Better PDF, a product of JCR IT Services Pty Ltd. Last updated 11 October 2026.
The short version. The documents you open in Better PDF stay on your computer, with two exceptions. If you use the AI Assistant, the page text you ask about goes straight from your computer to your own AI provider, using your own key: it does not pass through us. If you use Request Signatures to send a document to someone else to sign, that one document is uploaded, because the person you are sending it to has to be able to open it. Nothing else you open, edit, fill or sign yourself is ever uploaded, and we could not read it if we wanted to. The app also sends us one anonymous count a day so we know how many people use it, and you can turn that off. If you buy a licence, we hold your email address and a code that identifies the computer you activated on.
Better PDF is made and sold by JCR IT Services Pty Ltd (ABN 95 163 939 839), trading as JCR Computers, of Unit G24/320B Annangrove Road, Rouse Hill NSW 2155, Australia.
We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Better PDF is a desktop application (for the iPhone and iPad app, see section 11). Opening, editing, annotating, filling in forms, signing your own documents, redacting and saving a PDF all happen on your own computer, using your own processor and your own disk. None of that requires an internet connection, and none of it sends your document, its file name, or its contents to us or to anyone else.
This is a property of how those features are built, not a promise about how we behave. For everything covered by this section, there is no upload step to trust us about. The two exceptions are below, and each one only applies if you choose to use that feature.
If you choose to use the AI Assistant, you supply your own API key for an AI provider (OpenAI, or another compatible service you select). When you ask it a question, Better PDF sends the relevant page text directly from your computer to that provider, using your key. It does not pass through us and we never see it.
That provider's own privacy policy and data-retention terms then apply to that text. If your documents are confidential, read those terms before you turn the feature on. The AI Assistant does nothing until you add a key, so it is off unless you switch it on.
If you use Request Signatures to send a document to someone else for their signature, that document has to leave your computer, because the person you are sending it to needs to be able to open it in their browser. It is uploaded to our sign-server, encrypted at rest, and held only for as long as described in section 3.4 below. Nothing is uploaded for any document you do not choose to send, including documents you sign yourself.
Once a day, if the app is running, it sends us a single short message so we can tell how many people use Better PDF and which versions are still in use. It contains exactly four things:
| Field | Example | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Install id | 4f9c… | So two counts from the same computer are not counted as two people |
| App version | 0.5.7 | So we know which versions to keep supporting |
| Operating system | win32 | So we know where to spend effort |
| Licence status | free, trial or pro | So we can see how many people go on to buy |
Nothing else. No documents, no file names, no folder paths, no account, no name, no email address.
The install id is a random number. It is generated once on your computer, the first time it is needed, and kept there. It is not derived from your hardware, your licence, your email address, or anything else about you, so it cannot be reversed into an identity or matched against your licence. We store one row per install and overwrite it each day: there is no history of when you used the app.
We do not store your IP address against these counts. Our server sees it while handling the request, as any web server must, and it is used only to stop one machine flooding the counter. It is held in memory for that purpose and is never written to the database or to a log.
Development and test builds never send this at all.
Open Help, then About, and untick "Help improve Better PDF". It stops immediately and permanently on that computer.
If you deploy Better PDF across an organisation, setting either the BPDF_NO_TELEMETRY or the standard DO_NOT_TRACK environment variable disables it before the app ever starts.
The app periodically asks our update server whether a newer version exists. That request carries the current version and your operating system, which are needed to answer it. We do not log these requests to build a profile.
Request Signatures is a Pro feature that lets you send a PDF to someone else to sign in their browser. Choosing to send an envelope uploads:
We use this to host the document for each signer to view and sign, to email them a link and identify them by the methods described on the signing page, to keep the hash-chained record of what happened and when, and to assemble the completed, tamper-evident document and its certificate page once everyone has signed.
The document and signer details are encrypted at rest. Administrators of our system are technically able to reach that data to operate and support the service, but that access is not routine: every such access is logged.
Nothing is uploaded for documents you do not send. If you only view, edit, fill in or sign your own documents, or use any other feature of Better PDF, this section does not apply to you.
See how long we keep this in section 7, and if you are the person being asked to sign, see section 4 below.
You are not a Better PDF customer. Someone using Request Signatures has sent you a document to sign, and this section is written for you, not for them.
We also send a one-time code to the email address we were given and record when you enter it, to confirm it was really you signing.
This is the evidence that the signature is yours if the document, or the fact that you signed it, is ever disputed. Without it, a signature is just an image with nothing to show who made it, when, or that they meant to.
The person or organisation sending you the document (the sender) gave it to us so we could send you the signing link. We did not collect it from you, and we do not use it for anything beyond this document.
The document, including your signature image, is deleted 30 days after it is completed, or 7 days after it expires, is declined, or is voided. The signing record, which is the log of what happened and when but does not contain the document itself, is kept for 7 years, because that is how long the record may matter if the document or the signature is ever challenged.
You do not have to sign. You can decline, and you may give a reason if you want to. Declining is recorded the same way signing is.
Email [email protected]. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
If you buy Better PDF we record:
Payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details go to Stripe, never to us: we never see or store a card number. Stripe's handling of that data is governed by Stripe's own privacy policy.
betterpdf.io is a static site hosted on Cloudflare Pages. It sets no advertising cookies, runs no third-party analytics or tracking scripts, and does not profile visitors. Cloudflare processes standard server request logs to deliver the site and protect it from attack.
We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We do not share it for anyone else's marketing.
We share it only with the suppliers we need to run the product (our payment processor and our email provider), and only where the law requires it, for example in response to a valid legal request.
If you use Request Signatures, the document and the signer details you provide are disclosed to the signers you named, because that is the point of sending it. Signers may be located overseas.
Our servers are in Australia. Some suppliers, including Stripe and our email provider, may process data overseas.
You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email [email protected] and we will respond within 30 days.
Deleting your licence record will deactivate your licence, so we will confirm with you before doing it.
We cannot action a request about the anonymous usage counts, because there is genuinely nothing in them that identifies you and no way for us to find "your" row. Untick the box in Help, then About, and no further counts are sent.
Licence data is held on a server we control, reachable only over an encrypted connection, with administrative access behind a password and a second factor. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. For documents you view, edit, fill in or sign yourself, the strongest protection is structural: they are not on our servers to begin with. For a document you send with Request Signatures, which does reach our servers, it is encrypted at rest, held only for as long as described in section 7, and every administrative access to it is logged.
Better PDF for iPhone and iPad opens, edits and saves your documents on your device. They are never uploaded to us or to anyone else.
The app sends no usage data, including the anonymous count described in section 3.1, and it does not contact our servers to check for updates. Updates come from the App Store.
Better PDF Pro on iPhone and iPad is bought through Apple. Apple processes the payment, and we receive no payment details and no personal information about you. Apple's own privacy policy applies to that purchase.
If we change what the app collects, we will say so in the release notes for the version that changes it, before that version ships, as well as updating this page. We will not quietly add a field.
Privacy questions or complaints: [email protected].
Or by post: JCR IT Services Pty Ltd, ABN 95 163 939 839, Unit G24/320B Annangrove Road, Rouse Hill NSW 2155, Australia. Phone 1300 525 516.
If you are not satisfied with our response you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.