What we hold, and why.
This describes what Reachwater collects, what we do with it, and how to get it corrected or deleted. It is written against what the site actually stores rather than against everything a platform might one day store, so it is shorter than most.
The short version
- We collect what you type into a form, and very little else. There is no account, no login and no profile.
- Only the trip pages and the private water page use advertising cookies. They carry the Meta Pixel, which tells Meta which trips you looked at and whether you sent a request or asked for a sample plan, so we can measure our ads and show them to people who have looked. The rest of the site sets no tracking cookies, and our own analytics uses no cookies or identifiers anywhere.
- What you write in a request goes to the guide you addressed it to. That is the point of sending it.
- We do not sell your information, and what you type into a form does not go to Meta, other advertisers or data brokers.
- Ask us and we will tell you what we hold, correct it, or delete it.
The sections below are the full terms. Where they differ from this summary, the full terms apply.
1. Who this is about
Reachwater operates the Reachwater platform: a public directory of fishing guides across Australia and New Zealand, and paid advice from the guides who offer it. This policy covers the website and everything we do with the information it collects.
We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and, for people in New Zealand, the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ).
2. What we collect
Almost all of it is something you typed into a form and pressed send on. There is no account to create and no profile that follows you around.
When you register for advice
Your email address, whether you are an angler or a guide, the region you fish, the species you are after, whether you want a plan or a call, and what you would expect to pay. If you are a guide, whether you are interested in offering advice and a link to your business.
When you request advice or a trip
Your name and email, which guide you are asking, what you are asking for, the water you have in mind, roughly when you want to fish, how many of you there are, and whatever you write in the message.
When you ask us about private water
Your email, what you want to catch, where and when you would go, who is coming, and anything you add on the next step: how much you have fished and how, whether you want wild or stocked water and a guide, what you would expect to pay, your name, and whatever you write. If you tell us your children's ages, we hold those too. We also record which ad brought you there, if one did.
When you ask for a sample plan
Your email, which trip you were looking at, and which ad brought you there, if one did. We use it to send you the plan and, now and then, news about our trips. Reply “stop” to any of them and we won’t write again.
When you contact us
Your name, email, what the message is about, and the message itself. These are sent to our inbox and are not written to a database.
When you buy something
Payment is handled by our payment provider. We receive a record that a payment succeeded and what it was for. We do not receive or store your card details.
When you just look around
Our analytics records that a page was viewed, that a named button was clicked, and how far through a form a visit got (seen, started, sent), together with which kind of page it happened on. It never records what you type. It uses no cookies and no identifiers, so it cannot recognise you, follow you between visits, or tell us anything about you as a person. Our hosting provider also keeps ordinary server logs, including IP addresses, for security and diagnostics.
When you look at our trips or private water
The trip pages, everything under reachwater.co/trips, and the private water page at reachwater.co/private-access load the Meta Pixel, a script from Meta Platforms, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. It sends Meta the address of the page, the page you came from, which trip you looked at, whether you sent a request or asked for a sample plan, and for which trip, and ordinary browser details such as screen size, along with your IP address. It does not send your name, your email or anything you type into the form. If you are logged in to Facebook or Instagram in the same browser, Meta can connect this to your account.
3. Cookies
The trip pages and the private water page set two advertising cookies through the Meta Pixel: _fbp, which lets Meta recognise the same browser across visits, and _fbc, set only when you arrive from a link in a Meta ad, which records that ad. Both last ninety days. No other page sets an advertising or analytics cookie, and our own analytics uses none.
To stop it, block cookies or third-party scripts for reachwater.co in your browser. You can also choose how Meta uses activity from other websites in the ad preferences of your Facebook or Instagram account. How Meta handles what it receives is in Meta's privacy policy.
One cookie exists on the site and only ever appears if you have been given an invite code for our unreleased preview. It is called rw_preview, it remembers that you entered a valid code so you are not asked again, it lasts thirty days, and it does nothing else.
Some pages load map tiles and fonts from other companies, which means your browser contacts them directly and they see your IP address, the same as with any image on any website. We do not send them anything about you.
4. Why we hold it
- To answer you, and to carry your request to the guide.
- To tell you when advice opens in your region, if you asked us to.
- To understand demand: which regions people want, what they are chasing, and what they would pay. This shapes where we open next.
- To run and improve the site, and to keep it working.
- To meet our legal and tax obligations.
On the trip pages and the private water page we use the Meta Pixel to measure our ads on Facebook and Instagram and to show them to people who have looked at a trip or at private water. We do not use what you type into a form to target you, here or anywhere else.
5. Who it goes to
The guide you asked for
When you send a request, it goes to that guide, in your words, with your contact details so they can answer. That is what sending it does. It does not go to any other guide.
Landowners and guides, when you ask about private water
When we ask a landowner or a local guide about water for you, we tell them what they need to answer: how many of you are coming, your dates, and roughly how you fish. Your name and contact details go to them only once you have chosen to go.
The companies that run things for us
We use a small number of providers to store data, send email, host the site and take payments. They act on our instructions and hold what they need to do their job. Their servers may be outside Australia and New Zealand, including in the United States, so your information may be stored or processed overseas.
Meta, from the trip pages and the private water page
What the Meta Pixel collects goes to Meta Platforms, which handles it under its own privacy policy and may process it outside Australia and New Zealand, including in the United States.
Nobody else
We do not sell personal information. Apart from what the Meta Pixel collects on the trip pages and the private water page, we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. We would disclose it if the law required it, and would tell you where we were permitted to.
6. Directory listings
The Reachwater directory is compiled from publicly available information about guiding businesses: business names, regions, contact details and public websites. Compiling public business information is what a directory does, and it does not require us to ask first.
Where a business is a sole trader, some of that information is also personal information, and this policy applies to it. Some fields on a listing, such as the fishing type or the species tags, are our inference rather than something the business told us.
If you are listed and something is wrong, tell us and we will correct it, and that includes anything we inferred. If you would rather not be listed, tell us and we will take it down. Claiming a listing lets you supply your own description, species, season notes and photo. We never take a photo from a business's website or social accounts.
7. Email we send you
If you register for advice we will email you about Reachwater opening in your region and about the thing you registered for. If you send a request we will email you about that request.
To stop the updates, email contact@reachwater.co and we will take you off the list. Stopping them does not affect a request already in flight: we will still tell you what came back.
8. How long we keep it
Registrations are kept until you ask us to remove you or until it is clear we are never opening in your region. Requests and their messages are kept while they are live and for a reasonable period afterwards, so we can sort out anything that goes wrong and meet our tax and record-keeping obligations. Contact messages live in our inbox for as long as an email normally does.
Ask us to delete something sooner and we will, unless we are required to keep it.
9. Keeping it safe
Data is held in managed services with access limited to the people who run Reachwater, and traffic to the site is encrypted. No system is perfectly secure, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise. If a breach happened that was likely to cause you serious harm, we would notify you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
10. Your rights
You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and ask us to delete it. Write to us and we will do it, ordinarily without charge. We may need to confirm it is you before we hand anything over.
If you are not happy with how we have handled your information, tell us first and we will try to fix it. If that does not settle it, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, or in New Zealand to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
11. Children
Reachwater is meant for adults, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. Plenty of people fish with their kids: book the trip in your own name.
12. Changes
This policy will change as Reachwater does. The version published here is the one that applies, and we will give reasonable notice of anything material before it takes effect.
13. Talk to us
For anything about your information, including access, correction and deletion, get in touch through the Reachwater website or email contact@reachwater.co.