This policy explains what personal information Favour (“we”, “us”) collects, why, who can see it and your choices. We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
1. What we collect
You give us
- Account details: email address, password (stored securely by our sign-in provider, never visible to us), and your first and last name.
- Location: your suburb and postcode, if you add them to your profile.
- Profile: optional photo, bio and interests.
- Listings: title, description, category, credits and the location you pick on the map.
- Trades and chat: requests, prices, acceptances, confirmations, messages and photos you send, disputes and their reasons.
- Ratings, reviews and reports you make, and your consent to these policies (when and which version).
Created as you use Favour
- Your credit balance and history, trade history, notifications and who you've blocked.
- Results of our automatic safety screening of posts, profile text and reviews.
- Location for Browse: if you tap “Use my location”, your device's location (rounded to about 100 m) is used to find nearby listings. We use it for that search and don't store it on our servers.
- Basic technical information our providers log to keep the service running and secure, such as IP address, browser type and error logs.
2. Why we use it
- To run Favour: show listings to people nearby, match trades, hold and release credits, deliver messages and notifications.
- To keep people safe: screen content, review reports and flagged posts, resolve disputes, and prevent fraud and abuse.
- To contact you about your account, trades and changes to these policies. You can turn off notification emails in Edit profile; we'll still send essential account emails.
- To understand and improve the pilot (for example, how many trades complete).
We don't sell your personal information, and we don't use it for advertising.
3. Who can see what
- Other members can see your name, photo, suburb, bio, interests, member-since date, ratings, reviews, completed-trade count and your open listings.
- Listing locations are shown approximately (to about 1 km) to other members. The exact spot is shared only with people you're in a trade with.
- Only you can see your email, postcode, credits, credit history and who you've blocked.
- Chat messages and photos are visible only to the two people in the conversation, and to our team when we review a report or dispute.
- When you report something, the person reported isn't told who reported them.
4. Service providers, including overseas
We use trusted providers to run Favour. They process information on our behalf:
- Supabase: database, sign-in and photo storage.
- Google Cloud: hosting for our servers (Melbourne region); Google Gemini for automatic safety screening of posts, profile text and reviews; Google Maps to look up suburbs and postcodes from map locations.
- Mapbox: the maps you see in the app, and finding suburbs on the map: the suburb you search for when choosing where Browse searches from, or your profile suburb and postcode so Browse can start near you.
- Resend: sending emails.
- A website hosting provider for the Favour website.
Some of these providers store or process information outside Australia, including in the United States. We take reasonable steps to make sure they protect it in line with the Australian Privacy Principles.
5. On your device
We use cookies to keep you signed in. The app also stores a few things in your browser so it works smoothly, such as your last Browse location and which chats you've read. These stay on your device, and you can clear them in your browser settings. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies.
6. Security and how long we keep it
We protect information with access controls, encryption in transit and the security measures of our providers. No system is perfectly secure; if a data breach is likely to cause serious harm, we'll notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as the law requires.
We keep your information while your account is open. When you ask us to delete your account, we delete your profile, listings, photos and messages within 30 days, except records we need to keep for safety, to resolve a dispute or report, to prevent fraud, or to meet legal obligations (such as the record of credits moving between accounts). Those are kept only as long as needed.
7. Your choices and rights
- Access and correction: you can see and edit most of your information in the app. To ask for a copy of what we hold, or to correct something you can't change yourself, email us.
- Deletion: Profile → Delete my account, or email us.
- Emails: turn off notification emails in Edit profile, or use the unsubscribe link in any email.
- Location: you never have to share your device's location. Browse works from a default area instead.
Favour is for people aged 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect information about children.
8. Questions and complaints
If you have a question or a privacy complaint, email us and we'll respond within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
9. Changes
We'll update this policy when how we handle information changes, and tell you about significant changes in the app or by email. See also our Terms of Use.