Privacy Policy

What stays on your device

Your recorded hikes (GPS tracks), saved and imported routes, waypoints, pins you drop on the map (with their notes and photos), favorite trails, your hike ratings and end-of-hike answers, your fish catch log (with its photos and where you caught each fish), saved weather forecasts and the names and phone numbers you add under "My people" are stored only in the app's storage on your phone. We have no server and never receive a copy. Like other app data, they're included in your phone's own backup (iCloud or your computer) if you have backups turned on. That backup is between you and Apple.

To delete them, delete individual items in the app, or delete the app to remove all of them.

Location

Mossback uses your location for things you start yourself: showing where you are on the map, recording or following a hike, saving a waypoint at your current spot, logging where you caught a fish, and working out a drive time. While a recording is running, the app can keep tracking in the background so your track continues with the screen locked. While a recording is paused, nothing is saved, and when you finish it, tracking stops. Your location is written only to your phone. The one exception is Drive time: only when you tap it, your current location and the trailhead go to Apple Maps to get a driving time (listed below). Mossback never sends your location anywhere else.

Notifications and the lock screen

While you follow a route, Mossback can show your progress and a small map of the route on your lock screen, and alert you if you go off course or arrive. Both are made on your phone; nothing is sent to a server to create them, and you can turn either off in Settings.

What the app downloads, and from where

Mossback works offline. When you're online, it makes a few requests to public services. None of these requests includes an account, a name or a device identifier. As with any website, these services can see your IP address.

• Map tiles: the map images for the area on screen, and the offline map if you choose to download it, served from GitHub Pages, and for the Satellite and USGS Topo styles from the U.S. Geological Survey (basemap.nationalmap.gov). The tiles you request show which part of the map you're looking at, not where you are.
• Drive time: only when you tap Drive time, your current location and the trailhead are sent to Apple Maps to get a driving time. Nothing is sent before you tap.
• Weather: forecasts from the U.S. National Weather Service (api.weather.gov) for the park, a trail, or the start of a hike you're sharing. The location is rounded to about 1 km before it's sent.
• Stream gauges and water temperature: live water readings from the U.S. Geological Survey (waterservices.usgs.gov and api.waterdata.usgs.gov) and NOAA (api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov), requested by public gauge or station number.
• Trout stocking: Virginia's stocking report and schedule from the Department of Wildlife Resources (dwr.virginia.gov), requested by date. No location is sent.

Texts to your people

When you text your plan, "back safe" or your location, Mossback opens Apple's Messages app with the text filled in and addressed to the people you saved. You read it and press Send; Mossback never sends a message itself, and the text goes through Messages like any other. Calls to 911 or park dispatch go through your phone the same way.

Photos and camera

When you add photos to a pin, a catch or a recorded hike, you pick them in the system photo picker, which gives Mossback only the photos you choose, not your library. If you take a photo, Mossback asks for the camera first. Either way, a copy is kept in the app's own storage on your phone and never uploaded. A photo keeps whatever details your camera saved in it, such as where it was taken; that stays on your phone with the photo.

Sharing

When you tap Directions on a parking area or visitor center, Mossback opens Apple Maps with that place as the destination. It doesn't pass your own location; Apple Maps handles the route. When you export a GPX file or tap "Share trip plan," the app hands the content to your phone's share sheet. It goes only to the person or app you choose.

Children

Mossback doesn't knowingly collect information from anyone, including children under 13.

Safety information

Regulations, safety guidance and community-reported spots in the app are for information only. Always check current conditions and official park sources before you go.

Changes

If a future version works differently, we'll update this page and the date above before that version is released.

Contact

Questions about this policy: causeandcuresupport@gmail.com.