Augur Privacy Policy
Augur forecasts conditions for wildlife photography at birding hotspots. It works without an account. This policy explains what leaves your phone when you use it, and what doesn't.
The short version
- No accounts, no ads, no tracking, and no selling or sharing of your information.
- Your location stays on your phone. Augur uses it to find the hotspots near you.
- To get each day's conditions, the app asks our server about hotspots, never about you. Our server logs keep those requests, with your IP address, for about 30 days.
- Your settings and scores stay on your phone.
What stays on your phone
- Your location. If you allow it, Augur reads your location while you're using the app and uses it to pick the hotspots near you. Augur never sends your location to us or to anyone else. You can choose a home location by hand instead, and the app works the same way.
- Your settings, such as your home location and alert threshold.
- Your forecasts. Scores are computed on your phone from the hotspot data and conditions it downloads.
What leaves your phone
Hotspot data downloads. The app downloads a file of hotspot and species information from our cloud storage. The request contains nothing about you beyond what any internet request carries: your IP address and basic device and app information.
Conditions requests. To score each hotspot, the app asks our server for recent sightings, weather and tides for that hotspot on a given date. Each request names the hotspot and the date. Because the app asks about the hotspots in your home area, the requests show roughly which area you're interested in, but never where you are.
Our server keeps logs of these requests to keep the service running and fix problems. Each entry records the time, the hotspot, the date asked about, your IP address and basic device and app information. Logs are deleted after about 30 days. We don't use them to identify you, build a profile of you, or link your requests together.
Our upstream data sources (eBird, Open-Meteo and NOAA) get requests from our server, not from your phone, and those requests contain no information about you.
Email. If you use the app's Feedback link, your mail app sends us an email. We use it only to reply and to improve Augur, and we delete it when we no longer need it.
TestFlight. If you test a beta, Apple shares with us the name and email you used to join, and anything you send through TestFlight's feedback. If you allow it, Apple also shares crash reports. We use this only to run the beta.
Apple. Apple's own handling of App Store and TestFlight data is covered by Apple's privacy policy, not this one.
Who processes data for us
Augur runs on Google Cloud, which stores the logs and hosts the data files for us under Google Cloud's data processing terms. We don't use analytics, advertising or tracking services.
Children
Augur isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them.
Your choices
- You can turn off location access in iOS Settings at any time and set a home location by hand.
- You can turn off Background App Refresh for Augur. The app then fetches conditions only while it's open.
- To ask about or delete any information we hold about you, such as feedback emails, write to us at the address below. We hold no account data, because there are no accounts.
Changes
When this policy changes, we'll update the effective date above. If a change affects what leaves your phone, for example when accounts arrive in a later version, we'll say so in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: privacy@augurbird.app. For help with the app, see augurbird.app/support or write to support@augurbird.app.