Privacy Policy — Bowball

Bowball is developed and operated by Cullum Design Pty Ltd (ABN 14 632 700 559, ACN 632 700 559), a company registered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ("Bowball", "we", "us", "our"). This policy explains what data the Bowball app and this website collect, why, and what you can do about it.

Bowball is currently distributed as a private beta. If you're not an invited tester, this policy still applies to any data collected through this website (e.g. via the access-request email link).

1. What we collect

Bowball's entire purpose is turning phone/watch sensor data into rowing technique feedback, so the app collects more motion and location data than a typical app. Specifically, during a logged session:

Data	Source	Why we collect it
Precise GPS location	Phone GPS	Session distance, split, route replay, boat speed
Motion & orientation (accelerometer, gyroscope)	Phone IMU, optional Wear OS watch	Stroke-phase detection (catch/drive/finish), check/bounce/wash metrics
Heart rate	Optional Polar/Garmin BLE strap, paired directly to your device	Displayed alongside stroke metrics; not required to use the app
Torso pitch/roll	Optional Polar H10 movement sensor	Lunge/posture detection
Account identifier	Firebase Authentication	Associating sessions with your account, sign-in
Crash & diagnostic logs	Firebase Crashlytics, real-device builds only	Fixing bugs and crashes

We do not collect contacts, photos, browsing history, financial details, or advertising identifiers, and Bowball does not run any advertising SDK.

2. How your data is stored

Session data (physics samples and per-stroke performance metrics) is stored in a Cloud SQL database and served via a Cloud Run backend, both hosted in the australia-southeast1 (Melbourne) Google Cloud region. A copy is also kept locally on your device in a local database until it syncs. Authentication is handled by Firebase (Google Cloud).

3. Who we share it with

We don't sell your data or share it with advertisers. Data is processed by our infrastructure providers acting on our instructions:

Google Cloud / Firebase — hosting, authentication, crash reporting, database storage.
Polar / Garmin devices — heart rate data goes directly from your strap to your device over Bluetooth; we don't have a relationship with Polar or Garmin and they don't receive Bowball data.

We may disclose data if required by Australian law, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Bowball, our users, or others.

4. How long we keep it

Session data is kept for as long as your account is active, so your history and career stats remain available. You can request deletion at any time — see section 6.

5. Security

Data in transit to our backend uses encrypted connections. Access to the production database and cloud project is restricted to authorised Cullum Design personnel.

6. Your rights

Under the Australian Privacy Principles, you can ask us to access, correct, or delete the personal data we hold about you, or ask questions about how it's handled. Contact admin@bowball.net and we'll respond within a reasonable time.

7. Children

Bowball is not directed at children. If you're under 18, you should only use Bowball with a parent or guardian's involvement (e.g. as part of a school or club rowing programme).

8. Changes to this policy

We'll update the "last updated" date above when this policy changes. For material changes, we'll notify active beta testers directly.

9. Contact

Cullum Design Pty Ltd (ABN 14 632 700 559)
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
admin@bowball.net