Privacy policy my photos & windfarms

TurbinePreview — Privacy Policy. Version 1, 2026-07-25

TurbinePreview (turbine-preview.au) is operated by Hereabouts Pty Ltd, ABN 83 700 672 813 ("we", "us"). This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who can see it, and the choices you have. We handle personal information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). (As a small business, Hereabouts Pty Ltd is not currently required to comply with the Act; even so, we endeavour to handle your information in line with the APPs.)

The short version

• The service exists to show how proposed wind turbines would look from real places, so photo positions are the heart of the data we hold — treat the sharing setting accordingly (§5).
• Everything you upload is private by default; you choose who else sees it.
• No advertising, no analytics trackers, no data sales. The only cookies and browser storage we use are the ones that sign you in and make the site work offline.
• We may publish de-identified, aggregated findings drawn from user contributions about wind farms — never your name, your photos, or positions precise enough to identify a viewpoint (§3).
• Your device keeps its own copy of everything you capture; the server holds only what you upload.

1. What we collect

Account details (held in our identity service): username, email address, name if you provide one, and a password we only ever store hashed. Login events are logged by the identity service.

Your claimed role: whether you registered as a neighbour, turbine host, wind-farm representative, or other (Terms §3). The role controls sharing audiences, capture-tool scope and access to other functionality, so it is attached to your account and visible to administrators.

Lot ownership information. Information about who owns which lots is public information (in NSW at least) and we may treat it as such — for example, in verifying a role claim or a host's capture area (Terms §3–4) or visualizing turbines by landholder or modelling possible layout adjustments. We do not, however, intend to show lot-ownership information to the general public.

Property owner contact records. Verified neighbours (and administrators) can record, against a property near a wind farm, the owner's name — the legal owner and, where different, the name of the person to deal with — and optionally a phone number and email address. The names are lot-ownership information as above. The phone number and email address are personal information: they are visible to administrators (and, once their ownership is verified, the owner themselves) only, are used solely to invite the owner to the service and to match a registering user to their property, and are never shown to other users — including the person who entered them. To have a contact record corrected or removed, email privacy@turbine-preview.au (§11).

Captures and their metadata. A capture you upload contains:

• the photograph, and a computer-generated overlay composite of it;
• the position it was taken from (GPS or a map-picked position), including accuracy and altitude;
• camera and device facts: device make and model, focal length, sensor orientation, capture time;
• alignment data (the fitted camera pose and your manual corrections) and the computed visibility figures for the named wind-farm layout;
• anything you add on the details form: viewpoint ratings, text comments, and audio comments you record;
• if you tick the optional "include the original photo" box on the save form: the photo's exact original file, camera metadata (EXIF) included — visible to you and the site administrators only, used to improve the automatic alignment; leave it unticked and only a metadata-stripped copy is kept;
• feedback notes you send from the app or site ("the developers read these" — they do, that is their purpose).

Technical data. Ordinary server logs (IP address, request time, URL, user agent) kept for operating, securing and debugging the service. We run no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking scripts, and the Android app contains no analytics or crash-reporting SDKs.

Data that stays on your device. The app stores your captures, downloaded windfarm packages and login session on your phone; the website keeps a login token, your site/layout preference, offline copies of packages and queued captures, and — when you use the in-browser camera — your most recent location fix (so the next visit can suggest the closest windfarm without asking again) in your browser's local storage. These never reach us until you upload, and clearing the app's data or your browser storage removes them.

Financial scenarios (hosts and neighbours). If you use the Financials area, the scenarios you choose to save — payment structure, hypothetical fee, term, turbine count and your contract status (no offer / considering an offer / signed) — are stored with your account so you can return to them. We also use this information in aggregate, anonymised form to understand host payment patterns across wind farms. You are asked to consent to this the first time you save; nothing is stored if you only explore without saving. The area is designed so that nothing you enter asserts the terms of any real agreement — the figures are hypothetical models. Deleting a scenario removes it; deleting your account removes them all.

2. Where it comes from

From you (registration, uploads, the details form, feedback); from your device's sensors when you capture (GPS, compass, camera); and, when you import an existing photo on the website, from that photo's embedded camera metadata (we read its GPS position to place the capture — see §6 for what happens to the metadata itself).

3. What we use it for

To provide the service described in the Terms: computing and showing visualizations, storing your captures, applying your sharing settings, crediting contributions (§4), operating role-scoped access, supporting and moderating the service, and keeping it secure. We do not use your information for advertising and we do not sell it. We will not use your content to promote or oppose any wind-farm proposal ourselves; what your content says is up to you and the audience you give it.

We may also collect, aggregate, analyse and publish de-identified information derived from user contributions relating to wind farms — for example, statistics on how visible a proposed layout is from the surrounding district, or how viewpoint ratings vary with distance. De-identified means no individual can reasonably be identified from what we publish: material of this kind never includes your name, username or contact details, never includes a photograph or audio, and reports positions only at a coarseness (counts, distance bands, district-level summaries) from which no viewpoint — and so no home — can be identified. Because nothing identifying leaves it, this use is not limited by your sharing setting; it is factual reporting and does not alter the neutrality commitment above.

4. Who can see what

• Private (default): you, plus service administrators, who need access to operate, moderate and support the service.
• Shared: the role groups you name (neighbours, hosts, the wind farm, others) or everyone, if you make it public. Your sharing setting travels with everything in the capture — photo, position, ratings and public comments alike. Private comments and private audio recordings are never shared: they remain visible to you and administrators only, whatever the photo's sharing setting.
• Contributor credit: shared photos show your username as the contributor to signed-in users only; signed-out visitors see the credit suppressed. Internal links use a pseudonymous account identifier (a UUID), not your name. Your real name is shown on exports.
• Property owner records: owner names on a property card are shown to signed-in users whose neighbour or host role has been verified, and to administrators. Entered phone numbers and email addresses are shown to administrators and the verified owner only — never to other users.
• Originals: the as-imported photo file, which may retain camera metadata, can be fetched only by you and administrators. Every image other audiences can see is a re-encoded copy that carries no embedded camera metadata; position disclosure is governed solely by your sharing setting (§5), never by hidden file headers.
• Exports and QR links: an export you (or someone you shared with) makes is a copy outside our control, captioned with the capture's location and provenance and your real name. Its QR code links back to the photo page, where your sharing setting still governs what a visitor sees.

5. Location information — the one to think about

A capture's position is what makes the visualization possible, and it travels with the photo to whatever audience you share it with. If you photograph from your home and make the capture public, you are publishing where you live. Choose the sharing setting with that in mind; you can change or revoke it at any time, but revocation cannot recall copies or exports already made.

The website's map asks for your live location only when you tap the "My location" button, uses it on your screen only, and never uploads it. The map's long-press probe needs no location permission at all.

6. Cookies and browser storage

All functional, no tracking:

• identity-service cookies that keep you signed in;
• login tokens, your site preference, offline package copies and the upload queue, in your browser's local storage and IndexedDB;
• a service-worker cache of the site's own pages for offline use.

No advertising or analytics cookies, no third-party beacons. Blocking storage will break signing in and offline use but the public pages still work.

7. Disclosure and service providers

We disclose personal information only:

• as your sharing setting directs (§4);
• to service providers who host the service for us — currently Amazon Web Services in its Sydney region (ap-southeast-2), so your data is stored in Australia — and, when email verification and password reset are enabled, our email delivery provider;
• if the law requires it, or to investigate abuse of the service or protect someone's safety — in which case we disclose the minimum necessary.

No data sales, no sharing with wind-farm proponents or anyone else beyond the audiences you choose. A proponent holding a site licence sees exactly what its role group has been granted by users' sharing settings, nothing more.

8. Security

Transport encryption (HTTPS) everywhere; passwords held only as hashes by the identity service; role-based access control on every photo endpoint; administrators bound by the Terms and this policy. No security is absolute — see §10 on breaches.

9. Retention and deletion

• Your content stays until you delete it or your account. Deleting a capture removes the stored copy; deleting your account removes your content and registration details within a reasonable period.
• Deletions propagate through backups on the backup cycle.
• Deletions cannot recall copies or exports other people made while the content was shared.
• Server logs and identity-service event logs are kept and then eventually discarded.
• Your own device's copies are yours; deleting server content does not touch them.

10. Data breaches

If a breach of our systems is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected users and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in line with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

11. Access, correction and complaints

Ask us (contact below) and we will give you access to the personal information we hold about you, correct it, or delete it, subject to the retention realities in §9. Most of it you can see and edit directly: your captures, their sharing settings, ratings and comments in the app or site, and your registration details in the account pages. If you think we have mishandled your information and our response does not resolve it, you can complain to the OAIC (oaic.gov.au).

12. Children

The service is for people 17 and older (Terms §3); we do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you believe we have, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Changes

We may update this policy; material changes will be announced on the service before they take effect, alongside any Terms changes.

14. Contact

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@turbine-preview.au