Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 October 2026 · Applies to the Propel iPhone app and propelapp.au

Propel is a training and nutrition app for adults. To build your plan and adjust it from what you log, we need to collect and use personal information, some of it about your health. This policy explains what we collect, why, who sees it, and the choices you have. We have tried to write it in plain English.

1. Who we are

Propel is operated by Charles Nicholas Bettiol, a sole trader based in Queensland, Australia (“Propel”, “we”, “us”).

We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. This policy covers the Propel app for iPhone and the website at propelapp.au. Propel is not a medical service, and this policy does not describe any clinical records kept by a health practitioner outside Propel.

2. What we collect

We collect what the app needs to work. Some of it you give us, some comes from your phone with your permission, and some is created as you use the app.

Information you give us

Account details: your name and email address, and a password (stored in hashed form). If you create your account with Apple or Google instead, we receive your name and email address from them. Apple lets you hide your real email address.
About you: your date of birth (we also use it to check you are 18 or over), sex, height, weight, goals, the sports you do, the days you can train, your equipment, and your food preferences, allergies and dietary pattern.
Health details you choose to tell us: injuries or sore spots; conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or a heart or thyroid condition; regular medication; recent surgery; pregnancy, having had a baby in the last 12 months, and breastfeeding; whether you have a history of an eating disorder; and whether you have confirmed a doctor’s clearance to train.
What you log: workouts, sets, reps and loads, runs and rides, meals and food entries, body weight and measurements, habits, check-ins (for example sleep, stress, energy and how training felt), notes, and, if you use the cycle tracker, period dates and symptoms.
Photos: meal photos, progress photos and images you attach to a message to your coach, only when you choose to add them. We ask for camera and photo library access at the moment you use those features. Scanning a barcode uses the camera.
Coach conversations: the messages you send your coach and its replies, and the notes your coach keeps about you so its advice stays consistent. You can see those notes in Settings under What Coach knows, and correct or forget any of them.
Support messages: when you tap Settings › Contact support, the app opens an email to us with your app version, build, device model and iOS version filled in. We keep what you send us.

Information from your phone and connected services (with your permission)

Apple Health: if you connect it, we read workouts, steps, distance walking or running, cycling and swimming, sleep, heart rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, active energy, VO₂ max, body weight, height, date of birth and biological sex. Propel does not write anything back to Apple Health. You can disconnect it in the app under Settings › Connected apps, or switch off access in the iPhone Settings app under Health › Data Access & Devices.
Location: during a live run or ride you start, so distance and pace keep tracking while your screen is locked. We use it on your phone to measure distance and pace, and we save the distance and pace with your workout, not a map of your route. We do not track your location otherwise.
Motion: activity and step data from your phone’s motion sensors.
Push notifications: if you allow them, we store a device token so we can send reminders and coach messages. You can change notification and quiet-hours settings in the app under Settings › Notification preferences.

Information created as you use Propel

Subscription details: your membership status, plan, trial and renewal dates, and the Apple transaction identifiers we need to confirm your purchase. Payments are processed by Apple, or by Stripe if your membership is billed on the web instead. We do not receive or store your card details.
Usage and device data: which screens you open and coarse actions such as starting a workout or logging a meal, with your app version, device type and iOS version. We keep these events to categories and counts, not the words you write, and they are linked to your account ID. In app versions where analytics is switched on, this is collected with a product analytics service (PostHog, hosted in the United States); in other versions it is not collected.
Crash data: when the app crashes or hits an error, a report linked to your account ID goes to an error-monitoring service, with your app version and build and technical details of the fault. We do not attach screenshots, and reports are stripped of message text, so they do not contain what you wrote or logged. The service may also see your IP address when the report arrives.
Plan and coach data: the plans, targets, adjustments and suggestions Propel generates for you, and records of whether you accepted or undid them.

This website

The propelapp.au website does not use cookies or analytics. It loads its typeface from Google Fonts, so your browser contacts Google when you visit, and our web host (Vercel) keeps standard server logs. If you email us, we receive your email address and what you write.

3. Health information

Much of what you give Propel is health information (for example your weight, training, sleep, heart rate, allergies and any conditions you tell us about). The Privacy Act treats health information as sensitive information, so we collect it only with your consent, which you give when you choose to enter it or connect Apple Health.

We use it to run your plan, adapt it, and give you progress and coach feedback. We do not use it to advertise to you.
We do not sell it, and we do not share Apple Health data with advertisers, data brokers or information resellers.
Disconnecting Apple Health stops future imports. Health data already saved in Propel stays in your history until you delete your account, because the app offers export and whole-account deletion rather than removing imported data one entry at a time.
If you withdraw some data, parts of the app that depend on it may work less well.

Propel gives general fitness and nutrition information for healthy adults. It is not medical advice. If you are pregnant, have a medical condition, a history of disordered eating or take medication, talk to your GP, physiotherapist or an Accredited Practising Dietitian before making significant changes.

4. How we use your information

To create your account and keep you signed in.
To build your training block and meal plan, adjust them from what you log, and show your progress.
To power your AI coach and the features that read your photos or text (see section 5).
To provide your membership, confirm purchases with Apple, and manage your trial and renewal.
To send the reminders, check-ins and coach messages you have turned on, and service emails such as sign-in codes, a weekly check-in reminder, a payment problem or trial-ending notice, and messages about your membership.
To answer your questions and fix problems.
To look out for your safety: Propel scans your check-ins and messages to your coach for signs of an urgent physical problem or injury, a pregnancy problem, disordered eating, self-harm, abuse, or another mental health or safety concern, and responds with safety information instead of training or nutrition advice. If a message raises a safety concern, Propel may send the flagged message, the reply you were given, and your name and email address to our safety team, and a person reviews it. This is not continuous monitoring or an emergency service.
To measure how the app is used, find bugs and improve it. Where we can, we use coarse or aggregated data for this.
To keep Propel secure, prevent abuse and meet our legal obligations.

We will not use your information for a different purpose unless you would reasonably expect it, you have consented, or the law requires or permits it.

5. Your AI coach and automated decisions

Your coach in Propel is an AI, not a person, and its day-to-day replies are not reviewed by a human. When you ask it something, log a meal from a photo or text, attach an image to a message, or when Propel builds or adjusts your plan, the relevant information (for example your goals, recent logs, targets, summaries from Apple Health if you have connected it, and the message or photo you sent) is sent to a third-party AI model provider so it can generate the response. Our main AI provider is Anthropic. If Anthropic is slow or unavailable, some coach features use Google’s Gemini API as a backup, and then the same information goes to Google instead. If we add or change an AI provider that receives your information, we will update this policy.

We send only what a feature needs to produce its response. Anthropic’s published terms for its commercial products say it does not use the inputs or outputs of its API to train its models by default, and that it deletes them from its systems within 30 days, except where it must keep them to follow the law or enforce its usage policy. Google’s published terms for the paid Gemini API say it does not use prompts or responses to improve its products or train its models, and that it logs them for a limited period only to detect and prevent abuse.
AI output can be wrong. Photo-based food logging gives estimates you can adjust. Check anything important, and use your judgement.
Propel adjusts your training and nutrition from your data. You choose how much your coach decides, in Settings under Coach settings. Depending on those settings, your coach may make small changes on its own, such as a lighter week when recovery is low, a calorie tweak of up to 150 a day, swapping in a suitable exercise, or building your next block, or it may suggest the change for you to approve first. Larger changes are shown to you to approve. Most changes to training volume, intensity, deload weeks and calorie or macro targets can be undone within 7 days if nothing has changed since. Propel does not use your data to make decisions about your eligibility for any service, credit, insurance or employment.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for cross-app advertising or tracking. We share it only with the following, and only as needed:

Hosting and database: Supabase, which stores your account and app data, handles sign-in and holds your files.
AI model providers: Anthropic, and Google (Gemini API) as a backup, as described in section 5.
Payments: Stripe, only if your membership is billed on the web rather than through Apple.
Apple: for in-app purchases and subscriptions, creating an account with Apple, push notification delivery and the App Store. Apple Health data stays on your iPhone until you connect it.
Google: if you choose Continue with Google to create your account, and as a backup AI provider (see section 5).
Push notifications: Expo, which delivers notifications through Apple’s push service. A notification’s title and text pass through it.
Email delivery: Resend, which sends our service emails.
Analytics and error monitoring: PostHog (product analytics, only in app versions where analytics is switched on) and Sentry (crash and error reports).
Food databases: when you scan a barcode or search packaged foods, your phone sends the barcode number or search words to Open Food Facts to look up the product.
Our safety team: as described in section 4.
Professional advisers and authorities: our accountants and lawyers where needed, and law enforcement or regulators where the law requires.
A buyer or successor: if Propel is sold or merges, your information may transfer to the new owner.

We share only what each provider needs to do its job, and we do not give any of them your information to market their own products.

7. Overseas processing

Some of the providers above process data outside Australia, including in Singapore, Japan and the United States. Our database, sign-in and file storage (Supabase) are hosted in Singapore. Our email provider (Resend) sends from Tokyo, Japan. Product analytics (PostHog, where switched on) uses its United States cloud, and error reports (Sentry) go to its United States region. Anthropic, Google (backup AI provider), Expo and Vercel are companies that may process data in the United States and other countries; Google does not state a single processing location for the Gemini API. Before disclosing information overseas, we take reasonable steps to make sure the recipient handles it in a way that is consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles, for example through contract terms. By using Propel you understand that your information may be processed in these countries.

8. Keeping, exporting and deleting your information

Export: go to Settings › Data & privacy and tap Export my data, then Export data, to get a JSON copy of the information linked to your account.
Delete: go to Settings › Data & privacy › Delete account. This permanently deletes your account, saved plans, logs and media. We remove your stored photos and files first, and then your database records and sign-in. If any of your files cannot be removed, the account is not deleted and you can try again, so nothing is left behind. It cannot be undone, so export your data first if you want a copy.
Your subscription is separate. Deleting the app or your account does not cancel an App Store subscription. Cancel first in Settings › Manage subscription or in your Apple Account settings.
Backups and records: deleted data may remain for a limited time in our hosting provider’s routine backups, until they expire and are overwritten in the ordinary course. We also keep a minimal record that an account was deleted (an internal account ID and the time deletion started) so that a deleted account cannot be written to again, and we may keep limited records we are legally required to keep, such as proof of a transaction.
Analytics, error reports and emails: Deleting your account does not automatically remove usage events and error reports already sent to PostHog and Sentry. They carry an internal account ID, not your name or email address. We keep them only as long as we need them to understand how the app is used and to find and fix faults, and those services apply their own retention settings. Emails we receive, such as support messages and safety-team alerts, stay in our email inbox for as long as we need them to help you and follow up; ask us if you would like yours deleted.
Email log: we keep a log of the service emails we send (the address, the type of email, the subject and whether it was delivered). This log is not removed when you delete your account, and we do not currently delete it automatically. You can ask us to delete the entries for your email address.
Data you have only shared with Apple Health stays in Apple Health until you remove it there.

If you stop using Propel without deleting your account, we keep your data so your plan is there when you return, and delete it when you delete your account.

9. Security

Your data travels over encrypted connections, and our database applies per-account access rules so that one member cannot read another member’s data. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password and keep your phone locked. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as the law requires.

10. Your rights and complaints

You can ask us to give you access to the personal information we hold about you, or to correct it if it is inaccurate, out of date or incomplete. Most of this you can do yourself in the app, including exporting your data and correcting what your coach knows about you. For anything else, email support.propelapp@gmail.com. We will respond within a reasonable time and will explain if we cannot give you access to something.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, tell us first at the address below and we will look into it. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

11. Age

Propel is for adults aged 18 and over. Sign-up asks for your date of birth and does not let anyone under 18 continue. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a person under 18 has created an account, email us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Propel changes or the law changes. We will post the new version here with a new “last updated” date and, for significant changes, tell you in the app or by email before they take effect.

13. Contact us

Privacy questions, access or correction requests, and complaints: support.propelapp@gmail.com. You can also use Settings › Contact support in the app.