Pisto

Privacy Policy

Last updated 25 October 2026.

This policy explains what personal information Pisto (pisto.com.au) collects, why, and what you can ask us to do about it. Pisto suggests gifts: you tell us about the person you're buying for, and we return product suggestions with the reasoning behind each one. You can use it without an account. A free account lets you keep the people you shop for across visits and devices.

What we collect

What you type

  • Your answers in the gift-finder: what you tell us about the person you're buying for, the occasion, and your budget.
  • Your email address, if you ask to be told when we launch.
  • If you send us feedback: the message, the page you were on, and an email address only if you choose to leave one so we can reply.

What you tell us about the person you're buying for is information about someone else, given by you rather than by them. Please keep it to what a gift actually needs, and leave out health details or anything else sensitive. We use it only to suggest gifts to you. We never contact that person, and we don't show it to anyone else or use it to build a picture of them for any other purpose. If you don't sign in, our servers don't store it against their name or against any identifier for you. If you have an account, it is kept in your account, as described below, until you delete it.

Pisto is meant for people aged 16 and over buying gifts, including gifts for children. It is not directed at children, and the age you give is the age group of the person receiving the gift, not of the person using the service. You must be 16 or older to create an account.

If you have an account

  • Your email address, to sign you in. We email you a one-time code each time. We don't use your address for marketing and don't send you anything else.
  • Your first name (optional). When you create an account you can tell us your first name, and you can add, change or remove it on your account page. We use it only to greet you by name on your account page and in My giftees. We do not use it in analytics, in email or for marketing.
  • Your giftees. For each person: the label or name you give them, who they are to you, their age group, interests and price range, and the gift ideas you liked, ruled out or marked as already owned. For each occasion: the occasion and year, your budget and note, the gift ideas we showed you and which you liked, and the idea you chose. Ideas are stored as references to our catalogue, not copies of prices or descriptions; when you reopen an occasion we show current prices and stock. When you close an occasion we keep how you closed it: a gift idea you chose, a gift from somewhere else, no longer needed, or just closed.
  • Clicks to retailers. When you are signed in and click through to a retailer, we record which product it was.
  • Sign-in records: when you signed in.

We keep these so you can return to your giftees and occasions on any device, see the ideas you were shown again, and not be shown gifts you've ruled out.

Collected as you use the site

  • Your giftees, kept in your browser while Pisto is open. If you don't sign in, the people you're shopping for — the label or name you give them, who they are to you, their age group, interests, the occasions you're shopping for, budgets, your note, gift ideas you liked or ruled out, the gifts you chose and the results you saved — are kept in your browser's session storage, not on our servers. They're shared across your open Pisto tabs, and your browser clears them when you close the last one. You can remove any giftee at any time. They hold no identifier for you, and we only receive what each search sends, as described here. If you sign in, your giftees are kept in your account instead, and any already in this browser are added to it. Signing out removes your giftees from every open Pisto tab in that browser; they stay in your account. While you're signed in we keep a small flag in your browser's local storage so our pages know to load your account. It holds no details about you or your giftees and is removed when you sign out.
  • The text of your gift searches, kept so we can improve future matching. This copy is not linked to you in any way — no name, no account, no device identifier — and before it is stored we automatically remove email addresses, phone numbers, long numbers, names that follow a relationship ("my grandad Bill"), sensitive details such as health, disability, pregnancy, medication, mental health, religion, sexuality or ethnicity, and offensive words. Automatic removal is not perfect, which is the reason for the request above: please don't type anything sensitive in the first place.
  • If an AI assistant (for example ChatGPT) searches Pisto for you, the assistant's company collects what you type under its own terms and privacy policy, and sends us only the choices that make up the search (who the gift is for, their age group, the occasion, budget, interests and gift style) and an optional short note. We handle that search like any other, including keeping its search text with personal details removed, as described above. To limit how many searches each assistant can make in a day, we keep a scrambled code made from its connection address, and a second scrambled code made from its wider network. The codes change every day, so they can't be linked from one day to the next, and they don't contain the address itself. We delete both codes after 2 days. We also keep a record of the search choices (who, occasion and budget, never the note) and the date for 14 days to spot misuse, then delete it. The link we send back carries your search choices so you can open the full results; it never carries the note.
  • Your IP address, used to limit how often requests can be made, kept for up to 90 days to prevent abuse and then deleted, and server error logs when something breaks (the route, the error, and surrounding request context). Error logs never include the free text you typed.
  • Product analytics: which pages are visited, which suggestions are viewed, liked, dismissed, or clicked through to buy, and technical metadata (route, referrer, device and browser type), and the choices behind each search, taken from our fixed lists: who the gift is for (for example "partner"), the occasion (religious and health-related occasions are recorded only as "cultural" or "care"), the budget range, whether you picked men's or women's ranges and whether you added a note, never the note itself. It uses a first-party analytics cookie holding a random identifier (see Cookies below), is not linked to your name or account, and never receives the text you type, except answers you choose to give in our feedback survey.
  • Feedback survey: if you choose to take our optional feedback survey, your answers go to our analytics provider. The survey doesn't ask for your name or email, and your answers aren't linked to your account. The survey is hosted by that provider, which may set its own cookies while you take it.
  • Session recordings: some visits may be recorded to help us improve the site. Anything you type, and the names and notes you give for the people you're shopping for, are hidden, and recordings are deleted within 30 days.

How we use it

  • To produce gift suggestions and the reasoning behind them.
  • To remember what you've already seen or ruled out, so we don't repeat ourselves — while Pisto is open in your browser if you don't have an account, and across visits if you do.
  • To sign you in, keep your account secure, and keep your giftees in step across your devices.
  • To keep the service running, prevent abuse, and improve matching over time.
  • To reply when you contact us, and to meet our legal obligations.

Who we share it with

We don't sell personal information. We do share it with:

  • AI providers. The text of your gift-finder answers is sent to third-party AI providers, which process it in the United States, to read what you've told us, generate suggestions and write the reasoning. They handle it under their own terms and privacy policies. When we read your description, we show you what we took from it, and you can remove anything we got wrong.
  • Hosting and database providers. The site and its database run on third-party infrastructure. They may store or process data outside Australia.
  • Analytics provider. A third-party provider, for the product analytics described above. It stores that data in the United States, and receives behavioural and technical metadata, those search choices and, for some visits, session recordings, never the text you type, except answers you choose to give in our feedback survey.
  • Email provider. A third-party email provider passes your feedback and update sign-ups to us and sends your sign-in codes, so it sees those messages and any email address in them.
  • Sign-in and account storage. Your account is stored by our database and sign-in provider. When you open the sign-in form or ask for a code, a security service checks that the request comes from a person, not an automated program; it sees technical details such as your IP address and browser.
  • Retailers and booking platforms, when you click through. Clicking a product or experience takes you to that retailer's or booking platform's own site via a redirect on our domain. We record that the click happened — see our affiliate disclosure. Where the link is an affiliate link, the retailer, and any affiliate network that tracks the referral, receive the link you clicked and our affiliate ID so they can credit us. For some retailers, that link also carries a random reference code, made new for each click. The code contains nothing about you. We keep it with our analytics record of the click, and if a sale follows, the retailer or network includes it in its sales report to us, so we can match the sale to the click. We don't link the code to your name, your account or the identifier in our analytics cookie. On a gift idea, rather than a specific product, the link also carries that kind of gift as search words for the retailer's or search engine's site and, for some retailers, your price range. We pass on nothing you typed, including your note. We never receive your payment details, and any purchase or booking is between you and them.
  • We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect our rights or the safety of others.

Cookies

We use an analytics cookie, set by our own site, so we can see how people move through it — for example, how many searches lead to a click through to a retailer. It holds a random identifier, not your name or anything you type; it is used only on this site, is never shared for advertising, and expires after 6 months. If your browser sends a "Do Not Track" signal, we don't set it. You can also block or delete it in your browser settings; the site works the same without it. For some visits we also set a second cookie, holding no identifier, that turns on the session recordings described above.

We don't set advertising or third-party tracking cookies on this site. If you sign in, your browser holds session cookies from our sign-in provider so you stay signed in. These are needed for sign-in to work; they are not advertising cookies. We also keep the signed-in flag described above in local storage. If any of this changes, we'll update this policy.

After you click through, the retailer or booking platform, the affiliate network that tracks the referral, and third parties they work with can set their own cookies and similar technologies, including to credit the referral to us and for their own purposes such as advertising. These belong to them, not us, and their own privacy policies cover them. You can block or delete them in your browser settings, or use any opt-out the retailer or network offers.

Some product images load directly from the retailer's servers, so the retailer can see that your browser requested them (your IP address and browser details), as with any website.

We also keep what you tell us about the people you're shopping for in your browser's session storage while Pisto is open (see above); it isn't a cookie and isn't used for tracking. In the same way, your browser tab holds where you arrived from (for example a search engine or a link we shared) and the campaign tag on that link, so we can see which links lead to searches; it's cleared when you close the tab.

Overseas disclosure

Some of the providers above are outside Australia, or may process data outside it. Our AI providers, our analytics provider and our email provider store or process data in the United States, the security service that checks sign-in requests may process sign-in data outside Australia, and our hosting and database providers may process data outside Australia. Those providers may not be subject to the Privacy Act, and Australian Privacy Principle 8 requires us to say so plainly: by using Pisto, you understand your information may be handled overseas as described here.

When you use Pisto through an assistant such as ChatGPT, the assistant's company (which may be outside Australia) handles your conversation under its own policy. We don't control that.

How long we keep it

We keep information for as long as it serves the purpose it was collected for. IP addresses used to limit request rates are kept for up to 90 days, then deleted. The scrambled codes used to count AI-assistant searches are deleted after 2 days, and the record of those search choices after 14 days. Analytics and error logs have no fixed period: we review them at least once a year and delete what we no longer need. You can ask us to delete what we hold about you. Anonymous records can't be matched to a person, so we can't find a particular person's record. If you have an account, we keep your email, first name and giftees until you change or delete them or delete your account; nothing expires automatically. If you ask for a sign-in code but never use it, we delete that request after 30 days. When you delete your account, it and everything in it is deleted from our live database straight away. Copies can remain in our database backups for a limited period until those backups are routinely overwritten; we don't use them or restore deleted accounts from them. Deleting your account doesn't remove records that were never linked to it, such as the anonymous search text above or an email address you gave us to hear about our launch; email us if you want those removed.

Your rights, and how to reach us

We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. Subject to some exceptions allowed by law, you can:

  • Ask what personal information we hold about you and request a copy.
  • Ask us to correct information that is wrong, out of date, or incomplete.
  • Ask us to delete the information we hold about you.
  • Complain about how we've handled it.

If you have an account, you can do this yourself on your account page: download a copy of your account data as a file, edit or remove your first name, delete your account and everything in it, and remove any giftee (you edit a giftee in My giftees). For anything else we hold, such as your sign-in records, email us.

Pisto (pisto.com.au) operates this site. Email hello@pisto.com.au. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au — complaints are made through their online forms. You can also call 1300 363 992 (Monday to Thursday, 10am–4pm) or write to GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.

Security

What we store is protected by access controls. Anything in your account can be read or changed only by you, when you're signed in, and by us, to run the service or when you ask us to. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes. We'll update the date at the top when we do.