Privacy

Ancient Trees is a small independent project. This page describes what data the site handles.

Browsing

Every page works without an account. The site uses a cookieless visit counter (Cloudflare Web Analytics) that records aggregate page views only; it sets no cookies and cannot identify you. Map tiles load from OpenFreeMap and photos from Wikimedia Commons; those requests reach their servers the way any image on the web does.

With an account

Signing in stores your email address and your tree collection. The address is used for sign-in links and account service, nothing else. This data is stored with Supabase, on servers in the EU (Frankfurt).

If you record a tree of your own in the app, that sighting is stored with your account: the photograph you take, the coordinates of the place you took it, the date, and any note you write. The photograph is stored in the same EU project. A sighting is yours and we do not show your collection to anybody. The photograph is the one thing that can travel: if the tree you photographed has no picture on its page, or yours is better than the one there, we may use it on that page, and the app says so on the screen where you take it. No name is printed beside it, yours or anybody's, so a picture on a tree page points at nothing about you. We do not publish your email address. If you would rather we did not use it, tell us and we take it off. If you delete your account the photograph stays on that tree's page and there was never a name on it to remove. Ask and we remove the picture as well. Location is used only for this and for showing you what is nearby; nothing about where you are is sent anywhere until you record a sighting yourself.

In the app you may also set a display name and a profile picture, and you may follow other people. All three are optional and none of them exists until you create it: an account with no name has no profile at all. The name is the one people search by, so it is visible to anyone signed in; it does not have to be your real name and we would rather it was not. The picture is stored in the same EU project and is visible to anyone signed in. Following stores only that one account follows another. Your email address is never shown to anybody, and neither is your collection: following somebody today shows you nothing except that you follow them.

The site also counts, anonymously, which buttons get used (for example how often a directions button is clicked). These counts contain no names, no addresses, no identifiers and no cookies; they cannot be traced to anyone.

Two forms store what you type into them, in the same EU database: the app waitlist keeps your email address, used to email you when the app is ready; a tree suggestion keeps what you wrote, including the name you optionally leave. Neither is ever shown on the site. Suggestions, corrections and votes are made from your signed-in account, and your account's email address is used only to reply about what you sent: to thank you, ask a question if we need to, and tell you what your tip changed. Nothing else. A privacy request needs no account. Want any of this removed? Use the contact address below.

Reporting somebody, and blocking them

If a name or a picture in the app is offensive, you can report it, and you can block the person so you no longer see them. A report stores who reported whom and the reason you picked; nobody can read reports back through the app, including the person reported. A block stores only that one account has blocked another, and it is kept on our side rather than on your phone so it survives a new phone or a reinstall. We look at every report and remove what does not belong here.

When the app crashes

The app asks iOS for a report when it has crashed or frozen, using Apple's own MetricKit, and sends it to the same EU database. That report contains what went wrong, the app version and the iOS version, and nothing that says whose phone it came from: no account, no email address, no location. It arrives at most once a day, on the next launch after the fault, and only from a real device. It is used to fix the app and for nothing else.

Contact

Questions about any of this, or want something removed? Send a privacy request and say what you want removed. It reaches the people who run this site, and nothing else is needed from you.

Deleting

Your account page has a delete option. It removes your email address, your collection, your sightings and their photographs, your display name, your profile picture, every follow in both directions, and any block or report you made. One thing is kept, and the terms say so too: a photograph of yours we had already published on a tree's page stays on that page. Nothing has to come off it, because we never printed your name beside it in the first place. What is left is a picture of a tree with nothing pointing at you. We keep it because a page that loses its only photograph is worse for everybody who comes after. If you want the photograph gone as well, say so and it goes.

Changes

When this page changes, the date below changes with it.

Last updated: 3 September 2026