NZ Standardbred Breeders' Association

The Breeders app: privacy

Last updated 26 September 2026

This page explains how The Breeders app looks after personal information. The app is published by the N.Z. Standardbred Breeders' Association Incorporated (NZSBA). Everything in the NZSBA Privacy Policy applies to the app too. This page adds the detail that is particular to the app.

In short

  • You can read the news, get foster alerts and use the tools without signing in. To sign in you only need an email address. If it is the one NZSBA has on file, your member benefits unlock.
  • Your mares, services, scans, paperwork and cost figures stay on your phone. HRNZ pedigrees you look up through Test Mating come from NZSBA's New Zealand hosted service and are kept on your phone only.
  • We count which screens get used against a random number, not your name. Crash reports carry only a random account ID, never your email address or name.
  • We do not sell your information, we do not use advertising networks, and we do not track you across other apps or websites.
  • You can delete your app account at any time from Members > Account > Delete my account. It does not cancel your NZSBA membership.

Signing in and your membership

You can use most of the app without an account. To sign in you type your email address and we email you a one-time code to type in, so there is no password to remember. SMTP2GO sends the code email for us.

When you sign in we keep your email address and a basic account record: the date it was created, and whether NZSBA has made you an app administrator or an approved foster alert poster. The sign-in system also records when you sign in and the internet address and type of phone used, and Supabase keeps short-lived server logs of requests, including internet addresses, to keep the service secure.

The app does not ask for your membership details. Each week NZSBA loads its own membership records into the app's database: email address, name, member group, season, payment date and expiry date. When you sign in, the app looks up the record that matches your email address to show your membership card and unlock Crosses of Gold, member discounts and the other member features. You can see only your own record.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, your phone is given a notification token: a code that lets a message reach that phone and no other. We store it with your choices: the notifications you want (news, Breeders Weekly, foster alerts), which island's foster alerts you want, and your quiet hours if you set them (when they start and end, and whether foster alerts go quiet then too). Once you sign in on a phone, its token stays linked to your account until you delete your account or someone else signs in on that phone. Signing out does not unlink it. The link is how member-only notices reach members, and how replies on the members board and alerts about the horses you follow reach you.

If you are signed in, you can tap the star beside a sire on Leading sires, or on a stallion's page in the stallion directory, to follow him. We keep the horses you follow against your account, up to 200 of them, and store only each horse's public name as the app shows it. We use them to tell you when his fee changes, when he enters a top 10 or climbs three or more places in the leading sires tables, or when a horse by him, or out of one of his daughters, is listed on BredEX. You get no more than one of these a day about each horse. Each one waits on our server until it is sent, and we delete our copy after 90 days. You can unfollow by tapping the star again, or under Members > Account > Notifications.

Notifications are passed to Apple or Google through Expo's push service, so the words of each notification go through them on the way to your phone. You can change your choices under Members > Account, or turn notifications off in your phone's settings. A token that stops working, for example after the app is removed, is deleted automatically the next time we send.

Foster alerts

Only stud reps approved by NZSBA, and NZSBA's app administrators, can post a foster alert. An alert holds the headline, details and region, the name and phone number the poster types, an optional photo, and the email address the poster signed in with. All of these are shown on the alert to everyone using the app, so a breeder with a spare mare or a foal in need can make contact fast. Photos are stored so that anyone viewing the alert can see them.

Closed alerts drop off the Foster list but are not deleted automatically. If you posted an alert and want it or its photo removed, email us and we will delete it.

The members discussion board

The board is switched off when the app launches and NZSBA will open it later. Once it is open, financial members who accept the board terms can start topics and reply. We store what you post, the date you accepted the terms, any reports you make, and your list of blocked members.

Your posts show your name from NZSBA's membership records or, if we do not have one, the first part of your email address. Your email address itself is never shown. Posts are seen by other financial members who are signed in. You can edit a post for 15 minutes after posting and delete your own posts at any time. Reports are seen only by NZSBA's moderators, who can hide a post. Blocking a member hides their posts on your phone.

When someone replies to your topic, you get a notification with their name and the start of their reply.

Usage numbers

To see which parts of the app get used, the app makes a random number the first time it opens (a new one if you reinstall) and sends small records against it: that the app was opened, which screen was viewed (with anything that points to a particular story, alert or horse taken out), whether the phone is an iPhone or Android, the app version and the time. It also counts views of the featured stallion card on Home, taps on it, and presses of its call, email and website buttons. If you use Ask The Breeders, it records when you give permission, when an answer comes back or fails (with a count of the lookups used, or the reason it failed) and when you clear the chat, never the question or the answer.

These records never include your name, email address, account or anything you type. They are stored in our own database, only NZSBA's app administrators can see them, and they are deleted after 90 days. We share the featured stallion totals with the stud whose stallion was featured. They are counts only and say nothing about who looked.

Crash reports

When the app crashes or hits an error, a report goes to Sentry so we can find and fix the fault. A report holds what went wrong, the screen you were on and your recent steps in the app, the phone model, its software version and the app version. About one in five app starts and screen loads also sends timings, so we can see where the app is slow.

If you are signed in, a report carries your account ID (a random code the sign-in system gives your account) and nothing else about you: never your email address or name. The app is set up not to send your internet (IP) address, it cuts the search part off any web address in a report, and it never includes what you searched for in Test Mating, so no HRNZ data goes to Sentry. Sentry deletes reports after 30 days on our current plan.

Reporting a problem

Report a problem (under Members > Account) opens an email to [email protected] in your own email app. It fills in your phone model, its software version, the app version, the random number used for usage numbers, and whether you are signed in (yes or no). You can see and change all of it before you send, and nothing goes unless you send it. We receive it like any other email, with your email address, and handle it under the NZSBA Privacy Policy.

Membership card and Wallet pass

The membership card in the app shows your name, member group, season and expiry date from NZSBA's records.

Adding the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet is switched off when the app launches. Once NZSBA switches it on, tapping the Wallet button sends your name, member group, season, expiry date and email address from our server to Passcreator, which makes the pass. Your email address is used as the reference for your pass, so you get the same pass each time. We keep the links to your pass so the app can open it again. The pass then lives in the Wallet app on your phone.

Ask The Breeders

Ask The Breeders is an assistant for financial members that answers questions from NZSBA's own information, such as Crosses of Gold, the Sires Book, breeding schemes, events, BredEX listings and news. It is switched off when the app launches, and NZSBA may switch it on later without an app update. To write an answer, the app sends Anthropic, an AI company in the United States, your question, up to eight of your earlier questions and answers in the same chat, and the NZSBA information the app looked up to answer it. Your name, email address and account are not sent. Before your first question, the app explains this and asks your permission.

Your mares, My stud records and Test Mating pedigrees are never sent. The chat is kept on your phone, not by NZSBA, and you can clear it from the menu on the Ask The Breeders screen. Our server keeps only a daily count, linked to your account, of how many times your questions went to Anthropic, so we can hold everyone to a fair daily limit. The counts are deleted after 90 days, or straight away if you delete your account. Anthropic handles what it receives under its commercial terms, which say it is not used to train its models; see anthropic.com/legal for how long it is kept.

Please do not type personal details such as phone numbers or addresses into Ask The Breeders.

What stays on your phone

Some features keep everything on your phone and send nothing to NZSBA:

  • My stud: your mares and their families, services, scans, foaling records and paperwork ticks, and the reminders you set, which are scheduled on the phone.
  • The breeding cost calculator and the figures you type into it.
  • HRNZ pedigrees. When you look up a mare, the name you type goes straight from your phone to NZSBA Test Mating, the Association's own pedigree tool. Test Mating is hosted by MyHost in New Zealand under NZSBA's arrangement with HRNZ, so HRNZ pedigree data stays onshore. The pedigrees and test matings it sends back are kept on your phone for 30 days and are never sent to our database, to Sentry or anywhere else. Your mare's record keeps only her Test Mating ID and her family names, and it stays on your phone too.
  • Your sign-in on this phone, and copies of the news, alerts and events you last loaded, so the app opens quickly.

We cannot see this information, so we cannot restore it if you lose your phone or remove the app. Your phone's own backup (iCloud or Google) may include it, under Apple's or Google's terms.

The app does not read your location or your contacts. It asks for the camera or your photos only when an approved rep or an administrator adds a picture to a foster alert or a featured stallion.

Who handles information for us, and where

We use these companies to run the app. They handle information on NZSBA's behalf to provide their service, and NZSBA stays responsible for it under the Privacy Act 2020.

  • Supabase: our database, sign-in, photo storage and the server functions that send notifications and pass Ask The Breeders questions to Anthropic. Stored in Sydney, Australia.
  • SMTP2GO: sends the sign-in code emails. A New Zealand company, sending through its Australian servers.
  • Expo: passes notifications on to Apple and Google. United States.
  • Apple and Google: deliver notifications to your phone, and run the Wallet apps that hold passes. United States.
  • Sentry: crash reports and app timings. United States.
  • Passcreator: makes Wallet passes, once that is switched on. Based in Munich, Germany, and processes data in Germany.
  • Anthropic: answers questions in Ask The Breeders, once NZSBA switches it on. United States.

The app's server also reads from these, and sends them nothing about you:

  • Mailchimp, for the list of Breeders Weekly issues from NZSBA's own Mailchimp account.
  • 1Team's Perk service, for the list of member discounts. No member details are sent. You show your membership card to use an offer.
  • BredEX and thebreeders.co.nz, for public listings and news.
  • Harness Racing New Zealand, Harness Racing Australia and Standardbred Canada, for the leading sires tables.

Some screens open web pages inside the app: Test Mating, BredEX, the leading sires pages from Harness Racing New Zealand, Harness Racing Australia and Standardbred Canada, Breeding Matters, Breeders Weekly issues and stories on thebreeders.co.nz. These load straight from those sites, which may set their own cookies under their own policies. The app does not pass them your details. BredEX has its own sign-in, separate from the app.

We do not sell personal information or share it with advertisers or data brokers. The featured stallion card on Home is a paid spot NZSBA sells directly to studs. It uses no advertising network and no tracking.

Who at NZSBA can see what

The people NZSBA makes app administrators can see the list of app accounts and their email addresses, foster alerts, board reports and the usage numbers. They use this only to run the app. Information travels between the app and our systems encrypted, and our database checks every request, so a signed-in member sees only their own membership record, settings and the horses they follow.

How long we keep it

  • Your account, email address and notification settings: until you delete your account.
  • The stallions and sires you follow: until you unfollow them or delete your account. Our copies of the alerts sent to you about them: 90 days.
  • Your Ask The Breeders daily counts: 90 days, or until you delete your account.
  • Usage records: 90 days.
  • Crash reports: 30 days, then Sentry deletes them.
  • Foster alerts: until you ask us to delete them.
  • Board posts: until you delete them, a moderator removes them, or you delete your account.
  • Wallet pass: until you ask us to remove it. After your membership expiry date the pass shows as expired in Wallet.
  • Your membership record: as set out in the NZSBA Privacy Policy.

Supabase keeps daily backups of our database for 7 days, so something deleted can stay in a backup for up to a week before that backup is replaced.

Deleting your account

Go to Members > Account > Delete my account and confirm. This straight away removes:

  • your sign-in and your account record
  • the notification tokens linked to your account, with your choices
  • your board topics (with the replies under them), your replies and reports, and your list of blocked members
  • the stallions and sires you follow, and our copies of the alerts sent to you about them
  • your Ask The Breeders daily counts

You are then signed out. Deleting your account does not remove:

  • your NZSBA membership. Your membership record is part of the Association's membership list and is handled under the NZSBA Privacy Policy.
  • foster alerts you posted, which keep the name, phone number, email address and photo shown on them. Ask us and we will delete them.
  • a Wallet pass, if you added one. Ask us and we will remove it from Passcreator and from our records.
  • usage records, which are not linked to your account and go after 90 days, or crash reports, which Sentry deletes after 30 days.
  • anything kept only on your phone. Removing the app deletes it.

If you keep using the app after deleting your account and notifications are still allowed, your phone is registered again for the notifications you have switched on, without your name. Turn notifications off in your phone's settings, or remove the app, to stop them.

You can also ask us to delete your account by emailing [email protected].

Seeing and correcting your information

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask to see the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it. Email [email protected]. We will check it is you and reply within 20 working days, as set out in the NZSBA Privacy Policy. Your name and membership details in the app come from NZSBA's membership records. If something is wrong, tell us and we will fix it there, and the app picks up the change after the next weekly update.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please talk to us first. You can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz.

Children

The app is for adults involved in breeding standardbreds and is not directed at children under 16. If you think a child has given us personal information through the app, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this page

We will update this page when the app changes and change the date at the top. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us, we will tell members in the app or in Breeders Weekly before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about privacy and the app go to our privacy officer, the Executive Manager, at [email protected], or by post to N.Z. Standardbred Breeders' Association, C/O Harness Racing New Zealand, 114 Wrights Road, Addington, Christchurch 8024.