DriveMate Fuel privacy policy

Draft for review, 2026-10-14. The hosts fuel.trydrivemate.com (the app's website) and api.trydrivemate.com (the API) are placeholders until they are chosen. [ABN], [business address], [contact email] and [support URL] are the owner's details to fill in. Remove this note before publishing.

Last updated: 2026-10-14. DriveMate Fuel is provided by Origami Studio ([ABN]) ("we", "us"). This policy covers the DriveMate Fuel app and its website, fuel.trydrivemate.com, and follows the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

In short

DriveMate Fuel finds fuel prices and EV chargers near you. You don't need an account. To show what's near you, the app sends your location rounded to about 110 metres, and we don't store your searches. If you report a price, we keep that report and where you were when you made it, to judge whether it's right.

The free app shows ads from Google. We ask Google for non-personalised ads only, we never pass your location or an advertising identifier to it, and we never ask to track you across other companies' apps. DriveMate Fuel Pro removes the ads. We don't sell your information.

What we collect

Your location, while you use the app. It finds stations and chargers near you and works out distances on your phone. A nearby search sends the centre of the search rounded to three decimal places (about 110 metres) and a radius rounded up to a set size; a map view sends the visible area, rounded outwards the same way. We use them to answer the search and don't store them. If you look up prices along a route (Pro), the route's line is sent the same way and isn't stored either. DriveMate Fuel never uses your location in the background.

Price and station reports. When you report a price, a station that has run out, or a charger that worked or didn't, we receive the station, the fuel and price (or the charger), when you saw it, your phone's location and its accuracy at that moment, and your device's anonymous id (below). From the location we work out how far you were from the station. If you scanned the price board, we also receive how confident the reader was. We use all of this to decide how far to trust the report: how near you were, how plausible the price is, how recent it is, and how often your device's earlier reports agreed with the stations' own prices.

A report we accept is shown to everyone as a price from "a driver", with its age. It never shows who made it. When a station's own price arrives within two hours, it confirms or contradicts the report, and that moves your device's score. A device whose reports keep being contradicted is blocked from reporting for a week. We keep where you were only until that happens, or for 30 days at most, and then remove it from the report.

A photo of the price board, if you add one. It is evidence for your report. It is stored privately (a JPEG or HEIC image of up to 5 MB) in a folder named by your device's id or your account, is never shown publicly, and is read only by you (when signed in) and by us if we need to check a report. We delete it after 90 days, or straight away if you delete your account. Please photograph the price board only, not people or number plates.

Your device's anonymous id. The first time you report, the app registers your phone with us: we create a random id and a key. The key stays in your phone's Keychain and we keep only a one-way hash of it. With the id we keep the platform (iOS), the app version, when it was last used, its reporting score, and your account if you were signed in. It is not your phone's advertising identifier or serial number. We keep the id and its score even after you delete your account (they are then no longer linked to it), so that a phone whose reports keep being wrong can't start again with a clean record. To stop anyone creating ids in bulk, we keep a one-way hash of your internet (IP) address together with the app's key for one hour, and then delete it.

An account, if you create one. It's optional. You sign in with your email address and an eight-digit code we email you. With an account we keep:

• your profile: an optional display name and the state you choose as home;
• your cars: what each runs on, the fuels and plugs it takes, its fastest DC charging, its tank size and its consumption (without an account these stay on your phone);
• your favourite stations, with your own label for each;
• your alerts: what to watch (a price at a station or in an area you choose, by its centre and radius), the threshold, and when each last fired;
• the push notification token Apple gives the app, so alerts can reach your phone.

Your subscription. If you buy DriveMate Fuel Pro, Apple takes the payment and RevenueCat, our subscription processor, tells us about it. We keep whether Pro is active, when it ends, the kind of period (such as a free trial), the store and the product. We never see your card details.

Ads in the free app. The free app shows ads through Google's Mobile Ads SDK (AdMob). We ask for non-personalised ads only. We don't give the SDK your location, and the app never asks your permission to track you, so iOS doesn't give it your device's advertising identifier. Google says that non-personalised ads are not based on your past behaviour; they are chosen from the content of the app and your general (city-level) location, which Google estimates from your IP address, and Google still uses cookies or device identifiers to limit how often you see an ad and to report on ads in aggregate. According to Google, its SDK may collect your IP address, identifiers other than the advertising identifier that are limited to our app or to us, information about the ads you see and how you interact with them, and crash and performance data. Google's own use is covered by its privacy policy (policies.google.com/privacy) and its page on how it uses information from apps that use its services (policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites). DriveMate Fuel Pro shows no ads.

On the website. fuel.trydrivemate.com keeps your light or dark appearance choice in a cookie named theme. It has no ads and no analytics today; if that changes, this policy changes first.

Usage counts. Every request the app makes carries the app's own key, which is the same in every copy of the app. We count requests per key, per minute and per kind of request, to set limits and keep the service running. These counts say nothing about you.

What we never collect

• Your location in the background, or a history of where you go. We keep a location only as part of a report you choose to make, or as an alert's area you choose.
• Your advertising identifier. We never show the App Tracking Transparency prompt and never track you across other companies' apps and websites.
• Your contacts, photos from your library, or anything from other apps. The only photo we receive is the one you take for a report.
• Your name (unless you choose a display name), phone number, postal address or card details.

How we use it

To show prices, stations and chargers near you; to judge, publish, confirm and contradict drivers' reports; to block devices whose reports keep being wrong; to keep your cars, favourites and alerts in step between your phone and our servers when you have an account; to send the alerts you set; to provide Pro; to show ads in the free app; to set limits on how often the app can be used, so the service stays up and can't be abused; and to help when you contact us.

Who sees it

Everyone sees the prices and outages we accept from drivers, as "a driver" with their age, but never who reported them.

Our service providers, each limited to what it needs to provide its service:

• Supabase: our database, sign-in and photo storage, in Sydney, Australia.
• Vercel: our website and API hosting. [to confirm: the region for logs and the edge network's locations]
• Google: ads in the free app (above).
• RevenueCat: subscription records, in the United States.
• Apple: payments, and delivering the push notifications for your alerts.
• [to confirm: the provider that sends the sign-in code emails]

Some of them process data outside Australia, including in the United States. We don't share your information with anyone else unless the law requires it.

How we keep it safe and how long we keep it

Everything travels encrypted. Keys, including your device's key, are stored only as one-way hashes. Only you can read your own account's rows; nobody can change anything except through our API.

A daily job deletes what we keep only for a while:

• Where you were when you reported: removed from the report once a station's own price has confirmed or contradicted it, or after 30 days, whichever comes first.
• Price board photos: deleted after 90 days. If a photo you meant to add never arrived, the report's reference to it is cleared after a day; one that arrives after you deleted your account is deleted the next day.
• Drivers' reports that a station has run out or a charger is faulty: shown for 6 hours from the latest such report, then closed.
• The registration hash (your IP address with the app's key, hashed): one hour.
• Usage counts (per app key, not per person): 60 days.
• Records of our data feeds' and jobs' runs (no personal information): 90 days.

What we keep:

• Reports themselves (the station, fuel, price, time, trust and outcome, without your location once it's removed): kept as anonymous crowd data, because the prices they published and each station's price history depend on them.
• Your device's anonymous id and its reporting score: kept, so that a phone whose reports keep being wrong can't start again with a clean record. Deleting your account unlinks them from it.
• Your account and what's in it: until you delete your account.
• Hosting logs: [to confirm with Vercel's retention for our plan].

Deleting your account [to confirm: where in the app] deletes, straight away, your profile, cars, favourites, alerts (and what each last saw and sent), push tokens, subscription record, the photos of your reports, and your sign-in. Your reports stay as anonymous data: no longer linked to you, and without your location. Your device's id is unlinked from the account.

Your choices

• Use the app without an account. Without one, your cars stay on your phone.
• Signed in, see your own reports and what became of them (accepted, rejected, replaced by the station's price, confirmed or contradicted).
• Say no to location: the app still works when you look a place up or move the map. [to confirm against the build]
• Report without a photo, or type a price instead of scanning it.
• Turn off or delete any alert, and delete any favourite or car.
• Delete your account in the app, at any time (above).
• Buy Pro to remove the ads. The ads are not personalised, so there is no ad profile to turn off.

Access, correction and complaints

To ask for the information we hold about you, or to correct it, email [contact email]. You can delete your account yourself in the app. Reports made without an account are tied only to your device's anonymous id, so tell us your device id (shown in the app [to confirm]) if you want those. We respond to requests and complaints within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints, or 1300 363 992.

Children

DriveMate Fuel is not intended for anyone under 16.

Data from third parties

The prices, stations and chargers in DriveMate Fuel come from government fuel price schemes, open data sets and drivers. They contain no information about you. Where each comes from, and the credit each one requires, is on our data sources and attribution page.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app before the change takes effect.

Contact

Origami Studio ([ABN]), [business address], [contact email]. Support: [support URL].