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Rooted in privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated

In plain English

Record Growth doesn't have a login, doesn't run any servers, and doesn't track you. Your yards, plants, photos, and maintenance history live on your iPhone and sync privately through your own iCloud account — we never see any of it. Location is only used to map your yard and plants. Weather forecasts come straight from Apple's WeatherKit. The only data that ever becomes public is what you explicitly choose to put on a plant's QR tag page (name, variety, category, planting date, and an optional link) — never the plant's location, your notes, or photos — and you can take that page down any time.

Introduction

Record Growth ("we", "our", or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we handle information when you use our mobile application.

Information We Collect

We do not collect any personal information on our servers (we have none).

Record Growth is designed with privacy as a core principle. The app does not:

  • Require account creation or login
  • Collect or store personal information on our servers
  • Track your usage or behavior
  • Use analytics or tracking services
  • Display advertisements
  • Share any data with third parties, except as described below (Apple WeatherKit, and an optional feature to publish a public page for a plant)

How Record Growth Works

Record Growth is an offline-first yard mapping and plant tracking app. You walk your property boundary with GPS, add plants at specific locations, and log maintenance activities like watering and fertilizing. Your yards, areas, plants, maintenance logs, and photos are stored locally on your device using Core Data, and — if you have iCloud enabled — synced through your personal iCloud account so your data stays available across your own devices and backed up off-device.

We never have access to this data. It is stored entirely within Apple's infrastructure under your personal Apple ID.

Location Data

Record Growth uses your location to:

  • Record your property boundary and area outlines while you walk them
  • Place plant markers at the location where you add a plant
  • Center a new yard's map on your current position

Location details:

  • Foreground ("When in Use") location is used while you are actively using the map or walking a boundary
  • Background location access is used only to keep boundary tracking running accurately while your screen is locked during a walk; iOS shows its background location indicator while this happens
  • Your location is never sent to us — it is only used on-device to build your yard's map, and (for the coordinate of a yard) to request weather data as described below
  • Location is never shared with advertisers or used for tracking

Photo Library

Record Growth asks for access to your photo library so you can attach photos to your plants. Selected photos are stored as part of your plant's record — locally on your device and, if iCloud is enabled, in your personal iCloud account. We never see or access your photo library or the photos you select.

iCloud Sync (Private Data)

If you enable iCloud on your device, Record Growth uses Apple's CloudKit (via NSPersistentCloudKitContainer) to sync your yards, areas, plants, maintenance logs, activity history, and photos across your own devices. This data:

  • Is encrypted in transit and at rest by Apple
  • Is stored in the private database of your personal iCloud account
  • Is only accessible by devices signed into your Apple ID
  • Is never accessed or viewed by us

Weather Data (Apple WeatherKit)

To show forecasts and optional frost/rainfall alerts for a yard, Record Growth sends that yard's coordinate directly to Apple's WeatherKit service to retrieve forecast data. This exchange happens between your device and Apple — we do not operate a weather server and never see this request or its data. Please refer to Apple's Privacy Policy for how Apple handles this information.

Notifications

Frost and rainfall alerts, if enabled, are local notifications generated and scheduled entirely on your device based on the weather data above. No push notification server is involved, and we never see whether or when a notification was delivered.

Public Plant Pages (QR Tags) — Optional

Record Growth lets you generate a printable QR tag for a plant that links to a small public web page (hosted at recordyourgrowth.com). This is entirely optional and off by default for every plant.

If you choose to publish a plant's page, the following fields are written to a public, world-readable database and become visible to anyone who scans the tag or visits the link:

  • Plant name, variety, and category
  • Planting date
  • An optional "more info" link (either one you provide, or an auto-suggested reference link)

Never published: the plant's location/coordinates, your notes, your photos, or maintenance history. Publishing requires you to be signed into iCloud (so the page can later be taken down), but no sign-in is required for anyone to view a published page. The tag itself is a physical object: anyone who scans it in person can obviously see where the plant is, so only hang tags where you're comfortable with that. Someone who only has the link can't tell where the plant is.

You can take a page down ("unpublish") at any time from within the app, which deletes the public record. Deleting a published plant from the app also takes its public page down automatically. Public pages live in a dedicated CloudKit container separate from your private yard/plant data, and the app never reads this public data back into itself.

Third-Party Services

Record Growth uses the following Apple services, and no others:

  • Apple CloudKit — for your private iCloud sync, and for the optional public plant-page feature described above
  • Apple WeatherKit — for weather forecasts and alerts

Record Growth does not use any third-party analytics, advertising, or tracking SDKs.

Permissions

Record Growth requests the following iOS permissions:

  • Location (When in Use, and Always) — Required to map your yard, walk boundaries, and place plants accurately
  • Photo Library — Required to let you attach photos to your plants

We do not request access to:

  • Your contacts
  • Your camera or microphone
  • Your calendar or reminders
  • Any other personal data

Data Security

Your data is protected by:

  • Apple's device-level encryption
  • Apple's iCloud and CloudKit security infrastructure
  • No external data transmission to our servers (we have none)

Children's Privacy

Record Growth is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13.

Data Retention and Deletion

Since all of your data is stored locally on your device and in your personal iCloud account:

  • You can delete individual plants, areas, photos, and maintenance logs within the app at any time
  • You can unpublish a plant's public page at any time; deleting a published plant unpublishes it automatically
  • Uninstalling the app removes all local data
  • You can manage or delete your iCloud data through your device's Settings → [your name] → iCloud

International Data Transfers

Because Record Growth relies on Apple's CloudKit and WeatherKit services, your data may be processed in countries where Apple operates servers. Please refer to Apple's privacy policy for details about Apple's data handling practices.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date.

Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your data. Since we do not collect or store any of your data on our servers, these rights are exercised directly through the app, your device settings, and Apple's iCloud management tools: you can view, edit, delete, or export your data at any time.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or Record Growth's privacy practices, please contact:

Email: bjorn@bjornmann.com