Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 1, 2026. This policy replaces our December 2, 2024 privacy policy.

TrailAware, Inc. (“TrailAware”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) makes the TrailAware mobile apps for iOS and Android (the “App”), the website at trailaware.com, and TrailAware Basecamp, our partner portal for resorts, events, destinations, and land managers (together, the “Service”). This policy explains what information we collect, why, where it lives, and the choices you have. It applies to all of the above.

The Short Version

• You can use the App’s core features without an account.
• We do not sell your data, we do not show ads, and we do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites. There are no advertising SDKs in the App.
• Most location use happens on your device. A limited set of features send coordinates to servers, and we list every one of them below.
• You can delete your account and its cloud data yourself, in the App, at any time.

Information We Collect

Account information. An account is optional. If you create one, you sign in with Apple Sign-In or Google Sign-In and we receive the basic profile you agree to share: your name and email address, plus a user ID that keys your account. If you use Apple’s Hide My Email, we receive the private relay address Apple generates instead of your real email, and that works fine. We never see or store a password – authentication is handled by Apple and Google.

Things you create. When you are signed in, content you choose to sync or share is stored in the cloud: your favorites, points of interest you add, trails you contribute or share, your contributor profile (such as a display name and bio), and any photos or videos you attach to trails or points of interest. GPX routes you import and keep private stay on your device unless you share them.

Location. The App uses your precise location to show nearby trails on the map and to align trails in augmented reality. That work happens on your device. Your location is sent off the device only in these cases:

• Trail and elevation lookups: coordinates are sent to our trail-data and elevation providers (such as Google’s elevation service and Strava’s segment API) to fetch data for the area you are viewing. These queries carry coordinates only – no name, email, or account identity is attached.
• Share my location: if you use the feature that shares your position, that is sent because you asked it to be.
• Bug reports: if you submit a bug report, it includes your location and GPS accuracy along with the diagnostics described below, because “the AR line is in the wrong place” is impossible to debug without knowing where you were.

We do not track your location in the background, we do not build a history of where you have been, and the App never requests always-on location access.

Photos and videos. AR photos and videos you capture with the App are saved to your device’s photo library and stay there – we do not upload them. The one exception is bug reports, which include a screenshot so we can see what you saw.

Diagnostics and analytics. We use Firebase Crashlytics to collect crash reports (device model, OS version, and what the App was doing when it crashed) and Firebase Analytics to collect basic usage data such as which screens are used. These use app-instance identifiers that are not joined to your account. Bug reports you choose to send include richer diagnostics – device model, OS version, network state, GPS accuracy, and AR alignment data – and are linked to your account if you are signed in, so we can follow up.

Website and Basecamp. The website uses cookies only for security and performance (via Cloudflare) – no advertising or tracking cookies. If your organization uses Basecamp, we collect the account information needed to run it: your name, email, organization, role, and an activity log of changes made in the portal.

What We Do Not Collect

No advertising identifiers, no ad SDKs, no cross-app or cross-site tracking, no data brokers, and no sale of personal information – ever. We do not collect health or fitness data, contacts, messages, or browsing history. In-app trail searches are not stored on our servers. Payment card details never touch our systems (see below).

Where Your Data Lives

• Google Firebase hosts our app backend: authentication (Firebase Auth), your account and content (Firestore), uploaded files such as bug-report screenshots and trail media (Firebase Storage), and crash and usage data (Crashlytics and Analytics). Google acts as our service provider.
• trailaware.com and Basecamp run on WordPress on servers we operate, and hold business-account and portal data.
• Payments. Consumer purchases (TrailAware Pro) are billed entirely by Apple or Google through their app stores. Basecamp business subscriptions are billed through Stripe. In every case, your payment card data is handled by Apple, Google, or Stripe under their own privacy policies – TrailAware never receives or stores card numbers.

How We Share Information

We share personal information only in these situations:

• Service providers. Companies that help us run the Service – Google (Firebase), Apple and Google (sign-in and billing), Stripe (business billing), Cloudflare (site security and delivery), and our map, elevation, and trail-data providers – receive only what they need to do their job.
• Content you share. If you share a trail publicly or via a share link, other users see that trail and the contributor name on your profile. That is the point of sharing; keep content private if you don’t want it visible.
• Venue and partner content. Trails, points of interest, and promotions published by a Basecamp venue appear in the App with that venue’s attribution. Venues do not see your personal information. They cannot look up who you are, what you favorited, or where you have been. Individual account lookups (used, for example, to help a user with their favorites) are available only to TrailAware’s own support staff, and each lookup is logged.
• Legal requirements. We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or court order, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of TrailAware or others. We will push back on overbroad requests.
• Business transfers. If TrailAware is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may transfer with the business; this policy would continue to apply until replaced with notice to you.

We do not share personal information with anyone for their own advertising or marketing.

Retention and Deleting Your Account

We keep your information while your account is active and as long as needed to run the Service.

Delete your account in the App: Settings > Account > Delete account. This permanently removes your Firebase authentication record, your cloud favorites, your points of interest, and your profile record from our systems. Trails you shared publicly may remain available as described in our Terms of Use; contact us if you want shared content removed too. Content on your own device (offline trails, private imports, AR photos in your photo library) is yours and is unaffected – delete it locally if you wish.

You can also request deletion without the App by emailing [email protected] from the address associated with your account. We honor these requests on the same terms as in-app deletion.

Crash and analytics data is retained per Firebase’s standard retention periods and is not personally identified to your account. Residual copies in backups are purged on our normal backup cycle.

Children

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and you must be at least 13 (or 16 where local law requires) to create an account, consistent with our Terms of Use. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact [email protected] and we will delete it.

Your Rights and Choices

Wherever you live, you can: access the personal information we hold about you, correct it (name and profile are editable in the App), delete it (see above), and decline to create an account at all. Email [email protected] to exercise any of these; we will verify the request using the email on your account and respond within the time your local law requires.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA). In the last 12 months we have collected these categories of personal information: identifiers (name, email, user ID), user content, precise geolocation (as described above), and internet activity (app usage and diagnostics) – in each case for the purposes stated in this policy. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is no need for a “Do Not Sell or Share” opt-out; we treat Global Privacy Control signals accordingly. You have the rights to know, delete, correct, and to not be discriminated against for exercising them. You may use an authorized agent; we will verify the agent’s authority.

EEA, UK, and similar jurisdictions. We process your data to perform our contract with you (running the Service), for our legitimate interests (keeping it secure and fixing bugs), and with your consent where required (such as the OS location permission, which you can withdraw in device settings at any time). You additionally have rights to portability, restriction, objection, and to complain to your local data protection authority. Our services are hosted in the United States, so using the Service means your data is transferred there.

Passkeys and Biometrics

Basecamp supports passkey sign-in (WebAuthn). If you enroll a passkey using Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, or a similar authenticator, your biometric data never leaves your device and is never sent to us – that is how the WebAuthn standard works. We store only a public key credential, which cannot be used to reconstruct your fingerprint or face.

Security

We protect your information with industry-standard measures: all traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS), backend access is restricted and credentialed, and administrative actions in Basecamp are logged. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by law.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will give notice through the App or trailaware.com before the changes take effect, and we will update the effective date above. The current version always lives at trailaware.com/privacy/.

Contact Us

TrailAware, Inc.
25 1st Ave SW, Ste A, Watertown, SD 57201, USA
Email: [email protected]

For general legal questions, see our Terms of Use at trailaware.com/terms/ or email [email protected].