privacy policy

Trainbase is run by Trainbase Pty Ltd (ACN 688 643 656), ABN 93 688 643 656, in Queensland, Australia. In this policy, "Trainbase", "we" and "us" mean that company.

To reach us about privacy, email hello@trainbase.io. A real person reads every message.

We follow the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. Trainbase holds health information, such as body measurements and health readings, so we treat everything in a client's record with the care health information needs.

• Trainbase is software that gyms and coaches use to train their clients. The gym decides what goes into a client's record. We keep it safe and run the software.
• Customer records are stored in Sydney, Australia.
• A client sees only their own data. A coach sees only their own clients. No gym can see another gym's data.
• We don't sell personal information. We don't show ads. We don't send marketing email.
• No AI feature in Trainbase reads your information. The AI software our team works with reads only the few records a fault or a request for help needs. Trainbase never uses what you put in it to train an AI model.
• A few services outside Australia handle small parts of the work, such as sending email. Each one is named below, with what it receives and where it is.
• A client can download their data and ask for it to be deleted from Settings. Anyone else can email hello@trainbase.io.

Trainbase sits between a gym and its clients, so who is responsible depends on the data.

• A client's record belongs to their gym. The gym (or the coach who runs their own practice on Trainbase) decides what to collect about its clients and why. Trainbase stores and processes that data for the gym, on its behalf, to run the service. In the language of the EU and UK's data protection law (the GDPR), the gym is the controller and Trainbase is its processor.
• Some data is ours. We are responsible for the accounts of gym owners and coaches, billing, the website, the error reports and security records we keep, and messages people send to hello@trainbase.io. For these, Trainbase is the controller.

Your gym may have its own privacy policy as well. If you're a client and have a question about why your gym collects something, ask your gym first. You can always ask us too.

gym owners and coaches

• Your name, email address, and phone number if you give one.
• Your gym's name, logo, colour and time zone.
• Your role in the gym (owner, coach, or both).
• Your library: the programs, exercises, foods, recipes, check-in forms and demo videos you create.
• Your bookings, notes, messages and the automatic messages you set up.
• For a gym that pays for Trainbase: the name and email the account is billed to, and its billing address. Card details go straight to our payment provider. We never see or store a card number.

clients

Your gym or coach sets up your record. You add to it as you train. It can include:

• Your details: name, email address, phone, gender, date of birth, height and preferred units.
• Body measurements: weight, body fat, lean and fat mass, skinfold and girth sites, strength records and goals.
• Training: your programs, every set you log (weight, reps, effort), exercise swaps, and how often you're expected to train.
• Nutrition: your diet plans, the foods you log, supplements, and how closely you followed the plan.
• Daily check-ins: sleep, energy and soreness, habits, and the answers you give on your gym's check-in forms.
• Progress photos and profile photos.
• Health readings from your phone, if you connect the Trainbase phone app (see "health information" below).
• Cycle tracking, if you switch it on (see below).
• Messages with your coaches, and in groups your gym adds you to, with any photos and files you send.
• Bookings and video calls with your coach.
• Requests you make, such as asking for your account to be deleted.

people who fill in a gym's enquiry form

A gym can share a Trainbase enquiry form. If you fill one in, the gym receives your name, email, phone, your goals, your training history, when you're available, and the exact words you agreed to when you sent it. The gym then keeps notes on its contact with you. That information is the gym's, and only that gym can see it.

people who message a gym through a connected account

See "messages from Gmail, Outlook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp" below.

everyone who uses the website or the app

• Your internet address. Our hosting provider sees it to deliver each page. When you sign up or fill in an enquiry form, we keep a scrambled, one-way fingerprint of it for a short time to stop spam (see "how long we keep it"). We never store the address itself for this.
• Sign-in records. Our sign-in provider records when you sign in, to keep accounts safe.
• Error reports. When something breaks, we receive a report of where in the app it broke and why. Names, email addresses, ids and long numbers are masked before it leaves Trainbase, and it carries no internet address. See "the services we use".
• A few small settings in your browser. See "cookies and browser storage".

We don't use advertising trackers or third-party analytics.

• From you, when you type it, upload it, log it or connect a device.
• From your gym or coach, when they add you or work with you.
• From your phone's health app, only if you connect it.
• From Gmail, Outlook, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp, only if a gym or coach connects one of their own accounts.
• From our payment provider, which tells us whether a gym's payment went through.

We use personal information only to run Trainbase for the people who use it:

• to show coaches and clients the programs, plans and progress they work on together;
• to work out the numbers the app shows, such as training weights from a percentage of your best lift, the calories in a diet from its protein, carbs and fat, and an engagement estimate that tells a coach how consistently a client has been logging (it is an estimate, shown only to the client's coaches and gym, and Trainbase makes no decision about anyone from it);
• to send the messages and notifications people ask for, and the emails the service needs (an invitation, a welcome, a password reset, a note that your password changed);
• to bill gyms;
• to keep Trainbase secure, find faults and fix them;
• to answer you when you contact us;
• to meet our legal obligations, such as tax records.

We don't use it for anything else unless you agree, or the law requires or allows it. We don't sell it, rent it, or use it for advertising.

The rules below are enforced by the database itself, not just by what the screens show.

• A client sees their own record and nothing about anyone else.
• A coach sees the clients assigned to them. A coach who is taken off a client loses access to that client's record.
• The gym's owner sees every client in their gym, with three exceptions: cycle tracking (see below), progress photos a client has chosen to share as outlines only, and conversations between a coach and a client, which the owner can't open in the app. A data export the owner makes for a client does include that client's conversations, because the record belongs to the gym.
• Groups and team chat are seen by the people in them.
• A gym's library is private to the gym, and a coach's own items are private to that coach.
• The marketplace. If a coach publishes a program for sale, anyone signed in to Trainbase can see its listing: the cover, video, title, description, price, length, the seller's name, photo and gym, and how many times it was bought. If the seller switches it on, the listing also shows the program's main lifts and percentages. No client, set, note or buyer's name is ever part of a listing.

body measurements and progress photos

Your coaches and your gym's owner can see your body measurements, as they do your training.

Progress photos are stored privately. By default your coaches and your gym's owner can see them. You can choose, for all your photos or one at a time, to share an outline only: then they see the shape of your body traced from the photo, never the photo. The outline is found on your own device, so the photo isn't sent anywhere to do it. You can always see and remove your own photos.

health readings from your phone

If you connect the Trainbase phone app to Apple Health or Health Connect, it sends Trainbase your steps, sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, workouts, weight and body fat, with the app and device that measured each one. Your coaches and your gym's owner can see these readings.

The phone holds its own key, which can only add readings to your record. It can't read anything. You can disconnect a phone at any time and it stops at once. Readings already sent stay in your record as history.

Garmin

Trainbase is adding a way to connect a Garmin account directly. If you connect yours, from your own settings on Garmin's sign-in page, Trainbase receives your daily sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, stress, Body Battery, steps and completed activities, from the day you connect. Trainbase only reads from Garmin and never changes anything there. You and the coaching team you choose see them, beside each training day. They're stored in Sydney, Australia, shared with no one, and never used for advertising or by any AI. If you disconnect, Trainbase stops at once and deletes the Garmin readings it holds for you.

cycle tracking

Cycle tracking is the most private thing Trainbase holds, so it starts from "nobody but you".

• It is off until you switch it on.
• Your coach sees nothing unless you choose to share. If you share, the coaches you train with see your phase and what it is worked out from (the dates of your periods and the usual length you gave). A coach who can see the dates can also tell when a period comes later than usual. They never see your flow or symptoms.
• Your gym's owner never sees it, unless they are also your coach and you share. Nobody at Trainbase can see it, and it is never in an export your gym makes. It is in your own.
• You can stop sharing, stop tracking, or delete your whole cycle history at any time. Deleting can't be undone.

Messages between a coach and a client are seen only by those two people in the app. Messages can't be edited or deleted once sent, so the conversation stays a true record. They are kept until the client's record is deleted.

Notifications on your phone or computer say who sent something and what kind of thing it is. They don't show the words of a message unless you switch that on in Settings. Check-in answers never appear in a notification.

Video calls run on our video calling service. The sound and picture travel through its servers in Sydney. To let you into a call, it receives your name as Trainbase shows it and an internal id. Trainbase doesn't record calls, and a call's room is deleted after the call.

Call transcripts are being added. A call is transcribed only when the coach and the client both agree at the start of that call, on the screen, before anything is recorded. If either says no, nothing is captured. When both agree, the call's sound goes to our video calling service's transcription service in the United States to be turned into text. The transcript is then stored in Sydney, Australia, with the rest of the gym's data, and shown only to that coach and that client. No AI is trained on it. It's deleted when the client's record is deleted, or sooner if either of them deletes it.

Trainbase is adding a way for coaches to read and answer messages from these services in one place, beside each client's record. Until a gym or coach connects one of their accounts, Trainbase receives nothing from any of them.

When one is connected:

• What we receive. Messages sent to and from the connected account, with the sender's name, address, username or phone number, and any pictures or files. For Instagram and Facebook, we also read the connected account's name, username and picture, so a coach can see which account a message came through.
• Why. Only so the coach can read the message and reply in Trainbase. A reply is sent only when a coach writes it and presses send. We send no automated or marketing messages through these accounts.
• Who sees them. Mail from a coach's own mailbox is shown to that coach. Messages to a gym's Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp are shown to that gym's coaches. Nobody in another gym sees them.
• Where they are kept. Our copies are stored in Sydney, Australia, with the rest of the gym's data. The original messages stay with Google, Microsoft or Meta, under their own privacy policies.
• Sharing. We share them with no one.
• AI. No AI reads them, and they are never used to train an AI model.
• How long. Until the coach or gym deletes a conversation, disconnects the account, or the person who wrote asks us to delete it. When an account is disconnected, Trainbase loses access at once and deletes its copies of that account's messages within 30 days. When someone unsends an Instagram message, we delete our copy.

Google user data

If a coach connects Gmail, Trainbase asks Google for two permissions only: to send mail the coach writes, and to read mail. We read only messages to or from the email addresses of that coach's own clients in Trainbase. All other mail stays in Gmail, unread by us. We never change, label or delete anything in the coach's mailbox.

We store the client emails we read in Sydney, show them only to that coach, and share them with no one. No person at Trainbase reads them, except with the coach's agreement for a specific message, to investigate abuse or a security problem, or where the law requires it. Gmail data is never used to train or improve any AI model, and it is never used for advertising. When a coach disconnects Gmail, we stop reading at once and delete our copies within 30 days. A coach can also remove Trainbase's access from their Google Account at any time.

Trainbase's use of information received from Google APIs will adhere to Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Microsoft user data

If a coach connects Outlook, the same rules apply: we read only messages to or from that coach's own clients, send only what the coach writes, store our copies in Sydney, share them with no one, and delete them within 30 days of the coach disconnecting.

if you messaged a gym and don't have a Trainbase account

If you wrote to a gym by email, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp, and that gym uses Trainbase, a copy of your messages may be kept in Trainbase for the gym. To have it deleted, you can ask the gym, or email hello@trainbase.io with the subject "delete my messages". Tell us which gym you wrote to, and the email address, username or phone number you wrote from. We may ask you to show the account is yours. We delete the copies within 30 days and email you when it's done. Deleting our copy doesn't delete the original from Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp or your mail.

The same goes for anyone who filled in a gym's enquiry form.

No AI feature in Trainbase reads your information today.

Trainbase is built and maintained by a small team working with AI software from a provider in the United States. When we investigate a fault or a request for help, that software may read the few records the investigation needs, only for the reasons in "when a person at Trainbase may read your data" below, reading as little as the question needs and changing nothing. What it reads goes to that provider in the United States. It never reads mail from Gmail or Outlook, messages from Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp, or readings from Garmin.

Trainbase has two features built and switched off: reading a photo of a written program sheet, and reading a photo of a meal. They would send the photo to an AI provider in the United States. They stay off until we've decided they can be switched on, and if they are, you'll be told on the screen before you use them, in plain words: what is sent, to whom, and where. Trainbase never uses what anyone puts in it to train an AI model.

People at Trainbase look at a customer's records only:

• when the gym's owner asks us for help and agrees to it;
• to investigate abuse, a security problem, or a fault we can't fix any other way;
• when the law requires it.

To help a gym, a Trainbase administrator can enter that one gym, with the same view as its owner, for up to four hours at a time. Everything about it is written to a record that nobody can change or delete, and the gym's owner can read it: when we came in, when we left, and every change we made. This record doesn't list which pages we looked at. Like an owner, an administrator can't read cycle tracking, outline-only photos, or coach and client conversations in the app, and can't read team chat. An export made during a visit is recorded too.

The people who build and maintain Trainbase, and the AI software they work with, work on its software and the structure of its database. They test changes in ways that are always undone. When a fault or a request for help means looking at real records, they read only what that one question needs, change nothing, and never browse customers' records.

• Database host

  What it receives

  Everything stored in Trainbase: records, photos, files, messages and sign-ins

  Why

  Our database, file storage and sign-in

  Where

  Sydney, Australia

• Hosting provider

  What it receives

  Every visit to the website and app, including your internet address

  Why

  Runs the website and app servers

  Where

  App servers in Sydney, Australia. The provider is a US company, and its network and request logs may be outside Australia, including the United States

• Email delivery service

  What it receives

  The recipient's email address and name, and the email itself (which can name the coach and the gym)

  Why

  Sends invitations, welcome and password emails

  Where

  United States

• Error-reporting service

  What it receives

  Error reports, with names, email addresses, ids and long numbers masked, and no internet address

  Why

  Tells us when something breaks

  Where

  United States

• Video calling service

  What it receives

  Your name as Trainbase shows it, and an internal id, for each call. The call's sound, only when both people agree to a transcript

  Why

  Video calls and transcripts

  Where

  Calls travel through Sydney. The service is a US company

• Payment provider

  What it receives

  The gym's billing name, email and address, and card details (sent straight to the provider)

  Why

  Takes payment for Trainbase

  Where

  Australia and the United States

• Your phone's or browser's own notification service

  What it receives

  A notification, encrypted so the service can't read it

  Why

  Delivers notifications to your phone or browser

  Where

  Mainly the United States

• Backup storage service

  What it receives

  Backup copies of the database, encrypted before they leave, which the service can't read

  Why

  Backups

  Where

  Oceania

• Our email provider

  What it receives

  Emails you send to hello@trainbase.io

  Why

  Our own mailbox

  Where

  Its data centres, including the United States

• YouTube and Vimeo

  What it receives

  Your internet address, when a page shows a demo video a coach has linked

  Why

  Plays the coach's video

  Where

  United States. We use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode and ask Vimeo not to track

• AI software provider

  What it receives

  When our team investigates a fault or a request for help, the few records that one investigation needs

  Why

  The AI software our team uses to build and maintain Trainbase

  Where

  United States

• An open food database

  What it receives

  The barcode number of a food you scan, and nothing about you

  Why

  Finds the food's nutrition

  Where

  France

• Google, Microsoft and Meta (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp)

  What it receives

  Only if a gym connects an account: the replies a coach sends

  Why

  Delivers the coach's reply

  Where

  Their own data centres, including the United States

We don't use any other service that receives personal information. When we add one, we'll update this list first. The name of each provider is available on request from hello@trainbase.io.

Trainbase's customer records are stored in Sydney, Australia. Trainbase serves gyms worldwide, and we plan to add a second home for records in the United States. Before any gym's records are kept there, we'll update this policy and tell that gym first. Some information goes to the services above, outside Australia, to do their part of the work: to the United States (the AI software provider, the hosting provider's network, the email delivery, error-reporting, video calling and payment services, the notification services, Google, Microsoft, Meta, YouTube and Vimeo), to France (the open food database, which receives no personal information), and the backup storage service keeps encrypted backups in its Oceania region. Each receives only what it needs, and each is bound by its own terms to protect it.

• Every request made in a person's name is checked by the database against what that person may see. A guessed id returns nothing.
• Photos, files and videos are kept in private storage, and links to them stop working after a short time.
• Every connection to Trainbase is encrypted.
• We never see or keep your password in a readable form.
• The keys that reach the whole database are kept on our servers, never in the app on your device.
• Error reports have personal details removed before they leave Trainbase.
• Backups are encrypted before they are stored.
• Every visit by a Trainbase administrator to a gym is recorded where the gym can see it.
• We test that one gym can't reach another's data, and that a coach can't reach another coach's clients.

No system is perfectly secure. If something goes wrong, see "if there's a data breach".

• A client's record (body, training, nutrition, check-ins, photos, health readings, messages, bookings)

  How long

  While the client is with the gym, and afterwards as the gym's history, until the gym deletes the client. A logged set, a measurement or a past diet can't be deleted on its own: a mistake is struck out or corrected, so the history stays true

• Cycle tracking

  How long

  Until you delete it, or the gym deletes your record. Stopping tracking keeps your history for you

• Progress photos

  How long

  Until you remove them, or the gym deletes your record

• A gym's enquiries and the notes on them

  How long

  Until the gym deletes them, or the person asks us to

• Copies of messages from connected accounts

  How long

  Until deleted, or 30 days after the account is disconnected

• Programs, foods and exercises put in a gym's bin

  How long

  Deleted for good 30 days after

• A record that a client was deleted

  How long

  Kept, with no name, email or health data in it

• The record of Trainbase's visits to a gym

  How long

  Kept, and nobody can delete it

• The scrambled internet-address fingerprints used to stop spam

  How long

  One day for sign-ups, two days for enquiry forms

• Video call rooms

  How long

  Deleted after the call. No recording is made

• Call transcripts, made only when both people agree

  How long

  Until the client's record is deleted, or sooner if the coach or the client deletes it

• Error reports

  How long

  For a limited time under our error-reporting service's plan, then deleted

• Database backups

  How long

  Our encrypted copies for 35 days, and our database host's own copies, in Sydney, for 7 days

• Billing records

  How long

  As long as Australian tax law requires

• Owner and coach accounts

  How long

  While the account is open, then until deleted on request

When something is deleted, it can stay in a backup until that backup expires, at most 35 days later.

You can ask for any of these by emailing hello@trainbase.io. We'll answer within 30 days, and we don't charge for it. We'll check it's really you first.

Clients:

• See and take a copy: download your data from Settings. It is one file with everything Trainbase holds about you, including your cycle history, with links to your photos and files that work for a day.
• Fix: ask your coach to correct your details, or ask us.
• Delete: ask for your account to be deleted from Settings. The request goes to your gym's owner, who carries it out. It deletes your profile, your body, training, nutrition, check-in, habit, health and message data, your progress photos, the photos and files you sent in messages, and your sign-in. The gym keeps a note that a deletion happened, with no name or health data. Exercise demo videos belong to the coach who filmed them, so they stay. If your gym hasn't acted within 30 days, email us.

Gym owners and coaches: your gym's owner can update your details. To delete a coach or owner account, or a whole gym, email us and we'll do it within 30 days. A gym owner can download each client's data at any time.

Anyone else: see "if you messaged a gym and don't have a Trainbase account".

If we hold your data for your gym, we may pass your request to the gym, because it's their record to decide on. We'll tell you if we do. If we can't do what you ask, we'll tell you why and how to complain.

Trainbase can be used anywhere, and we treat everyone's data the same way. If you're in the EU, the UK, or somewhere with a similar law:

• For a client's record, your gym is the controller and Trainbase is its processor. We act only on the gym's instructions and to run the service.
• For owner and coach accounts, billing, the website, and security and error records, Trainbase is the controller. We rely on our contract with you to run your account and bill you, on our legitimate interest in keeping the service safe and working, and on legal obligation for tax records.
• You can ask to see, correct, delete, restrict, object to the use of, or take a copy of your data. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
• Your data is stored in Australia, and parts of it go to the United States as described above.

Trainbase uses a few small files and settings in your browser, all needed to run it:

• sign-in cookies, which keep you signed in;
• tz, your time zone, so the app shows your own "today";
• tb_hat, whether an owner who also coaches is working as owner or coach;
• your light or dark theme, kept in your browser;
• a timer between sets, kept only until you close the tab;
• a note that the outline finder has been downloaded, so it isn't downloaded again.

We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. A demo video from YouTube or Vimeo may set its own cookies when you play it.

Trainbase is made for adults. A gym that coaches someone under 18 is responsible for getting their parent or guardian's agreement before adding them.

If personal information is lost or reached by someone who shouldn't have it, and it's likely to cause someone serious harm, we'll tell the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires. Where the data belongs to a gym, we'll tell the gym straight away.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, email hello@trainbase.io and tell us what happened. We'll reply within 30 days.

If you're not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992. If you're in the EU or UK, you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

When we change this policy, we'll update it here and change the date at the top. If a change affects how we use information we already hold, we'll tell gym owners by email, and show it in the app, before it takes effect.

Trainbase Pty Ltd (ACN 688 643 656)
hello@trainbase.io