Tick Tracker: Monitor Ticks Privacy Policy

Effective date: May , 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6768633904?pt=126905551&ct=website&mt=8">Tick Tracker: Monitor Ticks</a> (the "App") collects, uses, and shares information when you use it. <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6768633904?pt=126905551&ct=website&mt=8">Tick Tracker: Monitor Ticks</a> is published and operated by the App's developer ("we," "us," or "our"). By using the App you agree to the practices described here.

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1. The short version
We do not collect your name, email address, phone number, date of birth, or any other directly identifying personal information.

We do not require you to create an account or sign in.

We do not sell your data.

We use your device location (with your permission) to show you tick risk for your county and nearby trails. Your exact location stays on your device — we never transmit it.

When you submit a community tick report, we transmit a deliberately blurred version of the location (rounded and randomized to a roughly 1-kilometer grid) so the report can appear on a public map without exposing where you actually were.

Sensitive report types (tick bite, possible rash, Lyme diagnosis) never appear on the public map at all and are stored without any location more precise than your county.

Photos you attach to community reports are uploaded to our backend storage and are publicly viewable as part of the community map.

The rest of this policy explains each of those statements in detail.

 

2. Information we do not collect
We never ask for, and the App does not collect:

Your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, or social media handles

Government identifiers, financial information, or health-insurance identifiers

Contacts, calendar entries, browsing history outside the App, or content from other apps

Microphone audio, biometric data, or movement/fitness data

Advertising identifiers (we do not show ads and do not use tracking SDKs)

Crash reports or usage analytics tied to your identity

We do not maintain any user accounts, and we have no way to contact you individually unless you choose to email us.

 

3. Information the App handles
3.1 Anonymous device identifier
To allow community report submission and prevent abuse, the App creates an anonymous identifier the first time you submit a report. This is generated by our backend's anonymous-sign-in system and stored locally in your device's secure Keychain. It is not tied to your name, your Apple ID, your phone number, or any other personal information. It exists so that:

You can delete your own community reports later

We can rate-limit submissions and reject obvious spam

The same device gets the same identifier across app launches (so your reports persist)

If you uninstall the App, the identifier in the Keychain is removed and any future reports from a reinstalled App will be associated with a brand-new anonymous identifier.

 

3.2 Location data
The App requests permission to use your location only while the App is in use. We do not request "Always" location and do not track you in the background.

When you grant permission, your device's location is used on the device to:

Determine the county (and FIPS code) you are in, so the App can show the right county's risk data

Show your position on the map

Rank nearby trails by distance

Filter recent tick sightings to those near you

The exact GPS coordinates you provide:

Never leave your device for the purposes above (county lookup happens via Apple's geocoding on-device)

Are not stored on our backend for routine app use

Are not shared with any third party for advertising or profiling

When you submit a community tick report, your location is handled differently — see section 3.4.

 

3.3 Saved locations
If you save a location in Settings (for example: Home, a favorite trail, a campsite), the name and coordinates of that saved location are stored locally on your device in the App's container. Saved locations are not transmitted to our backend.

 

3.4 Community tick reports
If you choose to submit a tick report, the App sends the following to our backend (Supabase):

The type of report you selected (Tick Sighting, Tick on Person, Tick on Pet, Tick Bite, Yard Infestation, Possible Rash, or Lyme Diagnosis)

A jittered, rounded version of your location — your exact coordinates are first rounded to a ~1-kilometer grid and then offset by a small random amount within that grid cell, so the published map pin can never be used to identify your exact location

The county, state, and FIPS code derived from your location

Optional context (e.g., "Trail," "Yard," "Dog walk")

An optional photo, if you attach one

A timestamp

Your anonymous device identifier (see 3.1)

Sensitive report types — additional protection. For these report types:

Tick Bite

Possible Rash

Lyme Diagnosis

the App and our backend both strip out all location coordinates and any attached photo before the report is stored. These reports contribute only to aggregate, county-level community signals — they never appear as individual pins on the public map. The exact coordinates of these reports are not transmitted at all.

Your exact (un-jittered) coordinates for any report type never leave your device.

 

3.5 Photos you attach to reports
If you attach a photo to a non-sensitive report (sighting, on person, on pet, yard infestation), the photo is uploaded to a public storage bucket in our backend and becomes publicly viewable as part of the community map. You should not attach photos that contain personally identifying information (faces, license plates, house numbers, etc.). You can delete a report — and the photo attached to it — at any time from the Settings screen.

Photos are not uploaded for sensitive report types (bite / rash / diagnosis), regardless of whether you select one in the picker; our backend strips them before storage.

 

3.6 Notifications
The App can send you push notifications about risk-level changes for your saved locations. Notification permission is off by default and is requested only when you explicitly turn on "Risk Change Alerts" in Settings. Notification delivery is handled by Apple Push Notification service. We do not send marketing or promotional notifications.

 

3.7 Information collected by Apple
The App relies on Apple frameworks (Core Location, MapKit, Photos picker, Push Notifications) that may collect information governed by Apple's privacy policy, including system-level location permissions and notification delivery records. Refer to Apple's Privacy Policy at https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/ for details.

 

4. How we use the information we handle
The information described in section 3 is used exclusively for the following purposes:

To run the App's features — county risk lookup, nearby trail ranking, community report submission and display, notifications you opted into.

To protect the App against abuse — rate-limiting, basic spam protection, and the ability for you to delete your own reports.

To improve the App's data and accuracy — for example, aggregate report counts feed into the composite tick-risk score for each county.

We do not use any information for advertising, audience-segment building, behavioral profiling, or sale to data brokers.

 

5. Third-party services we use
The App connects to the following third-party services to function. Each is governed by its own privacy policy.

ServiceUsed forWhat's shared

Apple (Core Location, MapKit, Push Notifications)Location, maps, notification deliverySubject to Apple's privacy policy

Supabase (database, storage, anonymous auth)Storing community reports, photos, anonymous identifiersData described in section 3.4 / 3.5

iNaturalist (public API)Fetching public, research-grade tick sightingsNo user data is sent — only anonymous GET requests for public observations

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (public data via our maintained mirror)County- and state-level tick / Lyme / Alpha-Gal datasetsNo user data is sent — anonymous fetch of a public JSON file

GitHub / Plotly CDNOne-time download of county boundary geometryNo user data is sent

We do not use Google Analytics, Firebase Analytics, Facebook SDK, or any advertising SDK.

 

6. Data retention
On-device data (saved locations, your own report history cache) persists on your device until you uninstall the App or clear it from Settings.

Community reports in our backend are retained indefinitely as part of the public community data unless you delete a specific report from the Settings screen or contact us to remove all reports tied to your anonymous identifier.

Photos in storage are retained until the associated report is deleted.

The anonymous identifier in your Keychain is removed when you uninstall the App.

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7. Your rights and controls
Regardless of where you live, the App provides the following controls:

Revoke location access at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6768633904?pt=126905551&ct=website&mt=8">Tick Tracker: Monitor Ticks</a>.

Turn off notifications at any time in iOS Settings → Notifications → <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6768633904?pt=126905551&ct=website&mt=8">Tick Tracker: Monitor Ticks</a>, or by toggling Risk Change Alerts in the App's Settings.

Delete your own community reports from the Settings screen inside the App. Deletion removes both the database row and any attached photo.

Uninstall the App to remove your anonymous identifier and all on-device data.

Residents of certain jurisdictions (including California, Colorado, Virginia, and the European Economic Area) may have additional rights under applicable law, such as the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal data we hold about them. Because the App does not collect directly identifying personal information, in most cases we have no data linked to your identity to provide. If you believe we hold information about you that you would like accessed or removed, contact us at the address in section 11 and we will respond within a reasonable time as required by applicable law.

We do not sell personal information and do not engage in "sharing" of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising as defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act.

 

8. Children's privacy
The App is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided information through the App (for example, by submitting a community report), contact us at the address in section 11 and we will delete the associated data.

 

9. Security
We use industry-standard practices to protect data the App transmits and stores:

All network traffic is sent over HTTPS / TLS.

The anonymous identifier is stored in iOS Keychain, which is encrypted by the operating system.

Database access is gated by Row-Level Security policies that enforce: anyone can read non-sensitive community reports; only the anonymous identifier that created a report can delete it; sensitive report types are aggregate-only and never row-readable.

Storage uploads are restricted by per-user-folder policies so a device can only write photos to its own folder.

No security system is perfect. We cannot guarantee absolute security, and you submit information at your own risk.

 

10. Medical disclaimer (not part of privacy, but important)
<a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6768633904?pt=126905551&ct=website&mt=8">Tick Tracker: Monitor Ticks</a> is not a medical device, not a diagnostic tool, and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Risk scores, indicators, and forecasts shown in the App are estimates based on public health and community data. The Alpha-Gal Indicator layer shows environmental signals only — it does not diagnose Alpha-Gal Syndrome or confirm that any specific tick carries it. If you have symptoms after a tick bite or after eating mammalian meat following a tick bite, talk to a healthcare provider.

11. How to contact us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, want to exercise a privacy right, or want to report a concern, submit a request on our Support Page 

We will respond within a reasonable time and within any period required by applicable law.

12. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Effective date" at the top of this document. If we make a material change, we will provide notice through the App or by another reasonable means before the change takes effect. Continued use of the App after a change becomes effective constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 20, 2026.