Independent app — not affiliated with any council or government entity
Binformation is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the UK government, any local council, or any other government entity. Bin collection schedules shown in the app are sourced from individual UK local council websites via the UK Bin Collection Data project. For the full list of data sources and the accuracy disclaimer, see the Data sources & disclaimer page.
Summary
Binformation is a UK bin day reminder app. It stores your address on your device only. It sends your postcode, location (either device GPS or postcode centroid) and house identifier to a backend service to look up your council's bin collection schedule. It shows advertisements through Google AdMob. It does not require an account.
Who we are
Binformation is developed by Keep Computing (sole trader, United Kingdom). Contact details: keepcomputing.co.uk.
Data collection summary
The following table lists all data types the app collects or shares, matching the categories used by Google Play's Data Safety section:
| Data type | Collected? | Shared? | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approximate location | Yes | Yes — developer backend | App functionality (council lookup) |
| Precise location | Yes (GPS path only) | Yes — developer backend | App functionality (address lookup) |
| Address | Yes | Yes — developer backend | App functionality (bin schedule lookup) |
| Purchase history | Yes | No | App functionality (ad-free entitlement) |
| Crash logs | Yes | Yes — Google (Firebase Crashlytics) | App stability and bug fixes |
| App performance diagnostics | Yes | Yes — Google (Firebase Analytics) | Analytics |
| Device or other IDs | Yes | Yes — Google (AdMob) | Advertising |
Your data is not sold. All data transmitted from the app is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). You can delete all locally stored data by tapping "Change address" in the app's Settings screen, clearing the app's data from Android Settings, or uninstalling the app.
What data the app handles
Data you enter
- Postcode: required to identify your council.
- House number or name: required to identify your specific collection round.
These are stored locally on your device using Android's DataStore. They are not synchronised to any cloud account.
Location data
The app offers two ways to find your address:
- Use my location (GPS path): If you choose this option and grant location permission, the app reads your device's GPS or network location to determine your street. You then confirm the street and enter your house number. The coordinates are stored locally on your device. Location permission can be revoked at any time in Android Settings.
- Enter my address (manual path): If you choose this option, the app queries the postcodes.io service (via a proxy endpoint) to convert your postcode into an approximate latitude and longitude. This is the centroid of your postcode area, which typically covers multiple households.
In both cases, the latitude and longitude are stored locally on your device together with your postcode and house number.
Data sent to our backend
To look up your bin collection schedule, the app sends the following to kepthouse.app/api/, an API hosted by the same developer:
- Your postcode
- Latitude and longitude (from your device's GPS or from the postcode centroid, depending on which setup path you chose)
- The address string you entered, in the form "house, street, postcode"
The backend uses this information to identify your council, look up your property's Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) in the Ordnance Survey dataset, and fetch your bin schedule from the council's published source. The UPRN is a standard UK property identifier and is not personal data in itself. The backend does not log requests. Geocoding responses (address lookups) are cached on the server for up to 30 days to reduce load on upstream providers; these cache entries are keyed by an anonymised hash and expire automatically.
Data shown in the app
The bin collection schedule returned by the backend is cached on your device. It is refreshed daily in the background. The schedule contains the dates and types of your upcoming bin collections. It does not contain any personally identifying information about you.
Advertising — Google AdMob
Binformation displays a single non-personalised banner advertisement on the schedule screen through Google AdMob. AdMob is configured with "Tag For Under Age Of Consent" set globally, so the Android advertising identifier is not used to personalise the ads shown to you. Ads are filtered to the G (general audience) content rating. See Google's disclosure at support.google.com/admob.
Even with non-personalised ads, the AdMob SDK collects certain device identifiers (such as the Android advertising ID and device-level identifiers) and transmits them to Google for the purpose of serving, measuring, and reporting on advertisements. This data is shared with Google as a third party. No ad-targeting profiles are built from this data because of the under-age-of-consent configuration.
If you prefer no advertisements, a one-off in-app purchase permanently removes the banner. Once removed, the advertising banner is hidden and no ad requests are made, and no device identifiers are sent to AdMob.
You can reset your Android advertising ID at any time from your device's Settings → Privacy → Ads.
Payments — Google Play Billing
The one-off "Remove ads" purchase is handled entirely by Google Play Billing. The app never sees your payment details. We only receive a confirmation from Google that the purchase occurred so that the app can unlock the ad-free state. See Google's privacy policy.
Analytics and crash reporting
Binformation uses Firebase Analytics (Google's GA4) and Firebase Crashlytics to understand how the app is used and to identify crashes. Both services are provided by Google and data is shared with Google as a third party.
Firebase Analytics records anonymous usage events (for example, that a user completed onboarding, viewed the schedule screen, or changed a reminder time). Approximately 30 custom events are tracked across onboarding, schedule viewing, reminders, navigation and in-app purchases. These events contain no personally identifiable information. In addition to the custom events, Firebase automatically collects certain app performance and diagnostic data, including app version, device model, operating system version, session duration, and screen views. These are aggregated by Google into anonymous statistics (event counts, user counts, retention curves) that help the developer improve the app.
Firebase Crashlytics automatically captures crash logs when the app encounters an unexpected error. A crash report includes the device model, Android version, stack trace, app version, and a Crashlytics installation identifier. It does not include your address, postcode or any data you entered.
The developer's own device and debug builds are excluded from analytics collection, so usage data reflects real users only.
You can limit analytics collection at any time via your device's standard Settings → Privacy → Usage and diagnostics controls. See Google's Firebase privacy documentation at firebase.google.com/support/privacy.
Notifications
The app posts local notifications on your device the evening before each scheduled bin collection. Notifications contain the name of your address and the bin types to put out. They are generated on your device and are not sent through any third-party push service.
Third parties your data touches
- postcodes.io: postcode to coordinates lookup (via our proxy)
- Nominatim (OpenStreetMap): address lookup (via our proxy)
- Your council's public bin schedule source: queried via the UK Bin Collection Data project
- Google AdMob: advertising (unless the remove-ads upgrade is purchased)
- Google Play Billing: payments
- Google Play Services: required for AdMob and Billing to function
- Firebase Analytics (Google): anonymous usage event tracking
- Firebase Crashlytics (Google): crash reporting
Children and target audience
Binformation's Google Play target audience is set to ages 13 and up. It is a utility app for household bin management and is not designed, marketed, or directed at children under 13.
Advertising in the app is served exclusively through Google AdMob, which is a Google Play certified ad network. Because the Play Console target audience includes users aged 13 to 15, Binformation configures AdMob to treat all users as being under the age of consent. In practice this means:
- Ads are non-personalised — the advertising identifier on your device is not used to select which ads you see.
- Ads are filtered to the "G" (general audience) content rating — no mature or adult content.
- We do not run rewarded ads, interstitial ads, pop-ups, or video ads of any kind. A single banner on the schedule screen is the only ad format.
We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. The app does not operate a cloud account — everything the app knows about the user is held on the user's device. Uninstalling the app, tapping "Change address" in Settings, or clearing app data from Android Settings removes all stored address information from the device.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child has used the app, you can remove any stored data directly by uninstalling it. For any further questions, see keepcomputing.co.uk.
The app complies with applicable laws on children's privacy including the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR / EU GDPR), including the GDPR age-of-consent provisions for users under 16 in EU member states where that threshold applies.
Your rights (UK GDPR)
Because the app stores your address only on your device, you can exercise the following rights yourself without needing to contact us:
- Access — open the Settings screen to see the address Binformation holds.
- Erasure — tap "Change address" to clear the stored address, or uninstall the app to remove all stored data.
- Rectification — edit your address at any time via "Change address".
If you have questions about the backend geocoding cache described above, or believe your rights under UK GDPR have been breached, see keepcomputing.co.uk for contact details. You may also lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Data retention
Address and schedule data on your device persist until you tap "Change address", clear app data, or uninstall the app. Geocoding cache entries on the backend expire after 30 days. No request logs are stored.
Changes to this policy
Material changes to this policy will be announced in the app's changelog on the About screen and noted on this page. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent revision.
Contact
Keep Computing (sole trader, United Kingdom)
keepcomputing.co.uk
Get Binformation — Free on Google Play