Hereabouts privacy policy
Last updated: [PLACEHOLDER: date of publication]. Version 1.0.
Hereabouts (the app, "we", "us") is made by Jamin Daniels, a sole developer in New South Wales, Australia (ABN [PLACEHOLDER: ABN, if registered]). We are the controller of the personal information described here. Contact: support@hereabouts.example. The website is [PLACEHOLDER: https://hereabouts.example].
In short
- Hereabouts is an audio guide. It uses your location only while the app is open or while a session you started is running. It never asks for "Always" location.
- You do not need an account. If you make one, we keep your email address or Apple user id so you can restore purchases and, if you choose, sync history.
- Syncing your session history is off unless you turn it on.
- Questions you ask in Talk and Type go to our servers and to Anthropic (Claude) so they can be answered. Do not put sensitive personal details in a question.
- We do not show ads, do not track you across other apps or sites, and do not use third-party analytics. Crash and performance data comes from Apple's MetricKit.
- You can export or delete your data from inside the app, at any time.
- We follow the Australian Privacy Principles (Privacy Act 1988) and, for people in the EU, UK and EEA, the GDPR.
1. What we collect
Information you give us or that the app creates
| What | When | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| App install id (random identifier) | Always, when the app talks to our servers | Generated by the app. Not your advertising id and not linked to your Apple identity unless you sign in. Used to apply entitlements, rate limits and spend caps |
| Location | While the app is in use or a session is running in the background | Used on your device to decide what to narrate. See section 2 |
| Purchases | When you buy or restore | Product ids, transaction ids, status and dates, from the App Store. We do not see your payment details |
| Account details (optional) | If you create an account | Your email address (magic link) or the private Apple user id (and relay email if you hide your email) from Sign in with Apple |
| Session history (optional) | Only if you turn on history sync | Places narrated, route points, times, travel mode, tours completed. Stored against your account |
| Questions and answers (Plus) | When you use Talk or Type | The text of your question (speech is turned into text on your device or by Apple's Speech service), a short context of the last places narrated, and the answer |
| Gift codes | When you buy, send or redeem | The code, status, purchaser and recipient email if you give one, and dates |
| Crash and performance reports | Automatically, from Apple's MetricKit | Crash logs and performance metrics, not linked to your account |
| Support messages | If you write to us | Your email and what you tell us |
What we do not collect
Contacts, photos, health data, your microphone audio recordings (we do not keep audio; only transcribed text of a question is sent), advertising identifiers, or your browsing activity.
2. Location
- Hereabouts asks for "While using the app" location. We never use "Always".
- Background location runs only while you have started a session, so narration can continue with the screen locked. It stops when the session ends.
- Position is mainly used on the device. To fetch content, the app asks our backend or public data services for places in an area (for example a 2 km grid tile), not for a trace of where you have been.
- If history sync is off, your route is not stored on our servers. If it is on, route points are stored against your account until you delete them.
- Place lookups to Wikipedia, Wikidata and OpenStreetMap (Overpass) are made by the app or by our backend for an area, and those services may see an approximate area and your IP address. We use their public interfaces and set a User-Agent identifying the app.
3. Why we use it
- To provide the guide: choose, prepare and play narration for where you are (performance of the service).
- To run purchases and entitlements, restore on a new device, and issue gift codes.
- To answer your questions using Claude, in the voice of the guide, grounded in public sources.
- To generate guide voices and make offline areas work.
- To sign you in, send you a sign in link or gift email, and respond to support requests.
- To prevent fraud and abuse, enforce rate limits and monthly spend caps, and keep the service safe.
- To find and fix crashes and performance problems.
- To meet legal obligations and keep records of sales for tax.
Under the GDPR our legal bases are: performing our contract with you, our legitimate interests (security, fraud prevention, fixing faults, keeping costs under control), legal obligation, and your consent where you opt in (history sync, microphone and speech, location permissions).
We do not sell your personal information, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles. We do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects by automated means.
4. Who we share it with
We use a small number of service providers who process data for us under their own terms and privacy commitments.
| Provider | Role | What they receive | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | App distribution, in-app purchases, Sign in with Apple, MapKit, Speech recognition, MetricKit | Purchase and sign in data under Apple's own privacy policy. Speech audio if on-server recognition is used | Global |
| Cloudflare | Hosting (Workers, D1 database, R2 storage, Pages), network security | Everything our backend stores or serves, as our processor | Global network. Data stored in [PLACEHOLDER: confirm D1 and R2 regions] |
| Anthropic (Claude) | Writes narration scripts and answers questions | Your question text, a short context (recent places, source extracts, kids mode flag, voice persona), not your name or email | United States |
| ElevenLabs | Generates all narration audio for the guide voices | Text of narration to be voiced only. We never send your name, email, location or account details | [PLACEHOLDER: confirm: United States and EU] |
| Stripe | Card payments for gifts bought on our website (not in the app) | Your card details and email, entered on Stripe's hosted checkout page; we receive only a payment reference, the amount and the email you give | United States and EU |
| Brevo | Sends transactional email (sign in links, gift codes, receipts) | Your email address and the message | European Union (France) |
| Wikipedia, Wikidata, OpenStreetMap | Public data sources | Area requests, IP address | Global |
| Human guide websites | Optional outbound links in the guides directory | Whatever you submit on their site, after you leave the app | Varies |
Narration audio is generated by ElevenLabs from text only. The text is the narration script for a place, never your identity, location or recordings. Generated audio is cached and shared between listeners, and your iPhone's built-in voices are used only as an offline or outage fallback.
Anthropic and ElevenLabs are asked not to train on content we send through their business interfaces and we select account settings and terms to that effect. We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect rights and safety, or in a sale of the business (with notice and the same protections).
When you follow a link to a guide's website, that site's own privacy policy applies. Some links are affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you book. The link may carry a code that identifies the referral to the guide's site, not you.
5. How long we keep it
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Install id and entitlement records | While the app is in use, then deleted 24 months after last activity |
| Location | Not stored on our servers unless history sync is on. Cached place data is public data without your identity |
| Session history (if synced) | Until you delete it or your account |
| Questions and answers | 30 days for abuse and quality review, then deleted. Kept in your history only if sync is on, until you delete it |
| Account details | Until you delete your account |
| Purchase and gift records | 7 years, as required for tax and accounting. Not linked to other data after account deletion |
| Email delivery logs (Brevo) | Per Brevo's retention, up to 90 days |
| Crash and performance metrics | Up to 12 months, not linked to your account |
| Support emails | 3 years |
| Backups | Rolled off within 35 days |
[PLACEHOLDER: confirm each retention period matches the backend implementation before publishing.]
6. Children
Hereabouts is a general audience app and is not directed to children under 13 as a service in their own right. Parents and carers can use Kids mode, which applies stricter content rules to narration and answers (no frightening detail, no mature themes, simple language). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children for any purpose other than running the app on their device. We do not offer accounts to children under 13 (or under 16 where local law sets a higher age) without a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
7. International transfers
Our providers are in Australia, the United States, the European Union and other places. When personal information of people in the EU, UK or EEA is sent outside those regions, we rely on safeguards such as standard contractual clauses and the providers' data processing terms. For Australian users, we take reasonable steps under APP 8 so overseas recipients handle your information consistently with the APPs. By using features that call Anthropic or ElevenLabs, you understand your question or narration text is processed in the United States.
8. Your rights
Under the Australian Privacy Principles
You can ask to access the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask how we handle it, and complain if you think we have breached the APPs (APP 12, 13 and 1). We respond within 30 days.
Under the GDPR and UK GDPR
If you are in the EU, UK or EEA you can: access your data, have it corrected, have it erased, restrict or object to processing, take your data with you (portability), withdraw consent at any time, and complain to your local supervisory authority.
How to use them
- Export: Settings > Account > Export my data. You get a file of the data linked to your install id or account.
- Delete: Settings > Account > Delete account and data. This removes your account, synced history, questions and entitlements records we can delete, and revokes unredeemed gift codes you purchased. Purchase records required for tax are kept in a form not linked to you.
- Turn off history sync at any time and choose to delete what was synced.
- Change location, microphone and speech permissions in iOS Settings.
- Or email support@hereabouts.example. We may need to confirm it is you before acting.
Cancelling an App Store subscription is done in your Apple account settings, and deleting your data does not cancel it.
9. Security
Data is sent over HTTPS. Access to our servers is limited to the developer, secrets are stored as encrypted secrets and not in the app, and Plus spend and abuse are rate limited. No service is perfectly secure. If a breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), or the relevant EU authority, as required.
10. Complaints
Write to us first at support@hereabouts.example and we will respond within 30 days. If you are unhappy, you can contact the OAIC (oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992). If you are in the EU or UK you can contact your local data protection authority.
11. Changes to this policy
We will update this page when our practices change and will tell you in the app for material changes.
Change log
- 1.0, [PLACEHOLDER: date]: first published.