Privacy policy
Last updated 23 October 2026
This policy covers the BUZZ website and waitlist at trybuzz.co.uk, and the BUZZ app. It explains what we collect, why, who helps us, and what you can ask us to do. It is short because we collect very little.
Who we are
BUZZ is run by Chris Hoyos. We are the controller of your personal data for the purposes of UK data protection law.
Contact us about anything in this policy at hello@trybuzz.co.uk.
What we collect
| What | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Your email address | To welcome you when you join, to let you know when BUZZ opens for you, and to send you important news about BUZZ | Your consent, which you give by joining |
| The first part of your postcode, for example RH6 8 | To see which areas want BUZZ most, so we open those places first. We use your full postcode once, to show the stations near you, and then keep only the part before the space plus the next digit. | Our legitimate interest in deciding where to launch |
| The station you park at most, if you choose one | To open the busiest stations first and tell you when yours opens | Our legitimate interest in deciding where to launch |
| Your invite link, and whose invite you joined through | To give you your invites, count how many you have left, and see how BUZZ spreads | Our legitimate interest in running an invite-only waitlist |
| How people use this website: which buttons and phrases are tapped, which step people reach, rough device type | To learn which problems matter most to drivers and improve the page | Our legitimate interest in improving BUZZ. It is anonymous (see below). |
| Technical data such as your IP address | Our hosting provider handles this to deliver the site and keep it secure. We don't store it with your sign-up. | Our legitimate interest in running a secure website |
We don't ask for your name, phone number, car registration or location for the waitlist.
We never tell the person who invited you that you joined, or anything about you.
Cookies and analytics
This website does not set cookies or store anything on your device.
We use PostHog to count what happens on the page, in a cookie-free mode on its EU servers. It never receives your email or postcode. If you join, we link that visit to your member number, a random code, so we can see what led people to join; otherwise it does not build a profile that follows you between visits. We have also set it to discard IP addresses.
Who helps us
We use a small number of providers to run BUZZ. They act on our instructions and may not use your data for their own purposes.
- Cloudflare hosts the website and the waitlist database, and sends our emails. The database is stored in the EU. Cloudflare's network handles traffic worldwide to deliver and protect the site.
- PostHog provides the anonymous page analytics described above, hosted in the EU.
- postcodes.io turns the postcode you type into a map location so we can find your nearest stations. Our server sends the postcode on its own, without your email or IP address.
- Google provides our email, if you write to us.
- Expo delivers fixes to the BUZZ app (see "The BUZZ app" below). It never receives your location, visits or number plates.
- Apple delivers the pilot app through TestFlight.
Where a provider handles data outside the UK, we rely on UK-approved safeguards. These are the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
We don't sell your personal data, and we don't share it with parking operators or apps. If we ever work with partners, they will only see totals across many people, never anything that identifies you.
How long we keep it
We keep your waitlist details until you ask us to delete them, or until 24 months after you join if BUZZ has not opened for you by then, whichever comes first. Analytics are kept for up to 24 months.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
- tell you what we hold about you and give you a copy
- correct it
- delete it
- stop emailing you (you can withdraw consent at any time, and it won't affect anything we did before)
- stop using it for our legitimate interests, or limit how we use it
- send it to you or someone else in a usable format
Email hello@trybuzz.co.uk from the address you signed up with. We'll reply within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
The BUZZ app
The BUZZ app is in a small pilot on iPhone, through Apple's TestFlight. The short version: your location stays on your phone. BUZZ never sells it, and only shares a visit if you ask it to. There are no accounts, adverts or analytics in the app. Nothing on this website collects your location.
Location
BUZZ uses your phone's location to notice when you park at a car park it knows, or drop someone off at an airport, so it can buzz you to pay. That happens while the app is closed, so it needs "Always" permission. iPhone asks you first, and you can turn it off in Settings at any time.
Most of the time your iPhone does the watching, not BUZZ. BUZZ gives it rings around the places it knows, and the phone wakes BUZZ when you go in or out of one. Only then does BUZZ turn GPS on, recording where you are every couple of seconds, to decide whether you parked. It turns GPS off once it has decided, usually within minutes, and every check has a time limit. After an airport drop-off it keeps going until you stop the car, for up to 25 minutes, so the buzz never arrives while you're driving.
iPhone lets an app watch only 20 rings. When you travel a long way, BUZZ checks where you are, once, to pick the nearest places to watch. It keeps only the latest of those checks.
Motion
If you allow Motion & Fitness, BUZZ asks your iPhone's motion chip whether you were driving, walking or still around a visit, from 15 minutes before you arrived. It uses this to tell driving from walking, so it only buzzes once you've parked and walked away, and so it can tell a car crawling in slow traffic from someone on foot. It stays on your phone, in the record of that visit. Without it, BUZZ works on GPS alone.
What stays on your phone, and for how long
- The run log. Each time BUZZ checks a visit, it keeps the GPS points (time, place, speed and accuracy), the motion it saw, and what it decided. It keeps the last 60 days, at most 250 checks, and clears older ones as it records new ones. We chose 60 days because a parking charge letter can take weeks to arrive, and this record is your evidence.
- Your visits. Where and when BUZZ buzzed you, when you left, and when you tapped Paid. Also 60 days.
- Diagnostics. A short list of what happened behind the scenes, such as GPS on and off, which place's ring you went into, and any errors. BUZZ keeps the latest 80 lines.
- Number plates, if you save them, until you remove them. When BUZZ buzzes you to pay on a page that needs your plate, it copies the plate to your phone's clipboard so you can paste it there. We never send it anywhere.
- Your invite. If you get your invite link in the app, it keeps your email and invite code so you don't have to type them again, until you tap "Change email".
Buzzes and reminders are made on your phone. BUZZ doesn't use a push notification service.
None of this is sent to us unless you share it, so we can't see it, and we can't delete it for you. Deleting the app deletes all of it.
What leaves your phone
Unless you share something yourself (below), only these leave your phone, and never your location:
- Your invite link. If you ask for it, the app sends the email you type to our waitlist and gets back your invite link. If the email is new, that joins you to the waitlist, as described above. The app also asks how many invites you have left, using your invite code.
- App fixes. When you open BUZZ, it asks Expo, the service we use to send fixes, whether there is a newer version, and downloads it if so. The request says only that it's an iPhone, which version of BUZZ you have, and a random number the app makes for itself so Expo can count installs. If a fix failed to load last time, it also sends the error message, so we can put it right. Like any website, Expo sees your IP address. We do this in our legitimate interest in keeping the app working.
- TestFlight. If BUZZ crashes, or you send feedback through TestFlight, Apple may pass the crash report or your feedback to us, depending on your TestFlight settings. Apple's own privacy policy covers this.
When you tap Pay, BUZZ opens the parking operator's own page or app. What you enter there goes to the operator, under their privacy policy, not to us.
Sharing a visit
You decide when a visit is shared. "Share this visit" makes a card for one visit: the place, the date, when you entered and left, where you stopped and for how long, your speeds, a small map of your route, the buzz, and when you tapped Paid. You see it first. Then your phone's share sheet sends it, as an image, a PDF or text, to whoever you pick: yourself, an email, WhatsApp. The map is drawn on your phone, from shapes inside the app, so nothing is fetched to draw it. The card goes only where you send it.
"Share the Buzz" sends only your invite link, through the same share sheet.
"Send them the pay link" sends a short message with the airport, the charge, when it's due and the operator's pay page, and nothing else.
Pilot testers also have a Run log with "Share the run log" and "Share this run". These send the full record as text: every GPS point, the motion, the decisions and the diagnostics, for up to the last 60 days (or for one check). They are there so you can send us a record when something goes wrong. Only send them to people you're happy to show where you've been near those places.
Age
BUZZ is for drivers. You must be 17 or over to join the waitlist.
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use the data you've already given us, we'll email you first.
Station locations: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Postcode lookup: postcodes.io, using Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey open data.