SailTools — privacy

The short version

• SailTools has no advertising, no tracking and no analytics company's code in it.
• It asks for your location only if you tap "Show the stations near me" or switch on "Follow my location", and uses it on your device alone: it is never sent to the server. It does not ask for your contacts, photos, microphone or camera.
• It keeps a name for you, what you may see, and a count of what the app asked the server for. Shane sees that, to learn what is used and what to improve. Nobody else does.
• Nothing is sold or shared for anyone else's purposes.
• Ask, and your account and everything kept about it is deleted.

What is kept on the server

Your account. When Shane invites you he gives the account a name — usually yours — and decides whether it may see the Sound only, or the Sound and his boat. It notes when the account was made and when you joined. The server does not have your email address, phone number or Apple Account.

Your sign-in. Opening your invitation gives the app a long random key. The server keeps only a scrambled form of it (a SHA-256 hash), which cannot be turned back into the key.

What the app asked for. Each request the app makes is counted against your account: the day, what was asked for (the Sound's conditions; a forecast, and for which buoy; the boat's data, and which reading's history; that the radar was opened), and which app it was — iPhone or iPad, Mac, or the widget, with its version and build number. The time your account was last seen is kept too. These are counts, not a record of each tap: the server cannot tell which place you chose or what you looked at on the first screen, because the app gets all of that in one request.

Web server logs. Like nearly every web server, this one logs each request with its time, the internet (IP) address it came from, and the app's or browser's name. These logs are kept for about two weeks and then deleted. They are used only to keep the server working and to investigate problems. The radar is fetched as pieces of a map, so while those logs last they show roughly which part of the map was on screen — to within about sixty miles, and wherever you moved the map to, not where you are.

Your invitation's code is never sent to the web server when you open the invitation page: it rides after the # in the link, which a browser keeps to itself.

What is kept on your device

• Your sign-in key, in the Keychain. It is saved to iCloud Keychain if you use that, which is how your other Apple devices sign in without another invitation. Apple encrypts iCloud Keychain so that Apple cannot read it. Logging out in Settings removes the key from all of them.
• Your settings: your home station, what the widgets show, whether SailTools follows your location, and which weather alerts you have already read.
• Your location, if you allow it. Tapping "Show the stations near me", or switching on "Follow my location" in Settings, asks your device for where you are. SailTools uses that on the device to find the nearest stations and to show you as a blue dot on the map; with "Follow my location" on, it does so for as long as SailTools is open on screen, and not otherwise. Where you are is not saved. With "Follow my location" on, the station found nearest you is remembered on the device, so that SailTools and its widgets can show it. Neither is sent to the server or to anyone else. You can turn it off at any time in your device's Settings, under Privacy, Location Services.
• A copy of the last data shown, so the app opens with something on screen.

Deleting the app removes the settings and the saved copy. To remove the sign-in key, log out in Settings first.

Who else is involved

• Apple, for the map. The map is Apple Maps. Your device fetches it from Apple, under Apple's privacy policy. The blue dot is drawn on your device; SailTools does not send your location to Apple or to its own server.
• Apple, for weather. Some of the forecast is Apple Weather. The server fetches it, for fixed points on the Sound; nothing about you is sent. Your device fetches the Apple Weather mark shown beside that forecast from Apple directly.
• Iowa State University, for radar. The radar's pictures come from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, which republishes the National Weather Service's. The server fetches them; your device never contacts Iowa State, and nothing about you is sent.
• Apple, for TestFlight. While SailTools is in testing you install it with Apple's TestFlight. Apple knows the email address you were invited at, and gives Shane your name, that address, how often you opened the app, and crash reports. If you send feedback through TestFlight, Shane receives what you write and any screenshot you attach. That is Apple's service, under Apple's terms.
• The server's host. The server is a rented virtual machine at Akamai (Linode). The company provides the machine; it is not given your data for any purpose of its own.
• Weather and tide sources — NOAA, the National Weather Service, UConn and others — are asked by the server, never by your device, so they learn nothing about you.

The boat

People Shane invites as crew can also see readings from his own boat: battery, shore power, cabin temperature and the like. That is information about the boat, not about you, and it is his to share.

How long things are kept

• Your account and its request counts: until you ask for them to be deleted, or Shane removes the account.
• Web server logs: about two weeks.
• Backups: the server's records are copied each night to Shane's own computer, and each copy is kept for 14 nights. A deleted account is gone from the backups within that time.

Your choices

• See what is kept about you: ask Shane, and he will send it.
• Have it deleted: ask Shane. Your account, its sign-ins and its request counts are removed from the server, and the app stops working until you are invited again.
• Stop using it: log out in Settings and delete the app.

To reach Shane, write to shane@bouslough.com, or use Send Beta Feedback in TestFlight.

Children, and changes

SailTools is not directed at children, and accounts are given only to people Shane knows.

If what is kept changes, this page will change before the app does, and the date at the top with it.