Version 1.3 · Effective date: 5 October 2026
Privacy Policy
1. Who We Are and What This Policy Covers
HOSTI LIMITED ("Hosti", "we", "us") runs the Hosti platform: a web app and iOS and Android mobile apps for stocktaking and variance reporting in hospitality venues. HOSTI LIMITED is a New Zealand company and is subject to the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020. This policy explains what personal information we collect, who handles it, where it goes and what choices you have.
It applies to venue owners and operators, the staff and other Users they invite, and anyone whose information a Customer enters into the platform, such as staff on a roster. It does not cover third-party websites linked from the platform.
We have two roles. For your account details and how you use the platform, HOSTI LIMITED is responsible for the information. For personal information a Customer enters about staff, contractors or others, the Customer is responsible and we process it on the Customer's behalf and on its instructions.
2. What We Collect
Account details: your name, email address, user ID and role. Venue data: stock counts, products, recipes, orders, invoices, suppliers and team roles that you or your Users enter. Photos and documents: photos of shelves and invoices, and documents you upload, such as invoice and sales PDFs, festival contracts and artist riders. Billing details: the billing address you give at web checkout. Card details go straight to Stripe. We do not see or store them. Device information: a push notification token, and basic details such as device type, operating system, app version and IP address. Diagnostics: crash reports and error logs from the apps. Usage analytics: which features are used and how often. Information about other people: names, roles and email addresses of staff and contractors that Customers enter. We do not try to identify a venue's customers or patrons.
If you enter personal information about someone else, you confirm that you are authorised to do so and have given them any notice the law requires.
3. Who Handles Your Data and Why
We use the providers below to run the platform. Each acts on our instructions and is bound to protect the data it handles.
Provider What it does for us Data it handles
Google Firebase and Hosting, login, database, file Account details, venue data, Google Cloud storage, server functions and photos and documents, usage the analytics store analytics
Anthropic Powers the AI Features: What you send to an AI answers in the app, and Feature: questions, photos and extraction from photos and documents documents
Postmark Sends email: team invites, Name, email address and the weekly summaries and trial content of those emails reminders
Stripe Web payments and GST Billing details and payment information. Hosti does not see or store card details
Sentry Crash and error diagnostics Diagnostic data and basic device information
Expo Push notifications for festival low-stock alerts, passed on to Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) or Apple Push Notification service (iOS) for delivery Push token and the alert content: bar name, product name and hours of stock left
A current list of our Subprocessors is also available on request from privacy@hosti.co.nz. We will update this section when the list changes.
4. AI Features
Some Hosti features use artificial intelligence provided by Anthropic.
What is sent. When you ask a question in the app, we send the question and the venue information needed to answer it. When you photograph or upload an invoice, sales report or other document, we send the image or file so that the relevant details can be extracted. We send only what a request needs, and only when you use the feature.
Why. We send it only to provide the feature you asked for.
How Anthropic handles it. Anthropic acts as our service provider (processor). It handles this content only to provide its service to us, under its commercial terms and data processing addendum. Those terms say Anthropic may not train its models on content sent through its commercial services. Anthropic may keep the content for a limited period under its own retention policies, including to detect and prevent misuse, before deleting it.
What Hosti does. We do not use identifiable business data to train AI models, and we do not sell prompts, answers or logs. We record how often each AI feature is used by your venue (counts only, not the content) to manage usage limits. When you use AI features, the results become part of your venue's data in Hosti (for example, extracted invoice lines, insights or festival debriefs) and are kept like your other venue data. Assistant chat conversations (Suitee and Izzy) are not stored. Limited technical logs may include small excerpts for troubleshooting and are kept for about 30 days.
Accuracy. AI output can be wrong. Our Terms of Service explain how to treat it.
5. Where Your Data Is Held and Overseas Disclosure
Our database and the photos and documents you upload are stored in Australia (Google Cloud, Sydney). Most of our server functions run in the United States (Iowa), so your data may be processed in the United States when those functions handle a request. Some functions run in Sydney, and some Google services we use, such as login, may also process data in the United States. Our other providers, including Anthropic, Expo, Postmark, Stripe and Sentry, operate in the United States and other countries, so your personal information is sent and held outside New Zealand.
We disclose personal information to an overseas provider only where we reasonably believe it is subject to safeguards comparable to the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, or where our contract with the provider requires it to protect the information to a comparable standard. For Customers in Australia, we take reasonable steps to make sure overseas providers handle personal information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles. For Customers in the EU or UK, transfers rely on the standard contractual clauses or an equivalent safeguard.
All data is encrypted in transit using HTTPS/TLS.
6. Device Permissions
The mobile apps ask for the permissions below. You can change any of them in your phone's settings, though some features will stop working.
Camera: to scan barcodes and shelves, photograph stock for counting and capture invoices. Photo library: to let you choose product and invoice photos. We use a photo only when you take or choose it. Microphone and speech recognition: for voice counting. Hosti does not record audio or send it to our servers. Voice counting uses your phone's built-in speech recognition, and the app uses only the resulting text. Depending on your device, Apple or Google may process the audio under their own terms. Spoken prompts in the app use your phone's built-in text-to-speech.
Notifications: only festival users are asked for this permission. We use it to send festival low-stock alerts showing the bar name, product name and hours of stock left. Bluetooth: to connect to Bluetooth scales. Location (Android only): Android requires the location permission before an app can scan for Bluetooth devices, so the Android app asks for it. Hosti does not read, collect or store your location. The apps also use vibration and internet access. We do not ask for access to your contacts or your location in the background, and we do not use your advertising ID or any ad tracking. We may receive basic install-source information from Google Play.
7. How We Use Data
We use personal information to:
provide the platform, including login, stocktakes, reports, AI Features and customer support; take payment and manage subscriptions through the web app; send you email: team invites, weekly summaries and trial reminders; keep the platform secure, find and fix errors, and keep audit records; understand which features are used so that we can improve them.
We may also produce and share insights that are anonymised and aggregated, for example industry benchmarks. We apply thresholds so that no single venue can be identified, and we never share identifiable customer or staff information in that way.
No sale and no advertising. We do not sell personal information. We do not run advertising on the platform, we do not use it for behavioural advertising, and we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
Testing. We may use redacted portions of real data in internal testing, limited to staff who need it. We never use real data in sales demonstrations, training or marketing without your written permission.
8. Retention, Deletion and Backups
We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy or as the law requires.
Deleting your account. The Account owner can delete the Account in the app under Settings, or by emailing privacy@hosti.co.nz or support@hosti.co.nz. We may ask to verify identity for email requests. Individual staff cannot delete a venue's data.
Deleting a venue. A deleted venue can be recovered for 48 hours. After that, the venue is permanently deleted from our live systems. Some associated records, and photos and documents uploaded to the venue, may take longer to remove and are deleted or de-identified within a reasonable period. You can ask us at any time to delete your data.
After a trial or subscription ends. When a Trial ends, a subscription ends or an Account is locked for non-payment, the Account is read-only and we keep the data for at least 12 months. You can export it at any time. After 12 months we may permanently delete it, and we will email the Account owner at least 30 days before we do.
Other records. We keep billing and tax records for 7 years, as New Zealand law requires. We keep login, diagnostic and support records only as long as we need them. When an account is deleted, we keep a minimal record of the deletion, and a log of it, for 7 years as a record that the deletion was carried out.
Backups. We do not currently keep separate backup copies of our database. Data deleted from our database is removed from Google Cloud under Google's standard deletion timelines. Uploaded files that are deleted can be recovered for 7 days and are then permanently removed.
Anonymised data. Anonymised, aggregated data that cannot identify you or your venue may be kept after deletion.
9. Security and Breaches
In transit and at rest: data is encrypted in transit using TLS and encrypted at rest on Google Cloud. Access control: the platform uses role-based access, so Users see only what their role allows. Production systems are open only to authorised Hosti personnel. Audit trail: we keep audit records of administrative actions. Once a stocktake is submitted its record is locked, and later edits are logged against the User who made them. Incident response: we maintain a plan for detecting, containing, notifying and fixing security incidents.
We assess suspected privacy breaches promptly. If a breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify affected people and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as soon as practicable, as the Privacy Act 2020 requires.
10. Your Rights, Children and Cookies
Your rights. Whoever you are, you can ask to see the personal information we hold about you and to correct it, export your data using the in-app tools, and ask for deletion as section 8 explains. If your information was entered by a Customer, such as your employer, we will pass your request to them and help them respond.
EU and UK users. You also have the rights to restriction, objection, portability and withdrawal of consent, and to complain to your local data protection authority.
California and other US state residents. You can ask us what we hold, to delete or correct it, and to limit use of sensitive information. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising.
To use any of these rights, email privacy@hosti.co.nz.
Children. The platform is not designed for, or directed at, children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If we find that a minor's information has been entered, we will isolate it, tell the Account owner and delete it.
Cookies. The web app and website use essential cookies to keep you logged in and secure, cookies set by Stripe to process payments, and analytics to measure how features are used. We do not use advertising cookies. For EU and UK users, we ask for consent before setting non-essential cookies, and you can withdraw it at any time through your browser or in the app.
11. Changes, Contact and Complaints
Changes. We may update this policy. We will tell Account owners of material changes by in-app notice or email, and the current version is always at hosti.co.nz/legal/privacy and under Settings in the app.
Contact. HOSTI LIMITED has a Privacy Officer, who handles privacy requests and compliance with the Privacy Act 2020.
Privacy: privacy@hosti.co.nz Support: support@hosti.co.nz Security: security@hosti.co.nz Postal: HOSTI LIMITED, 78 Seaview Road, Paihia 0200, New Zealand
We aim to reply to verified requests within 30 days, or sooner where the law requires.
Complaints. If you are not satisfied with how we handled your information, you can complain to:
New Zealand: the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, privacy.org.nz Australia: the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, oaic.gov.au EU and UK: your local supervisory authority United States: your state Attorney General