Effective 15 August 2026 · Last updated 15 August 2026
TRUE COST is built and run by Steven McNichol, a sole trader in Queensland, Australia. This policy explains — in plain English — what the app collects, why, where it ends up, and how to get it back or deleted.
The short version. Your cars and your calculations live on your own device and stay there unless you switch on cloud sync. We don't sell anything, we don't run ad trackers, and there is no analytics SDK in the app. Two things do leave your device: a short survey when you first open the app, and anything you type into the Feedback form.
Steven McNichol, trading as Banksia Springs Farm, Queensland, Australia. We are the entity responsible for the personal information described here. You can reach us any time at smcnichol@outlook.com.
We are a one-person operation. We're bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and we follow them — but we don't have a legal department or a dedicated privacy officer, and this policy is deliberately honest about what one person can promise.
Everything you enter about a car — make, model, variant, year, registration number, VIN, odometer reading, purchase price and date, your state, a nickname, and the link to the listing it came from — is stored in your browser's local database (IndexedDB) on your device. So are your settings: the years and kilometres you drive, your state, your theme, and (if you use the business module) your business-use percentage and whether you're GST-registered.
None of this is sent to us. We cannot see your cars. Clearing your browser data deletes it, which is why the app has an Export Backup button.
If you switch on cloud sync, a copy of your vehicle records and your settings — including the registration number, VIN and the business-use and GST fields listed above — is written to Google Firebase (Firestore), in a space keyed to your account. By default the app signs you in anonymously: no email, no password, just an ID that exists so your data has somewhere private to go. If you want the same cars on more than one device, you can sign in with an email address and password, and we then hold that email address as part of your account.
This storage is shared with our other tools (an invoicing app and a kilometre tracker) so that one signed-in person's vehicles are consistent across them. Only your account can read your space.
When you first open TRUE COST, we ask three optional questions: how you found the app, what you're trying to work out, and what type of vehicle you're looking at. When you finish onboarding, those answers are sent to us automatically, without a further prompt, together with whether you installed the app and a shortened version of your browser's user-agent string (which names your browser, operating system and device type). We use it to understand where people hear about the app and what they need from it.
If you skip all three questions, nothing is sent. There's no name, email or account attached to it, though a user-agent string can be reasonably distinctive, so we treat it as personal information rather than pretending it's anonymous.
The Feedback tab sends us whatever you write: the message itself, whether it's a bug report or a suggestion, a star rating, and a name if you choose to give one (it's optional and defaults to "anonymous"). Please don't put anything sensitive in the message box — it arrives in an ordinary email inbox.
The site is hosted on GitHub Pages, and the app loads a charting library, the Inter font and (only when sync is on) the Firebase SDK from third-party content networks. As with any website, those providers can see your IP address and browser details simply because your device asked them for a file. We don't control or receive those logs.
| Service | What it gets | Their policy |
|---|---|---|
| FormspreeUS-based form handler | The first-run survey answers and user-agent string; anything you submit through Feedback. Formspree stores these submissions and retains them under its own terms, which we don't control. | formspree.io/legal/privacy-policy |
| Google FirebaseAuth & Firestore | Only if you enable cloud sync: your vehicle records, your settings, and your email address if you sign in. | firebase.google.com/support/privacy |
| GitHub PagesHosting | Standard web server logs, including your IP address. | GitHub Privacy Statement |
| Content networksjsDelivr, Google Fonts, gstatic | Your IP address and browser details, as a by-product of loading the chart library, font and SDK. | See each provider's own policy. |
Some of these providers are overseas, mainly in the United States. By using the app you accept that the information above may be handled outside Australia. We don't sell your information to anyone, and we don't share it with anyone beyond the providers listed here.
Under the Australian Privacy Principles you can ask us to:
Email smcnichol@outlook.com and tell us what you'd like done. We'll make a genuine effort to sort it out promptly — but we're one person running this alongside other work, so we won't pretend to a guaranteed turnaround time. If you're asking us to delete synced data, it helps to email from the address you signed in with, or to tell us roughly when you used the app, so we can find the right records.
Most of what the app knows about you never reaches us at all. You can wipe your local data yourself at any time by clearing site data in your browser, or by uninstalling the app.
If you think we've mishandled your information, please raise it with us first. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
TRUE COST doesn't use cookies and doesn't run any advertising or analytics trackers. It does use your browser's local storage and IndexedDB — that's how your cars, your settings and a flag remembering you've seen the intro are kept between visits, and how the app works offline. It's necessary for the app to function and it never leaves your device on its own.
TRUE COST is meant for adults making decisions about buying and running a car. We don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has sent us something through the survey or the feedback form, email us and we'll delete it.
We'll update this page when the app changes what it collects. The effective date at the top always tells you which version you're reading. If a change is significant — a new category of information, or a new third party receiving it — we'll say so in the app rather than quietly editing this page.
Steven McNichol · Queensland, Australia
smcnichol@outlook.com