Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 13, 2026

Bump Board is built so your fishing stays yours. The app works fully on your phone with no account at all; an account adds friends, challenges, encrypted messaging, and sync between your devices. The free version is supported by ads from Google AdMob; Bump Board Pro removes them. This page says plainly what is stored where, who can see it, and the few places data leaves your phone.

Bump Board is for people 13 and older (see the Terms of Use).

What stays on your phone

• Your catch log, spots, and contour maps are stored on the device first — the app is local-first and works offline, with or without an account.
• On-device data belongs to the account that created it. Sign out and it is no longer shown; a different account on the same phone sees none of it.
• Fish ID runs on your phone. Identifying a fish happens on the device — the photo is never uploaded for identification. The only request Fish ID makes is for the list of species known for the water you are on.

What an account stores on our servers

• Account: your Apple or Google account identifier, the email the provider shares with us (for Apple this may be a private relay address), and the username and display name you pick. Your email is never shown to other users and is never used to find you in search.
• Synced catches: when you are signed in, your catches sync so they are on your devices: species, size, date and time, the place name you type, your private notes, weather at the time, and the photos you attach. Photos are kept in a private store and are only delivered to people allowed to see the catch they belong to.
• Location: if you let the app record where a catch or spot happened, those coordinates are stored so your maps and challenges work. Spots are always private to you and are never shared.
• Friends, posts, comments, challenges: your friend connections, the posts and comments you write, and the challenges you create or join.
• Bump Board Pro: Apple sells the subscription and processes payment — we never see your payment details. The app tells our service whether your subscription is active so Pro features can be checked.
• Notifications: if you turn on notifications or Live Activities, your device's push tokens are stored so updates can be sent to that device. Signing out removes the device's token.

Messaging is end-to-end encrypted

Direct messages are encrypted on your phone with the Signal protocol before they are sent, and only the recipient's devices can decrypt them. Our servers hold the public keys needed to route messages and the encrypted messages themselves until they are delivered — we cannot read message content, and neither can anyone who gets access to the server. Messages you have sent cannot be pulled back from other people's phones; that is how end-to-end encryption works everywhere. Because we cannot read messages, moderation of messaging works through your reports and blocks: if you report a conversation, the content you report is sent to our moderation queue by your app.

Advertising (free version)

The free version of Bump Board shows ads served by Google AdMob — full-screen ads at natural breaks and sponsored cards in the feed. Bump Board Pro subscribers never see ads.

• Only with your permission: the first time an ad is about to be used, Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt asks whether Google may track you. It is never asked at app launch. Personalized ads are only requested if you allow it.
• If you allow tracking, Google receives your device's advertising identifier, coarse (approximate) location, and information about the ads shown to you and how you interact with them, and may use and combine that data across apps and websites to personalize and measure advertising. That is the “tracking” described in the app's App Store privacy label.
• If you decline, ads are not personalized using your advertising identifier. Google still receives the device, performance, and crash information its ad SDK needs to deliver ads and keep itself stable, as described in Google's partner-sites policy.
• You can change your tracking choice any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.

Weather and forecasts

Forecasts and bite predictions are built for the place on screen. To fetch them, that location (coordinates, not your identity) goes to Apple WeatherKit and to our own service, which computes lake and bite information for the area. The map is Apple Maps. We do not track your movements and do not keep a location history.

Who can see your catches

• Every catch has its own sharing switches — Share with friends, Share location, and Make it public. When you log a catch they start on; turn off any of them before you save and that part stays private. You can change them on the catch at any time, and changes take effect right away.
• If a catch is not shared, only you can see it.
• If you share a catch with friends, your friends can see its species, size, date, place name, photos, and any caption you write for sharing. Your private notes are never shared.
• A catch's coordinates are only shared if Share location is on for that catch. Nobody gets the pin when it is off — if someone opens the catch, the app tells them the spot was kept secret.
• Unsharing a catch immediately cuts off its photos too.
• Challenge entries show participants your species, size, date, place name, and lead photo for entered catches — never your private notes or your spots.
• If you report content or a user, the report and what it points at go to our moderation queue.

What we never do

• We never sell your personal data. The only use of your data for advertising is the Google AdMob disclosure above, and personalized ads only happen with your App Tracking Transparency consent.
• We run no first-party analytics or advertising trackers of our own, and no third-party SDKs beyond Google AdMob (advertising) and the Apple services named here.
• We do not estimate or store fish weights.
• We do not keep a location history or track your movements.
• We do not share your information except as described here or when the law requires it.

Deleting your data

Delete your account from inside the app at any time (Settings → Account → Delete account). You confirm with a fresh Apple or Google sign-in, so a lost phone or a borrowed session cannot delete an account. Deletion removes your profile, catches, photos, spots, comments, friendships, challenge entries, and message keys from our servers right away; backups roll off within 30 days. Data stored on this phone for the deleted account is locked to it and never shown again — deleting the app removes it from the phone.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date.

Questions about this policy or the app? Send feedback from inside the app — Settings → About → Send feedback. We read every note.

You can also see the support page.