Who we are

BudgetBeacon is an Australian budgeting app.

When you use it, we hold some information about you. That makes us accountable for looking after it, keeping it accurate, and giving it back or deleting it when you ask. This policy sets out how we do that.

We follow the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

You can reach us any time at hello@budgetbeacon.co.

What we collect

Your account details. Your email address, and a scrambled version of your password. We never store your actual password and we cannot see it.

What you type into the app. Your income, bills, spending, savings, goals, notes and any receipts or documents you add. All of it is entered by you, by hand.

A record of your consent. Which version of our Terms and this policy you agreed to, whether you opted in to marketing email, and when. We keep this because the law requires us to be able to show that you agreed.

A crash report if something breaks. If the app hits a problem, we get a technical summary of what went wrong and what browser you were using. Your figures are removed before it is sent, so we can see that something broke without seeing anything about your money. Nothing is sent when the app is working normally.

Anything you send us. If you email us for help, we hold that message and our reply, so we can actually help you and refer back to it if you write again.

What we do not collect

We think this list matters as much as the one above.

• No bank logins. We never ask for your banking details and we have no connection to your bank.
• No account numbers, card numbers or government identifiers.
• No tracking. Nothing in BudgetBeacon follows you to other websites, and we do not use advertising or analytics tools.
• Nobody else watching you browse. The app loads everything from our own servers. It does not pull fonts, scripts or images from other companies, so no advertising or analytics company learns that you are using BudgetBeacon.
• No selling of data. Not now, not later. There is no version of this product where your financial information is sold.
• No AI training. Your information is never sent to an artificial intelligence service, and it is never used to train one. Not by us, and not by anyone else.
• No ads.

How we use it

We use your information to:

• Give you an account and keep it secure
• Store and show you the figures you enter
• Send you emails you need, such as confirming your address or resetting your password
• Send marketing email, but only if you asked us to
• Answer you when you contact us
• Fix problems with the app

We do not use your financial information to build a profile of you, to make decisions about you, or for anything other than showing it back to you.

Counting, not reading

To run the app we need to know basic totals, such as how many accounts exist and how many are being used. These are counts only. They tell us nothing about any individual and they contain no financial information.

Where your information is kept

Everything in our own systems is stored in Australia. That was a deliberate choice and it is not going to change. Where we rely on an outside company for something we cannot do ourselves, we say so plainly below.

Today that means your account and your consent record. The figures you type stay on your own device, so the app keeps working when you have no signal. When cloud backup arrives as a premium feature, those figures will be stored in Australia too.

Three things involve companies based overseas. Your budget figures are not part of any of them.

Email. Sending you a password reset or a confirmation is handled by a specialist email provider, so your email address passes through their systems.

Crash reports. If the app breaks, the technical summary goes to a monitoring service. It carries no financial information and no email address.

Payments, if you subscribe to premium. Card payments are handled by Stripe, a payment company operating from the United States. Stripe holds your payment details and knows that you are a BudgetBeacon customer. It never sees your budget. If you never subscribe, Stripe never holds anything about you.

We tell you this because Australian privacy law asks us to be upfront about it.

Who else touches your information

We do not share your information with anyone.

We do use a few companies to run the app, covering data storage, hosting, email delivery, crash reports and, if you subscribe, payments. They are not given your information to use. They hold or transmit it strictly on our instructions, only for the job we hired them to do, and for nothing else.

The only exception is if the law compels us, which has never happened.

We do not sell your information. We do not hand it to advertisers. There is no arrangement, now or planned, where anyone pays us for access to your data.

Who can see your figures

This is the part most policies leave vague, so we will be specific.

Nobody at BudgetBeacon can casually look at your budget. The system is built so your figures are readable by your account and are not browsable by us.

That applies to our tools as well as to us. The software used to build and maintain BudgetBeacon can work on the structure of the database, the security rules and the tests, and is not permitted to read what is inside your records.

In rare cases access may be needed, for example if you ask us to help recover data. When that happens:

• A reason must be typed and recorded
• The access is written to a log that our own systems cannot alter or erase
• You are told by email that it happened, so you hold your own record of it, outside anything we control

We would rather tell you plainly what is possible than promise something we cannot deliver.

Marketing email

We only send marketing email if you have opted in. The box is never pre-ticked, and declining does not affect your use of the app in any way.

You can change your mind at any time, either in Settings or by using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. We record when you opt in and when you opt out.

Emails you need in order to use your account, such as password resets and confirmations, are not marketing and will still be sent.

If you pay us anything

We never see your card details. Payments are handled by Stripe, one of the largest payment companies in the world. Your card number goes to them and never touches our systems. We could not see it if we wanted to.

What Stripe holds. Your payment details, and a record that you are a paying BudgetBeacon customer. Stripe operates from the United States, so that record is held overseas. Stripe never sees your budget, your figures, or anything you type into the app. If you never pay us anything, Stripe holds nothing about you.

What we keep. The minimum needed to run your subscription: that you have one, which plan, and when it renews or ends. Enough to give you what you paid for, and no more.

Stripe handles your payment information under its own privacy terms, which you can read at stripe.com. We chose them because they are the standard, and because it means the most sensitive thing in this whole app never reaches us.

Your rights

See what we hold. You can view everything in the app itself, and export a full copy of your data at any time from Settings.

Correct it. You can edit or delete any figure you have entered, whenever you like.

Delete it. See below.

Ask us anything. If you want to know what we hold or why, email hello@budgetbeacon.co and we will tell you.

Complain. If you think we have mishandled your information, email us and we will do our best to put it right. If you are not satisfied, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

How long we keep it

While your account is open, we keep your data. That is the point of the app: your history is what makes the figures useful, so we do not quietly delete old records to save space.

When you close your account, it goes. See below.

Crash reports are kept for a short period and then deleted automatically. They contain no financial information.

The record of your consent is kept for as long as the law requires us to be able to show it, and is described below.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account from Settings at any time. You do not need to ask us, and you do not need to give a reason.

When you delete your account:

• Your data is scheduled for deletion immediately
• You have 30 days to change your mind, in case it was a mistake
• After 30 days it is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered by anyone, including us

Two things survive, and only these two. We keep a minimal record that consent was given and later withdrawn, because the law requires us to be able to show it. And we keep anything we are separately required by law to retain, such as records of a payment. Your figures, receipts and documents are not part of either.

Before you delete, export your data. Once the 30 days pass, it is gone.

Keeping it safe

We take this seriously because it is financial information. Every claim below is something we have tested, not something we assume.

• Everything travels over an encrypted connection
• Accounts are separated at the database level, so one account cannot reach another's data. We test this by taking a real signed-in account and actively trying to read someone else's, across every part of the app.
• Passwords are stored scrambled in a way that cannot be reversed. Nobody, including us, can read them.
• Crash reports have your financial details stripped out before they are sent, and we test that by deliberately putting figures in the way and confirming none of them get through.

No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise. If a breach ever happens that is likely to cause you serious harm, we will tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the law requires.

What is stored on your device

The app keeps information on your device for two reasons: so it works when you are offline, and so it remembers you are signed in.

Your budget is stored on our servers in Sydney, Australia, and cached on your device so the app works offline. We still give you a full export in Settings, and we still recommend you use it, whatever plan you are on.

Because it is stored on our servers, your budget survives a lost or broken phone and follows you when you sign in on another device. This applies on every plan, free included. The export is still there so you can keep your own copy.

None of it tracks you. There is nothing in BudgetBeacon that watches where else you go on the internet, builds a picture of your browsing, or reports your activity to advertisers. We do not use advertising or analytics tools of any kind.

Whatever is stored, wherever it sits, it is your data and everything in this policy applies to it.

Using BudgetBeacon from outside Australia

BudgetBeacon is built for people in Australia, and your data is stored here.

You are welcome to use it from anywhere. Two things worth knowing if you do: your information will be held in Australia and handled under Australian law, and some rights available in other countries may work differently, because this policy follows Australian rules.

Age

BudgetBeacon is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe someone under 18 has created an account, email us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the version and date at the top.

If the change is significant, we will ask you to agree again the next time you sign in. We record which version you agreed to, so we always know.

Contact

hello@budgetbeacon.co

We read every message.

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