Privacy policy

01Who we are

This notice is from Oh So Lawny (“Oh So Lawny”, “we”, “us”), the maker of the Oh So Lawny app and ohsolawny.com.

We decide how your personal information is used, which makes us responsible for it. Privacy laws use different names for that role: the responsible party under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), the controller under the GDPR (EU) and UK GDPR, an APP entity under Australia’s Privacy Act, and the business under US state privacy laws.

This notice applies wherever you live. Where your local law gives you more protection, you get it. Our approach is simple: collect what the app needs to help you look after your lawn with the people around you, and nothing more.

02What we collect and why

Here is everything the app and this website collect, what it’s for and the lawful basis we rely on.

We don’t collect your contacts, your precise location or your photo library. The camera and photo picker open only when you choose to add a photo, and we only receive the photos you send.

This website sets no cookies, runs no analytics or tracking scripts and has no forms. Our host, Cloudflare, keeps short-lived security logs of requests (including IP addresses) to protect the site.

03Location

Oh So Lawny needs to know roughly where your lawn is, because grass, seasons and competitions are local. It never needs your address.

• When you set your home area, or tag a post “Here now”, the app asks your phone for its position once. Your phone’s own maps service (Apple or Google) turns that into a suburb, region and country.
• The position is rounded to about 1 km on your phone before it’s sent to us. We store the suburb and that rounded position, never your exact coordinates or street.
• We don’t track your location in the background. You can say no to location and choose your area instead.
• Your suburb is shown on your profile and on posts tagged with a place. Points, Lawn Pulse and rankings always use your home area, so tagging a post somewhere else can’t change a leaderboard.

04Who sees what

Oh So Lawny is a social app for lawn lovers. Here is what other people can see.

Everyone who uses the app

Your display name, @handle, profile photo, suburb, level, points, ranks and champion badges. Posts you share as Public, your competition entries, the votes they receive, Lawn Clinic questions and answers, comments on public posts, and job posts.

Only your followers

Posts you share as Followers. If you switch on Private account, you approve every follower, and all your posts are for approved followers only. Competition entries and leaderboard names stay visible, because competitions are public.

Only you

Posts you mark Only me, your email address, your notification settings, your blocks and the reports you make. Nobody is told who reported them or who blocked them.

Verified pros

If you’re approved as a verified pro, your business name, services, service area and work photos appear on your pro page. Your phone number and registration details are for our checks and are not shown publicly.

Us

A small number of authorised people can access account data to provide support, review reports and pro applications, and keep the service secure. Every moderation action is logged. We disclose information if the law requires it.

05Photos

• Photos are resized on your phone and the re-encoding drops hidden details such as location and camera data (EXIF). Our server strips any that remain before storing a photo.
• Photos are stored with Cloudflare and served through long, random links. Anyone who has a link can open that photo, so think before you post something you wouldn’t want shared.
• Only post photos you took, of lawns you have the right to show. Please don’t post people’s faces, number plates or house numbers.
• Every post and entry has Report and Block.

06Ads and sponsored content

The Free plan shows a few ads through Google AdMob. Lawny Plus removes them completely. Votes and rankings are never for sale, whatever plan you’re on.

• Non-personalised by default. Every ad request asks AdMob for non-personalised ads. We don’t show a tracking prompt (App Tracking Transparency) and don’t use your device’s advertising identifier. There is a Personalised ads setting, off by default; for now ads stay non-personalised even if you switch it on, and we’ll update this policy before that changes.
• Nothing about you goes in. Your posts, photos, lawn and area are never sent to AdMob. AdMob receives what any ad request carries, such as device type, app version and IP address, to show the ad, measure it and prevent fraud.
• Where ads never appear: sign-up and onboarding, the composer, voting, Lawn Clinic answers and push notifications.
• Sponsored content (sponsored cards, tips and “presented by” competitions) is chosen by us and shown the same way to everyone in an area. It is always labelled, and no personal information is shared with the sponsor. If you win a sponsored prize, we’ll ask before passing your details to the sponsor for delivery.
• Some Lawn Journal articles may contain affiliate links. They are always labelled; see our affiliate and advertising disclosure.

07Notifications

If you allow notifications, your phone gives the app a push token, which we store with your account to send Lawn Pulse windows, competition updates, Green Thumbs, comments and Clinic replies. Choose which ones you get in You → Notifications & privacy, or switch them off in your phone’s settings. Quiet hours (21:00 to 07:00 your time) are on by default. Notifications never contain ads.

08Service providers

We use these providers to run Oh So Lawny. Privacy laws call them operators (POPIA), processors (GDPR) or service providers (US state laws). Each processes personal information only to provide their service to us, under a written agreement.

Sign in with Apple is provided by Apple under its own privacy policy. If you choose “Hide My Email”, we only receive a private relay address.

Lawny Plus isn’t on sale yet. When it is, Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play) will handle payment under their own privacy policies, and a subscription service (RevenueCat) will tell us whether you’re subscribed using a random account ID, not your email. We’ll add it to this table before Plus goes on sale. We never see your card details.

09International transfers

Our main database is in Western Europe, and Cloudflare keeps read-only copies closer to where people use the app. Some providers process information in other countries, including the United States. When personal information leaves South Africa, the UK, the EU or Australia, we only transfer it where the law allows: to a country with adequate protection, or under binding agreements that keep it protected to the same standard, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and their UK equivalent. This also meets POPIA’s rules on cross-border transfers (section 72).

10How long we keep data

• While your account is open, we keep your profile, sessions, posts, photos and competition history so the app works and your season log stays complete.
• Things you delete (a post, a comment, a photo) are removed from the app straight away and from our systems within 30 days.
• When you delete your account, your profile and personal details are erased immediately and your content is taken down. Remaining copies, including backups, are gone within 30 days. See exactly what happens.
• Security logs are kept for up to 30 days.
• Moderation records (reports and actions taken) are kept with your identity removed, so we can spot repeated abuse.
• Votes you cast stay counted on past competitions, linked to a deleted account rather than to you, so results don’t change after the fact.

11Your rights

Wherever you live, you can:

• Access your information and ask for a copy
• Correct anything that’s wrong: most of it in You → Edit profile, or by asking us
• Delete your account and data: You → Notifications & privacy → Delete account and data (how it works)
• Object to processing based on legitimate interest, and withdraw consent at any time, for example to location or notifications in your phone’s settings

South Africa (POPIA)

You can ask whether we hold information about you and who has had access to it, object to processing, and refuse direct marketing. We only send marketing if you opt in.

EU and UK (GDPR and UK GDPR)

You can also ask us to restrict how we use your information and to give it to you in a portable format. We don’t make decisions about you based only on automated processing: a person decides every suspension. Content that three different people report is hidden automatically until a moderator looks at it.

Australia (Privacy Act 1988)

We handle your information under the Australian Privacy Principles. You can access and correct it, and complain to us and then to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

United States

Depending on your state, you have the right to know what we collect and to access, correct and delete it. We don’t sell your personal information and don’t share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We won’t treat you differently for using your rights. If we turn down a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer.

How to use your rights

Email privacy@ohsolawny.com from the address on your account. We reply within 30 days and may ask you to confirm it’s you first.

Complaints

Please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the regulator where you live:

• South Africa: the Information Regulator, inforegulator.org.za
• United Kingdom: the Information Commissioner’s Office, ico.org.uk
• EU: your country’s data protection authority, listed at edpb.europa.eu
• Australia: the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, oaic.gov.au
• United States: your state attorney general, or in California the California Privacy Protection Agency, cppa.ca.gov

12Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Every request that writes or reads account data needs a verified sign-in token, and the server checks permissions on every request. Access is limited to authorised people, moderation actions are logged, and if a breach puts your information at risk we’ll tell you and the regulators as the law requires.

13Children

Oh So Lawny is for people aged 16 and over. In South Africa, anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian’s permission to use it. We don’t knowingly collect information from younger children. If you think a child has an account, email privacy@ohsolawny.com and we’ll delete it.

14Changes

When this policy changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.

15Contact

For help with the app, see Support. The rules for using Oh So Lawny are in our Terms of use and Community guidelines.