Privacy Policy

Real Blue Software LLC (“we”, “us”) makes Spotter and decides how its data is used (the “controller”). This policy covers the Spotter apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, the website spotternature.com and its web demo. Spotter is for adults (see section 9).

You give us

• Account details. Your email address and a username. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we get the email (Apple’s private relay address if you choose to hide yours) and the name on that account, which we use to make your username. Passwords are handled by Google Firebase Authentication; we never see them.
• Photos and identifications. The photos you submit for each identification, the category you pick, and the results: species names, confidence, the features the model saw, and the date. Together these make your history and life list. We remove location and camera metadata (EXIF) from photos before storing them. Photos stored before October 2026 that still had location data in them have been cleaned the same way.
• Collections. If you create or join a Collection: its name, description, cover photo and an optional place you pick on a map. Other members see your username, the identifications you add (first photo, species, date) and the Collection’s details.
• Referral codes you apply or share, and messages you send us (support emails, deletion requests by form or email, reports that an identification was wrong).

Collected when you use the app

• Approximate location, only if you allow it. When you take a photo with the camera (not from your gallery), the app asks your phone for a low-accuracy position and sends it with the photo so results favour species found near you. Our server rounds it to about 1 km before using it and does not store the position. At most once a week it also asks iNaturalist which state or province that rounded point is in, and keeps only that region and its country (for example “Wisconsin, US”) for “near you” notifications and seasonal tips. The Discover tab sends your approximate position straight from your phone to iNaturalist to ask what has been seen nearby (current versions of the app round it to about 1 km first; older versions sent it more precisely). You can turn location off in your phone’s settings and Spotter still works.
• Purchases. Whether you have Premium, which plan, trial and renewal dates, and the price, currency and country the store reports for each subscription event. Payment details stay with Apple or Google.
• Device and install details. Platform (iOS or Android), app version, how you signed in, your phone’s time zone and language setting, a random ID for this installation of the app, when you last opened it, and how you found the app: the store’s install source and, on Android, the Google Play install referrer (the campaign or link that led to the download, such as a referral link). If you answer “How did you hear about us?”, we keep your answer.
• Usage analytics. Google Analytics for Firebase records which screens you open and actions such as starting an identification (with the species and category), seeing the paywall, or buying Premium, linked to your account ID and an app-instance ID. From version 1.1 the app can also send the same named actions (onboarding steps, paywall views and purchases, identification results, notification taps, challenge progress, referral shares and rewards, and your “How did you hear about us?” answer) plus app opens, app version and device type to PostHog, linked to your account ID. We don’t record your screen, sessions or typing there. One switch turns off both: Profile (“Share usage analytics”, in current versions of the app), or email us. Firebase Remote Config, which lets us change app settings without an update, uses the same Firebase installation ID.
• Crash reports. Firebase Crashlytics collects crash and error details, device model and OS version, and an installation ID.
• Notifications. Reminders such as “your free IDs are back” or “trial ending” are scheduled on your phone. If you allow push notifications from our server, we also store a push token for your device (from Firebase Cloud Messaging) with your account, so we can send them, along with which kinds you’ve turned off. We keep a log of the notifications and emails we send you and whether you tapped the notification or clicked a link in the email. We don’t track whether you open an email.
• Email. We send email from noreply@spotternature.com through Resend: the welcome tips after you sign up, a reminder before a free trial ends, and replies to deletion requests. We aren’t sending seasonal emails yet. Resend tells us whether each email was delivered, bounced or marked as spam. If an address bounces permanently or marks our email as spam, we stop emailing it.
• Challenges, badges and Year in Review. Weekly challenge progress and your life list are worked out from your identifications; we store the badges you earn. Year in Review share images are made from your year’s identifications and show your referral code. Anyone you share the image link with can open it for 120 days.
• Referral rewards. When a friend you invited makes their first identification, we record the reward. To stop people rewarding themselves, we compare the install ID and the email address (ignoring dots and “+” tags) of the two accounts.

We don’t use an advertising ID, don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites, and don’t collect contacts, microphone audio, health data or biometrics. We don’t try to recognise people in photos.

Our website

spotternature.com may use PostHog to count page views and a few named actions (taps on the App Store and Google Play badges, starting the web demo and the kind of result, opening an FAQ answer, seeing the pricing section) and how quickly pages load. It runs without cookies or local storage, so we can’t recognise you on a later visit. We don’t record sessions, mouse movements or typing, and our PostHog project is set to discard IP addresses. It doesn’t load at all if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal. Our servers, run by Google Cloud, keep standard request logs (IP address, browser, page, time) for security and troubleshooting.

When you try Spotter on our website, your photo goes to our server, which shrinks it, removes its location and other metadata, and sends it to Google’s Gemini model to be identified. The photo is not stored: it exists only in memory while it is checked, and no account is created. Google’s handling of it is described in section 4.

To enforce the limit of 3 free tries a day, we keep a record of each try (time, whether it worked, the species named) with a one-way code made from your IP address and the date. The code changes every day and can’t be turned back into your IP address or linked across days.

We don’t make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects. The only automated decisions are the identification itself and usage limits (for example, the free daily allowance).

We don’t sell your personal information and don’t share it for targeted advertising. We share it only with these service providers, who process it on our behalf under their data-processing terms, and only what each one needs:

About Gemini. We use Google’s paid Gemini API. Under Google’s terms, Google doesn’t use what we send to improve its products or train its models, and keeps it only for a limited period to detect abuse and meet legal requirements. We don’t use your photos to train any AI model either.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone’s safety, to enforce our terms, or to a buyer if Spotter is ever sold (in which case this policy keeps applying to your data unless you agree otherwise).

• Delete your account: in the app, Profile, then Delete Account. This deletes your sign-in, every identification and photo, your memberships, and Collections only you belong to, straight away. You can also use the data deletion page or email dgauger@realbluesoftware.com; we complete those within 30 days and confirm by email. Subscriptions are billed by Apple or Google, so cancel them in the store as well.
• Delete single identifications from your history, or all of them from Profile.
• Location, notifications and photos access: change them any time in your phone’s settings.
• Usage analytics: turn off “Share usage analytics” in Profile.
• Notifications: choose which kinds you get in the app’s Profile (current versions), or turn them off in your phone’s settings. We don’t send any between 9pm and 8am your time, and send no more than two non-essential ones a week.
• Email: service emails (account, security, subscription, replies to deletion requests) are part of the service. Welcome tips and trial reminders come with your account. Seasonal emails (what’s out near you, “it’s been a while”) are on by default only for accounts in the US; everywhere else we only send them if you turn them on. We aren’t sending them yet. We stop emailing an address that bounces permanently or marks our email as spam; email dgauger@realbluesoftware.com to turn it back on. Every tips, reminder or seasonal email has a one-click unsubscribe link and a link to your email preferences.
• Access, correction or a copy of your data: email dgauger@realbluesoftware.com from the address on your account.

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest on Google Cloud. Access to production systems is limited to the developer and to service accounts that need it. Photos are stored at long, random web addresses that aren’t listed anywhere, so they can only be opened by someone who has the exact address (for example, members of a Collection you shared to). No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

We don’t sell or share personal information for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. We still treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) or Do Not Track signal from your browser as a request not to be measured: our website analytics don’t load when either signal is on. No third party collects personal information about you across other websites through spotternature.com.

Spotter is for adults: you must be 18 or older to have an account (see our Terms of Use). It is not directed to children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. Adults may use Spotter with children on the adult’s own account.

Where the law requires it (for example, in Texas), the app asks Apple or Google for the age range on your store account when you sign up. We use that answer only to decide whether you can create an account, keep it only on your phone, and never use it for analytics, advertising or anything else.

If you believe a child has given us personal information, email dgauger@realbluesoftware.com. We will delete the account and its data, usually within a few days.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas and other states have privacy laws that give residents rights over their data. Spotter is a small app and currently falls below the thresholds of most of those laws, but we honor these requests from anyone, wherever you live:

• know what personal information we have about you and get a copy;
• correct it;
• delete it;
• opt out of sale, sharing for targeted advertising and profiling (we don’t do any of these);
• not be treated differently for using these rights.

Email dgauger@realbluesoftware.com from your account’s address, or use the data deletion page. We answer within 45 days. If we turn down a request, reply to tell us and we’ll review it again (your appeal); if you’re still unhappy, you can contact your state attorney general. An authorized agent can make a request for you with your signed permission.

In the last 12 months we collected the categories described in section 2: identifiers (email, username, account and device IDs), commercial information (purchases), internet activity (app and website usage), approximate geolocation (not stored), photos, and inferences limited to the species you photograph. We disclosed them only to the service providers in section 4, for business purposes. We don’t sell or share them, and we don’t use sensitive personal information to infer things about you.

Spotter is run from the United States, and your data is stored and processed in the US by us and our service providers. Where data about people in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland is transferred, our providers rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (and its UK and Swiss extensions) or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

If you are in the EU, EEA or UK, you have the rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our processing of your data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting earlier processing. Email dgauger@realbluesoftware.com to use them. You also have the right to complain to your data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office).

When we change this policy we update the date at the top and list the change below. If a change materially affects how we use data we already have, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it applies, and ask for your consent where the law requires it.

• October 17, 2026: We send email again, through Resend: the welcome tips after you sign up, trial-ending reminders, and replies to deletion requests. Resend tells us whether each email was delivered, bounced or marked as spam, and we stop emailing an address that bounces permanently or marks our email as spam. The deletion request form is back on the data deletion page.
• October 13, 2026 (later): We stopped sending email and removed our email provider. Deletion requests now go to our support email address instead of a web form.
• October 13, 2026: Push notifications and emails sent from our server: the region (state or province) we keep for “near you” messages, your notification and email choices, time zone, a random install ID, which messages we sent and whether you tapped or clicked them, weekly challenge badges, referral rewards, Year in Review share links, and the optional “How did you hear about us?” answer. The app (version 1.1) can also send its named usage events to PostHog, behind the same “Share usage analytics” switch.
• October 12, 2026: Rewritten from a full review of the app, website and servers. New: the 18+ age policy, each service provider by name, retention periods for each kind of data, location rounding, photo location data being removed, install-source data, push notifications and email, US state and EU/UK rights, and Global Privacy Control.
• October 12, 2026 (earlier): Added the website analytics and web demo sections.
• July 7, 2026: Moved from realbluesoftware.com to spotternature.com.

Real Blue Software LLC, New Berlin, Wisconsin 53151, United States.
Email: dgauger@realbluesoftware.com