Your data, in plain language.

Who we are

Sturgeon is an independently operated activity and discovery app for the Great Lakes. This policy covers information collected throughgetsturgeon.com, the Sturgeon mobile app, and related services. Sturgeon is not affiliated with or endorsed by Metroparks Toledo. A park listing does not give its operator access to your account or submissions.

Sturgeon licenses datasets, directories, taxonomies, benchmarks, and related data from Whole Atlas LLC, an Ohio limited liability company. Sturgeon does not acquire ownership of that Whole Atlas-licensed data merely by using it to provide the platform.

What we collect from visitors

• An email address, when you create an account on getsturgeon.com or in a Sturgeon mobile app.
• Profile information you choose to provide, such as a display name, private full name, profile photo or Sturgeon avatar, home ZIP code, age range, gender identity, activity interests, and the Great Lakes you feel connected to. These fields are optional. We do not ask for your exact birth date or street address.
• Your check-ins: which stamps you've collected, when, and the approximate location at the moment of the check-in.
• Photos you upload, only if you choose to upload them. Photos default to private and are available to authorized Sturgeon reviewers for moderation.
• Groups, outings, posts, comments, reports, blocks, and your acceptance of the Community Standards when you use community features.
• Stewardship reports you choose to send, including the issue category, urgency, notes, observation and submission times, precise location and accuracy, selected park, and up to three optional evidence photos. We also retain whether you confirm a nearby alert as still present or apparently clear.
• Daily step and wheelchair push totals, only when you explicitly connect Apple Health or Android Health Connect. Sturgeon requests read-only access to steps and wheelchair pushes, excludes manually entered values where the platform makes that distinction available, and does not collect raw samples, routes, workouts, heart data, or other medical information from those health services.
• Activities you choose to record in Sturgeon include GPS route points, timestamps, activity type, distance, and active time. An encrypted recovery copy remains on your device until you save or discard the recording. Saving sends the activity to Sturgeon for your history and eligibility checks. Routes are not read from Apple Health or Health Connect.
• Website analytics: pages visited, session engagement, general device type, coarse geography, and a random first-party browser identifier that is hashed before storage. Analytics are enabled only when you accept analytics cookies. Used to improve Sturgeon, not to build an advertising profile.
• App content analytics: which feed cards, posts, events, and challenges are delivered; whether at least half of an item stays on screen for one or three seconds; and opens, link clicks, reactions, joins, shares, or dismissals. A random identifier is created for each app launch and hashed before storage. Park systems and sponsors receive aggregate performance reports, not individual activity or identity data. We use these measurements to improve content and report sponsor placement performance, not to build behavioral advertising profiles.

What we don’t collect

• Route recording starts only when you tap Start or Resume. During that activity, location recording can continue with a system indicator while your screen is locked or you use another app. Pause or Finish stops the recording. If the app is terminated, an encrypted recovery copy stays on that device and reopens paused. Nearby discovery, check-ins, and reports do not start continuous background tracking.
• We don't sell your data. To anyone. Ever.
• We don't use third-party advertising trackers.

Data retention and deletion

Sturgeon stores user data to provide the features described in this policy. How long we retain it depends on the type of data:

• Account and member content: We retain your sign-in information, profile, check-ins, badges, rewards, activity summaries, uploads, community participation, and stewardship reports while your account exists, unless you remove information sooner using an available account control. Deleting your account removes these account-owned records from our active systems. Uninstalling the app does not delete your account or server data.
• Recorded GPS routes: Our daily cleanup removes route points once an activity ended more than 365 days ago; activity summaries remain with your account. Recordings set aside as accidental, forgotten, or implausible are kept separately for support diagnostics: their route points are removed after 30 days in that archive and the remaining archive record after 180 days. Account deletion removes both saved and archived recordings sooner. An unfinished recording's encrypted recovery copy stays on your device until you save or discard it.
• Health step and wheelchair push totals: We retain synced daily totals while your account exists and step tracking remains connected. Disconnecting step tracking inside Sturgeon deletes all synced totals; account deletion also removes them. Revoking permission in Apple Health or Health Connect stops further access but does not itself delete totals already synced to Sturgeon. Sturgeon does not delete the source data in your phone's health store.
• Analytics: Raw, pseudonymous app content analytics events are deleted by daily cleanup after 13 months, including events remaining after account deletion. Our first-party website device records are deleted after 13 months without a visit. Aggregated, de-identified statistics and Derived Data that do not identify you may be retained indefinitely for measurement and service improvement.
• Security records: Daily cleanup deletes security audit logs after two years and activity-ingestion security events after one year. Account deletion removes your ingestion events and clears the account reference in audit logs; the remaining audit record is retained until its scheduled expiration to investigate unauthorized access and protect the service.
• Community safety records: Reports you submitted are deleted with your account. A report submitted by another person, its preserved content snapshot, and moderation decisions may remain after the reported content or its author's account is deleted, for safety investigations and enforcement history. These case records currently have no fixed automatic expiration.
• Optional landing-page form submissions: Our daily cleanup deletes submissions after 180 days. Deleting an account removes its account reference from a submission but does not erase the submitted answers before that cleanup.

You can delete your account from My account in the app or through getsturgeon.com/delete-account. In-app and web deletion remove account-owned data when deletion completes. If you cannot sign in, email privacy@sturgeonproject.org; we verify account ownership and normally complete these requests within seven days. The exceptions above explain which records may remain after deletion and why.

Multi-tenant isolation

Sturgeon uses database access controls to separate members' private records and organizational workspaces. Geographic coverage does not grant an organization access. Any organizational access requires an explicitly authorized role and remains limited to that role's purpose.

Who can see your data

• You, always: your own check-ins, photos, and rewards.
• Explicitly authorized participating organizations may receive aggregate reporting or access to cases assigned to their workspace. Being listed in Sturgeon does not grant that access. Metroparks Toledo does not operate a Sturgeon partner workspace. Aggregate profile results with fewer than five people are suppressed.
• The Sturgeon team: when needed to operate the service, review submitted content and reports, provide technical support, debug problems, or meet legal obligations.

Profile insights

Accounts are for people 13 and older. At sign-up we ask your birth month and year to confirm the minimum age, and we keep only the birth year; a refused sign-up stores nothing.

Profile information you choose to provide, including ZIP code, age range, gender identity, activity interests, and Great Lakes connections, may be used for personalization and de-identified aggregate reporting. Under the Terms, community details you provide are included in this reporting by default rather than through a separate opt-in. Every reported group must include at least five people. This helps Sturgeon, participating park systems, and Whole Atlas research understand regional reach and improve activities. Your individual profile answers are not provided to a park system. Providing these fields remains optional, and you can edit or remove them at any time without losing access to any feature.

We may create aggregated and de-identified statistics, benchmarks, patterns, classifications, taxonomies, models, insights, metadata, and service improvements ("Derived Data"). Derived Data excludes personal information, visitor content, park-system source records, and confidential information; it may not identify a person or park system or permit a reasonable person to reconstruct the source records. Subject to applicable law and written agreements, Whole Atlas LLC owns Derived Data and may retain and use it after an account is deleted, data is exported, or a park system stops using Sturgeon.

Community safety data

When content is reported, we preserve a snapshot of the reported content, the reason selected, optional details, and the moderation decision. Reports are visible to the reporter and authorized safety staff, not to the reported account or the public. Block relationships are used to prevent the two accounts from seeing or interacting with one another in Groups.

Stewardship reports and trail alerts

A stewardship report is private to you and authorized Sturgeon reviewers. Sturgeon may forward relevant details to the responsible operator or public agency for assessment. Submission does not confirm delivery to an operator. An explicitly authorized partner can access cases assigned to its workspace; selecting a park alone does not grant access. Reports require Sturgeon review before a public warning is created. For a reviewed trail-safety issue, Sturgeon may show nearby visitors a temporary alert containing only a fixed category label, urgency, rounded location, age, distance, expiration time, and aggregate still-there or looks-clear counts. We do not publish your identity, notes, photos, or precise report coordinates. Reports about dumping, trash, vandalism, wildlife, or other sensitive matters do not create public alerts.

Location is checked while the app is open to submit a report, find nearby alerts, or verify that you are near an alert you confirm. Sturgeon does not add background location tracking for this feature. Public alert expiration does not delete the underlying staff case.

Optional step tracking

If you connect step tracking in Settings, Sturgeon reads up to 31 days of daily step and wheelchair push totals from Apple Health or Health Connect. Pushes count the same as steps so wheelchair users compete on equal footing. We store one bounded total per day so we can show your progress and calculate the leaderboards assigned to you and any challenges you choose to join. Step tracking is optional and is not required to use parks, events, badges, groups, or any other core feature.

Some challenges display a sponsor's name and logo. Sponsors never receive your data — not your totals, not your identity, not your participation. Sponsorship is branding on the challenge, not access to the people in it.

Whole Atlas may receive aggregate step and push totals by day and source for network measurement only when a cell includes at least five people. Those rollups contain no names, account IDs, raw samples, or routes. In Settings you can disconnect step tracking and delete every synced total from Sturgeon. You can also revoke Sturgeon's source permission in Apple Health or Health Connect; doing so does not delete anything from your phone's health store.

Third-party services we use

• Supabase: database, authentication, file storage. Hosted in the United States.
• Google Maps: maps displayed in the mobile app.
• Resend: transactional email, including welcome messages, sign-in codes, and reward confirmations. Welcome messages may include links to Sturgeon's app-store pages.
• Google Analytics: aggregate website traffic and engagement measurement. We do not use it for advertising.
• Apple and Google: account sign-in only when you choose the corresponding sign-in option, plus Apple Health or Health Connect only when you separately connect optional step tracking.

Your rights

You can:

• Export your data: every check-in, photo, and reward we have on you. Email email support.
• Delete your account and associated content from My account in the app, or use our external deletion instructions at getsturgeon.com/delete-account.
• Revoke individual permissions (location, photo library, and health steps and wheelchair pushes) any time in your phone's settings. Disconnecting step tracking inside Sturgeon also deletes its synced totals.

Changes to this policy

If we change anything that materially affects how we handle your data, we'll send you an email and post a banner on the home screen of any app you've installed. The version history of this page lives in our public source repository.

Contact

Questions about this policy: email Sturgeon.