LinkMyDuty ("we", "us", "the tool") is a personal scheduling assistant for Transport
for London (TfL) train operators. It reads your duty book and leave documents and adds
your work shifts, annual leave and leave-cover weeks to your Google Calendar for you.
This policy explains exactly what data we handle, why, and how we protect it.
In short: we use your data only to put your shifts in your own calendar.
We do not sell your data, show you adverts, or share it with anyone except the Google
services needed to run the tool.
1. Information we collect
- Your Google account name. When you sign in we read your display
name (via the Google profile scope) for one reason only: to automatically
highlight your surname on the leave-cover sheet. This happens in your browser and is
not stored on our servers.
- Your Google Calendar. With your permission (the Google
calendar scope) we read the list of your calendars so you can choose which one
to use, and we create, update and remove the shift, annual-leave and leave-cover
entries that this tool adds. To avoid creating duplicates, we also read the title and
time of existing events on the days we are about to fill. We do not change or delete
events you created yourself.
- Documents and photos you upload. Your duty book (PDF), and your
annual-leave and Annual Leave Coverage documents (PDF or photo). Coverage-sheet photos
may contain other staff members' surnames and duty codes as printed on the sheet.
- Your home and work stations. The station names you type, used to
estimate travel time to your shifts.
- Information stored on your device. Your preferences (chosen
calendar, travel mode, home/work stations, notification setting, rota details and a
reference to your saved duty book) and a short technical debug log are stored in your
browser's local storage, on your device. They are not sent to us except as needed to
run a job.
We do not request or collect your email address, contacts,
location tracking, or any data unrelated to building your rota.
2. How we use your information
- To read your duty/leave documents and work out your shifts and times.
- To add, update or remove those entries in the Google Calendar you choose.
- To estimate travel time from your home station to your work depot.
- To match your surname on a coverage sheet so you confirm the correct row.
- To remember your settings so you don't have to re-enter them next time.
3. Reading your photos and PDFs (Google Gemini)
To read text from photos and PDFs of your coverage and leave sheets, the file is sent to
Google's Gemini API, which returns the text it finds (names, duty codes, dates). We delete
the uploaded file from our server as soon as it has been read. Google processes the file
under Google's own terms. Please only upload documents you are entitled to use, and avoid
including anything not needed to build your rota.
4. Where your data is processed and stored
The tool runs on Google Cloud (Cloud Run and Firestore) in the United Kingdom
(europe-west2). To make repeat runs faster we cache some non-identifying results:
- The parsed times from a duty book, stored against a content fingerprint of that file
(not against you).
- Estimated travel times, stored against the station names and travel mode (not against you).
- A temporary record of each job's progress log while it runs.
Uploaded files themselves are held only for the few seconds needed to read
them and are then deleted.
5. Who we share data with
We do not sell or rent your data, and we do not share it for advertising. We share data
only with the Google services that make the tool work:
- Google Calendar API — to read your calendar list and manage the tool's entries.
- Google Sign-In / OAuth — to authenticate you and read your display name.
- Google Gemini API — to read text from your uploaded photos/PDFs.
- Google Maps Platform (Directions & Places) — to estimate travel time and suggest station names.
- Google Cloud Run & Firestore — to run the service and store the caches above.
We may disclose information if required by law.
6. Google API Services Limited Use
LinkMyDuty'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. We use Google user data only to provide and improve
the calendar-automation features you ask for; we do not use it for advertising, and we do
not allow humans to read it except where you ask us to, for security, or as required by law.
7. Your choices and control
- Remove everything: the "Remove everything & turn this off" link
in the app deletes every entry this tool added to your chosen calendar.
- Revoke access: you can withdraw the tool's access to your Google
account at any time at
myaccount.google.com/permissions.
- Clear device data: clearing your browser's site data for
linkmyduty.com removes your saved preferences and debug log.
8. Security
Connections use HTTPS. Access to your Google account is granted by a short-lived token
that we do not store after your session. We keep the data we process to the minimum needed
to run the tool.
9. Children
LinkMyDuty is intended for adult TfL staff and is not directed at children under 16.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date above shows when it
last changed.
LinkMyDuty is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by
Transport for London (TfL) or Google.