Privacy Policy

1. About Boatr

Boatr is an independent Australian boating app that helps you keep track of your boat and find marine businesses and places on the water.

The app provides:

• A record of your boat and its details
• A trip logbook
• A maintenance and service schedule
• An equipment register
• A place to keep documents and their expiry dates
• A defect log
• Reminders for documents and services that are coming due
• A weather forecast for your location, or any Australian place you search for
• A map of marinas, anchorages, boat-access restaurants and other places on the water
• A directory of marine businesses

The app does not send push notifications. Reminders are worked out on your device and shown inside the app when you open it.

2. Information Stored on Your Device

Everything you enter into the app is stored in your device’s local app storage. This includes:

• Your boat’s name, type, make, model, year and length
• Photos you take or choose for your boat, equipment, logbook entries and defects
• Trip logbook entries, including dates, routes, engine hours, conditions, the skipper you name and your notes
• Maintenance and service schedules and their history
• Your equipment register
• Documents you add, with their names, sizes, dates and expiry dates
• Defects you record and whether they are fixed
• Marine businesses you mark as favourites
• The most recent weather forecast, and the coordinates it was for, so the forecast can still be shown when you have no connection
• A place you choose on the weather screen, if you set one

None of this is transmitted to Boatr or to anyone else. It is not backed up to any server, and we have no way to retrieve it.

3. Information We Do Not Collect

The app does not collect, and has no ability to collect:

• Your name, email address or phone number — the app never asks for them to let you use it, and only ever sees them if you type them into a message you send us yourself
• Account or login details — the app has no accounts and no sign-in
• Payment or billing information — the app has no payments, memberships or subscriptions
• Cookies — the app does not use cookies of any kind
• Analytics, usage tracking, clickstream or behavioural data for Boatr
• Advertising or marketing identifiers
• Your IP address, device identifiers or browsing history

Boatr has connected no analytics provider, advertising network, marketing platform or social login service to the app, and builds no profile of you or of how you use it. We could not, because nothing reports back to us.

One third party does count its own use. The mapping software reports each map it draws to the company that supplies it. That report is described in full under “Information Sent to Third Parties” below: it is made only when a map is actually drawn, it carries no location and nothing you have entered, and Boatr never sees it.

4. How Information Is Stored

Information is held in your device’s local app storage, which is private to the app and to your device.

This means:

• Your information stays on the device you entered it on
• It is not synchronised between devices
• It is not backed up by Boatr
• Removing the app removes the information with it, permanently

Local app storage is limited in size. If it fills up, the app will tell you that a change could not be saved. Photos use the most space.

5. Camera and Photos

The app can use your camera and your photo library so you can attach photos to your boat, equipment, logbook entries and defects.

• Photos are stored on your device only
• Photos are never uploaded, transmitted or shared by the app
• The app does not add photos to your photo library
• You can refuse camera and photo access, and the rest of the app will still work

6. Location Information

If you allow it, the app uses your device’s location to show the weather forecast where you are, to centre the map near you, and to list the closest businesses first when you search the Industry Directory.

The directory order is worked out on your device. Your location is not sent anywhere to do it, the businesses listed are not told where you are, and the position used is held only while the app is open - it is never saved.

The app asks for no more precision than each job needs. The forecast is requested at about a kilometre’s accuracy, which is all a forecast is worth. Only the map’s locate button asks for a precise fix, so the marker lands where you are actually standing; that precise position is used to draw the marker on your device and is not sent to anyone, including the map provider.

Your location is not sent to Boatr. It is sent directly from your device to the forecast services listed in the next section, in order to answer that request.

The coordinates of your most recent forecast are saved on your device alongside that forecast, so the app can still show it when you have no connection. They are held in the app’s own local storage, they are replaced each time the forecast updates, and they are erased by “Clear app data” or by deleting the app. No history of where you have been is kept, and this saved copy is never transmitted to Boatr or to anyone else.

You can refuse or withdraw location access at any time in your device settings. If you do, the app falls back to a default location for the forecast and the rest of the app is unaffected.

7. Information Sent to Third Parties

The app contacts a small number of third-party services directly from your device. Boatr does not sit in between, and receives nothing.

Your approximate location is sent to:

• api.open-meteo.com — to retrieve the weather forecast
• api.bigdatacloud.net — to turn your coordinates into a place name to display

Map and satellite imagery is requested from:

• api.mapbox.com — the mapping software the app uses to draw maps
• services.arcgisonline.com — satellite imagery

The mapping software is loaded from api.mapbox.com when the app starts, so that request is made whether or not you open a map. It carries nothing you have entered into the app and does not include your location.

When a map is actually drawn, the mapping software reports that to its own supplier at:

• events.mapbox.com — the map provider’s count of the maps it has drawn

This is the map provider’s own measurement, not ours. It is how that company counts the maps it serves. The report says that a map was loaded, which version of the mapping software drew it, and how long that software’s own files took to load. It also carries a random identifier that the mapping software creates and keeps on your device so the provider can tell repeat use from new use. That identifier is not your name, your email address, your device’s identifier or an advertising identifier, and it is not linked to anything you have entered into the app.

These reports carry no location, no boat details, no photos, no logbook entries, no documents and no defects. They are sent only when a map is drawn — using the rest of the app sends none — and they go from your device to that provider. Boatr does not receive them, cannot see them, and gets no report about you from anyone. Erasing the app’s data or deleting the app removes the identifier with it.

If you search for a place on the weather screen, the text you type is sent to:

• geocoding-api.open-meteo.com — to turn a place name into coordinates

That request carries the words you typed and nothing else. Your own location is not sent with it, and the search is only made when you type into that box — the app never contacts this service on its own.

These requests carry only what is needed to answer them. No boat details, photos, logbook entries, documents or defects are ever sent to any of these services, or to anyone else.

These providers operate their own services and may process requests outside Australia. Their handling of those requests is governed by their own privacy policies, not this one.

We do not sell your information, and we have no information about you to sell.

8. Information You Send Us

Nothing leaves the app on its own. But the app has four places where you can choose to write to us, and what you write in them reaches us:

• “Feedback & Support” on the Settings screen, to ask us something
• “Report or remove a listing” on the Industry Directory screen, to correct or take down a business entry
• the warning-triangle button on the BoatMap screen, to tell us a place is wrong, missing or closed — it opens “Feedback & Support”
• “Suggest a location” on the BoatMap screen, which opens a short form

The form asks for the place’s name, what kind of place it is, its area, state and coordinates, how you know about it, and any notes you want to add. It also has a field for your name, a field for your email address and a field for a link to a photo. Those three are there so we can come back to you about what you sent; you do not have to fill them in.

Each of these ends in a message in your own email app, addressed to us, with anything you entered already written into it. Nothing is sent until you send it, you can read and change it first, and if your device has no email account set up nothing is sent at all. The app does not send any of this in the background and keeps no copy of it.

When you do send one, we receive what the message contains, including the email address you sent it from. We use it only to reply to you and to act on what you told us. We do not add you to a mailing list, we do not use it for marketing, and we do not sell it or pass it to anyone else.

A place you suggest may be checked and added to the map. If it is, the place itself appears — your name and your email address are not published.

We keep these messages in our email only for as long as we need them to deal with what they are about. You can ask us to delete yours at any time by emailing hello@boatr.au, and we will.

9. Documents You Add

When you add a document, the app keeps a copy of the file on your device, together with its name, its size, the date you added it and any expiry date you set. You can rename it, download it again from the app at any time, or remove it.

Document files are stored on your device only. They are never uploaded, transmitted or shared by the app. If you choose to save or share a file using your phone's share sheet, that is your action and the file goes only where you send it.

Clear app data deletes the stored files along with everything else, and deleting the app removes them too. Keep your own copy of any original document — the app is not a backup.

10. The Marine Business Directory

The app includes a directory of Australian marine businesses compiled from publicly available sources. It is bundled with the app and is not personal information about you.

Contacting a business through the directory opens your own phone, email or browser app. That contact is between you and the business.

If you are listed in the directory and want your entry corrected or removed, email hello@boatr.au, or use the “Report or remove a listing” link on the Industry Directory screen. This applies whether you are a company or a sole trader. We will act on a request from the business named in the listing.

11. Deleting Your Information

You are in control of everything the app holds, because all of it is on your device.

• Individual records can be deleted inside the app
• “Clear app data” on the Account screen erases everything the app has saved
• Deleting the app removes all of it

Because nothing is backed up and there is no copy on any server, deletion is permanent and cannot be undone or recovered — by you or by us.

12. Security

Your information is protected by your device. It is held in storage that is private to the app, and it is covered by your device’s passcode, Face ID or Touch ID.

Because nothing is transmitted to or held by Boatr, there is no Boatr account to be breached and no Boatr database holding your information.

No device or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Keeping your device locked and up to date is the most effective protection for the information in the app.

13. Children’s Privacy

Boatr is not intended for individuals under 16 years of age.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. As the app collects no personal information from anyone, and stores everything on the user’s own device, there is no information for us to remove.

14. Third-Party Links and Services

The app contains links to third-party websites and businesses, including those in the marine business directory.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party services. Please review the privacy policies of those providers separately.

15. Your Rights

Australian users have rights under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

In practice, those rights are almost entirely satisfied by how the app works: the app sends us nothing, so unless you have written to us there is nothing for us to give you access to, correct, or delete. Everything the app holds is on your device and under your control.

If you have sent us a message, we hold that message. You can ask us for a copy of it, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by emailing hello@boatr.au. We will do so unless the law requires us to keep it.

If you believe your privacy has been mishandled, contact us first using the details below and we will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints, or by phone on 1300 363 992.

16. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time.

Changes become effective once published. Continued use of the app after updates constitutes acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.

We encourage users to review this policy periodically.

17. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or about how the app handles information, please contact:

You may also contact the Australian privacy regulator: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).