Last updated: September 11, 2026
Plain English, like the rest of the site: what we collect, where it lives, who can see it, and how to get it deleted. This one policy covers the Tides & Tails website and the Tides & Tails phone apps — the app is the same service in a different frame, and everything below applies to both.
We collect what we need to run the site and nothing more. There are no advertising trackers and no third-party analytics on Tides & Tails, and we never sell or rent your information to anyone — your location least of all.
Your location is read only when you use a feature that needs it, and only after your phone or browser asks you first. Much of what the app keeps — your license photo, your trip tracks, your preferences — stays on your own phone and never reaches our servers at all. And you can ask us to delete your account and its data at any time.
An account is an email address, a password and a display name. The password is stored scrambled — we cannot read it. Signing in is optional for most of the site: you can read species guides, check conditions and browse the directory without an account.
Things you post as a member — forum posts, reviews, catch reports, crew messages, saved spots — are stored with your account so they are there when you come back. Who can see each of those is spelled out below.
A business account additionally carries the business details its owner chooses to publish on a listing — business name, phone, website, home port. Publishing those is the point of a listing.
No part of Tides & Tails reads your location silently or in the background. Every feature that uses it triggers your phone's or browser's own permission prompt first, and you can revoke that permission in your phone or browser settings at any time. The "near me" pages use your position once, in memory, to sort the results, and never store it or send it beyond the search request.
Where location data goes depends on the feature. Saved spots (My Spots) are kept with your account so they follow you between devices — they are private to you. A GPS pin on a catch log entry is optional and attached only when you add it.
Crew live sharing is deliberate and bounded: while you have the sharing switch on, your current position is sent to our server and shown only to members of that crew. We keep one current position per member — there is no server-side trail or history — and the moment you flip sharing off, it stops. Coordinates on a crew message or a shared chart mark are attached only when you deliberately attach them.
Trip tracks — the breadcrumb line the track recorder draws — are recorded and stored on your phone only. They are never uploaded.
Several features store their data on your device and nowhere else: the License Wallet photo of your fishing license, your recorded trip tracks, your float plan details from the safety page, your preferences (map layers, species picks, dismissed cards), and the cached last-known readings that keep the gauges useful offline.
Because that data lives in your phone's browser storage, we cannot see it, and clearing the site's data in your browser or deleting the app removes it for good.
When you send a Request Info form to a charter, bait shop or rental listing, what you typed — your name, email, optional phone number, your question and any trip details — is delivered to that business's private lead board. Businesses without an active membership see your contact details masked; businesses with an active membership see them in full. That is how the directory pays for itself, and it is the only thing lead details are used for — we never sell them or show them to anyone else.
Once a business has your details, the conversation is between you and them under their own practices — the same as if you had called them. We list independent businesses; we do not control what they do with an inquiry.
Forum posts, reviews and catch reports are public and carry your display name — post with that in mind. Crew content (messages, live positions, shared marks) is visible only to members of that crew. Your email address, saved spots and everything else about your account are never shown to other members.
If you turn alerts on, your phone's notification service issues a delivery address for this site and we store it so we can send the alerts you asked for. It lets us send notifications to that device and nothing more — it does not reveal your location or identity. Turn alerts off on the site or in your phone's settings and we stop sending; the stored address is removed when it goes dead.
Tide, weather and water-temperature readings come from NOAA, the National Weather Service and Open-Meteo. Your browser fetches some of those readings directly, which means those services see what any website you visit sees: your IP address and which station or stretch of water was asked about. They receive nothing about your account, and their own privacy policies govern their servers.
There is no third-party analytics script, no advertising network and no social-media button phoning home anywhere on Tides & Tails. Our own server keeps ordinary technical logs — IP address, page requested, time — used only to keep the site running and secure, and rolled off routinely.
We never sell, rent or trade your personal information, and we never share it for anyone else's marketing.
The Tides & Tails app — whether installed from an app store or saved to your home screen — is this same site in a native frame, and this policy covers it in full. The app asks the same permission prompts for location and notifications, and it grants us nothing extra: no access to your contacts, your camera roll or your files beyond a photo you deliberately pick (which, for the License Wallet, stays on your device anyway).
We send account email — a welcome note, password resets — and the alerts you ask for, to the address you gave us. We do not send marketing email, and we never give your address to anyone else. Stop alert email by turning the alert off, or ask us and we will do it for you.
Connections to the site are encrypted, passwords are stored scrambled, and access to member data is limited to the people who run the site. No one can honestly promise perfect security, and we won't — but we take reasonable measures to protect what you give us.
We keep your data while your account is active. When your account is deleted, your personal details are removed from the live system promptly and age out of routine backups after that. Public posts may remain with the name removed, or be deleted on request.
Email [email protected] to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete your account and its data. We will verify the request is really yours and act within 30 days.
Location and notification permissions are yours to revoke at any time in your browser or phone settings — the site keeps working, minus the features that needed them.
Tides & Tails is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, email [email protected] and we will delete it.
This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Alabama, USA, like our Terms of Service. We may update it as the site grows — the "last updated" date at the top reflects the current version, and a material change will be noted on the site.
Questions about privacy: email [email protected] — the same contact channel published in the site footer.