Privacy Policy
Draft, pending legal review
This page is a working draft. It is not final and is not yet legally reviewed.
1. Who we are
Solar Split ("we", "us") provides a calculator that shows a fair split of electricity costs between homes on a shared electricity connection. We are based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Contact us about privacy at support@solar-split.com. For questions about the Home Kit waitlist use sales@solar-split.com.
2. Our approach
We are a small business and may be exempt from the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). We have chosen to build and run Solar Split to the APPs anyway, and to follow the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme voluntarily. This is a commitment about how we behave. It does not mean we have formally opted in to the Privacy Act.
We do not sell your personal information. We do not trade in it.
3. What we collect
| Kind of information | Examples | How we get it |
|---|---|---|
| Account details | Display name, email address, sign-in details, and an optional phone number. We ask for the display name and phone number in the setup questions you answer the first time you sign in, and keep them with your account | You give it to us |
| Site and dwelling details | Site name, dwelling names, the property's street address (street, suburb, postcode and state), your electricity plan and rates, who shares the connection | You enter it |
| Setup answers | The answers you give in the first sign-in setup questions (including your display name, phone number and the property address), saved as you go so you can carry on from another device | You enter it |
| Consent records | Which document you agreed to (Terms of Use or Privacy Policy), its version, the time, your user and your account (tenant). Nothing else | Recorded when you tick the boxes and agree |
| Energy readings | Grid import and export, solar production, battery charge and discharge, per-dwelling load, as cumulative and interval readings | From your meters, inverters and batteries, through a vendor service you connect or through the Solar Split Home Kit |
| Device identifiers | Home Kit device ID and public key, software version, connection status | Created by the Home Kit when it registers |
| Vendor connection tokens | Access tokens or keys that let us read data from your inverter or battery vendor. Stored encrypted | You authorise the connection. We never ask for your vendor password |
| Payment information | Billing name, email, address, subscription status, last four card digits and card brand as shown by Stripe | Stripe collects it. We never see or store your full card number |
| Support messages | Emails you send us and our replies | You send them |
| Remote support records | If you approve a remote support session (see "Remote support for your Home Kit" below): which staff member, when, why, for how long, and the commands run. Also the diagnostic information a Home Kit sends us when you or we ask for it, with names, addresses, network names and passwords removed first | Created when you approve a session or ask for help |
| Hub action requests | When you, or someone who manages your site with you, ask from the app for a safe action on your Home Kit (run a network test, restart its software, reboot it, or send a diagnostics bundle): what was asked, for which Home Kit, when, how it ended, and the user ID of the person who asked. The user ID is an internal identifier, not your name or email address. We keep it so there is an audit record of who asked for what. For a diagnostics bundle we also record which consent text you agreed to and when. The same user ID is also written to our audit log when the request is made. When you delete your account it is replaced with "erased" there too | Recorded when the request is made |
| Sharing arrangement changes | When an owner changes how a site's costs are shared (the split method, the number of people living in each home, percentages) and adds an optional note: what changed, for which homes, when it starts, the note, and who agreed (their email address and user ID). The same email address and note are also written to our audit log when the change is made. If you leave, your email address and user ID are removed from the change and a consent reference (your role and the time you agreed) is kept instead, with the key that links it back to you stored apart and readable only by our database administrators. The audit log entry is not erased | Recorded when an owner makes the change |
| Waitlist details | Your email address, your name if you give it, your state, your solar and battery brand if you give them, the number of homes that share your connection, the time you agreed to be contacted, and a scrambled (hashed) copy of the code in your unsubscribe link, so we can match it without storing the code. You do not need an account to join the waitlist | You enter them in the Home Kit waitlist form on our website |
The property address is personal information. It is used to work out your state, time zone and public holidays, and to narrow the list of electricity plans and network areas that apply to you. It is stored with your site, visible only to you and the people you invite to that site, and is not written to our logs. The only time any of it leaves our systems is the street lookup described next.
While you type the suburb or postcode in the setup, our servers match what you typed against a built-in list of Australian suburbs and postcodes to suggest completions. That list is "Locality Postcodes Lookup" from the Queensland Government Open Data Portal (based on matthewproctor/australianpostcodes), used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). What you type in those two boxes stays on our servers: it is not stored, not written to our logs and not sent to any other service.
While you type in the street address box (three or more characters), our servers send the text you have typed to Microsoft Azure Maps, run by Microsoft, to suggest matching Australian street addresses. We send only that text and ask for Australian addresses only: not your name, email, account or anything else that identifies you. Microsoft handles the text in Australia or in its global service locations under its own terms, and we do not choose which. We do not store what you type or what comes back, and we do not write either to our logs. We limit how many of these lookups are made each month. If Azure Maps is unavailable or the limit is reached, you get suburb suggestions only, and you can always type the whole address yourself.
When you search for your electricity plan, our servers look up the public plan data that Australian energy retailers publish through the Consumer Data Right (the same data behind the Australian Energy Regulator's Energy Made Easy site). That is public product information: we do not send your name, address, postcode or account to those services. We narrow the results to your area on our side.
Energy readings can reveal when people are home, away or asleep. We treat them as high-risk personal information: we collect only what we need, restrict who can see them, and do not use them for marketing or profiling.
Other people in your home
If you set up a site, you may enter details about other people who share the connection. Please tell them, and show them this policy, before you do. Other people on a site can see their own share of the split.
People who manage a site with you
A site can have more than one owner or manager, for example a landlord and the staff of a real estate agency. Owners and managers can see the email address and name of everyone with access to the site, and an activity list showing who was invited, who joined, whose role changed, and who was removed or left, with the times. Residents cannot see the list of people. We keep that activity list (email addresses, roles and times only) for as long as the site's account exists, so the people responsible for the account can see who has had access, and delete it with the account. If someone invites you, we send one email to the invited address with the invitation link and use the address for nothing else.
4. Why we use it
- To provide Solar Split: connect your sources, store readings, calculate and show the split, and produce statements.
- To take payment and manage your subscription.
- To keep the Home Kit waitlist and email you if kits become available, and to count what equipment and homes people have so we know what to support first.
- To support you, fix faults, and keep the service secure.
- To send service messages (statements, connection or token-expiry reminders, receipts, alerts).
- To meet legal, tax and accounting obligations.
We send marketing email only if you opt in, and every marketing message has an unsubscribe link (Spam Act 2003). Ticking the consent box on the waitlist form is that opt-in, and it covers emails about the Home Kit waitlist and the availability of kits only. The confirmation email we send when you join has an unsubscribe link, and so does every later waitlist email.
We do not use your identifiable data to train AI models, and we do not send names, addresses or tokens to any AI service.
5. Who we share it with
We use service providers to run Solar Split. They may only use your information to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What for | Where data is handled |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure | Hosting the app, database, secrets vault and monitoring | Application data is stored in Australia East (Sydney). The static website host uses a region in East Asia. Microsoft support and telemetry staff may access systems from other countries |
| Microsoft Azure Maps | Suggesting street addresses as you type in the street address box during setup: receives only the text you typed there | Microsoft, in Australia or its global service locations, as above |
| Microsoft email delivery (Azure Communication Services Email) | Sending service emails and waitlist emails from noreply@send.solar-split.com | Microsoft, as above |
| Stripe | Card payments, subscriptions, receipts, customer portal | Stripe processes data in Australia and overseas, including the United States and Singapore, and other countries where Stripe operates |
| Cloudflare | DNS and email routing for our addresses (support@ and sales@). Also, only while you have approved a remote support session, the encrypted connection that carries that session between our staff and your Home Kit | Cloudflare operates globally, including the United States |
| GitHub | Holding our source code and building the Home Kit software we send you. We do not put customers' personal information into it. It may hold the names and email addresses of our own staff and contractors | GitHub (owned by Microsoft) operates globally, including the United States |
| Your inverter, battery and meter vendors | Providing the readings you asked us to read, using tokens you authorised | Under the vendor's own terms and privacy policy |
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people from harm, or in a sale of the business (with the same privacy protections).
6. Overseas disclosure
Some providers above handle information outside Australia (APP 8). The countries can include the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and other locations in which Microsoft (including GitHub), Stripe and Cloudflare operate. We take reasonable steps to make sure these providers protect your information, mainly through their standard data protection terms. By using Solar Split you understand your information may be handled in these places.
7. Cookies and tracking
Our website and app do not use cookies for advertising or analytics. We do not run analytics or tracking tools. If this changes we will update this policy first. Sign-in may use browser storage that is strictly needed to keep you signed in. We also keep your colour theme choice (System, Light or Dark) in your browser's localStorage under the key ss-theme. It is a functional preference that stays on your device, is never sent to us and is not used to identify or track you, so it does not need your consent. Stripe's checkout pages have their own cookies under Stripe's policy.
8. How the split is calculated (automated calculations)
The split is computed by fixed, published rules in our software, not by an AI system. For each interval we take your meter and inverter readings, your tariff settings (rates, time-of-use windows, public holidays) and your sharing settings (for example how solar is shared), and allocate grid, solar and battery energy and cost to each dwelling. Each statement records the inputs, tariff version and calculation version so it can be reproduced.
The results are calculations for the host and the other people on the site to review. They are not a bill from an electricity retailer and Solar Split does not decide anything about anyone's legal rights. You can review the inputs and ask us to correct them. If we add AI-generated explanations, they will be labelled and will not compute totals.
This section is included to meet the automated decision transparency requirement that starts on 10 December 2026.
9. Keeping it safe
Vendor tokens are encrypted. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is limited to what is needed and uses multi-factor sign-in for administrators. Each customer's data is separated from other customers' data. The Home Kit connects outward only and identifies itself with its own key. Every software update and instruction we send to a Home Kit is signed with a secret key that only we hold, and the Home Kit checks the signature before it acts. Our security page at /security explains how to report a security problem and how long the Home Kit receives security updates.
Remote support for your Home Kit
We can fix most problems without logging in to your Home Kit. If we need to look inside it, we use remote support. You approve it first, in the Solar Split app, and only you (the site owner) can approve it. We show you who is asking, why, what they can see and how long it will last. You choose a time limit, the approval is time-limited, it ends by itself when the time is up, and you can end it at any time with one tap. If you do not respond, the request expires.
Our staff cannot open a remote support session on your Home Kit without your approval. There is no other way in. Support sessions use a restricted support account, go through Cloudflare's secure connection service, and cannot reach other devices on your home network. We keep a record of each session, and you can see it under "Support access history" in the app. Only the information needed to fix the problem is collected, and we use it for nothing else.
In a rare emergency that affects every Home Kit, for example a faulty update, we can send a signed instruction to stop or roll back that update. That does not give anyone access to your Home Kit or your data.
No system is perfect. If a breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will assess it within 30 days, and notify affected people and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) as soon as practicable.
10. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Energy readings | While you are subscribed, then deleted on request or after account closure (see below) |
| Statements and their calculation inputs | 7 years, so a past split can be reproduced if there is a dispute. You can export them before you leave |
| Vendor tokens | Deleted and revoked when you disconnect a source or close your account |
| Payment and tax records | 5 to 7 years, as required by tax and accounting law |
| Waitlist details | 24 months after you join, then deleted. If you unsubscribe sooner, we erase everything except the email address, which we keep only so that we never email you about the waitlist again (see "How to unsubscribe from the waitlist") |
| Team activity list (who was invited, joined, changed role, was removed or left, with email addresses) | While the account exists, then deleted with it |
| Support emails | Up to 2 years |
| Remote support records (who, when, why, how long, commands run) | 7 years, so we can show you what was done. Diagnostic files a Home Kit uploads are deleted after 30 days |
| Hub action request records (what was asked, which Home Kit, when, how it ended, and the asker's user ID) | 7 years, as an audit record (DRAFT: this period is not yet confirmed by a lawyer). When you delete your account, your user ID on these records, and on the audit log entry written when the request was made, is replaced with "erased" in that account; the records of the action stay without it (DRAFT: how long audit log entries are kept is not yet confirmed by a lawyer) |
| Sharing arrangement change records (what changed, which homes, when, and who agreed) | 7 years, so a past split can be reproduced and a dispute about who agreed can be answered (DRAFT: this period is not yet confirmed by a lawyer). When you delete your account your email address and user ID are removed from these records and a consent reference takes their place. The key that links a consent reference to you is kept apart and is not deleted automatically (DRAFT: how long it may be kept is not yet confirmed by a lawyer). When a property is deleted, the number of people you said live in each home is cleared. The audit log entry written when the change was made still holds your email address and note and is not erased (DRAFT: how long audit log entries are kept is not yet confirmed by a lawyer) |
| Backups | Expire within about 7 days |
You can ask us to delete your account and data. We will action it within 30 days and confirm by email, except for records we must keep by law or need to keep for the statement retention above.
How to unsubscribe from the waitlist
Every waitlist email has an unsubscribe link. Open it and press the button on the page to be removed. No login or fee is needed, and it takes effect straight away. You can also email support@solar-split.com and ask us to delete your waitlist details; we act on that within 5 business days. We erase the name, state, equipment and home details straight away and keep only the email address, marked as unsubscribed, so we do not email you again. We keep that suppression record (email address only) for as long as we run the waitlist. You can ask us to delete it too, but then we cannot stop a later sign-up with the same address.
11. Your rights
You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, and to correct it if it is wrong or out of date. Email support@solar-split.com. We aim to respond within 30 days. We may need to confirm who you are first. We may refuse access only where the law allows, and we will tell you why.
12. Children
Solar Split is for adults aged 18 and over. It is not designed for children and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
13. Complaints
Please contact us first at support@solar-split.com with the details. We will acknowledge within 5 business days and aim to resolve it within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the OAIC at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. We will post the new version here with a new effective date and version number, and email account holders about material changes.
Questions about this page: support@solar-split.com. Home Kit waitlist questions: sales@solar-split.com.