Privacy policy

Who we are

Clans is an independent, non-commercial project run by a sole trader in the United Kingdom. For the purposes of UK and EU data protection law we are the data controller for the data described below. You can reach us at imacru@gmail.com.

What we collect, and why we're allowed to

• Account details — your email address and display name, via Supabase Auth. Needed to give you an account at all, so our basis is performance of a contract with you.
• Activity tracks — the GPS route, distance, duration, start time and activity type of each activity you upload or sync, plus the original file. We use these to work out which crofts (hexagonal map tiles) your route passed through, which is the entire game. Basis: performance of a contract. Because a GPS route of your runs can reveal information about your health and habits, we treat it as sensitive and additionally rely on your explicit consent, given when you upload a file or connect a device — and withdrawable at any time by disconnecting or deleting your account.
• Derived territory— which crofts you and your clan hold, and how many times you've visited each. Computed from your tracks, and the part other players see.
• Home croft— if you pin a home location it's stored on your profile so the map can recentre on it. It is never shown to, or made inferable by, any other player — not even clan or feud teammates.
• Clan and feud membership— which clans and private competitions ("feuds") you've joined, since these decide who your activities compete against.
• Connected device accounts— if you connect Garmin or intervals.icu we store the access and refresh tokens that connection issues, plus that provider's own account identifier for you, so activities arriving from them can be matched to your account. Entirely optional; basis is your consent.
• Original uploaded and synced files — kept so a disputed claim can be checked and so we can detect implausible activities. Basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the game fair. They are never shown to other players.

We don't collect anything else. There is no advertising, no analytics or tracking service, no profiling, and no automated decision-making that has a legal effect on you.

Cookies

Only strictly necessary ones: a Supabase Auth session cookie so you stay signed in, a theme_preferencecookie remembering light or dark mode, and short-lived single-use cookies during a device-connection handshake that exist to stop that handshake being tampered with. No advertising or analytics cookies, so there's nothing to consent to and no banner to dismiss.

Who can see it

Other players can see the crofts you or your clan hold, your visit counts on those crofts, your display name, and your leaderboard standing. They cannotsee your home croft, your email address, your original activity files, your full GPS tracks, or any connected-device tokens. Feud data is visible only to that feud's participants.

We never sell your data, and we never share it for anyone else's marketing.

As the people who run Clans, we can reach your data on the server where we have to — to fix a fault, or to look into a report of cheating. We keep that to what's necessary, and there is no admin screen anywhere in Clans that shows another player's activity files or GPS tracks.

Where it's processed

• Supabase hosts our database, authentication and file storage, in its Paris (eu-west-3) region. Access is restricted with row-level security, so the database itself enforces who can read what — not just our application code.
• Vercel hosts and runs the app. Its server functions currently execute in Washington, D.C. (us-east-1), so although your data is stored in the EU it is processed in the United States in transit. See international transfers below.
• Garmin Connect, if you connect it, pushes a notification to us each time you sync an activity, and we then download that activity's file from Garmin using the access token you authorised. Garmin is an independent data controller for the data held in your Garmin account; its own privacy policy governs that.
• intervals.icu, if you connect it, is queried on your behalf with the access token you authorised, to read your activities for syncing.
• CARTOsupplies the map's base tiles (the streets and terrain under the hex grid).
• OpenStreetMap / Nominatimis sent a croft's coordinates to turn them into a readable place name (e.g. "Kelvingrove Path").
• OpenRouteService is sent a handful of croft coordinates, only when you ask for a suggested route, to turn them into a walkable path.

None of these receive your email address or password. The mapping services receive only coordinates, never anything identifying you.

We never send your activity data, or any data from a connected provider, to an artificial-intelligence or machine-learning service.

International transfers

Our database is in the EU, but the app runs on servers in the United States, and Garmin is a US company. Where data leaves the UK or EEA it is covered by the transfer protections those providers put in place — the UK Addendum and the EU Standard Contractual Clauses — which Garmin's developer agreement also requires of us.

How long we keep it

• Connected-device tokens are deleted the moment you disconnect, and we also tell the provider to revoke our access.
• An activity you deleteis removed along with its effect on the map: visit counts drop back to what they'd be without it, and any croft it was your only claim on goes back to the wild.
• Everything else — account, activities, original files, derived territory — is kept for as long as your account exists, because the game is cumulative and lifetime visit counts are what decide who holds a croft. Ask us to delete your account and it all goes.
• Incoming sync notificationsare kept as a processing record so a failed sync can be retried and diagnosed. We strip the provider's access token out of them before storing.

Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, hand it to you in a portable form, restrict or object to what we do with it, and withdraw any consent you've given. Some of this you can do yourself: update your display name and home croft in Settings, delete individual activities under Settings → My activities, and disconnect any device at any time. For anything else — including full account deletion — email imacru@gmail.comand we'll action it within one month.

If you think we've got this wrong you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, or to your local supervisory authority in the EEA. We'd rather you told us first.

Connecting and disconnecting Garmin

Connecting is optional and reversible. We ask Garmin only for permission to read your activities — never to write to your Garmin account, and never for your Garmin username or password, which we never see and could not accept. Garmin shows you exactly what you're granting before you agree.

Disconnecting from Settings deletes our stored tokens and calls Garmin's own deregistration endpoint, so Garmin stops sending us your activities rather than merely us stopping listening. Activities already synced stay in Clans, along with the territory they claimed, unless you delete them or your account. You can also revoke our access from within Garmin Connect itself.

Security

Everything travels over HTTPS. Access tokens are held server-side and never sent to your browser. Row-level security in the database means a player can only read their own private data — enforced by the database, not merely by our code. Activity claiming happens entirely on the server, so nobody can fabricate territory by editing what their browser sends. If a breach ever affects your data we'll tell you and the ICO as the law requires.

Children

Clans isn't intended for children under 13, and we don't knowingly hold their data. If you believe a child has created an account, email imacru@gmail.comand we'll remove it.

Reporting abuse

If you believe another player is cheating, impersonating someone, or otherwise misusing Clans, email imacru@gmail.comand we'll investigate. You can also flag a mislocated or missing Gathering directly from the map.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we use your data we'll update this page and the date at the top. If a change materially affects you, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect.