Privacy

Last updated: 24 April 2026. Plain-English version.

This page explains what Council Genius records when you use the app, why, and what we never record. It's written in plain English on purpose. If anything is unclear, email councilgenius.ai@gmail.com.

Who runs this

Council Genius is built and operated by TechEntity. It is not operated by, funded by, or endorsed by any Australian council. Council Genius uses each council's publicly published information to answer resident questions.

What we record each time you use the app

• The full text of questions you type and the full text of answers you receive.
• Whether you tapped thumbs up or thumbs down on an answer.
• The timestamp of each message.
• Which council you chose, and any postcode you entered in the picker.
• A random session ID that resets every time you start a new session. It's not tied to your name, phone, email, or device.
• Your IP address (used to defend against abuse and to get a rough sense of which regions use the app).
• Your browser's User-Agent string and the referrer URL (i.e. which page sent you here).
• Basic session metrics: how long the session was, how many questions you asked, where you stopped, whether you switched councils.

What we never record

• Your name, email address, or phone number. The app doesn't ask for them and doesn't have a login.
• Persistent device or advertising identifiers.
• Precise GPS location.
• Anything about you from other websites or apps.

How long we keep the data

Indefinitely. We use the full question+answer logs to improve answers over time — finding where a council's knowledge base has gaps, where residents get stuck, and where we can tighten the wording. Because we don't have names or emails attached, there's no personal profile being built.

Who we share it with

We do not sell your data. Questions and answers are sent to Anthropic (the makers of Claude, the AI model that powers the answers) as part of each request. Anthropic's terms mean they don't use that data to train their models on your specific inputs. Other than that, your session data stays with Council Genius.

If a council we work with asks to see anonymous query trends for their LGA — for example, "what are residents of Melton asking most often?" — we may share aggregated, non-identifying summaries.

Cookies

No cookies. The session ID lives in your browser's memory and disappears when you close the tab. There's no persistent tracking pixel or analytics beacon.

Your choices

• Don't use the app. If you'd rather contact your council directly, every council's contact details are on their own website.
• Don't enter personal details. The AI will answer general questions about council services — it doesn't need your name or address to do that. For anything specific to your property, ring the council directly.
• Request deletion. Because we don't store anything linked to you personally, we can't find "your" entries to delete. What we can do is purge all logs for a particular session ID if you email it to us within 30 days of using the app.

Australian law and your rights

Council Genius is operated by TechEntity in Australia. At our current turnover we sit under the Privacy Act's small-business exemption, so the Australian Privacy Principles don't all formally apply. We've chosen to run this page anyway because we think you should know exactly what we do and don't collect. If we cross the turnover threshold or start collecting personal information, we'll update this page and notify anyone it affects.

Security

Data is sent over HTTPS. The backend runs on commercial cloud infrastructure with access limited to a small number of authorised operators. We don't store credit card details (there's no payment feature).

Children

The app isn't targeted at children and doesn't knowingly collect data about children. The questions and answers cover council services for residents generally.

Changes to this page

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top. Material changes will be flagged on the app's home screen for a period after they land.

Contact

Questions, deletion requests, or concerns: councilgenius.ai@gmail.com.