Privacy Policy
Last updated: 1 October 2026
Where you find gold is your business. Prospector Mate is built so you don't have to take our word for that - but we'd rather tell you exactly what we hold than make a promise that doesn't survive reading.
What we hold
Nothing, unless you choose to give it to us. There is no sign-up. You can install the app, use the free version, subscribe, and never tell us who you are. The set-up questions when you first open the app - your state, your gear, your units - are saved on your phone and go nowhere else.
We hold no payment details. The App Store and Play Store handle every purchase in the app and never tell us who bought it. Anything bought on the website - the Web Map Viewer now, Victorian LiDAR once it goes on sale - is paid through Stripe (see "The website" below). We run no analytics, no ads and no trackers, and we don't build a record of what you look at.
There are two things you can choose to do in the app that give us something, and this is everything each one holds:
- Signing in, in the app. Optional. It reaches the same account as the website login, so the app can see what that account holds - which is how a subscription held on the website shows up on your phone. It holds your email address and which device you last signed in from. Nothing about your outings is sent.
- Contact, support and review forms. What you type is sent to us as an email: your message, the email address you give us so we can reply, and your name and any screenshots or photos if you add them. A review is published on prospectormate.com only if you tick the box saying so, and only with the name you chose to show.
The website has its own login and is covered in its own section below.
The website
The Web Map Viewer at prospectormate.com has its own login. Signing in on the website does not sign you in to the app; signing in to the app with the same email reaches the same account, and that is the only connection between them.
What the website holds: your name and email address, given when you create the login; which subscriptions the account holds and until when; and, if you link a subscription bought in the app, the store's transaction identifier for it, so the same purchase cannot be linked to more than one account. That identifier is not your Apple or Google account and does not identify you to us. Signing in is by a code we email you; there are no passwords for us to store.
Linking the app. To link an app subscription, the app sends the website its store receipt - a signed record from Apple or Google that the subscription is real - and nothing else. No outing, waypoint, photo or position leaves the phone.
Payment on the website is taken by Stripe, our payment processor. Stripe holds your card details and the billing name and address you give it, and handles the charge under its own privacy policy. We see that a subscription was paid, not the card. A tax invoice for each payment is emailed to you by Goanna AI Pty Ltd, the company behind Prospector Mate.
Your .pmate files are never uploaded. The Web Map Viewer reads a file in your own browser; it does not reach our server and is not connected to your login. Close the tab and it is gone from the site.
You can delete your website account from your account page. Your name, email and any linked receipt are erased, and any subscription paid through the website ends. A subscription bought in the app is untouched.
What stays on your phone
Your outings, tracks, finds, photos and waypoints are stored on your device - and in your own iCloud Drive or Google Drive, if you switch on Backup. They are never uploaded to us, and never to anyone else. The web viewer opens a .pmate file in your own browser - the file never reaches our server.
The flip side: with Backup off, uninstall the app and it's gone. Switch Backup on, or export to a computer or a USB stick, if the data matters to you - and do it before you delete anything.
Backing up your outings
Backup, in Settings, keeps a copy of your outings, finds, photos and waypoints in your own cloud storage - iCloud Drive on an iPhone, Google Drive on an Android (a private Prospector Mate space in your Drive), or a folder of your own if you prefer - and updates it after every outing and every change. It is free, it is off until you switch it on, and it goes to your account with your cloud provider, under their privacy policy, not to us. A new or replacement phone restores from it. The files are scrambled with the key built into the app, the same as a normal .pmate: that stops a casual look, and anyone who can open your cloud files and has Prospector Mate could read them.
Export writes a .pmate file you keep - on a computer, a USB stick, wherever suits. Import it back any time, on this phone or a new one, or send it to a mate. Your finds, tracks and photos all come back.
There are two ways to export, and the difference matters.
A normal export
Coordinates and photos are encrypted, so a file sitting on a computer gives nothing away to someone having a look through it. Any copy of Prospector Mate can open it with nothing to type - which is what makes handing a file to a mate easy.
Straight with you about the limit: because any copy of the app can open it, the key has to live inside the app - and someone who knows what they're doing can get it out. This stops a sticky-beak. It would not stop a determined one. For anything you really care about, use a locked export.
A locked export
The app makes up a one-off code for that file and shows it to you once. Nobody can open the file without it - not another prospector, not us. The code isn't in the app and isn't on any server, so there's nothing to dig out and nothing to be stolen.
Sharing still works: send the file and give your mate the code. Safe to email, safe in cloud storage, safe on a shared computer.
The catch, and it's a real one: lose the code and the file is gone. We can't recover it and neither can anyone else. Write it down somewhere you'll find it.
What leaves the phone
Map tiles. When the map needs a piece of ground it hasn't got, it asks a map server for it - which tells that server roughly where you're looking. Every mapping app works this way. No find, track or photo is ever part of it. Most tiles come from our own servers; the street basemap comes from OpenFreeMap, an open-source map service, which sees the same thing: a tile request, nothing about you. If that bothers you, download your maps before you head out: once an area is downloaded the app asks for nothing at all and works the same in aeroplane mode.
Weather. When you open the weather screen, the app sends your position to our server, which asks the forecast provider for that spot and passes the answer back. The provider sees a request from us, not from your phone.
The gold price. Fetched from our server. It carries nothing about you.
Place search works from a list of towns built into the app. Nothing is sent.
Your sign-in email, if you choose to sign in to the app, and your device details at that moment.
Anything you send yourself. Exporting a .pmate, sharing one with a mate, or sending a waypoint by AirDrop or message - that is you moving your own data, by whatever means you chose. It doesn't pass through us.
Opening a location in another maps app is a link you tap; what happens after that is between you and Apple or Google.
Location and motion
Your position comes from the phone's own GPS chip and needs no reception or data - it's recorded straight to the device. Motion & Fitness, if you allow it, is used only to count your steps for an outing.
Subscriptions in the app
A subscription bought in the app lives in your App Store or Play Store account. The store tells the app it is active; it tells us nothing about you - we see sales, not customers. The Web Map Viewer's subscription is separate and is covered under "The website" above.
Deleting your app account
If you signed in to the app, you can delete that account at any time under Settings. Your email address and everything else the account holds are erased. Your outings, finds, photos and waypoints are on your phone and are not touched - back them up first if you want to keep them.
Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription. Only the App Store or Play Store can do that.
Who else sees it
Nobody. We don't sell, rent or share your details, and there is no third party in this that you haven't chosen yourself. Map data comes from public government sources and open map projects; asking them for a tile sends them no information about you beyond which tile.
Contact
Questions about your data, or anything else: contact us.