Privacy Policy

01The short version

Tides & Weather has no personal accounts — nothing to sign up for, no email, no password — and doesn't run advertising or sell or share your data with anyone. Each install gets an anonymous, randomly-generated device identifier (via Firebase Anonymous Authentication) so the app can save your preferences — your selected tide location and saved locations, notification and Lock Screen preferences, and display preferences on our server; nothing about who you are is attached to it. We also collect aggregate usage analytics, which you can switch off in the app — see §06 for exactly what that does and doesn't include.

02Location

The app asks for your location only if you tap the compass button inside the tide-location search screen, to find the nearest tide location to you. That location is:

• read once, on-device, when you tap the button;
• sent once to our server to look up the nearest tide locations, and used only for that lookup;
• never saved with your install — only the tide location you end up choosing is saved (see below). Like any web request, it may appear briefly in our hosting provider's request logs.

You can use every part of the app, including searching for a tide location by name, without ever granting location access.

03What's saved on our server

Your install's anonymous device identifier is the only key to what our backend (Firebase Cloud Functions and Firestore, which we operate) stores for it:

• Your tide location and saved locations — the selected tide location (identifier, name, country, coordinates and which tide dataset to draw) and any locations you've starred;
• Your preferences — display, BoatScore and BiteScore preferences, and your smart-notification and Lock Screen schedules, so our server can send what you've asked for and a reinstall can pick them up again;
• Your subscription status — which plan and when it ends, taken from Apple's signed confirmation, so the Pro features that run on our server know you're entitled;
• Invites, if you use them — the invite codes the app creates for you when you invite friends, and the months of PRO you've earned. A code made for one particular friend can carry a name or initials you type: only you see it, it's stored with the code on our server, and it's never shown to the friend. If you were invited, we also store which code you used and the days in your first week on which you opened the app (dates only, in your device's time zone at first launch), to decide whether you both earn a month of PRO. If you enter an invite code from a club, shop or other group, we record which code, to see which clubs and shops the app reaches, with the date and the country, device model and app version described below;
• Your device and app version — model, iOS version, screen size and a country worked out from your IP address when the app starts (nothing finer), so we know which devices and builds to support;
• The day the app was last opened, and the setup report described in §06;
• Push tokens and a widget key — see §04.

Each install's data is kept separate from every other install's. Forecast data itself (the tide and weather numbers for a tide location) is cached and shared across every install using that tide location, since it doesn't depend on who's asking. Recently viewed tide locations stay on your device.

04Notifications, Lock Screen, widgets & Apple Watch

Each of these involves our server only as described:

• Tide notifications are scheduled on your device. Our server only learns whether they're on and how far ahead they warn you (§06).
• Smart notifications: iOS gives the app a push token so our server can send the BoatScore and BiteScore summaries and window alerts you set up, through Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple's Push Notification service. The token is removed from our server when you turn them off or your subscription ends.
• Lock Screen summary: iOS gives the app a token that lets our server start a Live Activity; it is only used if you set up a schedule. While a summary is running, a second token lets our server refresh it, and that one is cleared when the summary ends.
• Home Screen widgets and Apple Watch complications fetch their own data from our server with a random key tied to your install, which the app hands to them. The key reads your forecast and nothing else. Our server notes, to the day, which of them last fetched, for the counts in §06.

05Third-party data sources

To show you a forecast, our backend fetches data from the providers below. None of them receives anything that identifies you — at most, the position of the tide location you selected.

Other services the app relies on:

• Google Firebase (Cloud Functions, Firestore, Hosting, Authentication, Cloud Messaging, Analytics) runs our backend, stores the data described in this policy, and delivers smart-notification banners.
• Apple: place names you type are looked up on your device with Apple's MapKit search; subscriptions are handled entirely by the App Store — we never see payment details, only Apple's signed confirmation that a subscription is active; Lock Screen updates and notifications are delivered by Apple's Push Notification service; and on first launch, the app asks Apple's DeviceCheck service whether this iPhone has run the app before, and sets a flag with Apple saying that it now has. DeviceCheck stores two bits per device with Apple; it gives us no identifier for the device and tells us nothing else about it, and we use it only to stop one iPhone earning invite rewards more than once.
• Crisp runs the in-app support chat, and only if you open it. It receives the messages you send, any name you give, and details that help us answer: your selected tide location, the app version, your device model and which features are switched on.

06Usage analytics & what we don't do

We use usage analytics, in two deliberately limited parts. Firebase Analytics records which screens are opened and named actions — changing tide location (how it was found and its country, never which one), switching features on or off, onboarding steps, paywall and purchase outcomes, taps on notifications and changes to display preferences. It is tied to Analytics' own separate anonymous identifier, which we never connect to the device identifier described in §03. Separately, the app tells our server, alongside the data in §03, which features it has set up: which kinds of Home Screen widget and Apple Watch complication are installed, whether tide alerts are on, whether notifications are allowed, and the display preferences (language, units, colour mode, haptics, moon shape). Our server only ever reads these, and the tide locations people choose, as aggregate daily counts — how many installs use each feature, preference and tide location — never as a record of any one install. You can switch all of it off under Preferences → Data & legal → Share usage analytics: that stops Firebase Analytics on your device and leaves your install out of every count. Beyond that:

• No personal accounts, sign-in, email, or profile of any kind, and never your name — the only name-like thing is an optional nickname or initials you choose for a friend's invite code, which only you see and which is deleted with your invite codes
• No advertising, ad identifiers, or cross-app tracking
• No selling, renting, or sharing of data with third parties for their own purposes
• No background location tracking — location is only ever read at the moment you tap the compass button

07Data retention & deletion

Changing your tide location or preferences overwrites the previous value — no history is kept. What's stored for your install stays until you ask us to delete it: deleting the app doesn't remove it from our server, because an uninstall looks exactly like a phone that simply hasn't opened the app for a while.

To have everything stored for your install deleted, message us from Preferences → Support in the app — the chat identifies your install, so we can find it — or email the address in §10, and we'll work with you to identify it.

Deleting everything stored for your install also deletes your invite codes, which then stop working, your own first-week record and any PRO you've earned from invites. Friends you invited keep what they've earned. The DeviceCheck flag described in §05 is held by Apple, not by us, and stays set.

The daily usage counts in §06 hold no per-install data and are kept. Firebase Analytics keeps its event data under Google's standard retention settings, and Crisp keeps support conversations until they're deleted — ask and we'll delete yours.

08Children's privacy

Tides & Weather is a general-audience utility. It never asks for your own name, age or contact details (the only name it ever holds is an optional nickname or initials you may type for a friend's invite code, which only you see), and doesn't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 — only the install-level preferences and counts described above.

09Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date at the top of this page will change with it. Meaningful changes — anything that affects what's collected or why — will be reflected here before they take effect.

10Contact