Privacy policy

Last updated: 28 October 2026

CETEChat is run by Beyond Tomorrow Enterprises Pty Ltd (ABN 34 683 765 139), based in Sydney, Australia ("we", "us"). This policy explains what information we handle when you use CETEChat, CETECommand (the business tools inside CETEChat) and this website, and how we protect it. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

The short version

Your messages, files and calls are end-to-end encrypted. They are locked on your device before they are sent and can only be unlocked by the people in the conversation. We do not have the keys, so we cannot read them, share them or hand them over.

What we cannot access

• The content of messages, including edited versions
• Files you share, including their names and types
• The audio and video of calls, which travel encrypted directly between participants (or through a relay that cannot decrypt them)
• What you search for, because search runs on your own device
• View once photos and videos, and the words sent with them
• What is in a chat backup: it is locked on your device with a backup code that only you have
• Your encryption keys when you sign in on a computer with your phone: the phone locks them for that computer only, and we only pass them on
• The motion readings used for crash detection, which stay on your phone

What we do collect

• Account details: your name, email address, job title (if you add one), profile colour and profile photo (if you add one). Your photo is not end-to-end encrypted: like your name, it is shown to people in your companies and your contacts.
• Workspace details: which companies you belong to, your role in each, channel names and topics, and who is in which conversation.
• Metadata we need to deliver messages: when a message was sent, which conversation it belongs to, file sizes, read positions and reactions.
• Security information: sign-in times, IP addresses and device type for your active sessions, and a record of administrative actions in each workspace.
• Approximate location: the country (and sometimes city) your IP address points to when you sign up and sign in. We work it out on our own server with an IP location database (from DB-IP), without sending your address to anyone. We use it to show you where your account is signed in, to spot suspicious sign-ins, and for statistics about where CETEChat is used. This is separate from the location features below, which you turn on yourself.
• Your password: never stored. Your device turns it into a key; we keep only a one-way hash of a separate sign-in key.
• Notifications: if you turn them on, a push address for your device. Notifications contain names and conversation references, never message text.
• Phone number (optional): if you add one, so people who know it can find you (you choose who can) and so it can be checked by a text you send us. Finding friends from your phone's contacts sends only scrambled fingerprints of their numbers to check; names never leave your phone and nothing is kept.
• Payments: when you pay a business's invoice online, or buy from a seller (when selling is available), the amount and its status are kept so both sides can see them. Card payments are handled by Stripe; we never see your card number. A postal address for an order travels end-to-end encrypted in the chat.
• Listings (when selling is available): things you list for sale, with their photos, price and rough area (a suburb), are shown to other people and are not end-to-end encrypted. Your chats about them are.
• Chat backup (optional): if you choose to keep a copy on our server, we store it as you sent it, locked with your backup code, which we never have. It is deleted when you delete it, replace it or delete your account.
• Problem reports: when something goes wrong in the apps or on our server, we keep the error and the app version, without message content, names or email addresses. To count how many people a problem affects we keep a scrambled code, not your account. The platform admin can switch these reports off.
• Signing in on a computer with your phone: the code the computer shows lasts two minutes and is deleted within minutes of being used.

CETECommand business records

If your company uses CETECommand, we store its customers, quotes, invoices, jobs, schedules, timesheets, pay rates, forms, job photos and files, and the bank and accounting connections it sets up. These records are not end-to-end encrypted, because our servers need to read them to make PDFs, send emails and texts to customers, take online payments and sync with accounting software. Only your company's people, as allowed by their role, and the CETEChat team when supporting you, can see them. Customers see only what you send them, through private links.

When a company gives a job to a subcontractor, the subcontractor sees the job's site address, the on-site contact the company adds (not for customers the company keeps private), any access notes the customer gave for that job (until the job is done), and the files the company chooses to share. They never see the customer's name, email or phone. A subcontractor who links their CETECommand account sees their own work orders from each company they work with, and each company sees only its own work with them. A subcontractor's profile (business name, ABN, trades, area, licences and insurance, and an insurance certificate if they add one) is shown to the companies they are linked with, and, only if they choose to be listed, to paying companies searching Find a tradie (never their phone number or email).

Link previews

When you send a link from the iPhone or Android app, your phone fetches the page to show a preview (its title, a short description and a small picture). The preview is end-to-end encrypted inside your message, so we never see the link or the preview, and the people you send it to do not contact the website. The website you link to sees a request from your phone's internet address, as if you had opened it. You can turn link previews off in Settings, Privacy.

Location

• Sharing in a conversation and the family map: if you share your location, live location or SOS, or turn on the family map in a personal space, your location is end-to-end encrypted on your device. We cannot see where you are or which places you saved. You choose who can see you: everyone in the space, or only your circles (small groups like Close family) and the people you pick. We keep the names of circles and who is in them, but never where anyone is. With the family map turned on, the iPhone and Android apps keep sharing in the background until you pause or stop, and the family is told when you do. Stopping deletes your location history.
• Jobs: if your company turns on location for jobs, it first gives you a written notice in the app (and by email) saying what is collected, who sees it and when it starts, at least 14 days ahead unless you agree to start sooner. From then, the app records where you are when you clock on and off and while you are clocked on, so the office can see where the team is. Only your latest location is kept, and it is deleted when you clock off. This is not end-to-end encrypted. It is never recorded when you are clocked off, and the app shows when it is on.
• Maps: map pictures come from OpenFreeMap (made from OpenStreetMap data), which sees the area being viewed but not anyone's location on it. Searches in Around me are answered from our own copy of OpenStreetMap places where we have it, so your location stays on our servers; elsewhere the search area (never who asked) goes to the public OpenStreetMap servers.

Google user data

CETEChat asks for access to your Google account only when you choose a feature that needs it, and only for that feature.

• Sign in with Google (your name, email address and basic profile): we keep your email address and the number Google gives your account, so you can sign in with Google next time. Nothing else in your Google account is read. You can unlink it in Settings, Security, under Sign in with Google or Microsoft.
• Google Calendar (seeing and editing events, if you link your calendar in Jobs): we add, change and remove the visits you are booked for as events in your calendar. We read your events from yesterday to two months ahead, to see when you are busy and whether one of our visits was moved there. We keep only the start and end of your busy times, and their titles only if you choose to share titles with your team. To unlink it, open Jobs, Schedule, My calendar, and tap Unlink: the visits we added are taken out of your calendar, the busy times we kept are deleted, and we ask Google to cancel our access.
• Google Business Profile (managing your business listing, if an owner or admin of your company connects it): we read your business's reviews (the reviewer's name as Google shows it, the star rating, the text and the date) to show them in CETECommand next to the job and worker they relate to, and to tell you about new ones. We post a reply to a review only when someone in your company writes it and sends it. We do not change your business information, photos or locations. Disconnecting stops this, deletes the reviews we kept, and asks Google to cancel our access.

The access keys Google gives us are encrypted on our server. Google user data is used only to provide these features to you. We do not sell it, use it for advertising, use it to build profiles, or use it to train AI models (ours or anyone else's), and nobody at CETEChat reads it unless you ask us to, for security, or where the law requires it.

CETEChat's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

How we use it

To provide and secure CETEChat and CETECommand: delivering messages and calls, sending notifications and account emails (such as confirming your email or resetting your password), the features each company uses on its own records (such as its dashboards, reminders, reports and suggestions), preventing abuse, and supporting you when you contact us. We do not sell your information and we do not use it for advertising.

Aggregated statistics (CETECommand). We may combine de-identified information from many businesses using CETECommand to create aggregated statistics, such as benchmarks and trends (for example, typical quote acceptance or payment times for a trade). These statistics never identify a business, its customers or any person, never include personal information, and are only made from enough businesses that no single business can be picked out. Details about a business's own customers (such as names, addresses, emails and phone numbers) are never used outside that business. End-to-end encrypted messages, files and calls are never part of this: we cannot read them.

Who can see what

People in a workspace can see each other's names and profiles. Workspace owners and admins can see members' names, email addresses, roles and sign-in status, and the workspace's audit log. Nobody outside a workspace can see who is in it.

If you report a message, you can choose to include its text. The report, and the text if you include it, is shown to the workspace's owners and admins and to the CETEChat team, so they can act on it. The person reported is not told who reported them. People you block are not told either.

A workspace owner can choose to be included in direct messages that involve a guest (for example a client talking with staff). When this is on, the owner is added to those conversations as a visible member and can read them; everyone in the conversation sees a label saying the owner can see it. Owners are never added to conversations without that label.

Where it is stored

On servers in Sydney, Australia, run by a hosting provider we contract. Encrypted content stays encrypted at rest; only your team's devices hold the keys.

Service providers

We use a small number of service providers:

• A hosting company that runs our servers in Sydney.
• An email delivery service, for account emails and the emails your company sends to its customers.
• Stripe, for subscriptions and for your customers' online payments. Card details go straight to Stripe and never reach our servers; Stripe may process payment information outside Australia under its own privacy policy.
• A text message provider, for texts your company sends to customers (the customer's number and the message).
• Apple, Google and Mozilla's push services, which deliver notifications. Notifications carry names and conversation references, never message text.
• Google and Microsoft, only if you choose to sign in with them or link a calendar, and Google if your company connects its Google Business Profile. See Google user data.
• Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks and payroll services, only if your company connects them; we then send them the records needed for that connection.
• Tenor or Giphy, when you search for a GIF (they see the search words, not who you are).
• Anthropic, only when someone in your company uses the AI helper in CETECommand; the text of that request is sent to produce the answer and is not used to train models. Chat summaries and translation run on your own device.

Keeping and deleting information

We keep your information while your account is active. Deleted messages have their encrypted content removed from our servers. If your workspace uses disappearing messages, messages and files are erased from our servers automatically when their time is up. Our servers are backed up daily so we can recover from a failure. Each backup is kept for 14 days and then overwritten, so anything deleted is gone from our backups within 14 days. Backups hold messages and files only in their encrypted form.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself at any time, in the app or on the web: open Settings, then Security, then Delete my account, and confirm with your password. If you cannot sign in, email privacy@cetechat.com from the address on your account and we will delete it for you.

• Erased straight away: your profile, encryption keys, devices, sign-ins and notification addresses, every message and file you sent, and your reactions.
• Threads: where other people replied to one of your messages, your message is replaced by "This message was deleted." with no content, so their replies still make sense.
• Your company: if you are the only person in a workspace, it is deleted with everything in it and any subscription is cancelled. If you are the only owner of a workspace that has other people, make someone else an owner first.
• Kept: messages your teammates sent stay with them. Each workspace's audit log keeps a note that your account was deleted, with your name only. To stop the same company claiming repeated free trials, we keep the anonymous fingerprint Stripe gives the card used for a trial (never the card number).

Your choices and rights

You can update your profile at any time, and you can ask us for access to, correction of or deletion of the personal information we hold about you by emailing privacy@cetechat.com. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Website

This website uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are useful. It sets first-party cookies and sends usage data to Google. The CETEChat app (app.cetechat.com) uses no analytics or tracking. Our fonts and images are served from our own server.

Contact

Questions about privacy: privacy@cetechat.com. For help with the app: support@cetechat.com. To report a security issue: security@cetechat.com.