Privacy Policy

Who we are

Get Cache is part of the ReTreever suite of apps, published by Ground Truth Data Inc., a company incorporated in BC, Canada.

In this policy, "we," "our," and "us" refer to Ground Truth Data Inc. "The app" or "Get Cache" refers to the Get Cache mobile application.

If you have questions about this policy, email info@retreever.org.

How Get Cache works (and why that matters for privacy)

Get Cache is a local-first app. When you tally trees, draw plots, or view maps, all of that information is stored in a local database on your device. If you have an account, we store encrypted copies. We do not sell your data. We will share anonymized metadata with some university research labs, free of charge. If you do not have an account, your data stays on your device (and in your backup copies). We don't have a copy. We can't read it. We can't recover it if you delete the app.

This design choice is deliberate. We believe the people doing the work of planting trees should own the record of that work — and that no other tree-planting company, contractor, or competitor should ever be able to see it.

Two modes: with or without an account

Without an account (default):

• Anonymous crash reports and privacy-masked session replays only. No analytics, no usage tracking, no identity tied to the report.
• All your tally data stays on your device.
• You can use the full app offline.
• We have no way to identify you, contact you, or link a crash report back to you.

With an account (optional, only if you sign up):

• You can back up your local database to our servers, so you don't lose your data if your phone breaks. Backups are end-to-end encrypted — the key stays on your device, and we cannot read what's inside.
• You can contact us for support and we can help you troubleshoot.
• Crash reports and privacy-masked session replays are tied to your account ID so we can tell whether a bug hit one person or everyone, and reach out to help if needed. (We also collect these from no-account users — anonymously, with no identity attached.)
• You can delete your account at any time, and we'll delete the associated data.

None of the above happens unless you create an account. You can use Get Cache fully without ever doing so.

Sharing tallies and data

When you send data to a foreman, or anyone else, Get Cache exports a .getcache file. Under the hood these files are either CSV, KML or SQLite. The backups are encrypted. That file does not pass through our servers. It's private data between you and the recipient. You send it through whatever channel you choose — AirDrop, iMessage, email, Signal, a USB cable, anything.

The recipient can be anyone with Get Cache installed. There are no "foreman accounts" or special roles. Anyone can accept a sent tally.

This means:

• We don't know who you sent a tally to.
• We don't know what was in it.
• We don't store a copy.
• We can't intercept or read it in transit.

If you choose to send a tally over email or another internet service, that service's privacy policy applies to the transmission. We have no involvement.

Importing maps (PDFs, KMLs, KMZs)

When you import a map into Get Cache — a georeferenced PDF, a KML, a KMZ, a GeoTIFF, whether you pick it from your device's Files app, pull it in from Dropbox, accept it from a share sheet, or open it via a deep link — the file is sent to our servers for conversion. This is the one place in the app where data flows the "wrong" way, and we want to be honest about it.

Why: turning a foreign GeoPDF or KML into something the app can render fast and reliably is heavy work — geographic reprojection, raster tiling, vector parsing, edge-case handling for files exported by every flavour of GIS software ever made. Doing it on a phone burns battery, exhausts memory, and fails unpredictably. We do it on a server instead, using GDAL, an open-source geospatial converter (gdal.org), and send the converted result back to your device.

What that means for your privacy:

• The file you import is uploaded over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
• It is processed in a stateless server container — converted, returned, and discarded. We do not store the source file or the converted result. There is no archive, no log of file contents, no copy retained after the request finishes.
• Large KMLs (roughly: more than 1,000 features, or more than 2 MB after we simplify them) are converted into a vector tile bundle on the same server in the same request, using an open-source tool called tippecanoe. This still happens in memory in the stateless container — nothing about the file's contents (geometries, names, attributes) is logged or retained on our side after the response goes back to your device. The container only emits operational diagnostics (counts and byte sizes) so we can spot when something has gone wrong, never the data itself.
• We do not look inside the file or extract metadata about it for our own use.
• This applies only to imports. Sharing a .getcache file you made (sending a map to a teammate) still never passes through our servers — see the section above. That stays peer-to-peer.

This is a tradeoff we made deliberately. Map files from the outside world are unbounded in shape and size; the alternative to server-side conversion is an app that frequently fails on real files, and that's a worse outcome for your data. The compromise is bounded: only the file you chose to import, only at the moment you imported it, and only long enough to convert it.

Imported maps stay on your phone — they are not backed up

Once an imported map (a PDF overlay, a KML, a KMZ, a GeoTIFF, or the vector tile bundle we bake from a large one) reaches your device, it is stored in app-private storage on the phone itself and nowhere else. Specifically:

• Imported maps are not included in the encrypted cloud backup that account users get. The backup covers your tallies, plots, and map metadata — not the heavy map files that came from outside the app.
• If you reinstall Get Cache, switch phones, or wipe the device, your imported maps will be gone. The originals (the PDF / KML / KMZ files you started with) are not affected — re-importing them gets you back to the same place.
• This is by design. Imported maps can be large (tens or hundreds of megabytes), so syncing them to a cloud backup would be slow, expensive for you, and a privacy-exposed surface we'd rather avoid.
• If you want a particular imported map to survive a device change, keep the original file somewhere you control (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, an external disk, email-to-self), or export the map as a .getcache file from inside Get Cache and save that copy where you keep your other backups.

What we collect

If you don't have an account

Anonymous crash reports and privacy-masked session replays only. When the app crashes or hits an error we collect a stack trace and a recording of the screen in the seconds leading up to it — with all text masked out and images blocked by default, so nothing you typed is recorded. No account ID, no email, no identifier is attached, so we can't tell who you are or correlate one crash to another. No usage data, no analytics, no personal information.

We turned this on for all users (not just signed-in ones) because the alternative — staying blind to crashes our no-account users hit — meant shipping bugs we had no way to find. The whole app's default mode is no-account, so we have to be able to see when it breaks.

The one caveat — and it's the same caveat that applies to any app that loads anything from the internet — is that when you view the map online, your device requests map tiles from Mapbox, and Mapbox sees the IP address making that request. That's how the internet works for every map app, every web page, and every connected service. It is not us tracking you, and Mapbox does not know what tallies you've made or who you are. We never see this data either. See Mapbox's privacy policy.

If you have an account

When you sign up, we collect:

• Email address (so we can authenticate you and contact you about your account)

Get Cache has no password to manage. You sign in with a one-time code emailed to you, or with Google or Apple sign-in — so there is no password for us to store, hash, or lose.

When you use the app with an account signed in, we may collect:

• Usage events tied to your account (which screens you open, which features you use, app version, OS version, device type)
• Crash reports (technical details if the app crashes, so we can fix bugs)
• Session replays (a privacy-masked recording of your screen — text is blanked out and images are blocked by default — captured on a small sample of sessions and on sessions where the app hits an error, so we can see what led to a bug)
• Encrypted cloud backup data (an end-to-end encrypted copy of your local database, if you enable backup — encrypted with a key that stays on your device, so we cannot read it)
• Support correspondence (anything you send us when you contact support)

We disclose this collection clearly when you create an account, and you can delete your account at any time.

We do not collect: your name, your phone number, your billing address (unless you subscribe to a paid feature in the future), your contacts, your photos, or any data outside the app.

Location

Get Cache does not collect or store your location. Your device's GPS is used only in the moment — to show a "you are here" dot on the map, to centre the map when you open it, and to pick the area for an offline map download. None of that is recorded or sent to us.

Your tallies and bag-ups carry no location at all.

The maps you draw — pins, polygons, lines — are your own map content, saved alongside the rest of your data. If you have an account they are included in your encrypted backup, the same as everything else. That is your content, not a record of where your phone has been.

We do not track your real-time location. We keep no history of where you are.

Tracks and recorded paths

Tracks — recording the path you walk while planting — follow the same rule as everything else you create in the app: your track data stays on your device. It is part of your local database, never sent to our servers, never logged, never accessible to anyone but you and whoever you choose to send a .getcache file to. The fact that tracks are inherently a record of where you have been makes that commitment more important, not less.

Coarse location for map tile rendering

The one location-shaped data point that does leave your device during normal map use is the tile request — the rough area of the world the map needs to draw. Mapbox delivers maps as a grid of small images called tiles, and your device requests the tiles for whatever area is on screen. Those tile requests are by their nature coarse: at the zoom levels where tiles are fetched for offline use and dynamic rendering, a single tile covers an area on the order of tens of kilometres across (roughly a 50 km diameter at typical regional zoom). That is the precision Mapbox sees — the rough region you're looking at, not your few-metre GPS fix.

Concretely: a tile-server log can tell which region of which country a request came from. It cannot tell which street, which building, or which specific position your phone is at. We (Ground Truth Data Inc.) do not see these requests at all — they go straight from your device to Mapbox.

We do not store or log the coarse area either. It is used to fetch the right tiles and then forgotten.

Offline map tiles

Get Cache allows you to download map tiles for offline use around your current location. This uses your device's location to fetch the tiles for the area you're in. You can choose to refresh these tiles automatically to keep them current, or refresh them manually when you need to.

We limit offline downloads to your current area because downloading map tiles broadly is expensive. This approach keeps costs manageable while still giving you offline access where you actually need it.

How we use account data

If you have an account, we use the data we collect to:

• Authenticate you when you sign in
• Back up and restore your local database when you ask us to
• Help you when you contact support
• Fix bugs and improve the app (using usage data and crash reports)
• Send you essential account-related emails (e.g., sign-in codes, security notices)

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not share it with other tree-planting companies, contractors, or competitors. We do not use it to train AI models. We do not build a profile on you for marketing purposes.

Dropbox (optional import)

Get Cache offers an optional "Import from Dropbox" feature. When you connect, Dropbox creates a folder in your account called Apps / Get Cache. Get Cache can see the files inside that folder and nothing else — Dropbox enforces this at their server.

This means:

• We cannot list, read, or even see the names of files anywhere else in your Dropbox. Personal photos, tax documents, work files — invisible to us.
• You decide what's in the Apps / Get Cache folder by dragging files into it from your normal Dropbox app, web, or desktop client.
• Listing happens entirely on your device — file names are fetched from Dropbox directly into the app and never sent to Get Cache servers.
• When you tap a file, we download that one file into the app. We don't store a copy on our servers and don't track what you picked.
• You can revoke Get Cache's access any time at dropbox.com/account/connected_apps.

Third-party services

Get Cache uses a small number of third-party services to function. Each one only sees the minimum data needed to do its job, and none of them can see your tallies or identify you to other tree-planting companies.

• Mapbox — provides map tiles when you view the map online. Mapbox sees your IP address when your device requests tiles, the same as any web service does. See Mapbox's privacy policy.
• Supabase (account users only) — hosts our authentication, account database, and end-to-end encrypted cloud backup storage. Servers are located in Canada (ca-central-1). See Supabase's privacy policy.
• Sentry — receives crash reports and privacy-masked session replays from all users so we can find and fix bugs we would otherwise be blind to. No-account users are anonymous (no account ID, no email, no identifier). Account users are tagged with your account ID and email so we can tell whether an issue affects one person or everyone, and reach out to help if needed. See Sentry's privacy policy.
• Apple App Store / Google Play Store — when you download Get Cache, the app store collects information about that download according to its own policies. We see anonymous, aggregated download counts.

We don't embed advertising SDKs. We don't embed social media trackers. We don't share data with Google Analytics, Facebook, or any similar service.

Data retention

No-account users: Aside from anonymous crash reports and session replays (kept while we investigate the bug and then aged out per Sentry's retention defaults — typically 90 days), we don't have your data. Tally data on your device is yours; deleting the app deletes the data.

Account users: We keep your account data as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we delete your account data within 60 days, except where we're legally required to keep certain records (e.g., financial records for paid subscriptions).

You can delete your account at any time from the app's settings, or by emailing info@retreever.org.

Your rights

Regardless of where you live, you can:

• Access the data we hold about you (account users only — no-account crash reports are anonymous, so there is no identifier to look you up by)
• Correct inaccurate data
• Delete your account and associated data
• Export your data in a portable format (your local database is already in your hands as a SQLite file; account data can be requested)
• Opt out of optional data collection (e.g., usage analytics) without losing access to the app

To exercise any of these rights, email info@retreever.org. We'll respond within 30 days.

If you're in the European Economic Area, the UK, or California, you have additional rights under GDPR, UK GDPR, and the CCPA respectively. The rights above cover the substance of what those laws guarantee. If you have a specific request under one of those frameworks, mention it in your email and we'll handle it accordingly.

We do not sell personal information. We never have.

Children

Get Cache is intended for users 13 and older. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us at info@retreever.org and we'll delete it.

Security

We protect account data with industry-standard measures: encrypted connections (TLS), encrypted storage at rest, passwordless one-time-code sign-in, end-to-end encrypted cloud backups, and access controls on our servers.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that affects your data, we'll notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.

For no-account users, security of the data on your device is up to you and your device's own protections (passcode, biometrics, encrypted backups, etc.).

International users

Ground Truth Data Inc. is based in Canada, and our servers are in Canada. If you use Get Cache from outside Canada and create an account, your account data is transferred to and stored in Canada. By creating an account, you consent to this transfer.

If you don't have an account, no data is transferred anywhere — it stays on your device.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects how we handle your data, we'll let you know in the app or by email (if you have an account) before the change takes effect. Minor changes (typos, clarifications) may be made without notice.

The "Last updated" date at the top of this policy will always reflect the most recent change.

Contact

Questions, concerns, requests, or just want to say hi:

Email: info@retreever.org
Mail: Ground Truth Data Inc., Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada