Privacy policy
1. Who we are
Caratic is made and run by The Trustee for Bergs Family Trust, trading as Caratic (ABN 17 814 768 960), Queensland, Australia ("we", "us", "Caratic"). Each business that uses Caratic (an "employer") decides who in its business uses the app and what records it keeps about its workers. For that information we act on the employer's behalf; the employer is also responsible to you for it.
Privacy contact: admin@caratic.com.au (subject “Caratic privacy”).
2. What we collect
| Kind | What it includes | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Name, email, mobile, access level, company, login records | You or your employer |
| Worker details | Job title / trade, licences, tickets and certificates (including photos, numbers and expiry dates), inductions, documents you or the office upload | You or your employer |
| Pay and cost (admins only) | Employment type, pay rate, allowances, charge-out rate, cost per hour | Your employer |
| Work records | Hours, timesheets, shifts, which job and work area you worked on, day works dockets, work notes, safety sign-on (toolbox talks, SWMS), materials used, reminders, board posts | You, your supervisor, and the app (see location) |
| Location | Your phone's position and accuracy, with times. See section 4. | Your phone, only if you allow it |
| Vehicle trips | For a vehicle allocated to you: trips (start / end time and place, kilometres), purpose, business or private, odometer readings you enter | Your phone's location and you |
| Receipts | Photo of the receipt, supplier, date, items, amounts, GST, the last 4 digits of the card, where the photo was taken | You |
| Things you say or send to Caratic | Chat messages, files you drop in (drawings, schedules, documents, photos), voice you dictate (turned into text by your phone's or browser's own speech service, e.g. Apple or Google) | You |
| Head contractor people | Name, position, phone, email, signature and the time and place a docket was signed or queried | The employer, or the person signing |
| Device and technical | Phone type, a push-notification token, a background-location key for your phone, app version, error logs | Your device |
We don't collect health information, and we don't ask for tax file numbers or bank account numbers. Driver licence numbers are only used to show your licence is current — never as your ID in the system.
3. Why we use it
- To run the work: jobs, crews, programmes, hours, timesheets, pay and cost reports, day works dockets for the head contractor to sign, safety sign-on, materials, receipts, vehicles and their logbook.
- To check that licences and tickets are current, and to remind people before they expire.
- To send notifications by push and email (docket signed or sent back, timesheets sent back, expiring tickets and vehicle dates, board posts, reminders, alerts, replies to your help questions). You can turn emails off in Account → Notifications.
- To answer your questions and carry out what you ask the Caratic assistant to do.
- To keep the service secure, fix problems and improve it.
We don't sell personal information and we don't use it for advertising.
4. Location and tracking — notice to workers
Kind of tracking: location (GPS / network position) from the Caratic app on your own phone.
How it's done: only after you turn on automatic clock-on in the app (Account → Time on site) and allow location "all the time". The app then records your position even when the app is closed or not in use, and sends it to Caratic in batches. Separately, "Share my position" sends your position only while the app is open, and a receipt photo records where it was taken.
When: only inside your employer's work-hours window shown on the switch-on screen (for example Monday to Saturday from before the usual start until after the usual knock-off). Nothing is recorded outside that window. It runs continuously within that window, on an ongoing basis, until you switch it off. A notification shows on Android while it's on.
What it's used for: clocking you on when you've been inside a job site's fence for 5 minutes and off when you've been away 10; putting your hours on the right job and work area; your timesheet; the day works docket for the head contractor; the crew map; alerts when someone is on site but not signed on, or working in an area that isn't set up; and, for a vehicle allocated to you, the vehicle logbook.
Who can see it: you; your employer's admins; supervisors and superintendents for the jobs they run. A head contractor sees only the docket lines for its jobs (names, hours, work areas and a short line such as "on site 06:27–14:30") — not your positions.
Your choices: automatic clock-on is optional — you can switch it off at any time and record your hours by hand or through your supervisor instead. You can ask your employer for another way to record time (for example a work phone).
Some states have extra workplace surveillance rules (for example NSW and the ACT require written notice before tracking starts, and Victoria, WA, SA and the NT require consent). Employers using Caratic in those places are responsible for giving that notice and getting consent; this section is written to help them do it.
5. Computer-made decisions and AI
Caratic works some things out automatically from your records. These can affect your hours and pay and what your employer charges a head contractor:
- Made by the app, then checked by a person: clock-on and clock-off times from job fences; which job and work area hours go to; suggested timesheet start and finish times (including early starts and meal breaks); the daily day works docket; overtime / night / weekend bands; vehicle trips and whether they look like business or private; the job a receipt belongs to and its GST split.
- Information used: your location records, sign-on times, allocations, the job's hours and pay rules, and what you or your supervisor entered.
- People check them: timesheets are submitted by you, checked by your supervisor and approved by an admin before they count; dockets are checked before they're sent; you can see and correct your own records, and ask your supervisor or the office to fix anything wrong.
Caratic's assistant uses an AI service (Anthropic's Claude, provided from the United States) to read documents and receipt photos, tidy work notes, and answer questions. What you send to the assistant, and the records it needs to answer, are sent to that service. The provider doesn't use them to train its models and deletes them after a limited period. The app asks for your permission before sending your information to the AI service, and you can switch that off (Account → Privacy); features that need AI then stop working for you.
6. Who we share it with
- Your employer and the people in it, according to their access level.
- Head contractors your employer works for — only the dockets and job files your employer sends them.
- Accounting software your employer connects (for example Xero) — receipts and their photos.
- Service providers that run Caratic for us: Supabase (database, logins and file storage — hosted in Sydney, Australia), Netlify (web hosting), Google Firebase (push notifications), Microsoft 365 (emails sent from admin@caratic.com.au), Anthropic (AI), and map tile services (when you view a map).
- Anyone the law requires us to.
7. Overseas
Caratic's main database and stored files (photos, documents, logbooks) are kept in Australia (Supabase's Sydney data centre). Some information is processed or stored in the United States: the web app is served by Netlify, push notifications go through Google Firebase, and what is sent to the Caratic assistant is processed by Anthropic. Supabase, Netlify, Google and Anthropic are United States companies and information may pass through other countries where they operate. We use providers with written terms that protect the information, but Australian privacy law may not apply to them in the same way.
8. How we keep it safe
Information is sent encrypted. Each employer's data is kept separate, and database rules check every request against the person's access level (for example, only admins can see pay rates). Licence photos, receipts and logbooks are in private storage that needs a login. We keep logs of changes, and we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if a data breach is likely to cause serious harm.
9. How long we keep it
- Time, wage and pay records: at least 7 years (the employer's legal obligation).
- Vehicle logbooks: 5 years after the last year they're used (tax rule).
- Dockets and safety records: as long as the employer needs them for the job and its obligations.
- Raw location positions: while needed for timesheets, dockets and any disputes; your employer can ask us to delete them sooner.
- Your login: until you or your employer delete it.
10. Your choices and rights
- See and correct: your hours, timesheets, documents and trips are in the app. Ask your employer, or us, for anything else, or to fix something wrong.
- Switch things off: automatic clock-on (Account → Time on site), AI (Account → Privacy), notifications (your phone's settings).
- Delete your login: in the app, Account → Privacy → Delete my login, or see delete your account. Your work records stay with your employer for as long as the law requires.
- Complaints: email the privacy contact above. We'll reply within 30 days. If you're not happy with the answer you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner — oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992.
11. Changes
We'll update this page when things change and show the new version date. If a change matters to how your information is used, the app will show it to you the next time you open it.