Groundwind privacy policy

Privacy.

What Groundwind keeps on your phone, what comes to us and why, who else handles it, and how to have it deleted. Groundwind Inc. runs the Groundwind app, this site and the spots we build. Write to privacy@groundwind.app with any question about your information.

Last updated 11 November 2026

On your phone, and nowhere else

The app keeps your position, your tracks, your pins, your hunt log, your wind checks and the spots you've saved in your phone's own storage, so it all works with no signal. Your position is used on the phone to put you on the map, score your sit and draw your scent cone.

Your tracks stay on the phone. They don't go to us, to your account or to your party. Deleting the app, or clearing your browser's data for it, deletes what's on the phone.

What comes to us

Usage stats

Which buttons, screens and layers get used, and for how long. How fast the map loads, and the errors the app hits. The app's version, whether you had signal, and the country your connection comes from. These come under a random id the app makes for your phone. For a spot you load, the stats also carry its rough area, to about 10 km, so we know where to build next. They say whether GPS is on and whether you're inside the spot, as a yes or no.

The stats never carry your position, your tracks, the names of your pins, your notes or anything you type. We use them to see what works and what gets in the way. They're on unless you switch them off: Settings, then Usage stats. Off, nothing is sent, and whatever was waiting to go is dropped.

If the app crashes, the next time it opens it sends a short record of what it was doing just before: what it did and when, your device, positions rounded to about 10 km, and the names you gave things taken out. It sends at most three a day, and Usage stats off stops it too. Crash records go to our log server at groundwind.app and are kept for 30 days. Versions of the app from before November 2026 send them to api.sandies.app, our earlier log server, on the same terms.

Shared wind checks

After you save a wind check, the app asks whether to share your checks. Nothing is sent until you say yes. Shared, each check carries where and when you made it, what you felt, and what the map and the forecast said there. With it come the spot you were in, the app's version, your phone's random id and the country. Saying yes sends the checks already on your phone too. We use shared checks to find where the wind model is wrong, so it gets better for your spot, and every hunter's, over time. Your name and notes are never sent, and other hunters never see your checks. Settings, then Share wind checks, switches it either way.

Your account

An account is optional. It needs only your email address. You sign in with a code or a link we email you. We keep a scrambled form of each code and sign-in token, never the code itself. Signed in, the spots you've saved, your pins (with any notes you wrote on them), your hunt log and your own wind checks are kept on your account, so a new phone, or one whose storage was cleared, gets them back. Your tracks, and anything your party sent you, stay off your account.

While Groundwind is in beta, once you sign in or ask for a spot, we connect your email to your phone's random id and your browser's visits to this site. This shows us what helped you and what got in the way.

A spot you ask us to build

When you ask us to build a spot, we receive your email, the place you asked for, the box you drew, the game you hunt and the name you gave it. With them come your phone's random id, the country, and a scrambled form of your connection's IP address, kept to slow floods of requests. We use them to build the spot and to email you about it. The finished spot is kept behind a private link. Anyone you give that link to can open it. We never publish where anyone asked us to build.

Your hunting party

What you send to your party is locked on your phone with the party's key before it leaves: your position, checks, what you heard or saw, game down and pins. The key travels only in the invite link or code, and it never comes to us. We store the locked items, a random id for the party and one for you, and when each item arrived. Everything is deleted after 14 days.

Weather by satellite

Texts to the Groundwind number travel through Twilio, our texting provider, which handles your phone number and your message. We don't store your phone number. We count how many forecasts each account has been sent.

Feedback

When you answer our feedback questions, we keep your answers. If you give an email or open the page from a link we sent, we keep your email with them. We also keep the kind of device, the country, and the app version and spot the link came from.

A log, when something's wrong

When you tap Upload under Settings, then Something wrong?, the app sends its log: what it did and when, its errors, your device and screen size, and the spot you were in. The log goes to our log server at groundwind.app and is kept for 30 days (api.sandies.app, our earlier log server, for versions of the app from before November 2026). It never includes your tracks.

This website

The site counts visits the same way the app does, under a random id for your browser. It counts which parts of a page came on screen and for how long, what was tapped, and where the visit came from. For a spot you look up, it keeps the rough area, to about 10 km. If the search finds nothing, it keeps the words you typed, so the search can learn them. It never keeps anything else you type. If your browser has Global Privacy Control on, the site sends nothing. Cloudflare Web Analytics also counts page views without cookies. The site's fonts load from Google Fonts.

Emails

We email you to sign you in, to tell you we got your request and when your spot is ready, and now and then to ask how it went or to offer something, like an HD upgrade. Those last ones end with an unsubscribe link: tap it, and they stop for good. Emails you ask for, like a sign-in code, still come.

What we don't do

• We don't sell or rent your information, and we don't trade it.
• We don't show ads, and we don't share your information with advertisers or data brokers.
• We don't show your wind checks, your spots or your pins to other hunters. Only you share them, by link or with your party.

Who else handles it

These companies and agencies do part of the work, each only for that work:

• Cloudflare hosts the app and this site, and holds our database and files. It also sends our emails and counts site visits.
• Twilio carries weather-by-satellite texts.
• Open-Meteo and Environment and Climate Change Canada supply the weather. They receive the coordinates of the area you're looking at, which may be where you are.
• Map, imagery and elevation providers supply the map: Esri, the U.S. Geological Survey, Natural Resources Canada, provincial and territorial governments, and Mapterhorn. Your phone asks them for map tiles, so they see which area you're viewing.
• Photon, run by Komoot, gets the words you type into place search.
• Google Fonts supplies this site's fonts.

Every service your phone talks to also sees your phone's IP address, as any website does. We'd disclose your information if the law required it, for example under a court order. If Groundwind Inc. is sold or merged, your information would go to the new owner under this policy.

Where it's kept

Groundwind Inc. is in Ontario, Canada. Our providers store and process information in Canada, the United States and other countries, and the laws there may let their governments see it.

How long we keep it

• Your account, and the spots, pins, hunt log and checks on it: until you delete them or delete your account.
• Spots built for you: as long as we can serve them, unless you ask us to remove one.
• Usage stats, site visits and shared wind checks: as long as they help improve Groundwind. Ask, and we'll delete what's tied to your phone's or browser's id. A model that has already learned from your checks keeps what it learned.
• Party items: 14 days.
• Uploaded logs and crash records: 30 days.
• Our record of the emails we sent you and the steps of your requests: one year.
• Feedback: until you ask us to delete it.
• If you unsubscribe: we keep your email on our do-not-email list for good, even after your account is deleted, so it stays that way.

Your choices

• Switch sharing off in Settings: Usage stats, and Share wind checks.
• Use Groundwind without an account. Everything still works on the phone.
• Delete your account in the app: open Your account, then Delete account. That deletes the account and everything kept on it: your spots list, pins, hunt log, checks, sign-ins and our record of the emails we sent you. Your email comes off any spot you asked for and off your feedback. A spot already built stays, with no one attached. Shared wind checks and usage stats stay under your phone's random id, with nothing left connecting them to you. What's on your phone stays until you delete the app.
• See it, fix it or delete it. Write to privacy@groundwind.app from the email on your account. Tell us your phone's id if you'd like what's tied to it, too: it's under Settings. We'll answer within 30 days.
• Complain. Tell us first and we'll try to put it right. You can also go to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, to the Commission d'accès à l'information if you live in Québec, or to the privacy authority where you live.

Keeping it safe

Everything travels encrypted (HTTPS). Sign-in codes and tokens are stored only in scrambled form, party items are locked on your phone, and the parts of Groundwind that read your information sit behind keys only we hold. No system is perfectly safe. If a breach puts you at real risk of harm, we'll tell you and the regulator.

Children

Groundwind isn't meant for anyone under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them. If you think a child under 13 has given us information, write to us and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, we'll post the new one here with a new date. If a change affects what we collect or how we use it, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Groundwind Inc., Ontario, Canada. Our privacy officer is responsible for your information: privacy@groundwind.app.

Read the terms of use too.