Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22 April 2026

Faunist is a personal wildlife field journal. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and what rights you have.

Who is responsible

Faunist is operated as a personal project. For any privacy-related questions or requests, contact us at [email protected].

Data we collect

We collect only what is needed to run the app:

Email address — used for account creation and sign-in
Password — stored as a secure hash, never in plain text
Username and bio — optional profile fields you set yourself
Profile picture — an optional photo you upload yourself, stored on our servers
Wildlife sightings — species, date, and an optional location label you enter manually
Species photo submissions — photos you voluntarily submit to improve species coverage in the app
Follow relationships — which users you follow and who follows you, if you use the social features
Language preference — stored locally in your browser only, never sent to our servers

Location data

Faunist can optionally detect your location to pre-fill a location label when logging a sighting. This only happens when you explicitly tap the location button. Your coordinates are sent to Nominatim (OpenStreetMap) to convert them into a readable place name. We do not store your coordinates — only the resulting place name, if you choose to save it with your sighting.

How we use your data

To provide and operate the app
To let you log in and access your sightings across devices
To display your profile to other users, if you set your profile to public
To enable social features such as following other users and leaderboards
To improve species image coverage through community photo submissions

We do not use your data for advertising, tracking, or any purpose beyond operating the app.

Third-party services

We use the following services to operate Faunist:

Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage. Your account data, sightings, profile picture, and submitted photos are stored on Supabase servers. Supabase is a US-based service operating under standard contractual clauses for international data transfers. See Supabase's privacy policy.
Cloudflare Pages — the app is hosted on Cloudflare's infrastructure. Cloudflare may process request metadata including IP addresses as part of delivering the service. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
iNaturalist — species images and names are loaded from iNaturalist's public API. No personal data is shared with iNaturalist.
Wikimedia Commons — some species images are loaded from Wikimedia. No personal data is shared.
Nominatim / OpenStreetMap — reverse geocoding when you use the location button. Only used on explicit user action.
Google Fonts — fonts are loaded from Google's CDN. Google may log your IP address. See Google's privacy policy.

Cookies and local storage

Faunist does not use tracking cookies. We use browser local storage for your session token (to keep you logged in) and your language preference. No third-party tracking or analytics are used.

Public profiles

If you set your profile to public in Settings, the following information is visible to other Faunist users: your username, bio, profile picture, species count, experience level, and follow relationships. Your profile is private by default. You can switch between public and private at any time in Settings.

Your rights

You can:

Delete your account — via Settings → Delete Account. This permanently removes your profile and all sightings.
Request your data — email [email protected] and we will provide an export of your data.
Correct your data — update your username and bio at any time in Settings.

Data retention

We keep your data for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, your data is permanently removed from our database.

Children

Faunist is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us at [email protected] and we will delete it promptly.

Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes to this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Questions or requests: [email protected]

Also see our Terms of Service — Deutsche Version.