Privacy Policy: Wildland Atlas

1. The Foundation: Zero Tracking & Local Execution

Wildland Atlas is engineered as an autonomous wilderness instrument. We believe that your movements in nature are strictly private. The application is built from the ground up to operate offline with zero external tracking, zero user surveillance, zero advertising SDKs, and zero third-party behavioral trackers.

        The Bedrock Rule: 100% on-device and local GPS processing. Your GPS location never leaves your physical device. All coordinate projections, elevation lookups, and proximity alerts are computed locally on your device silicon.
      

2. Location Services Telemetry

In accordance with Apple App Store Review §5.1, when you grant location permissions (NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription or NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription), Wildland Atlas accesses your device GPS hardware strictly for local GPS processing to:

Render your live position pin on local topographic contours and satellite imagery.
Orient the 3D WebGL digital twin mesh and compass heading to match the direction you are physically facing.
Calculate real-time elevation gain, remaining trail distance, and nearby sensory sanctuary proximity alerts.

Your GPS coordinates are never uploaded to any remote server, database, or analytics platform. Zero external tracking is enforced. When you close the app or lock tracking, location polling terminates immediately.

3. Offline Storage & Data Hygiene

All downloaded County Packs, National Scenic Trails, and custom trail geometries are stored locally in your device IndexedDB (wildland_county_packs_v1) and LocalStorage.

You retain 100% control over device storage.
You can inspect exact megabyte consumption and execute a 1-tap cache purge directly from the Settings drawer.
No personal data, search history, or route history is synchronized to remote servers without explicit user action.

4. Payments & Dual-Distribution Architecture

Wildland Atlas operates on a transparent dual-distribution model:

Web Application (Cloudflare Pages): When accessed via web browsers, payments are securely processed by Stripe. We do not store or process your credit card numbers or billing details; all transactions are handled under Stripe's PCI-DSS compliant infrastructure.
Native Mobile Applications (Apple iOS App Store & Google Play): In-app purchases, lifetime unlocks, and subscriptions are managed exclusively through Apple StoreKit and Google Play Billing. Transactions are tied to your Apple ID or Google Play account, adhering strictly to Apple App Store Review Guideline §3.1.1.

5. Network Requests & Edge Proxies

When you choose to download an uncataloged municipal trail or county pack, the application contacts our Cloudflare Edge Proxy (workers/geospatial-proxy).

The edge proxy receives only the requested bounding box coordinates or search query string to fetch public geographic data from USGS, USFS, or OpenStreetMap.
Requests contain no personal identifiers, device fingerprints, or advertising IDs.
Responses are cached on Cloudflare's global edge network using standard Cache-Control headers.

6. User Privacy Choices & Data Rights (CCPA / CPRA / GDPR)

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), and global privacy frameworks, you have specific sovereign rights regarding your data:

Right to Know & Access: All GPS track logs, waypoint markers, notes, and downloaded county maps reside strictly on your local device hardware. We do not maintain any remote user profiles or databases containing your personal data.
Right to Delete (1-Tap Data Erasure): You can permanently wipe all locally cached trail packs, track histories, and field notes at any time directly within the app by navigating to Settings > Storage > Clear All Local Data, or by deleting the app from your device.
Right to Opt-Out of Sale / Sharing: Wildland Atlas does NOT sell, rent, monetize, or share your personal information, search queries, or location telemetry with data brokers, advertisers, or third parties. Zero data sale occurs.
Non-Discrimination: Exercising your privacy choices will never degrade your access to Wildland Atlas features or offline cartographic capabilities.

        Privacy Invariant: Wildland Atlas does not track you across apps or websites. We do not use IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) or any tracking SDKs.
      

7. Contact & Developer Inquiries

For inquiries regarding this privacy policy, exercising your privacy rights, or technical audits of our open architecture, contact the developer:

Email: zerbytheboss@gmail.com
GitHub Issues: github.com/HindsightWise/california-nature-engine/issues