Privacy Policy

This policy explains what Shutter Host collects, why, and how it is handled. It reflects how the service actually works, though you should review it with a legal adviser before relying on it. Shutter Host is a suite of tools built for photographers who run workshops and events, hosted apps accessed through the Hub, and WordPress plugins you install on your own site. It covers EventHost (previously Shutter Host Events), our event app, on the web and on iOS, so attendees who open this policy from inside the app find themselves described here. It also covers CalcHost, our free Workshop Cost Calculator app on iOS, which links to this page from its menu.

Two ways you use Shutter Host

Where your data lives depends on which you use:

• Hosted apps (GearHost, EventHost and the Workshop Calculator, which you open from the Hub, including the GearHost mobile app on iOS and Android and the EventHost app on iOS) run on our servers, so some of the data you enter is stored with us, as described below.
• CalcHost (the calculator as an iOS app) is the exception among our apps: it has no account and no sign-in, and it never sends anything to us. Your plans stay in the app on your device, so nothing in it reaches our servers at all.
• WordPress plugins (installed on your own site) keep their data on your website, not ours. For those, we only ever receive your account name and email and your licence key (to confirm an active subscription).

What we collect

Your account. Your name and email address, a securely hashed version of your password (never the password itself), and the details you choose to give at sign-up (such as company, phone, country, website, and any note). We use these to create and secure your account.

Billing. Subscriptions bought on the web, including the EventHost plan, are handled by Stripe. We store a Stripe customer reference and your subscription status; we do not store your card number; Stripe handles payment details directly. A GearHost subscription bought inside the iOS app is handled by Apple, and RevenueCat tells us whether that subscription is active; we receive the status, not your payment details. The EventHost iOS app and CalcHost are both free and have nothing to buy inside them.

GearHost (hosted app). The gear, events/workshops, attendees and loan history you enter are stored on our servers so the app works across your devices and so check-in links function. This can include attendee names and contact details that you choose to add. We hold this to operate the tool for you; see “Attendee information” below.

EventHost (hosted app). EventHost runs multi-day events, so it holds the details an organiser needs to run one. Each organiser chooses which of these an event asks for, and an event that does not need a detail never holds it:

• Identity and contact: name and email address. Some participants join through a shared link and have only a name, no email. A phone number, where the event asks for one.
• Emergency contact: name, phone and relationship, collected only when the organiser turns emergency contacts on.
• Dietary needs and allergies, which is health information, collected only when the organiser turns catering and dietary details on.
• Travel and accommodation: arrival and departure times and places, flight numbers, accommodation name, address and dates, and free-text travel notes, collected only when the organiser turns travel details on.
• Photos: your profile photo, and photographs you share to or take at the event for its gallery.
• Messages: chat in the event channel and in groups, and private direct messages between two participants.
• Taking part: your session sign-ups, any gear assigned to you, and group orders.
• Optional directory details you can choose to share or hide from other attendees: company, city, social handle and website.
• Moderation: if you report a message or photo, we keep the report and your optional note so organisers can review it, and if you block someone we keep that block until you undo it. Blocks are private to you.

Organisers and administrators also have an account with us (name, email and password as above), and can add two-factor authentication to it. If an organiser uses the optional writing helpers, their own draft text is sent to Anthropic to produce a suggestion; attendee details are never sent to it.

EventHost on iOS. The app uses your device camera and photo library only to take or choose a photo you are sharing to the gallery or setting as your profile picture. Location is used only when you ask for it, to show where you are on the event map, and, if you tap to share a meeting point in the chat, to send those coordinates as a map pin in that conversation; we do not track your location in the background. If you turn on notifications, we store a device token so we can send them, and Apple’s push service receives that token and the notification’s title and body, which is the same short preview you see on your lock screen.

Sign in with Apple (mobile apps). When you use Sign in with Apple in the GearHost app, Apple provides your name and email address (which may be a private relay address that forwards to you) and a unique identifier for your Apple account. We use these only to create or access your account. In the EventHost app, Sign in with Apple is a way into an account you already have from your event invite, not a way to create a new one.

Camera (mobile apps). The GearHost app uses your device camera only to scan gear QR codes for checking kit in and out. Camera images are processed on your device and are not stored or sent to us. In EventHost, a photo is sent to us only when you share it to the event gallery or set it as your profile picture.

Workshop Calculator (hosted app). Your calculator plans are end-to-end encrypted: they are encrypted in your browser with a key derived from your password before anything is sent to us, so we store only unreadable ciphertext and cannot see your figures. Because the key comes from your password, resetting or forgetting your password makes previously-saved plans unrecoverable.

CalcHost (the calculator on iOS). The app is self-contained: there is no account, it calls none of our servers, and it collects nothing. The plans you build stay in the app’s own storage on your device and are deleted with it if you delete the app, so keep a copy through the app’s Export if they matter to you. Nothing is sent to us unless you choose to send it, by using the support link in the menu.

Support & feedback. If you contact us we keep your name, email, message, and basic context (such as the page or app version) so we can help.

Technical data. When you use our hosted apps, including the GearHost mobile app and the EventHost app, our servers keep standard logs (such as IP address, from which an approximate location can be derived, device or browser type, and timestamps) used only for security, abuse prevention and keeping the service reliable. Downloading an attendee list from EventHost is also recorded (who did it, when, from where, and how many records) so there is always an answer to where a copy of the data went. Our apps do not include third-party advertising or analytics trackers, and we do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites.

How we use it

We use your information to provide, operate, secure and improve Shutter Host, to take payment, and to respond to you. In EventHost we use it to run the event you are part of: to show the schedule and who is coming, to allocate session places, to deliver chat and the gallery, to tell an organiser about catering needs or a medical contact when they have turned those on, and to send you the notifications you have asked for. We do not sell your personal information or your attendees’ details, and we do not use your gear, event, attendee or calculator content for marketing or to train anyone’s AI models.

Who we share it with

We share data only with the service providers needed to run the platform, and only as needed to provide the service, or where required by law. We do not sell your data. Those providers are:

• Railway: hosting for our apps and the database behind them.
• Stripe: subscriptions and payments bought on the web.
• Apple and RevenueCat: a GearHost subscription bought inside the iOS app, and whether it is still active.
• Brevo: transactional email, such as invitations and password resets.
• S3 or R2 object storage: the images uploaded to EventHost, where it is configured.
• Apple, Google and Mozilla push services: delivering a notification to your device or browser.
• OpenStreetMap Nominatim: turning a session address an organiser types into map coordinates.
• Anthropic: the optional writing helpers, which receive only an organiser’s own draft text, never attendee details.

These providers keep their own copies for their own retention periods (for example Brevo’s email delivery logs), which is worth knowing when you ask us to delete something.

Where your data is stored

Our apps and their databases run in Railway’s Singapore region (Southeast Asia), the closest region our host offers to Australia, and object storage sits in its own configured region. For an Australian customer this means personal information, including your attendees’ details, is stored offshore, which is a cross-border disclosure to weigh under Australian Privacy Principle 8. If your organisation requires personal information to stay in Australia, tell us before you run an event: our current host cannot meet that.

Storage & security

Data is stored on managed cloud infrastructure and protected in transit with HTTPS. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt and sessions use a signed, httpOnly token. Workshop Calculator contents are end-to-end encrypted as described above.

In EventHost the sensitive fields are additionally encrypted in the database with AES-256-GCM, on top of our host’s own storage encryption: phone numbers, emergency contacts, dietary needs and allergies, flight numbers, accommodation details and travel notes, and the secrets the app must store but never show. Access is checked on our servers for each record, and every query is scoped to the event that owns it, so one event’s data is never reachable from another. Direct messages are visible only to the two people in them, our staff included. Uploaded images, photographs of people included, are served only through signed, time-limited links rather than a guessable path. Organisers and administrators can add two-factor authentication (an authenticator app) to their accounts. A sponsor invited as a guest sees only the schedule, the gallery and sponsor placement, never the attendee directory or the chat.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information.

Retention & deletion

We keep your account data while your account is active. You can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your information at any time by emailing hello@shutterhost.com.au. Deleting your account removes the data associated with it, including your gear/event records and your encrypted calculator data.

EventHost keeps an event’s data only as long as the event needs it. An organiser sets a retention window of 1 to 365 days after the event’s end date, and once it passes an automatic sweep permanently deletes the event and everything in it: profiles, emergency contacts, dietary notes, chat, sign-ups and the photo files themselves, not just their database rows. Participants can see that deletion date in the app. If an organiser sets no window, the data is kept until they delete the event by hand. An account left holding no event membership is removed automatically, and the record of who exported an attendee list is kept for 2 years and then aged out.

Asking to be deleted from an event. In EventHost you can delete your own account from inside the app, confirmed with your password, which removes your profile and membership in every event and the photos you uploaded. An organiser can also remove you from each event they run, which drops that membership and, once you hold none, your account. Chat messages stay in the conversation with your name detached, so the threads other people are part of are not torn apart. You can also email us and we will action it for you.

An honest limit. Our database host keeps its own automated backups on its own schedule. A deletion removes the live data straight away, but a copy can persist in those backups until they age out, and the providers listed above keep their own copies for their own periods.

Attendee information

When you add attendees in GearHost, or run an event in EventHost, you decide what the event asks for and you are responsible for having a lawful basis to collect it. We process that information on your behalf, only to provide the tool, and delete it when you delete the related records, when the event’s retention window passes, or when you delete your account.

If you are an attendee: EventHost shows a short notice explaining what a detail is for at the point you enter it, and links to this policy from inside the app. The organiser running your event decides which details it asks for, and you can leave optional directory fields hidden from other attendees. To ask for access to your information or to have it deleted, speak to your organiser or email us at hello@shutterhost.com.au.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict the use of your personal information, and to complain to a regulator. To exercise any of these, email hello@shutterhost.com.au.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes. We will revise the date above when we do.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us at hello@shutterhost.com.au.