Upwild Privacy Policy
Effective date: DRAFT, not yet in effect. Pending review by counsel.
Draft notice. This is a working draft written before launch and has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer. It will be replaced by a reviewed version before Upwild is available in the App Store.
This policy explains what Upwild collects, why, who sees it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. It covers the Upwild iPhone app, the watcher pages at upwild.app, our text messages, and our websites (upwild.app and getupwild.com). "Upwild", "we" and "us" mean [Upwild LLC], a Colorado company. "You" means a hiker who uses the app, or a watcher who gets texts from Upwild.
The short version
- Your trip plan goes to the watchers you choose. Your last location goes to them only if you're overdue.
- Location is recorded only during a live trip, and it's deleted 30 days after the trip ends.
- Health data stays on your iPhone. Upwild reads your hiking workouts to estimate your climb rate. That data is never sent to Upwild, iCloud, analytics or advertisers.
- We don't sell your data, share it for ads, or track you across other apps and websites. There are no ads and no third-party analytics in Upwild.
- You can delete your account in the app. Everything tied to it is erased within 30 days.
What we collect and why
When you create an account
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your phone number (if you sign in with your phone) | To send your sign-in code and identify your account. It's shown to your watchers only when you're overdue, so they can call you. |
| Your Apple ID details (if you use Sign in with Apple) | Apple gives us a private identifier and, if you choose, your email or a private relay address. We use it only to sign you in. |
| Your first name and last initial | So your watchers know whose plan it is. |
| Optional profile details: trail name, home elevation | To personalize the app and adjust pace estimates. |
When you add watchers
You choose watchers from your contacts with the iPhone's contact picker. Upwild never sees your address book. We store only the name and phone number of each person you pick. Before you add someone, make sure they're happy to hear from Upwild about your hikes. Each watcher gets one invite text and receives your plans only after replying YES.
When you plan and take a trip
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Trip plan: peak, route, trailhead, start, turnaround and back-by times, who's in your party, gear | To send your plan to your watchers and to know when you're overdue. |
| Vehicle: make, color, the last three characters of your plate, where you parked, and an optional photo of your car | So searchers can find the trailhead. Watchers see it only if you're overdue. |
| Location during a live trip, with accuracy, elevation, and time | So watchers can see your last known location if you're overdue. We don't collect location at any other time. |
| Check-ins, notes, extensions, and when you end the trip | To keep your watchers up to date and to stop alerts when you're back. |
| Battery level when you check in | So watchers know if your phone may have died. |
| Optional search-and-rescue sheet: age, sex, height, weight, clothing, how to reach you, medical notes, whether you have a CORSAR card | What a search coordinator asks for first. Watchers see it only if you're overdue. You decide what to fill in, and you can clear it at any time. |
The medical notes in the search-and-rescue sheet may be health information. We collect them only if you choose to enter them, use them only to show to your watchers if you're overdue, and never use them for anything else.
Health data (stays on your iPhone)
If you allow it, Upwild reads hiking workouts and related data from Apple Health to estimate how fast you climb and to show your hike stats. This happens entirely on your iPhone. Health data is never sent to our servers, never stored in iCloud by Upwild, and never used for advertising or shared with anyone. You can turn off access at any time in the Health app.
Notifications
If you allow notifications, we store your device's push token so we can tell you things like "Are you back?" when your trip runs late. You can turn notifications off in iPhone Settings, but you'll miss the reminder that gives you a chance to end your trip before your watchers are texted.
Rewards
We keep a record of the points you earn (for example, for coming back on time or honoring your turnaround).
Subscriptions
Upwild Plus is sold and billed by Apple. We never see your payment card. Apple tells us whether your subscription is active, in a trial, or lapsed, and we store that status.
Watchers
If someone adds you as a watcher, we get your name (as they saved it) and your phone number from them. We use your number only to send texts about that hiker's trips, record your YES or STOP replies, and track whether our texts were delivered. If you open a watcher page and tap "I've contacted the Sheriff" or "I've heard from them", we record that so the hiker's other watchers can see it.
Our websites
Our websites don't use advertising or tracking cookies. Like most web servers, ours briefly log technical details such as your IP address and browser type to keep the service secure and working. Watcher pages are marked so search engines don't index them.
What we never collect
Your address book, your full license plate, your location outside a live trip, your Health data, and payment card details.
Who sees your information
- Your watchers. They get your plan, check-ins and back-safe messages. Only if you're overdue do they see your last location, your phone number, your vehicle and car photo, and your search-and-rescue sheet. Watchers can see each other's first names and whether another watcher has already contacted the Sheriff.
- Service providers who run Upwild for us, under contracts that limit them to providing their service:
- Twilio, which sends sign-in codes and watcher texts
- Apple, for Sign in with Apple, push notifications, and App Store purchases
- [Hosting provider] and [database provider], which host our servers and database in the United States
- Emergency services and the law. Upwild doesn't contact search and rescue or 911 for you; your watchers do. We may share information with emergency responders if we believe in good faith that it's needed to prevent death or serious injury, or when the law requires it (for example, a valid subpoena or court order). Where we're allowed to, we'll tell you.
- A new owner. If Upwild is sold or merges with another company, your information would move with the service under the same protections described here, and we'd tell you before this policy changes.
We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for targeted (cross-context behavioral) advertising. We don't use your information for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
Text messaging. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties.
The weather in Upwild comes from the U.S. National Weather Service. We ask for forecasts by peak location only. No information about you is sent.
How long we keep it
| Information | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Location points from a trip | 30 days after the trip ends |
| Vehicle details and car photo | 7 days after the trip ends |
| Watcher page links | They stop working 72 hours after the trip ends |
| Text message records | 90 days |
| Sign-in codes | 2 days |
| Ended or signed-out sessions | 30 days |
| Trip plans, profile, search-and-rescue sheet, watchers, points | Until you delete them or your account |
| Your account, after you delete it | Erased within 30 days, along with everything tied to it |
| STOP records for a phone number | Kept, so we can prove we honored the opt-out and never text that number again by mistake |
Backups are overwritten on a rolling basis, so deleted information may remain in encrypted backups for a short time until they expire.
How we protect it
All traffic is encrypted in transit. Your session is stored in the iPhone Keychain, and we store only a scrambled (hashed) copy of it. Our database is encrypted at rest. Watcher page links are long random codes that expire, and the pages are rate-limited. Our logs leave out phone numbers, tokens and coordinates. Admin access requires hardware-key two-factor authentication. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and will notify you and regulators of a breach as the law requires.
Your choices
- Location: iPhone Settings > Upwild > Location. If you decline, Upwild still works with manual check-ins, but watchers won't see a last location.
- Health: Health app > Sharing > Apps > Upwild.
- Notifications, camera, photos: iPhone Settings > Upwild.
- Search-and-rescue sheet: edit or clear any field in the app.
- Watchers: remove a watcher at any time in the app.
- Delete your account: open the Settings tab and choose Delete account. This signs you out everywhere, revokes Sign in with Apple, and erases your account within 30 days.
- Watchers who want to stop texts: reply STOP to any Upwild text. See "Text messages" below.
Text messages
Upwild sends texts to watchers on a hiker's behalf: one invite, and after the watcher replies YES, that hiker's plan, trip start, check-ins (up to three per trip), back-safe, cancellation, and overdue alerts with up to two follow-ups. Message frequency varies with how often the hiker hikes. Message and data rates may apply.
Reply STOP to stop all Upwild texts to your number. This includes overdue alerts, so the hiker is told you've opted out and asked to choose another watcher. Reply START to turn texts back on. Reply HELP for help, or contact us at the address below. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
We also send one-time sign-in codes to hikers who sign in with their phone number.
Children
Upwild is not meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. You must be [18] or older to create an account. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.
Your privacy rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- tell you what personal information we have about you and give you a copy in a portable format,
- correct it,
- delete it,
- and stop any sale, sharing for targeted advertising, or profiling (we don't do any of these, but you can still ask).
We won't treat you differently for using these rights. Most of them you can use yourself in the app. For anything else, email privacy@getupwild.com from, or mentioning, the phone number or Apple ID on your account. We'll confirm we got your request within 10 business days and answer within 45 days. If we need more time (up to another 45 days), we'll tell you why. To protect your account, we'll verify your request, usually with a code sent to your phone number. You can use an authorized agent; we'll ask for proof that you authorized them.
California residents
The California Consumer Privacy Act gives you the rights above: to know, delete, correct, opt out of sale or sharing, and limit the use of sensitive personal information. In the past 12 months we have collected these categories of personal information, from you, your device, or a hiker who added you as a watcher, for the purposes described in this policy:
| Category | Examples | Disclosed for a business purpose to |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | phone number, Apple private identifier, name, push token, IP address | service providers; your watchers (name, and phone number only when overdue) |
| Customer records | name, phone number | service providers |
| Commercial information | Plus subscription status | not disclosed |
| Geolocation (sensitive) | precise location during a live trip | your watchers, only when you're overdue; hosting provider |
| Sensitive personal information | account sign-in credentials; optional medical notes | your watchers, only when you're overdue (medical notes); hosting provider |
| Internet activity | web server logs | hosting provider |
| Sensory information | optional car photo | your watchers, only when you're overdue; hosting provider |
We don't sell or share personal information, and haven't in the past 12 months. We use sensitive personal information only to provide the service you asked for, so the right to limit doesn't change what we do. We don't knowingly sell or share the information of anyone under 16. We honor Global Privacy Control signals as an opt-out of sale and sharing.
Colorado residents
Under the Colorado Privacy Act you have the rights to access, correct, delete and get a portable copy of your personal data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale and profiling. We don't do any of the latter, and we honor universal opt-out signals such as Global Privacy Control. We process sensitive data, such as medical notes you choose to add or data about a known minor, only with your consent, and you can withdraw that consent at any time by clearing it in the app or deleting your account.
If we decline your request, you can appeal by replying to our decision or emailing privacy@getupwild.com with "Appeal" in the subject. We'll answer within 45 days (up to 60 more if needed, and we'll tell you). If you disagree with the outcome, you can contact the Colorado Attorney General at coag.gov.
Other states
Residents of other states with privacy laws, including Virginia, Connecticut, Texas, Oregon and others, have similar rights, and the same process and appeal apply. If you live in Washington or Nevada, our consumer health data notice below also applies to you.
Consumer health data
The only health-related information Upwild's servers ever receive is what you choose to type into the medical notes of your search-and-rescue sheet. We collect it with your consent, use it only to show your watchers if you're overdue, never sell it, and share it with no one else except our hosting provider. You can view, delete, or withdraw consent for it at any time by clearing the field or deleting your account. Health data from Apple Health never leaves your iPhone.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we'll update the effective date above. If a change is significant, such as a new kind of information or a new way of sharing it, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect, and ask for your consent where the law requires.
Contact us
[Upwild LLC] [Mailing address], Colorado Privacy requests: privacy@getupwild.com Support: support@getupwild.com, +1 970-306-6111 (calls and voicemail only)