Legal
Privacy policy and terms of use
Written to be read, not to be survived. Both documents are on this page: the privacy policy first, then the terms of use, then two sections worth reading before you record anything.
Draft for review. This is a working draft written from how the product actually behaves. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer, and the items marked [ ] need your company details and your final decisions before the site goes live. Nothing on this site is legal advice.
On this page
Last updated 3 November 2026
Privacy policy
Earwitness is a business name of J Barton & K.M White (ABN 41 338 861 614), a partnership of 7 Mount Ida Avenue, Rosanna, Victoria 3084, Australia, which also trades as Tiny Sagas ("we", "us"). Earwitness and Tiny Sagas are separate products: we do not combine your noise case with information from any other product we run. This policy explains what we collect, why, where it is kept and what you can do about it. It is written to meet the Australian Privacy Principles, and the UK and EU GDPR, Canadian, New Zealand and applicable United States requirements where they apply to you.
The short version
- Your noise diary, your recordings and your case live on your device. Cloud backup is off unless you turn it on.
- We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.
- We never contact the person or business you are complaining about, and we do not send anything to your council. You decide who receives a pack.
- Saved clips have speech muted, so your diary is a record of noise rather than of conversations.
- Where we host data, it is hosted in Australia (
australia-southeast1).
What we collect
Information you give us. Your email address if you create an account or ask for early access. The address affected by the noise, which we use to match your council. Your diary entries, the effect the noise had on you, your correspondence, attachments and the details you put in a pack.
Information produced by using the app. Audio measurements and, where you record them, audio clips with speech muted. Timestamps, the duration of events, device and microphone details needed to grade a reading, and the hashes and trusted timestamps used to seal your records.
Information we are given by others. Payment confirmations from our payment processor. We never see or store your full card number.
What we do not collect. We do not collect your contacts, your photo library beyond the attachments you add, your precise location in the background, or any advertising identifier.
Why we collect it
| What | Why | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Affected address | Match your council and apply the right rules and quiet hours | Performing our contract with you |
| Diary, measurements, clips | Produce your diary and your pack; grade and seal the record | Performing our contract with you |
| Email address | Your account, receipts, and service messages | Contract, and consent for anything optional |
| Device and microphone details | Grade a reading honestly and reproduce how it was taken | Legitimate interests in an accurate record |
| Crash and error reports | Fix defects. Switchable in settings | Consent |
| Payment records | Process payment and meet tax and record-keeping obligations | Contract, and legal obligation |
Audio, and other people
Recording noise means capturing sound made by other people, and that deserves care rather than a disclaimer. Three things follow from it. Speech in saved clips is muted. Clips are kept no longer than the case needs and you can delete any of them at any time. And we will never hand your recordings to anyone except on your instruction or where we are legally compelled, in which case we will tell you unless we are forbidden to.
Your obligations are set out in Recording and the law. Read that section before you record.
Where your information is kept
Your case is stored on your device. If you turn on backup, an encrypted copy is kept in our infrastructure in Australia. Trusted timestamping sends a hash — a short fingerprint — to an independent timestamp authority; it never sends your diary, your audio or your address. Our processors are [Google Cloud and Firebase; Stripe for payments; the timestamp authority; your email provider — confirm and list].
If you are in the UK, EU, Canada, New Zealand or the United States, your information is transferred to Australia. Australia is not covered by a UK or EU adequacy decision, so for transfers from the UK and the EU we rely on standard contractual clauses (with the UK addendum where the UK GDPR applies). A copy is available on request from [email protected].
How long we keep it
- Your case: as long as you keep it. Delete it and our copy goes within 30 days, including from backups.
- Your account: until you close it.
- Payment and tax records: as long as Australian tax law requires, currently five years.
- Verification records: the hashes and timestamps behind a verification code are kept for at least seven years from the day the pack was built, because a pack lodged with a council may be relied on years later. These hold no readable content — no diary text, no audio, no address — so keeping them costs you no privacy.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to what we do with it, and to receive it in a portable form. Most of this you can do yourself in the app, immediately, without asking us. To ask us, write to [email protected], or by post to Earwitness, 7 Mount Ida Avenue, Rosanna, Victoria 3084, Australia, and we will reply within 30 days.
If you are unhappy with our answer you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au), or to your own regulator — in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office.
Security, and its limits
Data in transit and backups are encrypted, access to production systems is restricted and logged, and sealing means an alteration to a stored record can be detected. No system is immune. If a breach is likely to cause you serious harm we will notify you and the regulator as the law requires.
Children
Earwitness is not for under-16s. We do not knowingly collect their information.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that affects you we will tell you in the app and by email before it takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.
Last updated 3 November 2026
Terms of use
These terms are an agreement between you and J Barton & K.M White (ABN 41 338 861 614), the partnership trading as Earwitness. By using Earwitness you accept them. If you do not, do not use the app.
1. What Earwitness is, and what it is not
Earwitness is a tool for keeping a dated record of noise and producing a report pack from it. It is not a certified sound level meter, a legal service, or a guarantee of any outcome. In particular:
- Readings taken with a phone are indicative. They are not sound pressure levels and must not be presented as certified measurements or compared against a statutory limit.
- We do not provide legal advice. Whether noise amounts to a nuisance, and whether an authority acts, is decided by that authority or a court on its own criteria.
- We do not control whether any council, landlord, tribunal or court accepts your pack or treats it as sufficient.
2. Your account
Keep your login details to yourself; you are responsible for what is done with your account. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has access.
3. What you must and must not do
You agree to use Earwitness only to record noise that affects you, at premises you occupy or lawfully control, and in line with the recording law where you are. You must not:
- record private conversations, or use the app to monitor or harass any person;
- place a device on someone else's property;
- enter information you know to be false, or alter a record to misrepresent what happened;
- present an indicative reading as a certified measurement, or remove or obscure a grade label or honesty notice from a pack;
- use the app to build a case against a person for any purpose other than resolving noise affecting you.
We may suspend or close an account that does any of these.
4. Your evidence is yours
You own your diary, your recordings and your pack. You grant us only the limited licence needed to store, process, grade, seal and produce them for you. We do not use your case content to train models, and we do not use it for anything other than providing the service to you.
Your diary, your exports and the verification of your records remain available to you free of charge whether or not you have paid for a case. We will not withhold your own evidence over a payment.
5. Price and payment
A case costs A$49, paid once. There is no subscription and no recurring charge. Prices are in Australian dollars and may be shown in your currency at checkout; your bank may add a conversion fee. We are not currently registered for GST, so no GST is charged on Australian sales. Where you buy through the Apple App Store or Google Play, the store may add tax required in your country and will show it before you pay. We may change prices for future purchases, never for one you have already made.
6. Refunds
See Refunds. Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or the equivalent consumer protection where you live.
7. Sealing and verification — what we actually promise
We promise that sealing detects alteration of a sealed record after it was sealed, and that a verification result distinguishes an unaltered record, an altered one and a missing attachment. We do not promise that the contents of your diary are true, that a record sealed by an earlier version of the app sealed everything the current version does, or that any particular recipient will act on a verification result. The pack states which version sealed it.
8. Availability
We aim to keep the service running but do not guarantee it is uninterrupted. Recording and the diary work offline; timestamping and address lookup need a connection. We may change or withdraw features, and will give notice before removing anything you rely on.
If we ever discontinue Earwitness, we will give at least 90 days' notice, keep exports working throughout, and keep verification of already-issued codes available for at least seven years after the service closes. If we cannot keep that running, we will publish the verification data and the method needed to check a pack independently, so a pack already lodged does not become uncheckable because we stopped trading.
9. Liability
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for the outcome of any complaint, dispute or proceeding. Our total liability is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing here excludes rights that cannot lawfully be excluded, including the consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law.
10. Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of Victoria, Australia, and its courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer elsewhere, you keep the protections of your local law.
11. Changes to these terms
We will give notice in the app before a material change takes effect. Continuing to use Earwitness after that means you accept the new terms.
12. Contact
[email protected]
Earwitness, 7 Mount Ida Avenue, Rosanna, Victoria 3084, Australia
Recording and the law
This is general information, not legal advice, and it matters: recording law differs between countries and between Australian states, and getting it wrong can turn your own evidence against you.
The principle that holds nearly everywhere
Recording noise that intrudes into your own home is treated very differently from recording a private conversation. Earwitness mutes speech in saved clips for exactly this reason. If you can make out words in a recording, you are in the second category, and that is where the legal risk lives.
Five rules worth following
- Record only at premises you occupy or lawfully control. Never place a device on someone else's property.
- Do not try to capture conversations, and do not transcribe what you overhear into your diary as speech.
- Note the effect on you rather than the content of what you hear.
- If recording is restricted where you live, keep the diary without clips. A dated diary with no audio is still the thing councils ask for.
- If your case is heading for court, ask a lawyer what is admissible where you are before you rely on any recording.
We will add country-by-country notes here as each region pack is verified. [Review this section with an adviser for each market before launch.]
Refunds
If Earwitness does not do what this website says it does, ask for your money back and you will get it. Write to [email protected] within 30 days of purchase with your case reference.
Two things we will not refund: a council deciding not to act on your complaint, which is not something we control or ever promised; and a case where you want the pack but have changed your mind about the dispute, after the pack has been built and sent.
If you bought through the Apple App Store or Google Play, their refund process applies and is usually faster — but write to us anyway, because a refund request tells us something is wrong.
This sits alongside, and never replaces, your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or your local equivalent. [Confirm the 30-day window and the store-purchase wording before launch.]