Privacy Policy

DiveScout ("we", "our", "us") is an Australian service. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information when you use the DiveScout website, app and related services (the "Service"). We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

We have written this policy to describe what the Service actually does, not what it might do one day. Where a feature does not exist yet, we say so. If our practices change, we will update this policy and the "Last Updated" date, and we will tell you about material changes by email or in the app before they take effect.

Privacy questions, requests and complaints: admin@divescout.com.au.

1.1 Account information — when you create an account we collect your email address, a display name if you choose to provide one, and your password (stored only as a secure one-way hash, never in readable form). We also ask for your date of birth so we can check you meet the 16+ age requirement; we keep only the year of birth, and it is never shown to other divers.

1.2 Diver profile information — during onboarding, and later if you edit your profile, we ask about the water activities you do, your certification level and agency (if any), how often you dive, your logged dive count, comfortable swim distance, freediving personal-best depth, and, optionally, a free-text answer describing your biggest challenge. We use this only to tailor which sites and conditions we show you and to guide product improvements. We do not ask for, and you should not provide, medical history, injuries, medications or fitness-to-dive declarations.

1.3 Dive logs and user content — when you log a dive or post to the community we collect the dive site, date and time, your rating and review text, and any of the following you choose to enter: visibility, duration, maximum depth, water temperature, wildlife sighted, and photos. You may also submit new dive sites, hazard reports, community posts and events.

1.4 Location — the Service uses location in two distinct ways, and neither involves tracking you:

• Dive site coordinates: every dive site has fixed published coordinates. These describe places, not people, and are public information.
• Your device location (optional): if you allow it, your browser gives us a single position reading while the page is open, used to sort dive sites by distance from you. This reading stays in your browser's memory. It is never sent to our database, never stored, never shared and never included in analytics.

We do not run background location tracking. We do not record GPS tracks, dive paths, routes or underwater navigation. There is no location history associated with your account. If you decline the location prompt, the Service simply orders sites by conditions instead.

1.5 Usage analytics — we record first-party usage events so we can understand how the Service is used. Each event may include a session identifier, an anonymous browser identifier, your account ID if you are signed in, the event name, the page path, the dive site involved, a short label, and the referring page on the first view of a session. Free-text, coordinates, email addresses, names and health-related values are filtered out before an event is saved. We do not collect or store IP addresses in our analytics.

1.6 Push notification credentials — if you turn on notifications, we store the push endpoint URL issued by your browser's push service together with the two public encryption keys your browser generates for that subscription, and your account ID. We store these solely so we can send you the notifications you asked for. Without them, notifications cannot be delivered.

1.7 Support and feedback — if you contact us or use the in-app feedback tool, we receive your message, your email address and any screenshot you choose to attach.

1.8 Payments — if you buy a DiveScout Pro membership or an event ticket, the payment is processed by our payment provider, which collects your card or wallet details directly. We never see, store or have access to your full card number. We keep a record of your purchase: the product, amount, currency, date, payment status, and the plan and renewal status of a membership. We use this to give you access to paid features, manage your membership and meet our accounting obligations.

1.9 Bot protection — our sign-up form uses a bot-detection check (Cloudflare Turnstile). When you complete it, the challenge is verified with Cloudflare, which processes the interaction to distinguish people from automated sign-ups. It is not used for advertising or tracking across other sites.

1.10 What we do not collect — we do not collect your IP address in analytics, we do not use advertising identifiers or third-party trackers, we do not connect to dive computers or wearables, we never store your card or bank details, and we do not collect health, medical or biometric information.

"Sensitive information" has a specific meaning under the Privacy Act and includes health information. DiveScout is designed not to collect it.

Dive depth, duration, visibility and water temperature are records of an activity and its environment. We do not treat them as health information and we do not use them to infer anything about your health or fitness.

Please do not enter medical conditions, medications, injuries, or fitness-to-dive information into dive logs, reviews, hazard reports, the onboarding free-text field or feedback messages. If you do, that content becomes sensitive information. We will not use it for marketing or promotion under any circumstances, we will restrict access to it to the minimum number of people needed to respond, and you may ask us to delete it at any time by emailing admin@divescout.com.au.

If we ever add features that genuinely require health information — for example medical declarations for organised dives — we will ask for your express, specific consent first and explain exactly what we collect and why.

3.1 To run the Service

• Create and secure your account
• Show dive sites, forecasts and condition ratings tailored to your experience level
• Save your dive logs, favourites, saved searches and community posts
• Sort sites by distance when you allow location access
• Process memberships and one-off purchases, and give you access to paid features
• Respond to your support requests

3.2 For safety

• Show hazard reports submitted by other divers
• Alert you to reported hazards and favourable conditions at sites you have saved, if you opt in to notifications

3.3 To improve the Service

• Measure how features are used, using our own first-party analytics
• Improve our water-visibility forecasting using logged visibility observations, which are used in aggregate and not linked to you in any published output
• Produce aggregated, de-identified statistics about site popularity and diving conditions

3.4 What we do not do — we do not use your information for advertising, ad targeting or profiling for advertising. We do not sell personal information. We do not use your content to train third-party AI models, and we do not send your dive logs, photos or messages to external AI providers.

4.1 What is public — dive logs, reviews, ratings, wildlife sightings, hazard reports, community posts and any photos attached to them are visible to other DiveScout users and are published alongside the dive site they relate to, under the name you choose to display. Please treat everything you post as public. There is currently no friends-only or private visibility setting; if we introduce one, we will explain it here.

4.2 What is never public — your email address, your diver profile answers (including certification details, dive count, swim distance, personal-best depth and your free-text challenge answer), your device location, your analytics events, your notification settings, your purchase and membership records, and your support messages.

4.3 Promotional use is opt-in and separate — creating an account does not give us permission to use your content in marketing. We will only feature your photos, reviews or dive logs in promotional material — such as our website, social media, app-store listings, newsletters or press — if you give separate, specific consent for that purpose using the marketing switch under Privacy choices on your account page. It is off unless you turn it on. Where you give it, we will tell you which categories of content it covers and whether your display name will be shown as attribution. You can withdraw that permission at any time by switching it off on your account page, or by emailing admin@divescout.com.au; we will stop using the content in new material and remove it from material we control within 30 days, though we cannot recall copies already printed, cached or shared by third parties.

4.4 Marketing emails — we only send marketing or product-update emails if you have opted in. Every one contains an unsubscribe link, and opting out of marketing never affects service or safety messages.

Push notifications are entirely opt-in. If you never enable them, nothing is sent and no push credentials are stored.

5.1 Categories we send:

• Dive reflection reminder — at most once a day in the late afternoon, and only if you used DiveScout that day, inviting you to log your dive and answer a short question about how DiveScout influenced your decision.
• Good conditions at saved sites — at most once each morning, when one of your saved sites has a favourable daylight window within the notice period you choose (one to four days ahead).
• Hazard alerts at saved sites — when another diver reports a hazard at a site you have saved.

5.2 Turning them off — each alert category has its own toggle in Notification settings on your account page. Turning off all categories cancels the browser subscription and deletes your push credentials from our database immediately. You can also block notifications in your browser's site settings at any time.

5.3 Deleting stale credentials — if your browser's push service reports that a subscription no longer exists, we delete the record straight away. We also delete push credentials when you delete your account.

5.4 What the push provider sees — notification content is encrypted by our server before it leaves us, using the Web Push standard. Your browser's push service (Mozilla, Google or Apple, depending on your browser) relays the encrypted message and cannot read its title, body or link. They see only the endpoint they issued, the encrypted payload and delivery headers. We do not use any third-party push marketing platform.

We do not sell personal information. We share it only as described below.

6.1 Other DiveScout users — the public content described in section 4.1.

6.2 Service providers — the specific providers we rely on, and where they process data:

• Supabase — database, authentication and file storage. Hosted in Sydney, Australia (ap-southeast-2). Holds accounts, dive logs, photos, analytics and push credentials.
• Stripe — payment processing for memberships and event tickets. Based in the United States, processing globally. Receives your payment details and purchase information; we receive only the payment status and a reference.
• Cloudflare — application hosting and content delivery, with requests served from edge locations worldwide, including Australia. Also provides the Turnstile bot check on our sign-up form.
• Google and Apple — only if you choose to sign up or sign in with those providers, who authenticate you and pass us your name and email address. Their own privacy policies apply to that sign-in.
• Lovable — the platform hosting the application and delivering our transactional and support emails. Located in the European Union.
• Browser push services — Mozilla (United States), Google (United States) and Apple (United States), depending on your browser, which relay encrypted notifications only.
• Google Maps — used only to open driving directions to a dive site when you tap the directions link. This is a link you choose to follow; Google's own terms apply from that point.

6.3 Data sources we read from, which receive no personal information — Open-Meteo (weather and marine forecasts, European Union), WillyWeather (tides, Australia), Copernicus Sentinel Hub (satellite water clarity, European Union) and the Atlas of Living Australia (marine life records, Australia). We send these services dive-site coordinates and dates only, never anything about you.

6.4 Subprocessors — our providers may use their own subprocessors under contract. We keep an internal register of overseas recipients and their locations and review it when providers change; we will update this section when a material provider changes.

6.5 Legal reasons — we may disclose information where required by law, a court order or a government request, or where we reasonably believe it is necessary to prevent serious harm to a person's life, health or safety.

6.6 Business transfers — if DiveScout is sold, merged or restructured, information may transfer as part of that transaction. We will notify you beforehand where practicable, and any acquirer must honour this policy or seek fresh consent.

6.7 Aggregated and de-identified data — we may publish or share statistics that cannot reasonably identify you, such as site popularity or seasonal condition trends.

Your account data, dive logs, photos, analytics and push credentials are stored in Australia (Sydney). We do not move them offshore for storage.

Payment information is processed by Stripe, which operates from the United States and other countries where it maintains infrastructure; card details go directly to Stripe and never pass through our database.

A limited amount of information is still handled overseas in transit: emails we send you (for example confirmation and password-reset emails) pass through an email provider based in the European Union, our application hosting and edge network operate from data centres in several countries, and notification delivery uses the browser push services run by Mozilla, Google and Apple, which are based in the United States. The countries most likely to be involved are the United States, member states of the European Union (particularly Ireland, Germany and Sweden), and Singapore for regional edge routing. Push services only ever receive an encrypted message they cannot read.

Before disclosing personal information overseas we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient handles it consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, including contractual data-protection terms and, where applicable, standard contractual clauses. You may ask us for the current list of overseas recipients at admin@divescout.com.au.

• Our analytics are first-party. No third-party analytics or advertising service receives any DiveScout data.
• Events are stored in our own Australian database and do not leave Australia.
• When you are signed in, events are linked to your account ID. When you are signed out, they carry only an anonymous browser identifier. Earlier anonymous activity is not retrospectively linked to your account.
• No IP addresses are collected or stored.
• Free-text, coordinates, email addresses, names and health-related values are stripped before an event is saved.
• Analytics are used only to improve the Service — never for advertising.
• Analytics events are kept for as long as they remain useful for understanding and improving the Service. We review our holdings at least annually and delete or aggregate what we no longer need.
• You can switch analytics off yourself at any time under Privacy choices on your account page. You may also ask us to delete your analytics history, or to stop linking events to your account, by emailing admin@divescout.com.au.

We keep each category of information only as long as we need it:

• Account record and diver profile — until you delete your account.
• Dive logs, reviews, wildlife sightings and community posts — until you delete them, or until you delete your account.
• Photos in storage — deleted with the post they belong to, or with your account.
• Hazard reports — kept for as long as the safety history remains useful to other divers, and de-identified once we no longer need them in an identifiable form.
• Analytics events — kept while they remain useful for improving the Service, reviewed at least annually.
• Push subscriptions — until you turn notifications off, your browser's push service reports the subscription is gone, or you delete your account.
• Authentication records, sessions and refresh tokens — sessions expire automatically; authentication and security logs are kept for as long as we need them to detect and investigate security incidents.
• Purchase and membership records — kept while your account is active, and afterwards for as long as Australian tax and accounting law requires transaction records (generally five to seven years). These records never include your card number.
• Support and feedback correspondence — kept while it remains relevant to supporting you and improving the Service.
• Encrypted backups — up to 30 days on a rolling basis.

9.1 What account deletion covers — when you delete your account, within 30 days (and usually immediately) we delete your authentication account, your profile, your dive logs and community content, your stored photos, your push subscriptions and your saved searches and favourites, and we unlink your analytics events from your account so they remain only as anonymous records.

9.2 Backups — our backups are encrypted point-in-time snapshots and cannot be edited selectively. Deleted information may persist in those protected backups until they expire, within 30 days. Backups are access-controlled and are only ever used to restore the Service after a failure.

9.3 Legal holds — we may retain specific information for longer where a law, regulator or legal claim requires it. We will retain only what is necessary and delete it once the obligation ends.

10.1 Access — you can see most of your information in the app. You may also request a copy of everything we hold about you, in a portable format, at admin@divescout.com.au.

10.2 Correction — you can correct your profile and content in the app, or ask us to correct anything you cannot change yourself.

10.3 Deletion — you can delete individual dive logs, photos and posts in the app, and you can delete your entire account from your account settings. You do not need to contact support to delete your account.

10.4 Location — location access is optional and requested only once you are signed in. You can grant or revoke it in your browser's site settings at any time; the Service works without it.

10.5 Notifications — see section 5.2.

10.6 Marketing and promotional use — you can withdraw marketing consent, and withdraw permission for promotional use of your content, at any time (sections 4.3 and 4.4).

10.7 Identity verification — before we act on an access or deletion request we need to be reasonably satisfied of your identity. Normally it is enough that you email us from the address on your account. If we cannot verify that, we may ask you to confirm details only the account holder would know. We will not ask you to send identity documents unless the request is high-risk, and we will delete any documents you do send once verification is complete.

10.8 Anonymity — you can browse dive sites and conditions without an account. An account is required only for features that are personal to you, such as logging dives, saving sites and notifications.

11.1 Contact us first — send privacy complaints to admin@divescout.com.au, marked "Privacy complaint". They are handled by DiveScout's Privacy Officer.

11.2 What happens next:

• We acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days.
• We investigate and aim to give you a written outcome within 30 days. If a request can reasonably be answered sooner, we will answer sooner — 30 days is an outer limit, not a default.
• If we need more time for a complex matter, we will tell you why and give a revised date.
• If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you can ask for it to be escalated for internal review.

11.3 External escalation — if your complaint remains unresolved, you may refer it to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992, or GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001. If you are outside Australia, you may also have the right to complain to your local privacy or data protection authority.

Nothing in this policy limits any statutory timeframe or right you have under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

12.1 How we protect information — data is encrypted in transit and at rest; database access is governed by row-level security rules so that people can only reach their own records; administrative functions are restricted to authorised accounts; passwords are hashed and checked against known-breached password lists; secret keys are held server-side only and never shipped to browsers; and we review access and security settings regularly.

12.2 If something goes wrong — we maintain an incident response plan. If we become aware of a suspected breach we contain it, preserve evidence, investigate promptly, and identify who is affected and what information was involved. We assess every eligible incident against the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme within 30 days of becoming aware of it, and usually far sooner.

12.3 Notification — where a breach is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the OAIC as soon as practicable, telling you what happened, what information was involved, what we are doing about it and what you should do. We keep an internal register of incidents and near misses.

No system is perfectly secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, or you have found a security issue, email admin@divescout.com.au immediately.

You must be at least 16 years old to create a DiveScout account. This is the single age rule that applies across our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has an account, email admin@divescout.com.au and we will delete it and the associated information.

We may update this policy as the Service changes. We will post the updated version with a new "Last Updated" date, and for material changes we will notify you by email or with a prominent in-app notice before they take effect. Where a change requires your consent under Australian law, we will ask for it rather than rely on your continued use.

Privacy Officer, DiveScout — admin@divescout.com.au. General support — support@divescout.com.au.