How Fairways handles your information.
Last updated: 5 November 2026
Fairways is a golf scoring, handicap and GPS rangefinder app for South African golfers. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, and what you can ask us to do about it. It is written to meet the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).
The person responsible for this app and its data (the “responsible party” under POPIA) is:
When you use the GPS rangefinder or shot tracking during a round, Fairways reads your device location while the app is in use. This is what produces distances to the green and the automatic detection of where each shot started and finished.
If shot tracking is on, we store, on our servers, for each shot you confirm:
Taken together this is a detailed record of your movement around a golf course. We keep it because it is what makes your shot history and club distances work across your devices. We do not track your location when you are not in a round, and we do not use it for advertising or sell it to anyone.
If you pair a watch with Fairways, the watch app uses the watch's own GPS only while the app is open, to measure distances to the green and to record where your shots were played. You pair a watch with a short code you type in the Fairways app, and you can remove it at any time under Settings → Watches.
A paired watch sends the following to your Fairways account, over an encrypted connection:
This is the same information, held under the same rules, as the equivalent information from the phone described above. Other golfers in your round see your scores, not your shot positions. We do not sell it or use it for advertising. On an Apple Watch, the golf workout that the watch records is saved to Apple Health on your device; Fairways does not read your health data.
This setting is off unless you switch it on. While it is on and you are playing a round, your Apple Watch sends short recordings of its own motion around swing-like movements, and its GPS positions, to your Fairways account. We use them only to build and tune shot detection from the watch. They are not shown to other golfers or to you in the app. Recordings older than 120 days are deleted the next time your watch sends more, and all of them are deleted with your account. You can switch the setting off at any time on the watch.
While a round is in progress and shot tracking is on, Fairways reads your phone's accelerometer — the motion sensor that already tells your phone which way up it is. It is how the app notices the moment you swing, so a shot can be timed to the stroke rather than guessed from where you walked.
The readings are processed on your phone, as they arrive, and are not stored or sent anywhere. All that leaves your device is the shot itself: when it happened, and the coordinates already described above. The sensor is switched off between rounds. On a Garmin watch, the optional “Auto shots” setting reads the watch's accelerometer in the same way: the readings stay on the watch.
To be explicit, because people reasonably assume otherwise about an app that detects shots: Fairways does not use your microphone. It does not listen for the sound of a strike, it does not record audio, and it does not ask for microphone permission at all. If a future version of the app ever needs the microphone, we will ask for that permission separately and update this policy before it ships.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Email and password | To create your account and sign you in. |
| Profile details | So your playing partners can find you and so handicaps calculate correctly. |
| Scores and rounds | To keep your scorecards, run leaderboards, and calculate your handicap index. |
| Shot GPS data | To show distances during play, build your shot history, and learn how far you actually hit each club. |
| Watch data | To show distances on your wrist and to put the scores and shots you record on a watch into the same round as your phone. |
| Accelerometer readings | To detect the moment of a swing during a round. Processed on your phone and never stored or transmitted. |
| Push token | To send you notifications you have asked for, such as a partner signing your card. |
| Subscription status | To unlock the app for subscribers and to stop unlocking it when a subscription ends. |
We rely on your consent for location and notifications — both are permissions you grant and can withdraw at any time in your device settings. Everything else we process because it is necessary to provide the app you asked us for.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We use the following service providers, who process data on our behalf:
| Provider | What it handles |
|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, authentication and file storage — where your account, rounds and shot data live. |
| RevenueCat | Manages subscription status. Receives an anonymous user identifier and your purchase receipts. |
| Apple & Google | Process all payments and hold the billing relationship. They do not share your payment details with us. |
| Mapbox | Supplies satellite map imagery for the rangefinder. Receives requests for map areas, not your identity. |
| Expo | Delivers push notifications to your device. |
We will also disclose information if the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect our rights or someone's safety.
Golf is a group activity, so some information is visible to people you play with by design: your name and username, your handicap index, and your scores in any round, tournament or event you join. Your shot-by-shot GPS trail is yours alone and is not shown to other players.
So that a mate can add you without having to be told your exact username, other signed-in golfers can search Fairways for your name or username and see what is already visible above: your name, username, home club and handicap index. The search is deliberately narrow — it matches only the start of a name or username, needs at least three letters, returns a handful of people at a time, and is rate-limited, so it cannot be used to page through the membership.
If you would rather not appear in it, turn off Settings → Privacy → Findable by name. You can still be added by anyone you give your username to.
Our infrastructure providers operate data centres outside South Africa, so your information may be transferred to and stored in other countries. Where that happens, POPIA requires the recipient to be subject to comparable protections, and our providers are contractually bound to protect your data to at least the standard set out in this policy.
Under POPIA you may:
To exercise any of these, email privacy@playfairways.co.za. We will respond within a reasonable period, and in any case as required by law.
Your data is transmitted over encrypted connections and stored with access controls that restrict each account to its own records. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information, and we will notify you and the Information Regulator if a breach affects your personal information as POPIA requires.
Fairways is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and we will tell you in the app if the change is significant.
Questions, requests or complaints: privacy@playfairways.co.za