Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy is issued by EL Industries Pty Ltd (ABN 66 655 026 823) ("we", "us", "our"), the operator of PubWatch, comprising the website at pubwatch.com.au and the PubWatch mobile application (together, the "Service"). It explains how we handle information in connection with the Service.

2. Scope

This Policy applies to information handled by us when you visit the website, use the application, or contact us. It does not apply to third-party websites or services linked from the Service, which are governed by their own privacy policies.

3. Information We Collect and Hold

You can use the Service without telling us who you are. There is no account, nothing asks for your name or contact details, and you can browse, plan a crawl, submit a price and rate a venue without identifying yourself. The one exception is contacting us, where we need somewhere to reply. What we do handle is set out below.

3.1 What you submit. You may submit a price or rate a venue. A price submission comprises the venue, the item, the price and, where applicable, the beer name, and on the website a date and, for a steak, a weight and cut. A rating comprises the venue, the item and star scores. We do not ask for your name or any contact detail, and none is attached to what you send.

3.2 Naming a venue we do not list yet. If the pub is not on the Service you can type its name and address, so we can find the pub and add it. That text is stored for us to check and is not published. Please type the pub's name and street address and nothing else.

3.3 Follows and alerts. This applies to the application only. If you follow a venue or turn on alerts, we receive and hold a notification token, which is a technical identifier that lets a notification reach your device and does not identify you personally; whether your device is iOS or Android; the areas and venues you have chosen; and, if you turn on near-me alerts, the approximate locality described in section 3.6. This is sent when your selections change and is used only to deliver the alerts you asked for. If you use neither follows nor alerts, none of it is sent.

3.4 Preventing Spam and Abuse. When a submission or rating is received we record a short value derived from technical information about the connection it came from and the date. Your internet address itself is not retained. It is used only to limit how many submissions can be sent and to spot duplicates. It is never published and never forms part of the public pricing record.

3.5 Technical data. As with any online service, technical data such as internet addresses and request metadata is processed in the ordinary course of delivering content and keeping the Service secure. The application requests current prices when it opens and when it reconnects, which is technical traffic of the same kind.

3.6 Location. Location features are optional, operate only with your permission, and the Service works fully if you decline. You can withdraw permission at any time in your device settings, and near-me alerts can be switched off in the application.

• Map centring, the "Find me" button, uses your position on your device only. Your coordinates are not transmitted to us.
• If you turn on near-me alerts, we receive a single location reading identifying the area you want alerts for, and hold it only in a form rounded to approximately one kilometre, enough to identify an area rather than an address. There is no background or continuous tracking. Turning near-me alerts off clears it.
• Map imagery is supplied by a mapping provider, which necessarily receives requests indicating the general area being displayed, as with any online map. Your coordinates are not included in those requests.

3.7 Stored on your device only. The application stores cached prices, states you keep available offline, venues you save, crawls you plan, venues you follow, any submission made while offline and waiting to send, your acceptance of these documents, and settings. Other than the items above, none of it leaves your phone, and all of it goes when you delete the application.

The website stores your map position, filters and planner entries in your browser for the length of the visit. That is not sent to us and clears when you close the tab.

3.8 Sensitive information. We do not ask for, and do not knowingly collect, sensitive information. That includes health information, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, and biometric or genetic information.

Please do not include sensitive information in a submission or a rating. If you send it to us anyway, we will delete it.

4. How We Use Information

We collect data about how the Service is used. We do not use it to identify you. We may use it for advertising and for insight into the Service and how to improve it.

5. Website Measurement and Cookies

We use two measurement services on the website, to understand how it is used and to improve it. This section applies to the website. The application carries no measurement of this kind.

• Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used, including scrolling, clicks and a replay of the visit, and sets cookies in your browser so that the same visitor is recognised from page to page. Microsoft receives this information and handles it under its own privacy statement at privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement, which allows Microsoft to use it for its own purposes, including advertising.
• Cloudflare Web Analytics measures page loads and performance. It sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device.

We do not use either service to identify you. Your browser's own cookie and tracking controls apply to this site as they do to any other, and the website works fully with Clarity blocked.

We may also show advertising on the Service. If that involves any handling of information beyond what this Policy describes, we will update this Policy.

6. Use and Publication of Submissions

Accepted price submissions and ratings form part of the public pricing record and may be displayed on the Service without any information identifying who sent them. That record is published as open data that anyone can fetch.

Before publication, submissions are reviewed for plausibility. Review is not a guarantee, so please do not include personal information about yourself or anyone else in anything you send us.

7. Disclosure of Information

We do not sell, rent or trade information that identifies you, and we do not disclose such information to anyone in exchange for money, a service or any other advantage.

We disclose information only to the service providers engaged to operate the Service, and only to the extent necessary. Those providers perform hosting and content delivery, application updates and notification delivery, application distribution through the relevant marketplaces, the supply of map imagery, and the website measurement described in section 5 (Microsoft Clarity and Cloudflare Web Analytics). Certain of these providers are located outside Australia, including in the United States, so information handled by them may be stored and processed overseas. We share only the minimum required to provide the Service, and only with providers whose published privacy commitments are consistent with the protections described in this Policy.

Some links hand you to a third party only when you tap them, such as opening a venue's website, calling a venue, or opening a route in a maps application. That destination then receives your request directly.

8. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect the information we hold from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Those steps include holding as little as we can, not retaining internet addresses, limiting how much can be submitted from one source, and restricting access to what is held. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information sent over the internet.

9. How Long We Keep Things

• Accepted submissions and ratings form part of the public pricing record and are kept for as long as they remain part of it.
• Submissions that are not accepted are never published.
• The value described in section 3.4 is specific to a single day and is not used to identify any visitor.
• Follow and alert information is kept while your follows or alerts are on. Turning them off clears your selections, and turning near-me alerts off clears the stored locality.
• Information stored on your device goes when you delete the application. What the website stores in your browser clears when you close the tab.
• Information held by our service providers is kept for the periods those providers set.

We do not currently operate an automatic deletion schedule for the records we hold, and we would rather say so than publish a timeframe we do not keep.

10. Access, Correction and Deletion

You may ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to support@pubwatch.com.au.

Because there are no accounts, we hold nothing to look you up by, so your request needs to tell us which record is yours.

• For a price or a rating, tell us the venue, the item, the price or score you sent and roughly when. Where several people have sent the same thing we may not be able to tell which is yours, and we will say so rather than guess.
• For a venue name and address you typed in, tell us what you typed and roughly when.
• For follows and alerts, turning alerts off and unfollowing every venue in the application clears your selections and the stored locality, and stops notifications reaching your device.

Withdrawing your consent. You can withdraw your consent to anything optional, at any time:

• Turn alerts off and unfollow every venue in the application. That stops notifications and clears your selections and the stored locality.
• Withdraw location permission in your device settings.
• Clear or block cookies using your browser's own controls.
• Stop sending submissions and ratings. Nothing is sent unless you send it.

Accepting the Terms of Use and this Policy is a condition of using the Service, so it cannot be withdrawn while you continue to use it. If you no longer agree, delete the application, which also removes everything it stored on your device, and stop using the website.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information or your request, reply and tell us, and we will look at it again.

11. Over 18s Only

The Service is for persons aged 18 or over. Clause 4 of our Terms of Use sets that as a condition of use, and by using the Service you confirm that you meet it. The Service provides pricing information relating to licensed venues, it is not directed at anyone under 18, and it must not be used by anyone under 18.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we become aware that we hold information from someone under 18, we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The current version is always available on this page and in the application, and the effective date above is updated when it changes. In the application, where a change is material we will ask you to read and accept the updated documents before you continue.