Privacy, simply.

On your phone

Your Dex, sightings, photos, settings and chat history are stored on your device. Identifying a bug and chatting with the guides both run on your phone. Photos you take or pick are never uploaded. They stay on your device until you delete them or wipe the app's data. Your phone's own backup settings may also apply.

Camera, photos and location

Critterboard asks for the camera and, if you choose, your photo library to identify a bug. This happens on your phone.

Location is optional. It centres your map and helps prefer nearby species. To show a place name, your phone's system location service may be asked to look up the address of your coordinates; that is handled by Apple under Apple's privacy policy. Your location is not sent to us unless you turn on “Share spotting locations”.

Online features (off by default)

The network switch is off when you first open the app. Only if you turn it on does Critterboard talk to our server, which runs on Cloudflare. It then handles:

• A random anonymous ID created on your phone, plus a hash of a private device key (the key itself never leaves your phone).
• Your display name, your XP total, whether you appear on the leaderboard, and who you follow.
• Your caught species and when you caught them, so friends can see your activity.
• A country or region label and the exact catch location, only if you turn on “Share spotting locations”. Players nearby who turn on “Show others' sightings” see these catches on their map, with species and date but never your name. Turning sharing off deletes the stored locations. Showing others' sightings sends your location rounded to about 1 km to find them; it is not stored.

Your display name and XP are visible to other players only if you choose to appear on the leaderboard or if they follow you. Names are checked against a basic filter.

For security, we briefly count login attempts by IP address (for about a minute) to limit abuse. Cloudflare, our hosting provider, also processes connection data such as your IP address to deliver the service; see Cloudflare's privacy policy.

Downloads

Regional packs, the offline map and the optional chat model are downloaded from hosts such as GitHub and Hugging Face. Like any download, those hosts can see your IP address and the file you request. We do not add any identifier to these requests.

Crash reports (off by default)

If you turn on crash reports, anonymous diagnostic information about a crash may be sent to our error-reporting provider, Sentry. It does not include your photos. You can turn this off at any time in the app.

Deleting your data

Local data: “Wipe everything” (Me → Help) removes your Dex, sightings, photos, settings and downloaded models from the phone, and gives the app a fresh anonymous ID. If you have data online, it deletes that first (and stops if it can't reach the server, so nothing is left behind). Removing the app removes the rest.

Server data: if you used the online features, the data listed above is stored under your anonymous ID until you delete it. Go to Me → Brains and tap “Delete my online data”: it removes your profile, uploaded catches (with any locations), follows, ranking entry and feed from our server. Switching Network off asks whether to keep your profile (hidden from rankings) or delete it, and switching “Share spotting locations” off removes the coordinates stored with your catches. You can also email us and we will delete it for you.

Your rights and contact

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct or delete the data we hold about you, or to object to its use. Email hello@critterboard.app and we will help. Support correspondence is kept while we resolve your request. Please send only what is needed.

Changes

If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we will update the date above and, where it matters, tell you in the app.