Wheelie Privacy Policy
Last updated: 26 August 2026
Wheelie is built to know as little about you as possible.
What the app does with your data
- Your postcode and address choice are used only to look up bin-collection
schedules. The postcode is sent to postcodes.io (an open-data service run on
Office for National Statistics data) to identify your council, and to your
council’s own bin-collection service to list addresses and collection dates.
These requests go directly from your device to those services; they do
not pass through any server operated by us.
- Your saved address, schedule, and reminder settings are stored only on
your device (and in your device’s app-group container so the widget can read
them). They never leave your device except as described above.
- Reminders are local notifications scheduled on your device. No push
service is involved.
- An anonymous monthly count. Once a month the app tells us your council
area (its public code, e.g. “E07000008”) and the app version. That is the
whole message — no name, no address, no postcode, no device identifier, and
nothing that could link one month’s count to the next. We use it to see
which councils Wheelie is actually serving so we know where to focus. You
can switch this off in Settings, and the app sends nothing.
- Service notices. The app downloads a small public file from wheelie.day
(for example, a notice about a bin strike in a council area). This is a
plain download; no personal data is sent with it.
- Sharing a schedule with your street — only if you ask for it. When your
council is not supported you can type your own schedule, and Wheelie offers
to share the pattern of it so a neighbour on the same postcode can start
from it instead of typing it out again. Only the pattern travels: each bin’s
colour, a fixed type word (“recycling”, “garden”, and so on), how often it
is collected, and one collection date. Bin names you typed yourself, your
address and your house number never leave the device. The share is filed
under a one-way hash of your council code and postcode, worked out on your
device, plus a random token only your device keeps — which is what lets you
replace your own share later with no account existing. Nothing is shared
unless you tap Share, and what a neighbour receives is a starting point
they edit, never their own dates. A postcode holds at most three shared
patterns; when a fourth person shares, the oldest one drops out.
What we don’t do
- No accounts. No sign-up. No passwords.
- No tracking, no advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics SDKs.
- Nothing we receive can identify you, and nothing is ever sold, or passed to
another company for its own purposes.
- Tips are processed entirely by Apple. We never see your payment details,
and the app keeps no record of whether you tipped.
Third-party services
| Service |
What it receives |
Why |
| postcodes.io |
The postcode you type |
To identify your council |
| Your council’s bin-lookup service |
Your postcode, then your chosen address’s property reference |
To list addresses and fetch collection dates |
| Our usage counter (Cloudflare) |
Your council’s public area code + app version, once a month, if enabled |
To count which councils Wheelie serves |
| Our shared-schedules store (Cloudflare) |
Only if you tap Share: a one-way hash of your council code and postcode, the bin pattern you shared, and a random update token |
To let neighbours in an unsupported council start from a schedule instead of a blank form |
Each service’s own privacy policy governs its handling of those requests.
Data removal
Delete the app and everything it stored is gone. The monthly count contains
nothing that identifies you, so there is nothing about you to request or
delete — we hold no personal data. A schedule you chose to share carries no
name, address or device identifier either; sharing an edited schedule again
from the same device replaces it, and it drops out on its own once three
newer neighbours have shared for that postcode. If you want a shared pattern
removed sooner, email us and say which postcode it is.
Support emails
If you email support (including via the app’s “report a problem” form), we
receive your email address and whatever you chose to include in the message.
It’s used only to help with your report, kept only in our mailbox, and never
shared or added to any list.
Questions: support@wheelie.day