AU NowSUPPORT

AU NOW: BREAKING NEWS

Privacy Policy

Version v8 / 6 October 2026

Version: v8

Published: 6 October 2026

Effective date: 6 October 2026

1. Who this policy covers

This policy explains how Varsha Raghav, an individual publisher, handles personal information through the AU Now mobile app, related application programming interfaces, support channels and protected administration tools. In this policy, “AU Now”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Varsha Raghav.

AU Now is a news discovery and community service. You can read news as a guest. An account is required for community participation.

This policy is designed around the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles where they apply. It also explains practices that we follow as a matter of transparency even where a particular legal obligation may not apply to an individual operator.

This policy does not govern a publisher’s website or another service that you open from AU Now. Those services have their own privacy practices.

2. The short version

  • We create a random device identifier so guest reading, security, preferences and deletion can work without requiring an account.
  • If you choose a home area, we use the suburb, city, state, postcode and associated map coordinates to provide local news and information. The current app can also make a one-time approximate location suggestion from your IP address. It does not require continuous or background GPS access.
  • If you sign in with Google, we receive the Google identity and profile details described below and create an AU Now account linked to the device.
  • We record reading and interaction signals to operate, secure and personalise the service.
  • Comments and other enabled community content are processed for safety and moderation. Automated checks can reject, obscure or place content into review.
  • Push notifications are optional. Turning them off disables the active push token and news-alert preference for that device.
  • The Android app includes Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) and Google User Messaging Platform (UMP). Closed testing uses Google test inventory/test mode so testers can assess real placements without billable live-ad requests. Production ads may be enabled later only when verified release and server controls permit them.
  • If advertising is active, AU Now may use a labelled AU Now direct campaign or Google AdMob programmatic inventory in a single slot, not both. Where applicable, you can accept, decline or manage consent and revisit available privacy choices in Settings.
  • We use service providers for hosting, databases, caching, content delivery, authentication, push delivery, diagnostics, artificial intelligence and moderation. Some processing may occur outside Australia.
  • You can delete guest device data in Settings. Signed-in users can start account deletion in the app after fresh Google reauthentication.

3. Information we collect

What we collect depends on the features you use.

  • Account and profile: Google account identifier and available profile details, including name, email, verification status, locale and profile image; AU Now profile, account status, activity timestamps, 13+ confirmation and accepted rules version. We do not ask for your birth date in the current community flow.
  • Device and activity: device identifiers, IP address, app/network and request details, reading and search activity, reactions, bookmarks, followed sources/topics/cities, language and preferences. These support delivery, personalisation, security and troubleshooting.
  • Location: your chosen home area and related coordinates. BigDataCloud may receive your IP for an initial approximate suggestion; Nominatim may receive place-search words; WeatherAPI.com or public-data providers may receive selected-place coordinates. We do not request continuous or background location access.
  • Community and safety: public comments, replies, posts, images, links/GIF references and blocks; reports, content/profile snapshots, reporter and target identifiers, moderation outcomes, appeals and audit records. Others can view or share public content. Please take care when including sensitive personal information.
  • Notifications: push token, permission and alert preferences, account/device details, language, time zone, quiet hours, prompt history and delivery/interaction events.
  • Support and rights requests: your message, optional reply email, reference and limited account/device context. Publisher requests also include work contacts, authority, relevant URLs, concerns and requested action. Forms may be delivered and retained by email; failed app drafts stay locally until delivery.
  • Diagnostics: error, device and performance information. External publisher pages may use their own cookies.

Sign-in, notifications and community participation are optional for reading. Sections 10 and 11 explain retention and deletion.

4. How we obtain information

We obtain information:

  • directly from you when you choose an area, change settings, create content, report, block, sign in or contact us;
  • from Google when you use Google Sign-In;
  • automatically from the app and backend when you read, search, interact, receive a notification or encounter an error;
  • from your device or platform when you grant notification permission or use a platform feature; and
  • from news publishers, public-data services and technical providers when they return article, image, location, weather, transport, traffic, emergency or school-zone information.

5. Why we use information and the choices involved

We use information where it is reasonably necessary to provide and secure AU Now, administer our relationship with you, comply with law, protect users, or pursue the ordinary operation and improvement of the service without overriding your rights.

In practical terms, we use it to:

  • deliver national and local news and related information;
  • maintain guest device and signed-in account sessions;
  • remember settings, bookmarks, follows and reading choices;
  • personalise and measure feeds;
  • operate comments and other enabled community features;
  • screen, investigate and enforce safety rules;
  • send notifications you have enabled and record their delivery or interaction;
  • answer requests and complaints;
  • prevent abuse, fraud, spam and unauthorised access;
  • diagnose crashes, latency and outages; and
  • meet legal, regulatory and record-keeping obligations.

You choose whether to sign in, select a home area, enable notifications, publish community content or contact support. Some processing is necessary for a requested function: for example, we cannot publish community content without account, age/rules and safety checks. Where consent is required, you may withdraw it for future processing, but that does not undo processing already lawfully completed or information that must be retained for a permitted reason.

6. Personalisation and automated processing

We use your choices and activity to select relevant stories and reduce repetition. AI services summarise or translate publisher material, not deliberately your Google profile or private reading identity.

Community text is checked automatically for safety, before it appears or shortly after it is published or edited. It may be allowed, obscured, rejected or sent for review. Automated checks can make mistakes. You can report content, block accounts or contact support about a decision.

7. Who processes or receives information

We do not sell or rent personal information. Information is processed or shared with providers as needed for these purposes:

  • Hosting, storage and caching: Supabase, Upstash, Google Cloud and Hostinger.
  • Content delivery and protection: Cloudflare.
  • Sign-in, consent and advertising: Google Sign-In, Google User Messaging Platform and AdMob when enabled.
  • Notifications and email: Expo, Apple or Google push services, and configured email providers.
  • Diagnostics: Sentry and New Relic.
  • Safety and article processing: Groq; AI moderation and configured article-processing providers through DeepInfra or OpenRouter.
  • Location and local information: BigDataCloud, OpenStreetMap Nominatim, WeatherAPI.com and public-data providers.
  • Publisher services: publishers and their hosting/image providers when content is retrieved or opened.
  • Operational alerts: limited incident metadata through channels such as Telegram, designed to exclude private report content and credentials.

Information may also be disclosed where reasonably necessary for legal processes, safety, protecting rights or a business transfer, subject to applicable privacy requirements.

8. Overseas processing

AU Now is operated from India. Our primary database and user-facing application service are hosted in Australia. Authorised administration may involve access from India. Providers using international infrastructure may also process information outside Australia.

The privacy protections required by applicable law continue to apply to overseas processing. Access is restricted through the safeguards described in section 14. You can contact support@californiawebgroup.com for information about relevant processing locations.

9. Advertising

The Android app supports Google Mobile Ads SDK (AdMob) and Google User Messaging Platform (UMP). Advertising is labelled and may be disabled. iOS advertising remains disabled unless separately configured.

For AU Now direct campaigns, we may use a device identifier, placement, coarse city/state eligibility and impression/click events for delivery, frequency limits, reporting, billing and fraud prevention. Advertisers receive campaign reporting, not your account identity, email, exact address or private reading history.

When AdMob is enabled, Google and participating partners may process IP-derived approximate location, advertising/app identifiers, app/device information, ad requests, interactions and diagnostics for advertising, measurement and fraud prevention. We do not deliberately send your exact home coordinates to AdMob.

UMP checks whether ads may be requested and provides applicable consent choices. Available choices can be revisited in Settings; Android advertising-ID controls are also available. Non-personalised or limited ads may still involve technical processing. Changes apply going forward. Google and its partners use their own privacy notices. AU Now records follow section 10; provider retention follows their practices.

10. Retention

We keep information only for as long as it is reasonably needed for the purpose for which it was collected, to provide a feature you continue to use, to maintain security and audit integrity, or to meet legal, safety, accounting or dispute requirements. The period depends on the kind of information, its sensitivity, the risk of harm, whether it can be de-identified, and whether it is part of a public thread or safety record.

Examples from the current system include:

  • aggregate trending-search buckets expire after 48 hours;
  • some cache-only opened or impression signals expire after hours or days;
  • a signed-in account deletion request disables access and public visibility immediately; automatic cleanup begins after a seven-day waiting period;
  • deleted-comment structure may be retained as a no-identity tombstone so replies remain coherent; and
  • moderation, security, delivery and audit records may be retained where needed to investigate abuse, preserve the integrity of prior decisions, prevent repeat harm, resolve disputes or comply with law.

Backups and distributed caches may take additional time to cycle out. We will delete or de-identify personal information when it is no longer required for a permitted purpose.

11. Deleting an account or guest device

Guest device deletion

A guest can choose Delete this device’s data in Settings. The backend verifies the current device, refuses the guest route if the device is linked to an account, removes device-owned preferences and activity through database deletion or cascading relationships, deactivates its push data, clears associated cache state, and creates a fresh anonymous device identity after local data is cleared.

Signed-in account deletion

A signed-in user can start deletion in the app. To protect your account, we ask you to sign in with Google again and confirm deletion. Your account access and notifications stop immediately, and your public profile, comments, posts and post images are hidden.

After seven days, scheduled cleanup removes stored email and profile details, account-linked private preferences and activity, sign-in links and uploaded community images. Temporary failures are retried, so cleanup may take additional time. This process applies only to accounts requested for deletion; updating the app does not delete your account or saved activity.

We may retain a minimal deleted-account marker and records needed for safety, fraud prevention, audits, disputes or legal obligations. A lawful preservation requirement may delay cleanup. Backups and previously cached or downloaded copies may take longer to disappear. Contact us if you need help with a deletion request.

An account-deletion assistance path outside the app is available at https://support.californiawebgroup.com/account-deletion.

12. Access, correction and privacy complaints

You may ask to access personal information we hold about you or ask us to correct information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. Some profile details are refreshed from Google when you sign in. You can change certain settings, notification preferences and home-area information in the app.

Send access, correction or privacy requests to support@californiawebgroup.com or use https://support.californiawebgroup.com. We may need enough information to verify that the request concerns you. We will respond within a reasonable period and explain any lawful reason why we cannot provide access or make a requested correction.

If you have a privacy concern, please contact us so we can look into it. Our process does not limit your rights under applicable privacy law.

13. Children and community participation

AU Now is a general news service intended for people aged 13 and over and is not designed or directed to children under 13. People may read available news as guests without creating an account. You must be at least 13 to use comments or other enabled community features. The current flow records a versioned 13+ self-confirmation rather than collecting a birth date. A valid previous confirmation above this minimum may satisfy the 13+ requirement, while materially updated Commenting Rules still require fresh acceptance.

Do not post personal information about a child or content that exploits, sexualises, grooms or endangers a child. We may restrict content or accounts and escalate serious safety concerns where appropriate. If you believe a child is in immediate danger, call 000. AU Now reports are not an emergency service.

If you believe a person under 13 has created an account or supplied personal information through community features, contact support@californiawebgroup.com. We will review the report and take appropriate steps, which may include restricting the account and deleting information where required.

14. Security

We use safeguards such as protected storage, access controls, restricted administration and monitoring to help protect your information. No online service can guarantee complete security.

If you are concerned about your account or information, please contact support@californiawebgroup.com.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when AU Now’s features, providers or legal obligations change. We will publish the updated version and effective date. If a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will provide additional notice or seek consent where required. A materially new Commenting Rules version is handled separately and may require acceptance before further community participation.

16. Contact

Operator: Varsha Raghav

Operator location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Privacy email: support@californiawebgroup.com

Support: https://support.californiawebgroup.com

Support email: support@californiawebgroup.com