Community Learning Agreement & Privacy Notice
Effective August 11, 2026 · Readability and privacy clarification updated October 9, 2026
Plain-language summary
Community Learning is optional and remains off unless you affirmatively choose to join. Exact fishing pins, original coordinates, routes, exact catch time, photos, and free-form notes are not sent to Community Learning. If you join, the app converts the fishing location into an approximate 2 km × 2 km area before sharing a fishing result. Precise device location used for live features is handled separately and remains subject to your browser or device permission controls.
Account, login, and email privacy
The BackWater Bound account system requires a verified email address and password. The email address is stored in encrypted form. The service uses a protected lookup value so account records can be found without keeping a searchable plain-text email index.
Passwords are never stored or recoverable as readable text. The service stores only a salted one-way password hash protected with additional server-side secret material. Email verification, sign-in, and password-reset codes are single-use, protected in storage, and expire after a short period. Session cookies use Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite protections, and readable session tokens are not stored server-side.
Your email address is used for account verification, sign-in codes, security notices, and password reset. Marketing email is separate and optional. If you affirmatively select the marketing checkbox, BackWater Bound records that choice and may export your verified email address through a restricted administrator system for use in the BackWater Bound mailing list. Turning marketing email off does not disable your app account.
Cloudflare security checks are used on sign-up, password sign-in, and password-reset requests to reduce automated abuse. Transactional verification emails are sent through the configured email service. Authorized administrators can access account statistics and verified marketing-opt-in email addresses only through the protected administration system. Passwords and password-verification data are never included in an administrator export.
Location & live-data services
STRATA ONE may request your precise device location for GPS-based features such as current-water selection, nearby boat ramps, maps, weather, tides, water conditions, and hydrography. The app presents an in-app explanation before requesting location, and your browser or device controls whether precise location permission is granted. You can decline location and continue using manual water selection.
When a live feature needs your current location to answer the request, the current point may be sent to the service provider used for that specific operational request. This live-service use is separate from Community Learning. Community Learning is optional and is designed to share an approximate 2 km × 2 km area with structured fishing-result information rather than your original private GPS point.
Complete agreement
1. Voluntary participation and age
Community Learning is off until you affirmatively agree. You may use the core app without participating. Community Learning is not intended for children under 13, and you confirm that you are at least 13 years old before enabling it. If BackWater Bound learns that it collected personal information online from a child under 13 without any legally required parental authorization, it will take appropriate steps to delete that information. If you do not agree, do not enable Community Learning. You may turn future sharing off at any time and may request deletion of records associated with this app installation using the in-app control.
2. Purpose
Shared information is used to study broad fishing patterns, compare lure performance under similar conditions, improve Backwater Bound recommendations, measure the reliability of recommendations, detect low-quality or abusive submissions, maintain the service, and create aggregated reports. It is not collected for public display of individual fishing spots.
3. Information kept on your phone
Exact trip pins, exact coordinates, exact routes, exact catch timestamps, fish and area photos, sky and water photos, free-form trip notes, private archives, and the full local trip log remain in browser storage on your device unless you separately export or share them. A researched water you manually select or confirm from a GPS suggestion may also be saved on your device. A high-confidence GPS water match may be used for the current session without being saved as a manual preference. Community Learning does not intentionally request these exact-location items or the exact selected water name or research ID.
4. Information shared after opt-in
A shared result may include a fixed approximately 2 km by 2 km area-cell identifier created on the device; broad region; month and daypart rather than exact catch time; seasonal stage; water-body type; water clarity; optional water temperature and temperature trend; sky, wind range, pressure trend, rainfall range, and tide category; cover, depth range, and observed forage; lure brand, model, color, style, and retrieve; result category; fish count; fish-size range; app version; a random pseudonymous installation identifier; and consent-record information described below.
5. Location treatment
The app may use precise device location locally for private pins and may send the current point to external live-data services to request weather, tide, mapping information, state confirmation, or nearby official USGS 3DHP hydrography used to identify or suggest the researched water. Those operational requests are separate from Community Learning. For Community Learning, the app converts the point on the device into one fixed approximately 2 km by 2 km grid cell before transmission. The Community Learning request does not contain the original latitude or longitude or the exact selected water name or research ID. The server receives grid row and column identifiers and calculates the approximate center of that cell for internal analysis. A 2 km cell reduces precision but does not guarantee that a broad fishing area cannot be inferred, especially on isolated or small waters.
6. Information not intentionally included in Community Learning submissions
The submission is designed not to contain original latitude or longitude, exact GPS coordinates, exact catch time, routes, photos, photo metadata, free-form notes, contact lists, name, email address, advertising identifiers, or the exact name of a small water body. Do not enter personal information into structured fields intended for lure or fishing-condition data.
7. Pseudonymous identifier and consent record
The app creates a random installation identifier and a separate deletion secret. Backwater Bound stores cryptographic hashes of those values, not the raw values, in the learning database. A consent record may include the agreement version and hash, the date and time you accepted, whether you opened the full agreement before accepting, confirmation that you stated you were at least 13, the 2 km area policy, app version, consent status, withdrawal time, and server receipt time. This record is used to verify authorization, administer withdrawals and deletion, and maintain an audit trail. Pseudonymous does not mean completely anonymous.
8. Administrator access and aggregate use
Raw shared learning records are not public. They are available through a restricted Backwater Bound administration system intended to be accessible only to authorized administrators. The public recommendation service returns aggregated patterns only after minimum report and contributor thresholds are met. Other users do not receive your individual submission or exact private pin.
9. Service providers and network information
Cloudflare provides hosting, database, request processing, access control, security, and related infrastructure. As with ordinary internet services, Cloudflare and network providers may process technical information such as IP address, request time, browser or device headers, and security signals to deliver and protect the service. Backwater Bound does not intentionally store an IP address in the Community Learning database created for this feature.
10. Retention
Raw learning results are intended to be retained for no more than 24 months unless a shorter period is required, the record is deleted sooner, or retention is reasonably necessary for security, dispute resolution, or legal compliance. Aggregated statistics that no longer identify a particular contribution may be retained longer. Consent records may be retained while consent is active and for a reasonable period afterward to document authorization, unless the in-app deletion request removes the associated record.
11. Turning sharing off and deletion
Turning Community Learning off stops new submissions and removes unsent queued learning records from the phone. It does not automatically delete results already received by the service. The separate Delete My Shared Data control requests deletion of learning results and the consent record associated with this app installation. Private pins and photos on the phone are not deleted by that request. If the device is reset or the browser data is erased, the deletion secret may be lost, which may prevent an automated installation-based deletion request.
12. Security
BackWater Bound uses access restrictions, encrypted network transport, database security controls, hashed installation credentials, data minimization, and server validation intended to reduce privacy and security risk. No internet or storage system can be guaranteed completely secure. BackWater Bound maintains safeguards intended to reduce foreseeable risks to the information it processes.
13. Data quality and recommendations
Fishing reports may be incomplete, inaccurate, or intentionally false. Community results are one input and do not guarantee fish location, lure performance, safety, or fishing success. You remain responsible for fishing decisions, navigation, weather awareness, property boundaries, licenses, and applicable laws.
14. No sale or targeted-advertising use under this version
Under this agreement version, BackWater Bound does not sell individual Community Learning records and does not use or share those records for targeted advertising. If BackWater Bound proposes materially different uses, a revised agreement will be presented and new consent will be required before new collection under those terms.
15. Changes
The agreement is versioned. A material change to the categories collected, location precision, purposes, sharing, or retention requires a new agreement version and renewed opt-in before additional Community Learning records are submitted. Non-material formatting or clarification changes may be posted without changing the underlying consent.
16. Acceptance
By selecting Agree & Opt In, you confirm that you are at least 13, that the full agreement was made available to you, that you understand Community Learning is optional, and that you authorize Backwater Bound and its service providers to collect, process, store, and use the described 2 km area-cell and structured fishing-result information for the purposes stated above. The full agreement is available before you opt in. By opting in, you confirm that you were given access to these terms and agree to the Community Learning uses described here.