replace the specimen collection equipment at no cost to you. Offering a replacement does not limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law – where a consumer guarantee is not met, you may be entitled to other remedies, including a refund.

8.2 To initiate a logistics review and replacement request, you must immediately contact our support team via email at hello@prickly.com.au.

9.1 Human clinical decision-making: Prickly acknowledges that while advanced administrative and clinical AI features exist natively within the practice management software ecosystem, no artificial intelligence, machine learning, or automated decision-making tool makes, or substitutes for, any clinical decision at Prickly. One hundred percent (100%) of screening request reviews and laboratory report interpretations are executed and signed off by human Australian-registered Medical Practitioners. The website's eligibility questions and our scheduled reminder notifications are simple, transparent rule-based tools; they do not diagnose, and they never replace practitioner review.

9.2 Data sovereignty and international storage disclosures: In accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), we disclose the geographical architecture of your data:

• Clinical & financial data: All primary medical files, clinical histories, intake answers, results, and payment records are hosted strictly within our EMR's secure cloud environment located on physical servers inside Australia (your full card details are held by our PCI DSS-compliant payment gateway, not by Prickly – see Section 4.2). Access is protected by mandatory Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) and is strictly segmented (clinicians see clinical modules only; support staff see non-clinical modules only). The Prickly team member who packs and dispatches your specimen collection equipment sees your name, delivery address, and the contents of your mailer box, including the pathology request form. They hold a current Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check (police check), have signed a confidentiality and privacy agreement, are trained in the Australian Privacy Principles, and have no access to your questionnaire answers, clinical notes, or results.
• Operational & communication data: Supporting operational workflows, administrative correspondence, and non-clinical business assets managed via Google Workspace are securely hosted on infrastructure located within the European Union (EU). Our website and security infrastructure (Cloudflare) and payment gateway may also process limited technical and transaction data on global networks, including in the United States. Your express consent to this cross-border handling is captured by tick box when you accept these Terms & Conditions at the time of requesting a screen; further detail is set out in our Privacy Policy.

9.3 My Health Record (MHR) integration: Prickly Health Pty Ltd does not directly upload clinical records, consultation notes, or pathology results to the Australian Government's My Health Record system. Under national health frameworks, pathology laboratories upload results to My Health Record by default. If you opt out of uploading – or request a Private screen, which records this opt-out by default – Prickly will instruct the partner laboratory not to upload your results, and will take due care in transmitting that instruction. Because the upload itself is executed by the laboratory as an independent entity, Prickly cannot guarantee the laboratory's handling of the instruction in every case, and is not responsible for a laboratory error that occurs despite Prickly's correct and timely instruction.

9.4 Downtime and interruptions: Whilst we use services that utilise enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure, Prickly does not guarantee uninterrupted availability of the Platform. To the extent permitted by law, Prickly is not liable for losses or inconvenience arising from temporary platform downtime, database maintenance, or network connection failures. Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

10.1 Explicit consent to email contact: You explicitly authorise Prickly to communicate with you via your registered email address for administrative updates, scheduling reminders, and generic outcome notifications.

10.2 Secure distribution method: To prevent unauthorised interception of sensitive health records, Prickly will never transmit laboratory reports or clinical referral letters directly inside an unencrypted email body or attachment. The one exception to email delivery is an electronic prescription token (eScript): a secure dispensing link that contains no clinical results, delivered by email or SMS at your election under Section 6.6. All other critical documents are delivered via secure download links generated directly from our secure EMR.

10.3 Patient monitoring obligation: Results and alerts are delivered by email, so you must actively monitor your nominated email inbox, including regular inspection of "Spam", "Junk", or automated filtration folders. The tiered welfare safety net in Section 6.5 exists as a backstop, but it cannot fully substitute for you reading your notifications. To the extent permitted by law, Prickly is not liable for delayed clinical outcomes or the escalation of a condition where a patient fails to read, open, or act upon an alert email that Prickly correctly sent, and Prickly has followed the safety net in Section 6.5.

11.1 To the maximum extent permitted by law, Prickly Health Pty Ltd, its directors, employees, and contractors exclude all liability for any indirect, consequential, special, incidental, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service or the Platform.

11.2 User responsibility for fraudulent or unlawful conduct: You agree to compensate Prickly Health Pty Ltd for loss or damage it suffers to the extent that loss is directly caused by your fraudulent conduct, your deliberate provision of false identity or medical information, or your unlawful use of the Platform. This obligation does not extend to indirect or consequential loss, is reduced to the extent that Prickly or its personnel caused or contributed to the loss, and does not apply to honest errors or omissions made in good faith. Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

11.3 Roles and responsibilities:

• Medical devices: The self-test and specimen collection devices are manufactured by third parties, who are responsible for the design, manufacture, and performance of their devices under their ARTG inclusions. This allocation does not exclude, restrict, or modify any non-excludable consumer guarantee Prickly owes you as the supplier of the equipment.
• Laboratory operations: Pathology analysis is performed by our partner pathology laboratory, which holds its own professional and legal responsibilities for its analytic processes. This allocation does not limit Prickly's own non-delegable obligations to you, including the consumer guarantee that our services are provided with due care and skill.

12.1 All structural workflows, clinical questionnaire design logic, visual assets, brand identifiers, copy, text, and data mapping algorithms deployed across the Prickly Platform are the exclusive intellectual property of Prickly Health Pty Ltd.

12.2 Users are strictly prohibited from scraping, reverse-engineering, data-mining, or copying our anatomical risk-mapping structures or clinical intake questions for commercial purposes. Any such action may result in immediate termination of service and legal action under intellectual property laws.

13.1 Mandatory direct mediation: If a dispute, controversy, or claim arises out of or relates to these Terms & Conditions, our clinical operations, or your use of the Service, you agree to first attempt to resolve the matter in good faith by directly contacting our support team at hello@prickly.com.au before commencing any formal legal or tribunal proceedings. Nothing in this clause prevents or delays you from contacting a regulator or statutory complaints body at any time – including the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), Ahpra, or your state or territory health complaints commissioner.

13.2 We will acknowledge formal complaints within seven (7) business days and aim to provide a comprehensive, substantive internal review and response within thirty (30) calendar days.

14.1 The 3-month clinical recall: In accordance with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and preventative health guidelines, you consent to Prickly issuing a single automated clinical reminder notification three (3) months after your STI screening request, prompting you to consider whether re-screening is due for you. Three (3) months is the shortest re-screening interval recommended by the Australian STI Management Guidelines, which advise re-screening as often as every three (3) months for people in higher-risk groups (for example, men who have sex with men with new or casual partners) and approximately annually for many other sexually active adults; the appropriate interval for you depends on your risk profile and your reviewing clinician’s advice. This is a factual clinical reminder generated as part of your care, not direct marketing.

15.1 Prickly Health Pty Ltd is legally registered in the State of Victoria, Australia. These Terms & Conditions are governed comprehensively by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of Victoria. Any legal disputes, mediation sessions, or litigation arising out of or in connection with these Terms & Conditions shall be dealt with by the courts of Victoria on a non-exclusive basis; nothing in this clause prevents you from bringing a claim in a court or tribunal of your own state or territory where you are entitled to do so.

15.2 If any specific provision of these Terms & Conditions is deemed unlawful, void, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, that specific provision shall be severed from this contract without impacting the validity, legality, and enforceability of the remaining clauses.

16.1 Privacy infrastructure: We handle all personal and sensitive health information in strict compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and applicable state-based health records legislation (including the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic)).

16.2 Digital-first Privacy Officer framework: Prickly operates as a digital-first clinical service and does not maintain a physical public administrative office. Statutory privacy rights, data access requests, corrections, and privacy-related complaints should be directed to our designated Privacy Officer at hello@prickly.com.au – this is our preferred and fastest channel, and electronic communications received via it are processed with the identical gravity and compliance timelines as physical statutory notices. Nothing in this clause prevents you from contacting us, or serving documents on us, by any other means available under law.

16.3 Sensitive information consent & record retention: In accordance with APP 3, the explicit consents provided under Section 3.5 are validated upon account registration. You retain the right to withdraw your consent to data processing or request the deletion of your non-clinical operational data. However, you explicitly acknowledge that under Australian state and federal healthcare record preservation laws, clinical notes, EMR intake answers, and pathology results must be legally preserved for a mandatory minimum statutory retention period (typically 7 years) and cannot be deleted upon request during this period.

17.1 We may update these Terms & Conditions from time to time to reflect changes in our clinical operations, partners, technology, or Australian law. The current version will always be published at prickly.com.au/terms-and-conditions, and the "Last updated" date at the top of this document will be amended accordingly.

17.2 Changes apply prospectively only. Each time you request an STI screen or book an appointment, you will be asked to accept the version of these Terms & Conditions then in force, and the version you accepted at the time of payment continues to govern that screening episode.