Privacy

Last updated: 22 June 2026

This policy explains what information Spend a Penny collects, why, and what control you have over it. We’ve tried to write it plainly. If anything is unclear, email us at hello@spendapenny.uk.

The short version

• You don’t need an account to use Spend a Penny.
• We don’t sell your data and we don’t show ads.
• We don’t track you across other websites or build advertising profiles.
• We collect the minimum needed to run the service and keep it free of spam and abuse.

What we collect, and why

Your location. When you ask to find toilets near you, your device shares its location so we can return nearby results. We use it to answer that request. We don’t keep a history of where you’ve been. You can refuse location access and search by town or postcode instead.

Favourites and preferences. When you save a favourite or dismiss the “add to home screen” prompt, that’s stored on your own device (in your browser), not on our servers. Clearing your browser data removes it.

Reports, confirmations and suggested updates. When you confirm a toilet is still there, report its status, or suggest a correction, we store what you submit (such as the status, a cleanliness rating or a note). To prevent spam and abuse, we also record your IP address and browser type at the time. We use these only to rate-limit and protect the service.

Photos you upload. If you add a photo to a report, we store it and it may be shown publicly on the relevant toilet’s page after review. Please don’t include people, faces, number plates or anything that identifies someone. You can ask us to remove a photo at any time.

Push notifications. If you choose to turn on notifications for a saved toilet, we store the technical subscription your browser provides so we can send you an update if its status changes. You can turn this off at any time in your browser or device settings.

Anonymous usage analytics. We use a privacy-friendly analytics tool to understand which features are used, in aggregate. It doesn’t use tracking cookies and doesn’t build a profile of you.

Cookies and local storage

We don’t use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. We use your browser’s local storage to remember things like your favourites and whether you’ve seen the install prompt, and a service worker so the site can work offline. Our analytics is cookieless.

Maps are provided by Google Maps. When a map loads, Google may set its own cookies and process data under Google’s privacy policy.

Who processes data on our behalf

We use a small number of trusted providers to run the service: cloud hosting and analytics (Vercel), our database (Neon), image storage, and maps (Google). They process data only to provide their service to us, and some may process it outside the UK with appropriate safeguards in place.

How long we keep it

We keep community reports and confirmations for as long as they’re useful for showing accurate, fresh status. Abuse-prevention records like IP addresses are kept only as long as needed for that purpose. Photos are kept until you or we remove them. Notification subscriptions are kept until you turn notifications off.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, correct it, or delete it, and you can object to certain processing. Because the site works without accounts, we hold very little that identifies you. To make a request, email hello@spendapenny.uk. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).

Children

Spend a Penny is a general-audience service and isn’t aimed at children. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle data, we’ll update this page and the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or a request about your data? Email hello@spendapenny.uk or see our contact page.