Privacy Policy

Explore California State Parks · Updated August 21, 2026

Explore California State Parks collects as little as it can. This page says exactly what it collects, why, and where that data goes — in plain words, with no exceptions hiding in the footnotes.

What the app stores on your device

on-device and on the developer's Supabase project in the United States

What the app collects

Anonymous usage analytics

Explore California State Parks records which screens and features get used, so I can tell what's worth improving. Each install generates a random identifier the first time the app launches. That identifier is not your name, your email, your Apple Account, or your device's advertising identifier — it is a random value that means nothing outside this app, and it is discarded when you delete the app.

• the name of the event and any non-personal detail attached to it (for example, which tab was opened)
• the app version and build
• the operating system version and device model (for example, iPhone16,2)
• your device's language setting
• when the app was first installed

There is no advertising identifier, no cross-app or cross-website tracking, and nothing that identifies you personally. That is why the app never shows the "Allow tracking?" prompt — there is nothing to track.

Feedback you choose to send

If you send feedback from inside the app, I receive the message you wrote and, if you chose to include one, the email address you typed so I can reply. The email field is optional and blank by default. Nothing is submitted unless you tap send.

Explore's analytics also record which screens, map layers, and filters you use, and the first 100 characters of what you type into search. Searches are stored without any account identifier.

Where it goes

Analytics events and feedback are stored in a database I run on Supabase, hosted in the United States. Nobody else has access to it. It is not sold, rented, shared with data brokers, or used for advertising.

Your account

Explore California State Parks has accounts. Creating one stores the details you give at sign-up so the app can sign you back in and sync your content between your devices.

Location

Explore California State Parks asks for your precise location showing you on the map, sorting places by how far away they are, ranking search results near you, and recording your route while you hike. The coordinates are sent to the services listed below in order to fetch data for where you are. They are not stored with any identifier and are not used to build a profile of you. You can refuse or revoke this at any time in iOS Settings; the app keeps working without it.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, Apple issues a device token that lets the app send them. It identifies a device, not a person, and it is used only to deliver the notifications you asked for.

What the app does not collect

Explore California State Parks does not collect:

• health or fitness data
• an advertising identifier (IDFA) — there is no advertising and no ad network in the app
• anything about what you do in other apps or on the web

I do not sell your data, rent it, share it with data brokers, or use it for advertising. There is no ad network, no attribution SDK, and no analytics SDK belonging to anyone else in the app.

Services the app talks to

To do its job, Explore California State Parks makes requests to these services:

• Supabase — the parks catalogue, your account, everything you save, user photos and reviews, and anonymous usage analytics. What's sent: your email address and account id; the lists and places you save, the places you mark visited, the hikes and routes you record (including their full GPS tracks), the alerts you set, the photos and reviews you submit, issue reports you write, your push notification token, and — with your search text and your coordinates — what you search for.
• Mapbox — the map itself, offline map downloads, trail-snapped route drawing, and the basemap preview image. What's sent: the parts of the map you look at and download, and the coordinates of points you tap when drawing a route.
• Apple — weather forecasts (WeatherKit), Sign in with Apple, the subscription, and naming a map area you download. What's sent: the coordinates of the place you're viewing, and the center of the area you're downloading; the purchase is handled entirely by Apple and the developer never sees your payment details.
• Open-Meteo — surf forecasts and the ground-elevation profile behind a hike's elevation graph. What's sent: the coordinates of the surf spot you're viewing, and — for a hike you recorded — up to a few hundred sampled points of that recorded track.
• NOAA — tide predictions, and the snow-depth and temperature map layers (via a relay run by the developer). What's sent: the public identifier of the tide station for the place you're viewing, and which map tiles you're looking at.
• California Data Exchange Center (CA Dept. of Water Resources) — snowpack depth and water content. What's sent: the public identifier of the snow station for the place you're viewing.
• National Park Service — official park alerts and closures. What's sent: the public park code of the park you're viewing.
• RainViewer — the weather radar layer. What's sent: which map tiles you're looking at while the layer is on.
• Esri ArcGIS services (NIFC wildfire, EPA AirNow, Bureau of Land Management) — active fire perimeters, smoke plumes, air-quality contours, and public-land ownership. What's sent: a fixed California-wide query for the fire, smoke, and air layers — nothing about you; for the public-lands layer, which map tiles you're looking at.

As with any request to any website, these services can see your device's IP address when the app asks them for data. That is how the internet works and I have no way to prevent it. The app sends them no identifier of its own, and nothing that says who you are.

Purchases

Purchases are processed entirely by Apple. Your payment details never reach me — I receive Apple's aggregate sales reports, which do not identify individual buyers. Apple's handling of the transaction is covered by Apple's privacy policy.

Children

Explore California State Parks is not directed at children under 13, and it does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, of any age.

Deleting your data

Deleting the app removes everything stored on your device. To have anonymous analytics events or feedback removed from the database as well, email me at natetedesco@icloud.com and I'll delete them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it, and anything material will be called out in the app's release notes. The current version always lives at this URL.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about anything Explore California State Parks does with data — email natetedesco@icloud.com. Explore California State Parks is made and published by Nate Tedesco, an individual developer.