Privacy Policy — EarthCape mobile app
The short version. EarthCape does not ask you to create an account and does not sign you in. Everything you record — observations, GPS tracks, photos, audio notes — is stored on your device. EarthCape Oy does not receive it, does not store it, and cannot see it. There is no advertising, no analytics and no tracking of any kind in the app.
This policy describes the EarthCape mobile app only. The EarthCape website and its online services are covered by a separate policy.
1. No account, no sign-in
The current version of the EarthCape app has no login screen and offers no way to create or sign in to an EarthCape account. You can install the app and start recording immediately. Because there is no account, we do not collect your name, email address, password or any user identifier, and we hold no profile about you.
2. What is stored on your device
The app stores the following locally, in its private application storage:
- Species observations, survey visits, localities and any custom fields you fill in
- GPS positions and recorded route tracks, including latitude, longitude, altitude, timestamp and position accuracy
- Photos you take or attach, and audio notes you record
- Free-text notes and project configuration
- Downloaded offline map regions and species lists
- App settings and a randomly generated device identifier used to label data created on this device
None of this is transmitted to EarthCape Oy.
3. What leaves your device
The app makes network requests only for the purposes listed below. We have kept this list exhaustive on purpose — if it is not here, it does not leave your phone.
| What is sent | To whom | Why | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your approximate coordinates | Norwegian Meteorological Institute (api.met.no) |
To show current weather and forecast at your position, which is recorded as survey conditions | When a weather panel is displayed |
| Map tile coordinates | EarthCape tile service, OpenStreetMap, and any additional map provider you enable | To draw the map. A tile request reveals roughly which area you are viewing | When you pan or zoom an online map |
| Search terms, and optionally coordinates | GBIF (api.gbif.org), Nominatim (nominatim.openstreetmap.org) |
Species occurrence lookups and place-name search | Only when you run a search |
| A photo you select | The AI image-identification provider used by the app (OpenAI by default, or your own provider if you enter your own API key in Settings) | Optional automatic species suggestion from a photo | Only when you ask for an identification |
| Your records, photos and audio | The destination you choose: iNaturalist, GBIF, Zenodo, Strava, ORCID, Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox | Export, publication or backup that you explicitly start | Only when you authorise the service and start the transfer |
Requests to weather, map, taxonomy and geocoding services are not accompanied by any account identifier, because the app has no account. They are ordinary anonymous web requests. Each of those providers may log the request in accordance with its own privacy policy.
Exports and backups you start yourself
If you connect Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox for backup, the app uploads a copy of its database together with your photos and audio files to your own storage account. EarthCape Oy has no access to that account or to the backup. If you push observations to iNaturalist, GBIF, Zenodo or Strava, those records are governed by that service's terms and privacy policy once transferred, and only you can delete them there.
4. What we do not do
- No advertising, and no advertising SDK of any kind
- No analytics, usage tracking, behavioural profiling or advertising identifier
- No crash-reporting or telemetry service
- No selling, renting or sharing of personal data with data brokers
- No access to your contacts, calendar, call log, SMS or installed-app list
5. Permissions the app asks for
| Permission | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
| Location (precise) | To stamp each observation with coordinates and to draw your position on the map. This is the core purpose of a field-recording app. |
| Location in the background | Only while you have explicitly started a survey visit. Field surveys last hours and are walked with the phone in a pocket and the screen off; without background access the recorded route would be full of gaps. A permanent notification shows that recording is active, with elapsed time, distance and a Stop button. You can decline this permission — only track continuity is affected. |
| Camera | To photograph specimens, habitats and labels, and to scan barcodes and QR codes on samples. |
| Microphone | To record audio notes and animal sounds attached to an observation. |
| Photos and media | To attach existing images to a record and to save exports. |
| Notifications | To show the ongoing survey-recording notification and to report when a long export or backup finishes. |
| Bluetooth | Only to connect to an external GNSS receiver you have already paired, for higher positional accuracy. Not used for scanning for nearby devices or for inferring your location. |
6. Security
All network requests use HTTPS. Access tokens for services you connect, such as Google Drive or iNaturalist, are held in the operating system's encrypted key store on your device and are never sent to EarthCape Oy. Your survey data is protected by the operating system's application sandbox and by the device lock you set.
7. Retention
EarthCape Oy retains nothing. Because the app requires no account and does not upload your survey data to our systems, there is no copy of your data held by us and therefore no retention period. Data on your device is kept until you delete it or uninstall the app.
8. Deleting your data
See the data deletion page for step-by-step instructions covering individual records, all app data, self-made backups, and records you exported to other services.
9. Children
EarthCape is a professional and educational field-recording tool intended for adults. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. Because the app requires no account and collects no identity information, we hold no data about any user, of any age.
10. Your rights
Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection in relation to personal data held about you. As described above, EarthCape Oy holds no personal data from users of the mobile app, so in practice there is nothing for us to disclose, correct or erase. Your data is in your hands on your own device, and the app includes an export function so you can take it elsewhere at any time. If you believe we hold data about you, write to us and we will investigate and respond.
11. Changes to this policy
If a future version of the app introduces accounts, cloud synchronisation or any other change to what leaves your device, this policy and the app's Google Play Data safety declaration will be updated before that version is released, and the effective date above will change.
12. Contact
EarthCape Oy, Finland
info@earthcape.com