by MahiMatua
Last updated: 22 October 2026
This app is operated by Matua Holt, trading as MahiMatua. Questions about this policy: admin@mahimatua.co.nz.
Waka keeps records about your vehicles — manuals, service history, modifications, consumables and guides — and answers questions about them. Answers from your documents say which document and page they came from; anything else is marked "AI says".
Your records, your knowledge base and its search are free. Answering questions (Ask Waka AI) is a yearly subscription.
Account
Some of this is optional. If you would rather not give an email address, guest mode gives you an account with no email at all — but a guest account lives only on that phone, and everything in it is lost if the app is deleted.
What you add about your vehicles
When something goes wrong
Usage limits
Subscriptions
What we do not collect
Documents are read on your device. Text extraction and, where a page is scanned, optical character recognition both run locally on your phone using Apple's frameworks. The document is not sent anywhere to be read.
When you open a page from one of your documents, Waka keeps a copy of that document, and an image of the page, on your phone, so it opens quickly next time. These copies are never uploaded. They are removed when you delete the document, sign out or delete your account, and your phone may also clear them to free up space.
Waka also keeps a copy of your records on your phone — your vehicles and their photos, service history, mods, consumables, notes and recent Ask chats — so they open without signal. These copies are never uploaded. Changes you make without signal are kept on your phone too, until they're sent. They are removed when you sign out or delete your account, and a deleted record's copy goes with it.
The extracted text is then stored in your account so the assistant can search it.
When you ask a question, Waka sends OpenAI the question, the vehicle's details (make, model, years, engine and any nickname you gave it), your recent messages in that vehicle's chat, and the relevant extracts from your documents, to produce an answer. Waka uses OpenAI's text-embedding-3-small, gpt-6.1-sol and gpt-6-luna models. Requests are made from our servers, not from your phone.
Almost everything you add is private to your account and enforced at the database level, not just in the app.
Two deliberate exceptions:
1. The vehicle catalogue. When you add a vehicle, its make, model, year and engine are saved as a catalogue record. Waka does not show it to anyone else, but it is not private, and it is not linked to you. It contains no personal information and nothing about your particular vehicle.
2. Sending a copy is your choice. You can create a link that gives someone their own copy of one vehicle's records. The review screen shows exactly what is included before the link exists. Service history always travels, with its receipts. Documents are included by default; your notes and your guides are OFF by default and only travel if you switch them on. A link expires after 14 days and you can revoke it at any time.
You can use Waka without an account. A guest account exists only on that phone and cannot be recovered if the app is deleted — the app says so wherever it matters. Ask Waka AI needs an account and a subscription, so guests can't use it.
Guest accounts that are over 30 days old and never had a vehicle added are deleted automatically each month. Guest accounts that DO have a garage are kept: they are in use, and deleting them would take someone's records away without warning.
We keep what you add until you delete it. Error reports are deleted automatically after 90 days. Usage counts are deleted automatically once they are older than the start of last month.
You can delete your account from Profile. Deleting removes your account, everything hanging off it, and every file you uploaded — manuals, page images, vehicle photos, modification files, service receipts and guide media are all removed explicitly, not just unlinked.
Deleting your account also asks RevenueCat to delete your purchase records, and this phone stops using your account with RevenueCat. It does not cancel a subscription: Apple bills it, so cancel it first in Settings → your name → Subscriptions.
If you signed in with Apple, deleting your account also removes Waka from your Apple ID.
If you have sent someone a copy of a vehicle, that copy belongs to them and is not deleted with your account. That is the point of sending it.
Waka is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information.
You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if you think it is wrong.
In practice you do not have to ask us for either: you can see everything Waka holds about you inside the app (apart from error reports and usage counts, which you can ask us for), correct it by editing it, and delete it by deleting your account. If you would still like to make a request in writing, or you are in a jurisdiction with additional rights over your personal information, contact admin@mahimatua.co.nz.
We may amend this policy from time to time. The current version is always available in the app and at https://mahimatua.co.nz/privacy. Any updated version applies from the date it is published, unless otherwise stated, and we will update the date at the top.