Last updated: 5 October 2026
Sentinel uses your location to power core safety features like SOS, zone detection, and hiker check-ins. This policy explains exactly what we collect, why, and how you can control it. We do not sell your personal information.
This Privacy Policy explains how Sentinel ("Sentinel," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, and protects information when you use our mobile application and related services (collectively, the "App"). Sentinel is a hunting and hiking safety application designed for use in New Zealand, providing features including location tracking, zone and trail mapping, safety check-ins, SOS alerts, hunting and hiking data, and AI-powered tools.
We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information responsibly. This Policy is written to comply with New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), Apple's App Store guidelines, and Google Play's Data Safety requirements. If you are located outside New Zealand, additional rights described in Section 11 may apply to you.
By downloading, accessing, or using Sentinel, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Policy. If you do not agree with this Policy, please do not use the App.
We collect the following categories of information:
Location data is central to Sentinel's safety features, and we want to be especially clear about how it works:
We do not currently derive approximate location from your IP address or network information for any purpose.
You can control location permissions at any time through your device's operating system settings (iOS Settings > Privacy > Location Services; Android Settings > Apps > Permissions > Location). Disabling location access will prevent core safety features — including SOS, zone detection, hiker check-in, and live tracking — from functioning correctly. We do not recommend disabling location access while you are out in the field, as this may compromise your safety.
Sharing location with other people. Some safety features share your location with other people by design:
We do not make your live location publicly visible to other app users outside these features.
Community and research location data — not yet active. Sentinel includes a "Contribute to Research" setting (see Section 4.3) that will, in future, share aggregated or de-identified sighting and activity data with conservation research bodies. As of the date of this Policy, this feature has not been activated: no data is currently being transmitted to any external research or government body, regardless of your setting. We will update this Policy before any such sharing begins.
If you use Species ID, sightings, kill records or the Field Journal, we access your camera and, where you choose, your photo library.
We do not currently operate a general usage-analytics system (such as tracking every screen you view or every feature you tap) beyond the crash/error diagnostics described above and the AI-credit usage records described in Section 5.
Sentinel no longer syncs health or fitness data. We have removed the Google Health Connect integration, and the App no longer reads your heart rate or step count. Any heart rate or step data that was saved to your own past track records before this feature was removed stays with your account, protected by the access controls described in Section 7, and remains visible only to you. You can remove it at any time by deleting the track it belongs to, or by deleting your account.
If you enable biometric login (fingerprint or face recognition), authentication is handled entirely by your device's operating system (Apple Face ID/Touch ID, Android biometric APIs). Sentinel does not receive, store, or have access to your biometric data itself — only a confirmation that authentication succeeded or failed.
Free-tier use of Sentinel is partly supported by advertising, provided through Google AdMob. We request only non-personalized ads — Sentinel does not provide AdMob with information about you to target ads based on your behavior or interests. AdMob may still collect a device advertising identifier and basic technical information as needed to serve and measure non-personalized ads; see Section 12.2 and Google's own privacy policy for how Google handles this.
We use the information we collect to:
We do not use your personal information to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you without human involvement.
We do not sell your personal information. We share information only in the following circumstances:
We use third-party service providers to operate the App, including:
These providers process data on our behalf and are contractually or contractually-equivalently restricted from using your information for their own purposes, except where a provider (such as Google, for AdMob or Maps) acts as an independent controller of limited technical data under its own privacy policy, as disclosed in Section 12.2.
If you use SOS, hiker check-in or hunt block features, we share relevant information with other people as described in Section 2.2 ("Sharing location with other people"): SOS alerts go to users within about 5 km whose active block or route is near you, and to emergency contacts you choose to message; hiker routes and overlapping hunt blocks are shown to the users they affect. We may also share information with emergency services if reasonably necessary to protect your life or safety or that of others.
Sentinel includes a "Contribute to Research" setting, first presented during onboarding and changeable at any time afterward in Profile settings. Once activated, this setting is intended to allow aggregated or de-identified sighting and activity data to be shared with research bodies such as the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Fish & Game New Zealand, to support wildlife management and conservation efforts.
This feature is not yet active. We have not entered into a data-sharing arrangement with any research or government body, and no data is currently transmitted externally for this purpose regardless of your setting. Your choice is recorded so that, if and when a partnership is established, we can honour the preference you've already expressed — but nothing is shared today. We will update this Policy, and notify users in the App, before any such sharing begins.
We may disclose information if required to do so by law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Sentinel, our users, or the public.
If Sentinel is involved in a merger, acquisition, asset sale, or similar transaction, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you of any such change.
Sentinel provides several AI-assisted features (Sentinel Companion, Hunt Report, Safety Assessment, Hunt Debrief, Gear Recommender, Trip Planner, Species ID, and photo verification for sightings and kills). To provide these features:
We retain personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the App's services. Specifically:
When you delete your account, we will delete or de-identify your personal information within a reasonable period, except where we are required to retain it by law or for legitimate business purposes such as fraud prevention or dispute resolution.
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect your information, including encryption in transit, database-level access controls, and row-level security on our backend (Supabase/PostgreSQL) — meaning your location tracks, health data, photos and other personal records are scoped so that only your own account can read or modify them, except where a safety feature is designed to share specific information with other users (see Section 2.2). Biometric authentication, where enabled, never leaves your device. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
If we become aware of a privacy or security breach that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, and will notify other regulators or individuals as required by applicable law (including GDPR's 72-hour breach notification requirement where relevant).
Sentinel is based in New Zealand, but some of our service providers (including Supabase, Anthropic, Sentry, Resend, Google, OpenWeather, and Apple) may process or store data outside New Zealand, including in the United States or other jurisdictions. Where we transfer personal information internationally, we take reasonable steps to ensure it receives a comparable standard of protection, including through contractual safeguards such as standard contractual clauses where applicable to users in the EU/UK.
Sentinel is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. Hunting and certain hiking activities may be subject to age restrictions under New Zealand law independent of this Policy. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child without appropriate consent, we will take steps to delete that information. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us using the details in Section 13.
Under the Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to:
To exercise these rights, contact us using the details in Section 13. We will respond as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any case within 20 working days, as required by law. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.
If you are located in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you have the right to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal information, to data portability, to object to certain processing (including for direct marketing), and to withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent. Our legal bases for processing include performance of a contract (providing the App), consent (e.g., optional notifications), and legitimate interests (e.g., security, fraud prevention, service improvement). You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose; to request deletion of your personal information; to correct inaccurate personal information; and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information for monetary consideration, and we do not currently share personal information with third parties for research purposes (see Section 4.3). We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.
If you reside in a jurisdiction with privacy laws not specifically addressed above (such as Australia's Privacy Act 1988 or Canada's PIPEDA), we aim to honour requests consistent with the rights described in this Policy to the extent reasonably practicable. Contact us using the details in Section 13.
In accordance with Apple's App Privacy requirements, our App Privacy "nutrition label" in the App Store discloses the categories of data collected (including location, contact info, identifiers, usage data, diagnostics, and user content) and whether that data is linked to your identity or used for tracking. Sentinel does not use data for cross-app/cross-website tracking as defined by Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework, and accordingly does not require ATT consent for that purpose. Permissions requested (such as location "Always" and "While Using," camera, photo library (add-only, to save photos you take), and notifications) are used solely for the purposes described in this Policy.
In accordance with Google Play's Data Safety requirements, our Play Store listing discloses the types of data collected and shared, our security practices (including encryption in transit and the ability to request data deletion), and whether data collection is optional. Background location access is requested only to continue recording your track while the App is in the background, as described in Section 2.2, and stops when you stop recording; this is consistent with Google Play's location permissions policy. Google AdMob and Google Maps process limited technical data (such as an advertising identifier, for AdMob) under Google's own privacy policy, available at policies.google.com/privacy.
If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact us at:
Email: devsentinel1@gmail.com
For New Zealand users, you may also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz if you are unsatisfied with our response.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the App or by other reasonable means before the changes take effect. The "Last updated" date at the top of this Policy indicates when it was last revised. Continued use of the App after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.
© Sentinel. All rights reserved.