The short version
We show you fuel prices. We don't sell your data, we don't run ad tracking, and we collect as little as the product needs to work.
This website
When you open the prices map, our server works out roughly where you are from your IP address, using a database it holds itself, so that the map starts in your area. If you press "use my location", your browser sends us your coordinates, which we use only to run that search. When you search for a postcode or a place, your browser sends the search straight to postcodes.io, and the map is drawn from map data supplied by OpenFreeMap; like any site you visit, both see your IP address. Your browser remembers the last place you looked at so the map opens there next time; that stays in your browser. We do not build location histories.
Cookies
This website sets no advertising or third-party tracking cookies — which is why there is no cookie banner.
The iPhone app: what you save
You can use the app without an account. What you save in it is kept on your phone: your vehicles, the home and work postcodes of your commute, saved stations and routes, price alerts and the alerts you have been shown, fill-ups, the facilities you report at a station, and your settings. While iCloud sync is on (it is by default, and you can switch it off under Profile → Data & advanced), all of it except the facility reports is also kept in your own private iCloud, which we cannot read.
Accounts
An account is optional. You can sign in with Apple, with Google, or with an email address and password. Sign-in is run by Google Firebase, which holds your email address, your name if you or your sign-in provider give one, the address of your Google profile picture, and an account id. We never see your password. If you are signed in with Google or an email address and sync is on, a copy of what you save is also kept with your account in our cloud database, hosted by Google Firebase, so that you can restore it on another device. Accounts that use only Sign in with Apple are not copied there.
Notifications and price alerts
Notifications are delivered through OneSignal. When the app starts, OneSignal receives technical details about the phone, such as its model, system version, language, time zone, country and IP address, and, once you allow notifications, the address they are sent to. It also records when the app is used and which notifications are opened. Your name, email address and account id are not sent to it.
If you have price alerts and notifications switched on, the app also registers the phone with our own server so that alerts can reach you while the app is closed. We store OneSignal's identifier for the phone, your alert rules, a record of the alerts already sent, and — only if you have an alert for an area rather than a named station — an approximate location, rounded to about one kilometre. Your name, email address and account id are not sent to our server. These are used only to check prices against your alerts and deliver them, and are deleted when you remove your last alert, turn notifications off or delete your account.
Location in the app
The app asks for your location only while you are using it. It uses it on the phone to find stations near you and along a route: the app downloads fuel prices for the whole country, so your location is not sent to us for that. The map, route planning and place search are Apple Maps, so Apple receives the area you look at, what you search for and the start and end of a route, and it turns the postcodes you type into map positions. When you ask for directions, the station's location is passed to the maps app you chose (Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze). Places you choose to save, such as the postcodes of your commute and the start and end of a saved route, are kept with the rest of what you save; if a route starts from your current location, that position is saved as its start. Apart from that and the approximate location described under price alerts, we do not receive your phone's location from the app.
Your vehicle
In the iPhone app you can add a vehicle by its registration number. When you look it up, or tap "Refresh" on its details, the app sends that registration number from your phone straight to DVLA, the UK government agency that keeps vehicle records. To keep MOT and tax dates right, the app also repeats the check by itself while it is open, when one of those dates is within 30 days or has passed, and no more than once a day for each vehicle. DVLA receives the registration number and, as with any internet request, technical details such as your phone's IP address. Nothing else about you is sent, and the request does not pass through our servers.
DVLA replies with its record of the vehicle. From it the app saves the make, colour, fuel type, engine size, year of manufacture, vehicle class (such as car or van), Euro emissions standard, CO₂ figure, tax and MOT status and dates and the month of first registration, along with the registration number and the details you enter or confirm yourself: a name, model, tank size, fuel economy and, if you choose, a home postcode. The rest of DVLA's record, such as the vehicle's weight, is not kept. The app uses what it saves to show you the vehicle's details, show prices for the right fuel, estimate costs and savings and, if you switch reminders on, tell you before your MOT or tax is due. Those reminders are set on your phone, not sent by us. A home postcode can stand in for your location for area price alerts when the phone cannot give one.
Your vehicles are kept in the same places as everything else you save. The server that runs this website and delivers price alerts is never sent your registration number or what DVLA returns.
Analytics
The app records how it is used: for example which screens are opened, whether a search or a lookup worked, how long the app took to start and whether it crashed. It sends this to Google Analytics for Firebase. Each record carries a random identifier for this installation of the app, not your name, email address or account, and Google adds general details such as the phone model, system version, country and an approximate area worked out from the IP address. The records never contain a registration number, a postcode, an address or your location. No advertising identifier is used, and the data is not used for advertising. This website has no analytics.
Deleting your data
Deleting something in the app removes it from your phone and, while sync is on, from your iCloud and from the copy in our cloud database. Deleting your account (Profile → Delete account) removes the account itself, that copy, what the app has saved on the phone (and in your iCloud while sync is on) and the phone's price-alert registration. Signing out removes nothing from the phone. If you delete the app without deleting anything first, what is in your iCloud stays until you remove it in the iPhone's Settings, and an account stays until you delete it or ask us to. For anything you cannot do yourself, write to us at the address below.
Data sources
Fuel prices come from the UK Government's open fuel price data scheme and participating retailers' open data feeds (Open Government Licence v3.0). Prices are always shown with the time they were reported. Vehicle details come from DVLA.
Contact
Questions or deletion requests: contact@fuelwise.io.