Privacy Policy

ShoalSense is operated by Alex Hall, trading as ShoalSense (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what personal data we collect through shoalsense.com, why, and what rights you have over it. If anything here is unclear, email guitarproguru2@gmail.com.

What we collect

If you create an account, we collect:

• —Your email address and password (your password is handled by our authentication provider, Supabase, and we never see it in plain text).
• —Anything you type into the Tackle Box, Planner, Gear Builder, Fishing Calendar, or Catch Predictor — species, locations, dates, gear you own, and conditions notes.
• —The plans and loadouts generated for you, saved to your Trip History, along with whether you mark a trip as having worked or not and any note you add about it.

If you don’t create an account, you can still use the Planner and Gear Builder — we don’t store what you enter in that case beyond what’s needed to generate the response.

If you accept cookies (see our Cookie Notice), Google Analytics collects standard usage data (pages visited, approximate location from IP, device type). We don’t collect this unless you actively accept.

If you click “Use my location” on the Planner, Fishing Calendar, or Catch Predictor, your browser asks your permission before sharing your device’s precise GPS location — we only receive it if you say yes. It’s used to look up weather for where you are and is not saved anywhere; if you decline or don’t click the button, nothing changes and you can still type a location manually.

How we use it

• —To run the service — generating your fishing plans, loadouts, and predictions, and showing you your saved Tackle Box and Trip History.
• —To keep your account secure and let you log in from different devices.
• —If you’ve accepted analytics cookies, to understand how ShoalSense is used so we can improve it.
• —If you record whether a trip worked, we may fold an anonymised summary of outcomes like yours into a plan generated for a different angler asking about a similar species and nearby water — for example, “3 of 4 recent reports worked.” Never your notes, never your exact location, and only once there are enough real reports nearby for that to be a meaningful pattern rather than one person's result.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use it to train any AI model.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of third-party services to run ShoalSense. Each only receives what it needs to do its job:

• —Anthropic(the maker of Claude, our AI provider) receives the trip details you submit — species, location, date, method, conditions — to generate your plan, loadout, calendar, or prediction. It does not receive your email or account details. If you’ve recorded a trip outcome, Anthropic may also receive an anonymised count of it (e.g. “3 of 4 recent reports worked”) when helping a different angler plan a trip for a similar species near where you fished — never your outcome note, never your exact location, only aggregate counts, and only once there are enough real reports nearby for that to be meaningful.
• —Supabase stores your account and the data described above, and handles login.
• —Vercel hosts the website and runs the server that talks to Anthropic and Supabase on your behalf.
• —Open-Meteoreceives the location text (or coordinates, if you use “Use my location”) you enter on the Planner, Fishing Calendar, or Catch Predictor — used to find your location on a map, and, on the Fishing Calendar and Catch Predictor, to look up real weather data too. No account information is sent.
• —UK Environment Agency(environment.data.gov.uk) receives the map coordinates worked out from the location you enter on the Planner, for a freshwater or saltwater trip, to look up real river, rainfall, or tide readings near you. It’s a free, public, keyless government API — no account information is sent, and no registration or key exchange happens on our end either.
• —BigDataCloudreceives your device’s coordinates only if you click “Use my location”, to turn them into a readable place name. No account information is sent, and this only happens if you actively click that button.
• —Google Analytics receives usage data, but only if you accept cookies.
• —Amazon— gear links throughout the site are affiliate links (we’re registered as an Amazon Associate). We don’t send Amazon anything about you ourselves; if you click through, Amazon handles that visit under its own privacy policy, including any cookies it sets to attribute a sale to us.

Some of these providers are based outside the UK (for example, Anthropic and Vercel are US-based). Where that’s the case, we rely on the safeguards those providers put in place for international transfers, as described in their own privacy policies.

How long we keep it

We keep your account data for as long as your account is active. If you want your account and all associated data deleted, email us and we’ll delete it — we don’t currently have a self-service delete-account button, but it’s a manual request away.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• —Access the personal data we hold about you.
• —Correct it if it's inaccurate.
• —Ask us to delete it.
• —Ask us to restrict or object to certain processing.
• —Receive your data in a portable format.

To exercise any of these, email guitarproguru2@gmail.com. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) if you think we’ve mishandled your data.

Cookies

See our Cookie Notice for the full breakdown of what cookies we use and how to change your choice.

Children

ShoalSense is not directed at children, and you must be at least 16 to create an account.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to how we handle your data, we’ll update this page and change the date at the top.