Privacy Policy

Travel Kitty · last updated 3 September 2026

Travel Kitty is a shared travel-expense tracker. You record what a trip costs, optionally with other people, and the app works out who owes what. This policy describes exactly what the app stores, where it goes, and how to get rid of it.

Who is responsible

Travel Kitty is made by an individual developer, not a company. Questions about this policy or about your data go to support@travelkitty.nz.

What the app collects

Only what you type into it, plus what is needed to sign you in.

Data	Why
Email address	Identifies your account and is how you sign in and reset a password. If you sign in with Google, it comes from your Google account.
Display name	Shown to other people on trips you share, so they can see who paid.
Avatar colour	A colour you choose, so people are distinguishable in a member list.
Trips	Name, dates, budget, currency, and an optional cover photo.
Expenses	Amount, currency, exchange rate, category, description, date, who paid, and who it is split between.
Expense photos	Optional. Only if you attach one.
Expense locations	Optional. Only if you pin one on the map. Stored as coordinates and, where available, a place name.
Surplus transactions and settlements	Amounts, notes and dates you enter to adjust or settle a trip's balance.
Invitations	If you invite someone by email, that address is stored until the invitation is accepted, declined or withdrawn.

The app does not collect your contacts, your device's location in the background, your browsing, or advertising identifiers. There is no analytics or advertising SDK in it, and nothing is sold or shared for marketing.

Location, specifically

The app asks for location permission only when you choose to pin an expense to a place, and it uses your position at that moment to centre the map. It does not track you, does not read your location in the background, and works normally if you refuse the permission — you can drag the map to the spot instead.

Who else can see it

People on the same trip. That is the point of the app: if you add someone to a trip, they can see that trip's expenses, amounts, descriptions, categories, photos, pinned locations, and your display name and avatar colour. They cannot see your email address, your other trips, or anything else about your account.

Where it is stored

On your device, and on Google Firebase in the us-east1 region (South Carolina, United States). Travel Kitty is used by travellers everywhere; a single region has to be chosen when the database is created and cannot be changed afterwards, and this one is the closest compromise for people across the Americas and Europe. This means your information is stored outside New Zealand. Specifically:

Firebase Authentication — your email address and sign-in credentials. Passwords are held by Google, hashed; the developer never sees them.
Cloud Firestore — trips, expenses, categories, balances.
Cloud Storage — photos you attach.
Firebase App Check — verifies requests come from the real app rather than a script.

Google processes this data as a service provider. Their handling is covered by the Firebase privacy documentation. Data is encrypted in transit.

Google Maps is separate from the above: it draws the maps and is not where anything is stored. See "Other services the app talks to" below.

Other services the app talks to

Google Maps — the maps are drawn by the Google Maps SDK. When you open one, it contacts Google to fetch map data, which necessarily reveals your device's IP address and which part of the world you are looking at, and Google receives information about that use under its own privacy policy. No account data, no expense amounts and no trip details are sent. Google's own "show my location" layer is switched off in this app, so the SDK is not given your position — the "pin where I am" button asks the operating system instead, and that coordinate stays on your device unless you save the pin.
Exchange rates — when an expense is in a currency other than the trip's, the app fetches a rate from a public exchange-rate API. The request contains only the currency codes: no personal data, no amounts.

How long it is kept

Until you delete it. Deleting an expense removes it for everyone on the trip. Deleting a trip you own removes it, its expenses and its photos for everyone on it. Deleting your account is described below.

Deleting your account and data

In the app: Settings → Profile → Delete account. This permanently removes your profile, your custom categories, your sign-in credentials, and every trip you own — including that trip's expenses and photos, for all of its members. Trips owned by someone else are left alone; you are removed from them, and expenses you added to them remain, because the trip's balances would not add up without them.

If you cannot get into the app, see the account deletion page, which explains how to request deletion by email.

Your rights

You can see everything the app holds about you from inside it, export a trip's expenses to a CSV file (Settings → Import & export data), correct anything by editing it, and delete any of it. If you would rather ask for a copy or a correction by email, write to support@travelkitty.nz.

Children

Travel Kitty is not directed at children and is not designed for them.

Changes to this policy

If what the app collects changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top is updated.

This policy describes the app as built. If you find something it does that is not described here, that is a fault worth reporting — please write to the address above.