Privacy policy

Bivaq is an independent solo project; the provider is identified in the imprint. For anything in this policy — questions, requests, or to exercise your rights — contact [CONTACT_EMAIL].

Account — your email and, if you sign up with a password, a hashed password; or, if you use “Sign in with Google”, your Google account identity. We use this to create and secure your account. Legal basis: performance of our agreement to provide you the service.

Profile — your display name and, optionally, an avatar, bio, home region, country, and outdoor details (favourite sleep spot, favourite gear, years outdoors, longest trip, preferred shelter types, and an “archetype”). You choose what to add. Legal basis: consent. These fields are public (see below).

Contributions — shelters you add, status reports, water reports, and photos. This is the map. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in maintaining a shared, useful map, and your choice to post. Contributions are public and shown with your display name.

Private records — the places you save (wishlist) and the nights you log (“slept here”). Legal basis: performance of our agreement. These are not public.

Waitlist — if you join the Bivaq+ waitlist, your email and which page you signed up from. Legal basis: consent. Not public; only the operator can read it.

Bivaq+ status — if your account is granted Bivaq+, we record that your account has it and until when. Legal basis: performance of our agreement. Not public.

Public: your contributions (shelters, status reports, water reports, photos), your display name and avatar, and any profile details you fill in — bio, home region, country, and the outdoor fields listed above. Anyone can see these on your public profile and next to your contributions.

Private: your email address, your saved places (wishlist), and your slept-here logs. Only you (and, for operating the service, the site operator) can see these.

If you allow it, your browser shares your location so we can show nearby shelters and local weather. We ask before we use it, and we don't store your coordinates — they stay in your browser for the session.

The only time your location leaves your device is for weather: when you have shared it and no shelter is selected, we send your approximate coordinates to the weather provider (below) to fetch the forecast. When a shelter is selected, that shelter's coordinates are used instead. Sorting shelters by distance happens in your browser.

Every uploaded photo is re-encoded in your browser before it's stored, which strips all embedded metadata — including any GPS location in the original file. The stored image carries no hidden location or camera data. This applies to every upload, community and admin alike.

We use only strictly necessary cookies: the session cookies that keep you signed in. There are no advertising cookies and no tracking cookies, and we run no analytics. Because these cookies are essential to the service, we don't show a cookie banner for them.

We rely on a small number of providers to run Bivaq:

Supabase — our database, authentication and file storage. It holds your account, profile and contributions.

Vercel — application hosting. It processes standard request data (such as your IP address and browser type) to serve and secure the site.

Google — only if you choose “Sign in with Google”, to verify your identity.

Open-Meteo — the weather provider. It receives coordinates (a shelter's, or your approximate location as described above) to return a forecast. No account or name is sent.

OpenFreeMap / OpenStreetMap — map tiles for the default map. Loading the map sends your IP address and the map area you are viewing to the tile servers, as with any web map.

OpenTopoMap — tiles for the hiking map layer, only while you have that layer selected. Same request data as any tile server: IP address and map area.

Waymarked Trails — tiles for the marked-paths layer, only while you have that layer switched on. It is off by default, and it works over any base map, so it is now your switch rather than your choice of map that decides whether this server is contacted. Same request data as any tile server: IP address and map area.

Mapbox — tiles for the satellite layer, only where that layer is offered and while you have it selected. Same request data as any tile server.

Wikimedia — shelter and mountain-range photos sourced from Wikimedia Commons are loaded directly from Wikimedia's servers, so displaying one sends your IP address there — we don't re-host the images.

These providers act as our processors or independent controllers. Some may process data outside your country; where they do, appropriate safeguards apply.

We keep your account and content while your account exists. You can delete your account yourself, any time, from the Account section of your profile.

When you delete your account, we delete your personal data: your login (email, password or Google link), your profile and avatar, your saved places and your slept-here logs. Your contributions stay on the map — shelters, reports and photos keep their value to other people — but they are anonymised: your name is removed and they show as “Bivaq user”. This can't be undone.

If you are in the EU/EEA or UK, you have the right to:

• Access — ask what data we hold about you.
• Rectify — correct it. Most fields are editable in your profile.
• Erase — delete your account and personal data yourself, from your profile.
• Port — get a copy of the data you provided.
• Restrict or object — to processing based on legitimate interest.

Use the self-service tools where they exist (edit or delete from your profile); for anything else, email [CONTACT_EMAIL]. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Bivaq isn't directed at anyone under 16, and we don't knowingly collect their data.

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the “last updated” date above.