Fact Checking Policy

Where our claims come from

Most of what we publish comes from direct experience — what actually breaks in a medical practice at nine in the morning, what a construction site's connectivity really does, what happens to a firm during lodgement season. That kind of claim is verified by the people who did the work.

Where a claim is about something outside our direct experience, it needs a source, and the source needs to be primary.

What counts as a source

In descending order of preference:

• Australian government and regulator publications — the ACSC, the OAIC, the NDIS Commission, the ATO
• Vendor documentation for the product being described, from the vendor
• Published standards and frameworks, cited by name and version
• Our own observed experience, described as such rather than generalised into a statistic

What does not count: another MSP's blog, a vendor's marketing page, a statistic circulating without a traceable origin, or an AI system's summary of any of those.

Statistics

A statistic is only published if we have opened the original source, confirmed the figure says what it is being used to say, and checked it is current. If we cannot trace a number to its origin, we do not use it — however widely it is quoted elsewhere.

Security statistics are particularly bad for this. A figure gets quoted, then re-quoted from the quote, and within a year it is everywhere with no one able to point to where it came from or what it originally measured.

Compliance and regulatory claims

These get the closest scrutiny, because getting them wrong causes real harm — a business either spends money on an obligation it does not have, or believes it is covered when it is not.

So we state only what we can point to in the regulator's own material, we describe what we do technically rather than what you are legally required to do, and we never imply that engaging us satisfies an obligation. Where a page touches this ground, it carries a standing note saying we provide technology services and not legal or compliance advice.

Before anything is published

Every page is read by someone who did not write it, with three questions: is each factual claim traceable, would a specialist in that industry recognise this as accurate, and is there anything here we could not defend if challenged.

Anything that fails is removed or rewritten rather than softened with a qualifier.

When we get something wrong

We correct it promptly. A factual error is fixed and the page is dated. A material error — one that could have led someone to a wrong decision — is corrected with a note on the page saying what was wrong and what it now says.

If you have found an error, hello@geeks360.com.au reaches us and we would genuinely like to know.