← Beast Watch

Privacy Policy

Effective July 19, 2026

Beast Watch is a community map of dangerous wildlife sightings. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what we never do with it.

What we collect

• Account information. An email address, a password (stored hashed by our authentication provider), and the public handle you choose. Browsing the map requires no account at all.
• Sighting reports. The location you pin, an optional photo, optional notes, and the time of the report.
• Location. Used on-device to center the map and place your pin, and stored only when you submit a report or create a watch area. We do not track your location in the background.
• Watch areas and device tokens. If you enable alerts, we store the areas you watch and a push notification token for your device.
• Community activity. Your comments, votes, and animal tags, shown with your handle.

How photos and reports are processed

Submitted photos are analyzed by an AI service (Anthropic's Claude) to verify the animal is real, estimate its size, and screen out fake or reused images. Photos of published sightings are publicly visible in the app and on this site.

Location privacy

Exact sighting coordinates are never shown publicly. The public map displays locations snapped to an approximately 300-meter grid, both to protect reporters and to prevent the harassment or poaching of wildlife.

What we never do

• We never sell your data.
• We never show your email to other users, ever.
• We never track your location in the background.

Emails

We send account emails (such as password resets), watch-area alert emails if you opt in, and an occasional newsletter if you opt in. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can toggle the newsletter off in the app at any time.

News content

News markers come from publicly published news coverage, are grouped by incident, and are geolocated approximately. They link to the original publishers.

Data retention and deletion

To delete your account and its data, email privacy@beastwatch.app from your account email. We will remove your account, private profile data, watch areas, and device tokens. Published sightings may be retained in anonymized form (with no link to you) because the safety record matters to other users.

Children

Beast Watch is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Contact

privacy@beastwatch.app