Privacy Policy
Better Friends, by CloudHub | IT Business Solutions · Last updated 28 August 2026
Better Friends is a private planning app for small groups of friends. This policy says what we collect, why, and what we never do — in plain language, because that's how we'd want to read it.
What we collect
- Account: your email address, the display name you choose, and optionally your home city. There are no passwords: you sign in with a code emailed to you, or on iPhone with Apple, which shares only what you allow.
- Your group's content: the plans you propose, votes you cast, ratings you give, expenses and settlements you record, receipt photos you upload, and group images. This content is visible only to members of the group it belongs to.
- Who can see your profile: your plans, votes and money are your group's alone — but the basics on your profile card (display name, photo and home city, if you set one) can be read by anyone signed in to Better Friends, not only by people in your groups. It is what lets an invite show you who you are about to join. Your email address is never among it.
- Location, only when you use it (iPhone only): three things use it, and nothing else does. "Remind me when to leave" uses your location once, on your device only — it never leaves your phone. Discovery searches for ideas near where you are, which means your rough position goes to Apple as part of that search. And sharing your live position on an event map happens only after you switch it on for that specific event, only to that group, only around the event's time; you can stop it at any moment, and off means removed from every map instantly. The Android app has no location features at all — it never asks for the permission and never reads your position; its Discovery searches by the city you typed, not by where you are.
- Device identifiers: a push token, so we can deliver the notifications you've enabled — on Android 13 and later we only store one once you allow notifications; on older Android and on iPhone the token is registered when the app starts. On Android, Google's messaging library also creates an installation identifier of its own when the app first starts, before you sign in; that one belongs to Google, we never see it, and it is how their delivery service knows the app is installed at all.
- Your timezone: taken from the phone when you first set up your profile, so a plan at 7pm is 7pm for everyone.
What we don't do
- No advertising, no ad SDKs, no tracking across other apps or websites.
- No sale of any data, ever.
- No analytics profiles: we don't record how you use the app beyond what's needed to make it work.
- Receipt reading (turning a photo into a list of items) happens on your phone, on iPhone, and the reading never leaves the device. The Android app does no reading at all — a receipt there is a photo and a total, and people claim their share by amount. Either way the photo itself is shared with your group.
Who processes data for us
Our servers run on Supabase (data hosted with industry-standard encryption in transit and at rest). Notifications are delivered through Apple and Google's push services, which necessarily carry the words of the notification — a plan's title, a group's name, an amount owed.
Sending you a sign-in code means handing your email address, and the code, to the mail service that delivers it.
Maps and place search come from a different company on each phone, and neither request carries your name, your email or anything identifying you as a person. On iPhone that is Apple: Discovery, the venue details on a plan, and every map you see are Apple's, and a Discovery search there carries your rough position. On Android it is Google Maps Platform: Discovery searches Google Places, carrying the words searched and the city being searched — your home city, if you set one — and the small map on a plan is a Google image request carrying that plan's location.
Event suggestions come from Ticketmaster and Eventfinda — those requests never include anything about you.
If you tap the buttons to add a group's calendar to Google Calendar or Outlook, you hand that service the group's calendar-feed address, and it will fetch the group's plans from then on. That is your choice to make and yours to undo, in that calendar.
That's the whole list.
Links out to booking sites
On a trip, the app can open Stayz, Airbnb or Booking.com with your destination, dates and party size already in the search. Those details go into the link you tap and nowhere else — we send them no names, no email addresses, and nothing about your group. Once you're on their site you're in their hands, under their privacy policy. The Stayz link carries a code that tells them the visit came from us, so a booking can be credited; it identifies the app, not you.
Money
Better Friends records who paid and who owes; it never moves money, stores no bank or card details, and connects to no financial institution. Settling up happens in your banking app; Better Friends just keeps score.
Deleting your data
Settings → Delete account removes your personal data — profile, votes, ratings, shares, tokens — immediately and permanently. Plans you proposed remain with your group, without your name. Full instructions: data deletion.
Your rights
We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles. You can ask us what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it — email us and we'll act within 30 days.
Contact
Changes to this policy will be posted here with a new date; material changes will be flagged in the app.