Privacy Policy
Rangr is a map-based community alert app, currently piloting in Newcastle, NSW. This policy explains what personal information Rangr collects, why, who it is shared with, and the choices you have. We aim to handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
In short
- Public: your username, your reports (place, time, details) and comments. Never public: your name, email, phone, fines, ticket photos or where you parked.
- Your phone's location stays on your phone, unless you turn on alerts while Rangr is closed or "I parked here". Then we keep a rough position, only to send you alerts.
- Fines and ticket photos are private to you. If you use "read my ticket", the photo is sent to Anthropic (Claude) to read the details.
- We keep anonymous facts about sightings, fines and opt-in parking sessions (what, where, when) to predict ranger patrols. They aren't linked to you.
- After 90 days, reports are de-identified: who posted, voted and commented is removed.
- You can edit your details or delete your account any time in My account. Deleting removes your personal information straight away.
- No advertising, no selling your data, no tracking cookies.
1. Who we are
Rangr is operated by [OPERATOR LEGAL NAME] (ABN [ABN]) (“we”, “us”). You can contact us about privacy at rangrdangrapp@gmail.com or by post at [POSTAL ADDRESS].
2. What we collect
When you join the waitlist
- Email address and, if you choose, your suburb (both private). We use them only to tell you when Rangr Dangr opens near you. We never share or sell them, and you can ask us to remove them at any time.
When you create an account
- Full name (private — never shown publicly).
- Display name and username (public; your username must be unique).
- Email address (private).
- Mobile phone number in international format (private).
- Password — we never store your password itself, only a salted PBKDF2-SHA256 hash of it.
- The date and time you agreed to the Community Terms of Use, and the version you agreed to.
- Whether you chose to receive optional marketing emails.
When you verify your details
- We email you a verification link to confirm your email address.
- You may optionally verify your phone number with an SMS code. SMS codes are only sent to Australian (+61) numbers.
When you use Rangr
- Reports you post: category, subtype, the map location you deliberately choose, an optional description (up to 240 characters) and timestamps.
- Comments you post (up to 500 characters).
- Votes (“Still there” / “Not there”) and abuse flags you submit.
- Place searches you type into the search box (passed through to a map search provider — see section 6).
- If you turn on “Alerts when Rangr is closed”: your push subscription and alert area settings (see section 4).
- When you sign up: a rough area (about 1 km, taken from your alert area) for “members near you” counts, and who invited you, if you used an invite link. We count how many people joined with your link.
- Reliability counts: how many of your reports neighbours confirmed or disputed. These affect how much your reports count in predictions, and you can see them in My account.
- If you set up watch zones (for example home, work or a family member's suburb) and turn on alerts while Rangr is closed: each zone's name, place (to about 10 metres), radius and alert types, so we can send alerts. Without background alerts, zones stay on your device.
- If you choose to share a parking session: a rough place (about 280 m), the start time rounded to 15 minutes, how long you parked and whether you were fined. This is stored without your account.
- If you use “I parked here”: the location of your parked car, for up to 12 hours, so we can alert you when a ranger is reported nearby. It is only stored on our server if you turn on alerts while Rangr is closed, and then only to about 100 metres. It is never shown to anyone else, including other users and Rangr staff.
- If you log a fine: the amount, offence type, time issued and map location. These are private to your account. If you add a photo of the ticket, it is shrunk on your device (which removes the photo's location data), stored privately, and shown only to you. Rangr staff do not view ticket photos. A ticket can show your vehicle registration, so only upload a photo if you are comfortable with us storing it.
Anonymous patrol statistics
When reports are posted, confirmed or flagged, and when fines are logged, we also record an anonymous observation: the category, offence type and amount (for fines), time and map position, with no account, name or contact details attached. We use these observations to estimate ranger activity by place and time, for example in the ranger risk map, “likely next” estimates and community fine totals. These estimates are shown publicly in aggregate only.
Bot checks
The sign-up and password-reset forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to check that you are a person and not an automated bot. Turnstile processes technical information about your browser and connection to do this.
3. What is public
Rangr is a community tool, so some things you post are visible to anyone using the app:
- Your reports (category, subtype, location you chose, description and times).
- Your comments, shown with your username and the time posted.
- Your display name and username.
- The number of votes and flags on a report. Who voted or flagged is not shown publicly.
4. Location
Reports: a report’s location is the point you deliberately place on the map. It is published with the report.
Walking mode: uses your browser’s location on your device only, to show nearby alerts. This location is not sent to our server.
Alerts when Rangr is closed (web push): if you turn this on, our server stores:
- the push subscription endpoint your browser gives us (issued by your browser’s push service — for example Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft); and
- your alert area centre point, radius and the alert categories you chose.
We use this only to decide which alerts to send you. Turning the feature off, or deleting your account, deletes this information. Notifications also require your browser’s permission, which you can withdraw at any time in your browser settings.
5. How we use information
- To create and run your account and let you sign in.
- To verify your email address and (optionally) phone number, and to send password-reset and other account messages.
- To display reports, comments and vote counts on the map.
- To send push alerts you have asked for.
- To keep Rangr safe: preventing spam and abuse, rate limiting, moderating content and enforcing the Community Terms of Use.
- To send marketing emails, only if you opted in (see section 11).
- To comply with the law.
We do not sell your personal information. We do not use advertising or analytics trackers.
6. Service providers and overseas disclosure
We use the following providers to run Rangr. Some may see your IP address or other information as part of providing their service.
| Provider | What for | What they may receive |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare (US) | Hosting (Workers and Durable Objects), data storage, Turnstile bot checks | All account and app data we store; IP address and browser information |
| Resend (US) | Email delivery | Your email address and the content of emails we send you |
| Anthropic (US) | Reading ticket photos, only when you choose to add one and the feature is on | The ticket photo. Anthropic does not use it to train its models. |
| Public data services (fire, flood, traffic, weather, fuel, air quality, OpenStreetMap, parking) | Showing map layers. Rangr's server asks them for data for an area; your browser loads only Rangr | The approximate map area being viewed (no personal details) |
| Twilio (US) | SMS verification codes (optional) | Your phone number and the code sent |
| Browser push services (e.g. Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft) | Delivering push alerts, if enabled | The alert content delivered to your device |
| OpenStreetMap Nominatim | Place search (our server forwards your search text) | Your search text |
| OpenFreeMap | Map tiles | Your IP address and the map area being viewed |
| Google Fonts | Fonts | Your IP address |
| unpkg.com | Map software libraries | Your IP address |
Cross-border disclosure (APP 8)
Rangr’s data is stored on Cloudflare infrastructure. We intend for it to be stored in the Oceania region, but it may be processed overseas. Cloudflare, Resend, Twilio and Anthropic are based in the United States, and information we disclose to them may be held or processed in the United States and other countries where they operate. We take reasonable steps to ensure these providers handle personal information consistently with the APPs.
7. Cookies and local storage
- Session cookie: keeps you signed in. It is HttpOnly (not readable by page scripts) and lasts up to 30 days.
- Local storage: remembers that you’ve seen the welcome screen and some app preferences, on your device only.
We do not use advertising or analytics cookies or trackers.
8. How long we keep information
- Reports expire automatically and are hidden from the map: rangers after 20 minutes, incidents after 60 minutes, hazards after 3 hours, pets and found items after 24 hours. After 90 days the report is de-identified as described below.
- Account details are kept until you delete your account (or we delete it, for example for a breach of the Terms).
- Push subscriptions and alert areas are kept until you turn off closed-app alerts or delete your account.
- Fines and ticket photos are kept until you delete them or your account.
- Anonymous observations are kept indefinitely to improve patrol estimates. Because they are not linked to you, they remain after account deletion. If you delete a fine, its observation is excluded from the statistics.
- Report history: 90 days after a report ends, we remove its links to accounts (who posted, voted, flagged and commented) and delete comment text. We keep the de-identified facts indefinitely: category, type, direction of travel, place, times, description and vote counts.
- IP addresses are used briefly for rate limiting and are not stored in the app database.
- Admin audit log: keeps the latest 50,000 events; older events are removed.
- Backups: Cloudflare’s database point-in-time recovery may retain copies of data for up to 30 days.
9. Security and administration
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information, including storing passwords only as salted hashes, using HttpOnly session cookies, bot checks on sensitive forms and rate limiting. No system is perfectly secure.
An admin audit log records the API path, method, response status, account ID and moderation actions for requests. It does not record passwords, request bodies or search text. Administrators can warn, suspend or delete accounts, resolve reports and delete comments, and these actions are logged.
10. Your choices, access and correction
- Edit: you can update your profile details in My account.
- Delete: you can delete your account yourself in My account (your password is required). Deletion immediately removes your name, email, phone number, password hash, sessions, push subscriptions and any pending verification or reset tokens. Your past reports and comments remain visible but are shown as posted by “former_neighbour”. Backup copies may persist for up to 30 days (see section 8).
- Access and correction: under the APPs you may ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it. Email rangrdangrapp@gmail.com. We will respond within a reasonable time (usually within 30 days). If we refuse a request, we will tell you why and how to complain.
11. Marketing emails
Marketing emails are optional. We only send them if you opted in. You can opt out at any time using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or by changing your preference in My account. You will still receive essential account emails (such as verification and password reset).
12. Minimum age
You must be at least 16 to create a Rangr account. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 16, we may delete it.
13. Complaints
If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first at rangrdangrapp@gmail.com or [POSTAL ADDRESS] with details. We will acknowledge your complaint and aim to respond within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Rangr changes. We will post the new version here with a new version date and, for significant changes, let account holders know by email or in the app.