Privacy Policy

You give us:

• Account info — email address and a password (stored as a secure hash by our authentication provider; we never see your plain password).
• Profile info — username, display name, bio, home state, and an optional profile photo, plus flair choices like banners and titles.
• Catch entries — species, length/weight, waterbody, date, photos, and optional notes, lure/bait, and fishing technique.
• Location — when you log a catch, we may collect your device’s GPS position and/or GPS metadata embedded in your catch photo, solely to check you were near the water you claimed (proximity verification).
• Club activity — club membership, role, applications, invites, and messages you send in club chat.
• Payment info — if you subscribe to Pro, checkout is handled by Stripe. We receive your subscription status and billing period, never your card number.
• Reports and support messages you send us.

We collect automatically:

• Usage data — pages viewed and basic interaction events, tied to your account when signed in.
• Device and log data — IP address, browser type, and similar technical information standard to web services.
• Local storage and cookies — used to keep you signed in and remember preferences (like your home state). We don’t use third-party advertising cookies or trackers.

• Public pages never show coordinates. Catches are shown at the waterbody level only — “Strawberry Reservoir,” never a GPS pin.
• Precise GPS from your device or photos is used to verify proximity to the claimed water and is visible only to you and our verification moderators.
• Deleted after review. The precise GPS point attached to a submission is permanently deleted as soon as a moderator decides the review (verified or rejected). What remains is a distance number (for example, “0.4 mi from the water”) and a pass/fail flag — neither can locate you or your spot.
• Photo GPS metadata is read on your device, in your browser, only at the moment you attach a catch photo — the original file (and its metadata) is never uploaded.
• Photos are re-encoded on your device before upload, which removes embedded metadata (including GPS) from the stored file — whether or not you share the photo.
• Moderators see the distance result (for example, “verified nearby”), which appears on your catch as a verification signal — not your position.

• Run the Service — accounts, leaderboards, water pages, clubs, chat, and notifications.
• Verify catches — photo review, measurement checks, and location proximity checks.
• Process Pro subscriptions and manage billing through Stripe.
• Keep the Service fair and safe — investigating reports, preventing cheating and abuse, enforcing our Terms.
• Improve the Service — understanding which features are used, fixing bugs, and planning improvements.
• Communicate with you — service emails like confirmation, receipts, and important account notices.

We do not sell your personal information, and we don’t show third-party ads.

Public (visible to anyone):

• Your username, display name, bio, home state, profile photo, flair, and titles.
• Your public catches — species, size, waterbody and state, date, technique, and verification status — on leaderboards, water pages, species pages, and your profile.
• Your fish photo, only if you chose to share it on that catch. Unshared photos stay private as verification evidence.
• Your club membership, role, and your club’s public page and standings.
• Lure/bait on a catch only if you chose to share it (and it’s revealed only to Pro members through the bait-intel feature).

Not public:

• Your email address, password, and billing details.
• Your exact GPS coordinates and photo location metadata.
• Catches you mark private, which count for you but don’t appear on public boards.
• Club chat — visible only to members of your club (club staff can moderate; our moderators may review reported or flagged messages).

We share personal information only with:

• Service providers that run Fish Club’s infrastructure — currently Supabase (database, authentication, file storage), Stripe (payments), our hosting provider, and our email delivery provider. They process data for us under their own security and privacy obligations.
• Map tiles — the map loads tiles from a third-party tile server; like any web request, that server sees your IP address. Your catches and coordinates are not sent to it.
• Law and safety — if required by law, subpoena, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Fish Club, our members, or the public.
• A successor — if Fish Club is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may transfer with the Service, subject to this Policy.

• Account and content data — kept while your account is active.
• Deleted content — removed from the Service promptly and from routine backups within a limited period.
• Payment records — kept as required for tax, accounting, and fraud-prevention purposes.
• Moderation records — we may retain limited records of enforcement actions (like bans) to keep the Service fair.

• Access and update — edit your profile, flair, and preferences in the app anytime.
• Delete your account — available in your profile settings. This removes your profile, catches, photos, club membership, and chat messages as described above.
• Catch privacy — mark any catch private at submission, and control whether your lure is shared.
• Emails — service emails (receipts, security notices) are part of having an account; anything promotional will include an unsubscribe option.
• Depending on where you live (for example California or the EU/UK), you may have legal rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. Contact us and we’ll honor applicable rights.

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we’ll delete it.

We use industry-standard safeguards: encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, row-level security on our database, and server-side controls that keep sensitive data (like coordinates and billing status) out of public responses. No online service can guarantee perfect security, but protecting your spots and your account is a design principle of Fish Club, not an afterthought.

We may update this Policy as the Service evolves. If a change is material — especially anything affecting how location data is handled — we’ll give notice (for example in-app or by email) before it takes effect. The “Last updated” date above always reflects the current version.

Privacy questions or requests: support@fishclub.com. See also our Terms of Service.