Privacy Policy
Draft for the beta. This policy describes exactly what the app does today. It will be reviewed by an attorney before general release.
Tidelync is a trip planner and safety app for boaters. This page explains what we collect, why, how long we keep it, and who sees it. The short version: we collect what the safety features need, we don't sell anything, and you can ask us to delete your data at any time.
Text messages. We do not sell or share your SMS opt-in data or personal information with third parties for marketing purposes. We do not sell, rent or share mobile phone numbers or text-message opt-in data with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Numbers are used only to send the safety alerts and confirmations described below. Our text-message provider (Twilio) processes them only to deliver our messages.
What we collect
| Data | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Name, email, optional mobile number, boat name and description, home port | When you join the beta | Your account; syncing your trips, boats and log across devices; beta updates by email; the boat description in alerts to your shore contact |
| Saved trips, boat profiles, boat log entries (inspections, engine hours, fuel, notes), shore-contact details | When you save them | So they are on every device you sign in on |
| Device and browser type, screen size, whether you use the home-screen app, IP address and approximate location (city, region, country) derived from it | When you sign in and open the app | Supporting the beta, fixing device-specific problems, preventing abuse |
| GPS positions, speed, course and phone battery level | Only while you have Start tracking on | The live trail your shore contact sees, overdue alerts, and your trip history |
| Shore contact's name, mobile number and email | When you enter them | Sending check-ins, help requests and overdue alerts to that person |
| Fish, wildlife and hazard reports | When you post one | Shown publicly on the map to other boaters, at the position where you made it, without your name |
| Text-message consent: the shore contact's name and number, the consent wording they agreed to, the time, IP address and browser of the sign-up, and any STOP, START or HELP replies | When a shore contact signs up on the sign-up page, and when they reply | Only texting people who agreed; proving consent to carriers; honouring opt-outs |
The planner itself (routes, forecasts, map) works without tracking. Location is only sent to us while tracking is on; we never track in the background without it.
Who can see it
- Your shore contact sees your live trail, last position, projected drift area, battery level, boat description and people aboard through a private link while a trip is active. Anyone you forward that link to can see the same.
- Other boaters see the reports you post, not who posted them.
- The Coast Guard or rescuers see what your shore contact chooses to tell them. Tidelync never contacts authorities on its own.
- Service providers that run the app for us, under their own privacy terms: Netlify (hosting), Supabase (database, United States), Twilio (text messages), Resend (email), Open-Meteo (forecasts; receives route coordinates, not your identity), and map tile providers (Esri, OpenStreetMap, OpenSeaMap), which see the map area you view.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.
How long we keep it
- Shore-contact links: show the live position and trail during the trip and for 24 hours after it ends, then only that the trip ended. The number of people aboard appears only if the boat is overdue or asks for help. You can replace the link at any time; the old one stops working.
- Sign-in: there's no password. Signing in with an email that already has an account needs a one-time code sent to that inbox. An account can be signed in on up to 3 devices at once.
- Detailed GPS trails: deleted 30 days after a trip ends. A summary of the trip (date, route, distance, hours) stays in your trip history while you have an account. If you turn on Keep my trails (signed-in accounts only), a compact copy of each trail (about one point a minute) is kept so you can see past trips, replay them and find your hotspots; only you can see it, it is never shown on a shore-contact link, and turning the setting off deletes kept trails older than 30 days.
- Fleets: if you join a fleet with an invite code, the fleet's owner and managers see your boat live during trips you start after joining, and those trips' times, distance and hours. Trips from before you joined are never shown. Leave the fleet at any time from the Fleet page and they stop seeing new trips.
- Nearby boats: only if you tick "Show my boat to nearby Tidelync boats", other Tidelync boats that also share can see your boat while you are tracking, moving and within about 5 nautical miles. To protect against theft and piracy: positions are blurred to about a quarter mile, boats that are stopped or anchored are never shown, nothing is shown between sunset and sunrise, and boats within half a mile of where their trip started (usually the home berth) are hidden. Your boat shows as "Tidelync boat" unless you choose to include its name. It stops when you untick it or end the trip, and we don't keep a separate record of who saw whom.
- Boat photo: if you add one, it's saved to your account so it follows you to your other devices, and a copy goes with each tracked trip so your shore contact (and your fleet, if you're in one) can recognise the boat. Trip copies are deleted 30 days after the trip ends; remove the photo from your boat profile at any time. Nearby Tidelync boats see your chosen map icon, never your photo.
- Account, saved trips, boats and log: until you delete your account or ask us to.
- Reports: shown for up to 7 days, kept up to 12 months for safety statistics, then deleted.
- Text-message consent and send records: kept while the number is in use plus 4 years, because carriers require proof of consent.
Your choices
- Stop tracking at any time with Stop tracking.
- Shore contacts can reply STOP to any Tidelync text to stop receiving them, and START to resume.
- Email andres@obregon-consulting.com to get a copy of your data, correct it, or delete your account and everything in it. We answer within 30 days.
- California residents have the rights described in the CCPA, including knowing, deleting and correcting personal information; we don't sell or share it for cross-context advertising.
Children
Tidelync is for adults operating or responsible for a boat. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information.
Security
Data travels over encrypted connections. The database can only be reached by our server, never directly from a browser, and shore-contact links use long random keys. No system is perfectly secure; tell us at andres@obregon-consulting.com if you find a problem.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that affects you, we'll email beta members before the change takes effect.
Contact
Tidelync · Obregon Consulting · Sahuarita, Arizona, USA · andres@obregon-consulting.com