Legal
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Gauge holds two kinds of people’s information: the artists and studios who have accounts, and their clients, whose details artists collect through Gauge to run their bookings.
This policy says what we hold, why, who else touches it, and how to get at it or get rid of it. It is written for both of those people.
Gauge is operated by Gauge Ink Pty Ltd (ABN 68 703 666 522) of 17 Bassett Street, Fairy Meadow NSW 2519, Australia. This policy covers the Gauge app for iPhone, Gauge Studio for the web, the pages Gauge hosts for artists and studios to show their clients (booking forms, flash and shop pages, slot pickers, payment pages and consent forms), and gauge.ink itself.
We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), whether or not the Act’s small business exemption would apply to us. Gauge holds health information, and we treat that as the standard to meet.
Our Terms of Service cover the rest of the relationship.
If you hold an account (an artist, a studio owner or a studio team member), we collect your information directly from you and we decide how it is used to run Gauge for you.
If you are a client of an artist or studio, they collect your information through Gauge and decide what to ask you. We store it and process it for them, on their instructions, and we do not use it for anything of our own. Your artist or studio is your first stop for questions about your information. We will help either way, and section 11 says how.
Your name and display name, email address, phone number, Instagram handle, a profile photo and bio if you add them, your studio’s name and location, and for a studio its address and opening hours.
The one-time codes we email you to sign in (there are no passwords), your time zone and working hours, your services, sizes and styles, the questions on your booking and consent forms, your notification preferences, a push notification token for your phone, and licence or insurance documents you choose to upload.
Your Stripe account identifier and whether Stripe onboarding is complete. Stripe holds your bank details, identity documents and tax details; we never see them. Your subscription status, which Apple and RevenueCat tell us for Gauge Pro and Stripe tells us for a studio. A record of every payment made through Gauge: amount, method, status, fees and the Stripe reference.
If you connect Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, we store the credential you give us (a Google sign-in token, or an app-specific password for iCloud), encrypted, and read your events to show them beside your bookings. Disconnecting removes the credential.
Which screens and features you use, as named events tied to your account identifier, never what you typed into a form. Crash reports, with your device model, operating system and app version. What you send us through Share feedback or by email.
The owner’s details, and for each team member their name, email and role, and which artists work on the studio’s floor.
A studio can give people access to Gauge Studio: front desk staff, studio managers, and artists who also work the desk. People with that access see the bookings of every artist on the studio’s floor and, for each artist, client contact details only where that artist has chosen to share them. Nobody at the studio sees an artist’s private notes. Front desk staff see whether a consent form is signed, never the medical answers on it; studio managers can read signed forms, because the premises keeps them. Every artist can see in the Gauge app who at their studio has this access, and change what they share.
Your artist or studio decides what to ask. Depending on how they have set Gauge up, this can include:
Your name, email, phone and Instagram handle; what you want (placement, size, style, colour, budget and a description); reference photos; your answers to any questions the artist added; and, for some services such as piercing, removal and cosmetic work, a health note.
The time you choose. For a payment, Stripe takes your card details on its own secure pages; we receive the amount, the outcome and a Stripe reference, never your card number. A receipt is emailed to you.
Your full name, date of birth, the type and number of the ID you present, your answers to the medical questions, your signature, the procedure and its placement, the date and time you signed, the network address it was signed from, and the artist’s and studio’s details at the time.
Your appointment history, notes, medical notes, photos of the work, and payments including cash they record. An artist can also add you by hand, for a walk-in or a booking made another way.
We use your email, and your phone number once SMS is available, to send you the messages your artist’s booking needs: confirmations, a link to pick a time, a deposit or payment request, a consent form, reminders and a receipt.
Our client pages count what happens on them (a form viewed, a form started, a time picked) with no name or identity attached, and respect your browser’s Do Not Track setting.
Some of what artists collect is health information: your answers to the medical questions on a consent form, a health note on a booking, and medical notes on a client record. Under the Privacy Act that is sensitive information, and it gets the strictest handling we have.
We use personal information to:
We do not sell personal information. We do not use it for advertising, ours or anyone else’s. We do not use a client’s information for anything their artist did not collect it for. No decision about you is made automatically.
We may email account holders about Gauge itself, such as new features. Every such email has an unsubscribe link. If you join the early access list on gauge.ink, we keep the first name, email and answers you give us, and use them to tell you when Gauge opens, and for nothing else. Earlier sign-ups were collected for us by Tally.
Your artist or studio. A client’s information is held for the artist who collected it. When a booking is on a studio’s floor, the studio’s team sees that booking, including its consent form.
The providers that run Gauge. Each gets only what its job needs, is bound by its own terms to protect it to a standard at least as strict as this policy, and may not use it for anything else.
When the law requires it. We disclose information when a law, a court or a regulator requires us to, or when it is needed to protect someone from serious harm.
If Gauge changes hands. If the business is sold or merged, your information goes with it under this policy, and we tell you first.
Our database and files are hosted by Supabase in Singapore. The providers in section 8 hold what they hold in the countries listed beside them, chiefly the United States and the European Union. Where a provider is outside Australia we have satisfied ourselves that it is bound, by contract or by law, to protect your information, and we remain responsible for it under the Privacy Act.
If a data breach is likely to cause serious harm, we tell the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.
You can see and edit your own details in the app at any time.
Download your data, in Account, builds a copy of your records on your phone and hands it to the share sheet: spreadsheet files of your appointments, clients, payments, payment requests, booking form responses and consent submissions, with the health information included. It works on every plan, including after a subscription has ended.
Delete account, also in Account, closes your account. Consent forms, medical records and payment history are kept for up to seven years for legal compliance. Everything else is deleted or anonymised, and the account can no longer sign in. Your Stripe account is unaffected; manage it at stripe.com.
Ask your artist or studio first. They can show you, correct or delete what they hold about you in Gauge, within the retention rules in section 12. You can also write to us at privacy@gauge.ink; we will check it is you, then help.
We answer access and correction requests within 30 days, and we do not charge for them.
Gauge’s web pages set no advertising cookies and carry no advertising. The artist and studio web apps set a sign-in cookie. Client pages keep a small anonymous marker in your browser so a booking that spans a few pages counts once. Turnstile sets its own cookie to tell people from bots, and Stripe’s payment forms set Stripe’s cookies to prevent fraud.
A studio’s page counts anonymous visits for that studio’s own report, with no cookie and no IP address kept: a visitor is a code that changes every day and can’t be traced back to anyone.
The Gauge app includes the Sentry and PostHog software described above, and no advertising or tracking software of any kind.
Gauge accounts are for adults. Whether a client is old enough for a procedure, and what consent is needed, is governed by the law where the artist works and is the artist’s responsibility; the consent form carries an age declaration for that reason. We do not knowingly collect information about a child beyond what an artist lawfully collects for a procedure.
If you think we have mishandled your information, write to privacy@gauge.ink. We acknowledge a complaint within 7 days and respond within 30. 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.
When this policy changes we post the new version here with a new date. For a change that affects what we collect or who we share it with, we tell account holders in the app or by email before it takes effect.
Gauge Ink Pty Ltd, 17 Bassett Street, Fairy Meadow NSW 2519, Australia.
privacy@gauge.ink