Privacy Policy
YardTrail is local-first. Your location, Trails, Breadcrumbs, and the messages you send over the local Mesh live on your device and are shared only with the Group you choose. Some features do use the internet and our servers — sign-in, your profile, Group membership, internet-based Group chat, push notifications, and (in beta) crash diagnostics — and those are described below. We don’t sell your data, run ad networks, or profile you.
01What we collect
Account & identity — your email address (used to send a one-time sign-in code — YardTrail has no passwords), a device identifier, and the display name and avatar you choose.
Location & activity — your GPS location and the Trails, Breadcrumbs, and Waypoints you record. These are created and held on your device, and shared with your Group as described in sections 03–04.
Messages — the chat you send. Messages over the local Mesh stay on the devices in your Group; messages sent over the internet pass through and are stored on our servers to deliver them.
Group data — the Groups you belong to and their join codes.
Device & diagnostics — a push-notification token so we can alert you, and — in beta builds — crash and error diagnostics with location and names scrubbed out.
Emergency contacts — if you add them, the names and contact details you enter, used only to deliver SOS alerts on your behalf (section 09).
02How we use it
To sign you in, sync your profile across your devices, and keep your Group memberships. To provide the live-hike experience — the shared map, location freshness, Triage, chat, and SOS. To deliver messages and push notifications. And, in beta, to diagnose crashes and improve reliability using scrubbed diagnostics.
We do not run advertising, sell your data, or build behavioral profiles of you.
03What stays on your device
Your location history, Trails, Breadcrumbs, Waypoints, downloaded offline maps, and Mesh messages are stored locally on your device. The Mesh needs no internet at all: during a live hike this data travels device-to-device over an encrypted Bluetooth Mesh, addressed to authenticated Peers in your Group — it does not pass through our servers.
04What our servers handle
To provide account and cross-device features, our servers store: your email, a device identifier, your profile (display name and avatar), your Group memberships and their join codes, internet-transport Group messages, and your push-notification token. Join codes are stored encrypted so we can help you recover access to a Group — not so we can read them.
05Sharing & third-party services
With your Group — your live location and messages are visible only to Members of a Group you have joined, and only while sharing is on.
Service providers we rely on — to run YardTrail we use a small set of processors for: email delivery (your sign-in codes), error and crash diagnostics, push-notification delivery, map-tile data for offline maps, and cloud hosting infrastructure. They process data only to provide their service to us, under our instructions. Some of these providers operate outside Jamaica, so your data may be processed abroad in order to deliver these features.
We never sell personal data and never share it for advertising. This website runs no advertising and no cross-site tracking: it stores only a single functional preference (your light- or dark-theme choice) in your browser, and uses privacy-preserving, cookieless analytics.
06Security
Group communication over the Mesh is encrypted, and every Peer is authenticated before it can relay Group traffic. Internet traffic is encrypted in transit (TLS). Data at rest on your device is protected by your device’s own storage encryption.
End-to-end encryption for internet-based messaging is in active development. Until it ships, messages sent over the internet are encrypted in transit and stored on our servers to deliver them.
07Data retention
On-device data stays until you remove it — delete a Trail, a conversation, your offline maps, or the app itself, and it is gone from your device.
Server-side data (account, profile, Group membership, internet messages, push token) is retained while your account is active. Delete your account and we remove the associated personal data, except anything we must retain for legal or security reasons.
08Your rights & choices
You can access, correct, delete, or export your personal data. Much of this is directly in your hands in the app: edit your profile, delete content, turn off location sharing, or delete your account. For anything else, contact us atprivacy@yardtrails.app and we will respond within a reasonable time.
YardTrail is operated from Jamaica, and we handle personal data in line with Jamaica’s Data Protection Act, 2020. You have the right to complain to Jamaica’s Information Commissioner if you believe we have mishandled your data. Depending on where you live — for example in the EU or UK, or in California — you may have additional rights, such as to object to or restrict certain processing, and we honor applicable requests.
09Emergency contacts
If you add emergency contacts, we store the names and contact details you provide so we can deliver SOS alerts by SMS, email, or push on your behalf. Please only add people who have agreed to be contacted. You can remove them at any time.
10Children
YardTrail is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data.
11Changes to this policy
We will update this policy as the app evolves and revise the date above. Material changes will be surfaced in the app.
12Who we are & contact
YardTrail is operated by Kerron Hutton, based in Jamaica, who is the data controller responsible for the personal data described in this policy.
Privacy questions or requests: privacy@yardtrails.app.