Privacy policy

Who we are, and who your garden is

PlotHive is an online service that community garden organisations use to run their gardens, memberships, plots, fees and volunteering. It is available at plothive.app.

For community gardens, two parties are involved. Your garden organisation decides what it needs from its members and uses your information to run your membership. PlotHive stores and processes that information on the organisation's behalf, and is directly responsible for sign-in accounts and for running the service itself. Each organisation's records are kept apart from every other organisation's.

An organisation may have its own privacy policy as well. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), which are available from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

What is collected

• Your account: your name, email address and a scrambled form of your password, never the password itself. For each sign-in we keep your IP address and browser details.
• Your membership: your name, email, phone number, address, any organisation you represent, member type, garden, status, what you write on an application, and any associates you nominate.
• Concession claims: if you claim a concession, your card type, number and expiry, and any evidence you upload. Once your claim is decided, the full number and the evidence are deleted, leaving the card type, last 4 digits and expiry.
• Plots: waitlist places, offers, allocations, transfers and surrenders, along with inductions, inspections, warnings and forfeit cases.
• Agreements: when you sign a plot agreement, your typed name, the time and your IP address.
• Money: invoices, payments, deposits, credits and refunds. Card payments are made through Stripe to your organisation's own Stripe account. Your full card number is not seen or stored in PlotHive.
• Taking part: shifts, events, attendance, volunteer hours, bookings, harvest logs and seed library activity.
• Messages: notices sent to you, your inbox, delivery records and your notification choices. If you turn on push notifications, a browser address for your device.
• Feature ideas: ideas you post and your votes, which are shown without your name.

From other people: your organisation may add or import your details, and a member may nominate you as their associate. Someone may also enter your email on an application or a waitlist. If that wasn't you, contact the organisation. Waitlist emails also include a link to leave.

We don't ask for sensitive information such as health details or political or religious views. A concession card can suggest something about your circumstances, so the number is encrypted while held and removed as described above.

How it is used

• to assess applications and run waitlists, offers and renewals;
• to issue invoices, take payments and keep financial records;
• to manage plots, agreements, inspections and compliance;
• to organise volunteering, events, bookings and shared resources;
• to send you notices and announcements;
• to keep the service secure, including stopping automated abuse; and
• to understand how the service is used and fix what isn't working.

If you don't provide what a form asks for, your organisation may not be able to process your application or membership.

Who can see it

• Your organisation's staff: administrators and garden coordinators see what their role needs. Coordinators are limited to their own gardens for most records.
• Other members: only what a feature needs to show, such as a roster.
• Your associates: what an associate's role allows on your membership.
• PlotHive administrators: to give support, an administrator can temporarily act as a member. They must give a reason, a banner shows while it happens, it is recorded, and they can't pay, refund or sign anything.

We don't sell personal information, and PlotHive doesn't send you marketing. Garden planner reminders are only sent if you turn them on, and you can turn them off at any time. We may also disclose information where you ask us to, to our professional advisers, or where the law requires or authorises it.

Service providers

We use these providers to run PlotHive, and only for these jobs:

• DigitalOcean: hosting, the database and stored files.
• Cloudflare: network and security, the check that you're not a robot on forms, and forwarding mail sent to our privacy address.
• Stripe: card payments for organisations that accept them.
• Postmark: sending email.
• Upstash: limiting repeated requests, which uses your IP address.
• PostHog: usage analytics and session recording.
• Sentry: reports of errors in the service.
• Your browser's push service, such as Apple, Google or Mozilla, if you turn on push. Only announcements show their subject. Other notifications just say you have a new notice.

Overseas storage and processing

Our database and uploaded files are stored in Sydney. Some providers above are based overseas or process information overseas, including in the United States and Europe. Email, analytics, error reports, security checks and card payments may all be handled outside Australia.

Cookies, device storage and analytics

A cookie keeps you signed in, and forms use a security check. If you use PlotHive on your phone, your plots, the roster and your notices can be saved on that device so they work offline. They're removed when you sign out.

We use PostHog to see which pages are used, how clicks move through the service and how quickly pages load, and to find and fix bugs. It sets an identifier in your browser and, when you're signed in, links activity to your user ID. Your IP address isn't kept, and we remove secret links and search terms from page addresses.

Session recording. We record how pages behave while you use them: a replay of the layout, your clicks and scrolling, along with messages from the page such as errors. Everything you type and all text on the page is hidden before it leaves your browser, and the contents of requests aren't recorded. An error message could still include a detail from the page. Recordings are kept for 30 days and aren't made on pages reached by a link emailed to you, or while a PlotHive administrator is acting as a member.

Analytics and recording are on by default and this policy is your notice of them. You can block them with your browser's tracking protection or a content blocker.

The garden planner

The garden planner is run by PlotHive for you personally, whether or not you belong to a garden organisation. It holds the gardens, plots, beds, crops, harvests, dates and notes you enter. For an assigned community plot it also keeps a copy of the organisation, garden, plot and bed names, so your history still makes sense after you leave.

Your plans and history are private to you. Garden organisations and their staff can't see them, even for a plot they manage, and they aren't in the organisation's exports. The next holder of a plot doesn't see them either. An organisation only sets the layout of its own plots.

Photos you add are stored privately and only you can open them, and we remove location and other embedded details before saving them. If you turn on reminders, we email you your planned and growing crops and what you could plant. Your notes aren't included. They stay until you delete them. We don't remove them after a period of inactivity. You can download or delete them, and close your account if nothing else is tied to it, from the Your data page in the planner.

How long it is kept

• Turned-down applicants, people who left a waitlist, inbox items and delivery records: removed after a period your organisation sets, between 1 and 84 months. The default is 12 months. If you also use the garden planner, your sign-in account and planner stay until you delete them.
• Concession evidence and full card numbers: deleted once the claim is decided.
• Data downloads and exports: stored for up to 7 days.
• Financial records: kept for the organisation's tax and record keeping, with your name removed if you're deleted.
• Member records, including former members: kept until your organisation removes them at your request.

Your choices and rights

See your information. Members can download a copy from the Your data section of their membership page, or ask their organisation or us.

Correct it. Ask your organisation, or contact us if it's about your sign-in account.

Have it deleted. Ask your organisation's administrator, or contact us and we'll pass your request on. Some things must be settled first: you need to have resigned and given up any plot, with no open invoice, held deposit, money owed to you or open forfeit case. Your organisation can't see or delete your garden planner, so if you use it, we'll email you how to delete that and your account yourself.

After deletion, some things remain:

• financial records, with your name and contact details removed;
• the audit log of actions in the service, which can't be changed;
• an internal ID with no name attached on records such as bookings and shifts; and
• copies outside our reach, such as an export your organisation already downloaded. One email already on its way may still arrive, and an export still stored lasts up to 7 days.

Choose your messages. You can turn off announcement emails with the unsubscribe link or in your preferences, and turn off inbox and push notifications for any category. Email about billing, compliance, offers and renewals still comes, because missing it could cost you money or your plot.

Security

Connections are encrypted, concession card numbers are encrypted when stored, uploaded files are private to people authorised to see them, and the database itself keeps each organisation's records apart. No system is perfectly secure. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we will tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Complaints

If you think your information has been mishandled, please tell your organisation or us first. We aim to respond within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

Contact us

Email [email protected] with any question about this policy or your information.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The current version is always on this page, and the date below shows when it last changed.

Last updated: 3 November 2026