RoadRecord · last updated 3 September 2026
RoadRecord keeps a vehicle logbook. To do that it records where you drove and when — including automatically, in the background, while the app is closed. This page says exactly what is collected, what leaves your phone, who receives it, and why.
The email address you sign in with, and — if you use the Google button — the name and profile picture Google returns with it. Authentication is handled by Google Firebase Authentication; RoadRecord never sees your password.
Your year of birth, collected once at sign-up to confirm you are 13 or older. The day and month are used to work out your age and then discarded immediately; only the year is kept.
Registration and state, nickname, make, model, year, fuel type, tank size, service interval, and odometer readings. If you start an ATO logbook period, its dates, the two odometer readings and the percentage it produced are kept with the vehicle.
The places you name — home, workplaces, clients, personal spots — with the position and size of each circle and, if you say so, that every trip there is for business or is personal. RoadRecord also notices spots where your trips keep ending and suggests them; a suggestion you decline is remembered only so it is not offered again.
Date and time, start and end coordinates, the route you drove as a series of coordinates, distance, duration, the town names at each end, odometer readings, the purpose you type, and whether you classified the trip as business or private. Where a trip was detected automatically, that fact is recorded too.
If you link a dongle, RoadRecord stores the vehicle's distance counter from the engine computer alongside the odometer reading you type, so the odometer can be derived exactly from then on. If you run the optional Dump everything test, the raw replies the vehicle gives — engine, ABS and transmission diagnostics, no location — are stored under your account so they can be analysed to improve compatibility with your model. Nothing is ever written to the vehicle.
Date, odometer, litres or kilowatt-hours, price, and the station if you name one. If you attach a photo of a receipt, that image is stored inside the fuel record in your account. It is resized on the phone before it is stored.
Services, tyres, repairs, registration, insurance, roadside assistance, parking and tolls you choose to log: the date, the amount, what it was, who did the work, the odometer that day, and when the next one is due. A receipt photo, if you attach one, is stored the same way as a fuel receipt. From these and your fuel entries RoadRecord works out what the vehicle costs per kilometre, and writes a summary profile for each vehicle — consumption, annual costs by category, service interval — into your own account so that TrueCost, our vehicle-cost app, can read it when you sign in there with the same login. Nobody else can.
This is the part that matters most, so it is spelled out rather than summarised.
You are asked for background location in a separate step, with an explanation, after you have already granted ordinary location access — that is how Android requires it to work. If you decline, RoadRecord falls back to recording only while it is open, and manual trip entry keeps working completely.
On your phone first, so the app works with no signal — this is a farm and roadside app and it is built to assume there is no coverage. A copy syncs to Google Cloud Firestore under your own account, so a lost or wiped phone does not cost you a deduction.
Google may store and process that copy on servers outside Australia, including in the United States. Your data is held under your account and protected by server-side security rules that permit only you to read or write it.
You, signed in to your account. Server-side rules permit no other user to read or write anything under your account — not another driver of a vehicle you share, not another RoadRecord user. Another driver of a shared vehicle sees only what is shared about the vehicle: its plate, nickname and current odometer, never your trips or where you have been. Other users cannot browse or list vehicles; they can only look one up by typing its exact plate, which is how sharing works.
The developer (Steven McNichol, Banksia Springs Farm) holds the Google Cloud project and can, in principle, open the database. That access is used only to diagnose a problem you have reported, and only for your account, and it is never used to look at where anybody went. There are no other staff and no contractors with access.
This is the complete list. Every network request RoadRecord makes is one of these.
| Who | What they receive | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Google (Firebase) |
Your email address, and everything listed under "What RoadRecord collects" — trips, routes, vehicles, fuel entries, receipt photos, settings. | It is your account and your backup. Google acts as our data processor and does not use it for its own purposes. |
| Steven McNichol (the developer) |
Only when you tap "Something wrong?" and Send: what you typed, and the items you left ticked — a screenshot of the RoadRecord screen, the problem log, your last trip's times, km and vehicle (where it started and ended only if you tick that), the dongle link state, the app version and phone model. Stored under your own account. | So a problem report arrives with what is needed to fix it, without a phone call. Nothing is sent unless you send it. |
| Steven McNichol (the developer) |
Only if you turn on Settings → Crash reports: when Android shuts RoadRecord down, the time, which part of the app stopped, Android's reason and memory figure; when the background recorder stopped and started again, and any error it hit; the app version and phone model. No trips, no location, no vehicles. Stored under your own account. | So a crash or a background shutdown is found and fixed without you having to notice it. Off unless you turn it on. |
| OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) |
A coordinate rounded to about 110 metres, and nothing else — no account, no identifier, no trip, no vehicle. Each rounded coordinate is asked about once and the answer is cached on your phone. | To turn the ends of a trip into a name you recognise — "Stanthorpe QLD" rather than a pair of numbers — and, for a spot you keep returning to, to suggest what is there ("the high school", "the abattoir") so you can name it as a place. Same rounding, same host, same once-and-cached rule. |
| Esri (arcgisonline.com) |
Requests for satellite map tiles covering the area of the trip you are looking at. Sent only when you open a trip's map, never in the background. | To draw the route on imagery. If these tiles cannot be reached, the app draws the route by itself instead — the map is an upgrade, not a requirement. |
| OpenTopoMap and OpenStreetMap tiles |
Requests for map tiles covering the area on screen: terrain tiles only when you pick the Terrain map type, street tiles only while you are marking a place on the map. No account, no trip, no vehicle. | To draw the map you chose. Same rule as the satellite tiles: the app works without them. |
| Banksia Springs Farm (rego lookup) |
The registration and state you type when adding a vehicle, and nothing else — no account, no location. | To fill in the make, model and year from the registration, so you do not have to. Sent only when you add a vehicle by rego. |
| GitHub (OBDb vehicle data) |
A request for the published diagnostic file for your vehicle's make and model. No account, no VIN, no location. | So an OBD-II dongle knows which requests your vehicle answers. Sent only if you link a dongle. |
| Fuel Prices Queensland and NSW FuelCheck |
A request for the whole state's published station prices, with the access token you entered. Your position is never sent — the nearest station is matched on your phone. | To fill in the price per litre when you log a fill. Only if you entered a token. |
| unpkg.com | A request for the small map-rotation add-on, and nothing about you. Sent only when you open a map; with no signal the map simply stays north-up. | The map itself, the sync code and the PDF maker ship inside the app, so they work with no signal. This one add-on is licensed in a way that keeps it out of the app package. |
| Australian Taxation Office |
Nothing about you. A plain request for the published cents-per-kilometre rate. | So the rate the app uses is the current one, fetched from the ATO rather than typed in by us. |
When you tap Take me there on a saved place, RoadRecord opens your own navigation app (Google Maps or Waze) with that destination. From then on it is that app's request, under that app's privacy policy.
RoadRecord does not lodge anything with the ATO and has no connection to your tax return. The ATO is on this list only because the app reads a published number from their website.
If another RoadRecord user adds a vehicle with the same state and registration as one in your garage, you are linked to the same shared vehicle record. From that point:
You are told before this link is created, and removing the vehicle from your garage removes you from the shared record.
RoadRecord and the Invoice & PDF app share one account, so one sign-in covers both. If you use both apps, trips can be copied between them at your request. Deleting your RoadRecord data does not delete that other app's data, and does not delete the sign-in itself — see below.
The ATO requires logbook records to be kept for five years after the end of the latest income year you rely on them. RoadRecord therefore keeps your records until you delete them, so that you can meet that obligation. It does not expire or thin them out on its own.
Removing a vehicle removes it from your garage and removes your account from its shared record.
To delete your account and everything under it, open Settings → Danger zone → Delete my account in the app, or use the web form at roadrecord.banksiaspringsfarm.com/delete-account.html if you no longer have the app installed.
Deletion is deliberately not instant. Your account is marked immediately and you are signed out; the records are destroyed 30 days later. Signing back in during those 30 days lets you cancel. The delay exists because what is being deleted is the evidence behind a tax deduction you may have already claimed, and there is no way to reconstruct a logbook after the fact. Export a backup first — the app offers this on the same screen.
Two things deliberately survive, and the app says so before you confirm:
Everything RoadRecord holds about you is visible in the app, and Settings → Export & backup will give you all of it as a spreadsheet or as a complete JSON file, at any time and without asking anyone. You can correct any record by editing it.
If you think your privacy has been mishandled, contact us first using the details below. If you are not satisfied with the response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
RoadRecord is a tax record-keeping tool for drivers and is not directed at children. You must be at least 13 to create an account. If an account is found to belong to someone under 13 it will be closed and its data deleted.
If what the app collects changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. The version of this policy that applies to you is the one published here.
Steven McNichol — smcnichol@outlook.com