Privacy — Boat Recorder
Boat Recorder is a phone you leave aboard to keep your boat’s own log. It records where the boat went, whether the engine was running, and how far the boat heeled — for the boat, not for a person. It holds no one’s account. What it records is visible only to the people who already have access to that boat in our apps, and it is never public.
Who we are
Boat Recorder is part of boating.systems, run by Progressable LLC, 69 E. Pearl Street, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Questions, corrections, or a request to delete data: info@boating.systems.
This is Boat Recorder’s own policy, kept here for the app store. The boating.systems privacy policy covers every app in the family, including the Log and Vessel apps where the boat’s outings are seen.
What the app records
Location, including in the background. This is the app’s purpose. It asks for location all the time because it records unattended, with the screen off, and must keep recording after the phone restarts. It records continuously while the boat is moving and keeps a short, fading trail while it is not. Fixes are held on the phone and, when the boat has been under way, uploaded as one outing after it stops. While it has signal it also sends the boat’s current position about every thirty seconds, so that someone with access to the boat can see where it is.
Motion, from the accelerometer. The phone is screwed to the boat, so its accelerometer reports the boat’s motion. Two things are derived from it, on the phone: the boat’s heel (its lean), from gravity; and whether the engine is running, from the steady vibration an engine puts into the hull. What leaves the phone is a summary uploaded with each outing: when the engine ran and for how many minutes, and heel figures (maximum and average heel, and time spent on each side). Raw accelerometer samples never leave the phone.
No microphone. The app does not request or use the microphone. Engine detection is by vibration only.
Device health. Whether the phone is plugged in, its battery level, whether the recorder is running, and the app’s version — so the boat’s page can say when the device has gone quiet.
On the boat’s own Wi-Fi. While it is recording, the phone also serves the boat’s live position, speed, course, heel, engine state and name to other devices on the same local network, using the Signal K format, so that instruments and the Chart app aboard can read it. It announces itself on that network, and anyone connected to it can read this without a password.
Whose data it is
During install, the person setting the phone up signs in with their own account for a few minutes, to say which boat this is. The app then signs that person out and signs the phone in as a device paired to that boat. From then on the phone holds no person’s account and no person’s identity is attached to what it records.
The record belongs to the boat. An outing the device recorded is not anyone’s trip until a person with access to the boat says “that was me” in the Log app, which gives them a private copy over the same track. Two people aboard can each do that. The device never guesses who was aboard.
Who can see it
| Data | Who can see it |
|---|---|
| The boat’s current position and state | People with read access to that boat in our apps |
| Outings the device recorded (track, times, speeds, engine minutes, heel) | People with read access to that boat; a person who claims one gets a private trip of their own, which they alone control |
| The device itself (its label, health, when it was paired and by whom) | People with read access to that boat |
| Live position, speed, course, heel and engine state | Also any device on the boat’s own local network while the phone is recording (see above) |
| Anything at all | Never the public online. There is no sharing, publishing or link for what the device records. |
Anyone who may operate the boat can revoke the device from anywhere, at any time; it stops recording for that boat on its next contact with our servers.
How we use what it records
Beyond showing the boat’s outings back to the people who have access to it, we may study recorded data to make the service better — finding real places, checking charts against reality, and improving the algorithms that trim tracks, detect engines and read heel. Where that work does not need to know whose boat it is, and it usually does not, we use it aggregated and stripped of account, person, vessel and trip identifiers. Nothing derived this way is a navigation claim, and we do not sell data. Anyone with access to the boat may opt its outings out of this by emailing us.
What we do not do
- No advertising, and no ad identifiers.
- No analytics or tracking SDKs.
- No microphone, camera, contacts, or anything else beyond location and motion.
- No selling or sharing of personal data with third parties for their own purposes.
Processors
We use Google Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions and Hosting) to run the service and store the data described above on our behalf. See Firebase’s privacy documentation.
Keeping and deleting
Data on the phone is removed when the app is uninstalled or its storage cleared. An outing nobody has claimed is marked to expire 180 days after it ended (automatic removal is not yet switched on, so until it is, such outings are removed on request); a claimed trip is kept until its owner deletes it from Log. Revoking the device removes its right to record; deleting what it already recorded, or the device record itself, is a request to info@boating.systems, normally completed within 30 days.