FishON! Pro™ Privacy Policy

3A. Anonymous Condition Telemetry

Collection: telemetry_batches

This pipeline captures anonymized snapshots of river conditions at the time of your section visits, catches, and trip reports. It answers the research question: what environmental conditions are associated with successful fishing outcomes?

What is captured:

• A hashed, one-way section identifier — derived from river name, section index, and noisy rounded coordinates. Cannot be reversed to your section name.
• River conditions at visit time: flow (CFS with ±8% random noise, minimum ±2 CFS), water temperature (±0.4°F noise), air temperature (±1.0°F noise)
• Condition score (0–100) at time of visit
• Catch outcome: species category (e.g. Salmon & Steelhead, Trout & Char) and general method (fly, spin, bait). Never the exact species name or lure.
• Trip session data: fish count bucketed into ranges (0, 1–3, 4–10, 11+), session duration bucketed (under 2h, 2–4h, 4–8h, 8h+), quality rating (1–5)
• Timestamp rounded to the nearest 15-minute window

What is never captured:

• Your section name, river name, or any user-assigned label
• Exact GPS coordinates — coordinates used to generate the section hash have ±0.003° noise applied first
• Exact fish counts or precise session durations
• Any user identity or device identifier

k-Anonymity enforcement: This pipeline only transmits data when a batch contains events from at least 10 distinct section identifiers. Your individual activity is never transmitted alone.

3B. Public Monitoring Station Visits

Collection: gauge_pressure

This pipeline records which federal monitoring stations are linked to sections you view. It answers the research question: which public monitoring infrastructure is in areas that anglers actively use?

What is captured:

• The public station identifier — e.g. USGS gauge code '14103000', NDBC buoy ID '46029', NOAA tide station ID '9435380'. These are public federal infrastructure identifiers.
• The station type: USGS river gauge, NOAA tide station, NDBC buoy, or Bureau of Reclamation
• Date of visit (date only — no time component)
• Time of day bucket: early morning, morning, midday, evening, or night
• Day of week (1–7)
• Current flow CFS at visit time — USGS gauges only. This is the same value publicly available at waterdata.usgs.gov at the same moment.
• App version

What is never captured:

• Which user visited the station — no user identity or device ID
• Your section name or location name
• Any data that could identify an individual angler

Privacy basis: Station codes are public federal infrastructure. Knowing that USGS gauge 14103000 receives angler app visits on Saturday mornings at 900–1100 CFS reveals nothing about any individual user.

3C. Geographic Grid Pressure

Collection: grid_pressure

This pipeline captures where along river corridors angling pressure and catch activity occurs, expressed as approximate geographic areas rather than precise coordinates. It enables seasonal pressure drift analysis — for example, tracking how angling pressure migrates upstream along a river corridor as a hatch progresses through the season.

How coordinates are protected:

Your GPS coordinates are rounded to the nearest 0.05 degree of latitude and longitude before any event object is created. This rounding happens on your device, in memory, before any data is prepared for transmission. The raw coordinate is discarded immediately. Only the rounded grid cell identifier is stored in the event.

At 45°N latitude, 0.05° corresponds to approximately 3.4 miles of latitude and 2.5 miles of longitude. Each grid cell covers roughly 10–15 square miles of river corridor.

What is captured:

• Grid cell identifier — a string like '44.95_-121.10' representing the rounded coordinate. Cannot be reversed to a precise location.
• Grid resolution marker: '0.05deg' — stored so historical data can be re-analyzed if resolution changes
• Event type: section visit, catch logged, or trip logged
• Date of visit (date only)
• Time of day bucket and day of week
• Species group (e.g. Salmon & Steelhead) — for catch and trip events only. Never the exact species name.
• Catch outcome (yes/no) — for catch and trip events only
• Fish count bucket (0, 1–3, 4–10, 11+) — for trip events only
• Flow CFS rounded to nearest 10 — if available from conditions snapshot (already public USGS data)
• Water temperature rounded to nearest whole degree °F — if available

What is never captured:

• Precise GPS coordinates — raw coordinates never leave your device in any form
• Your section or location name
• Any user identity or device identifier
• Exact fish counts or precise session times

No k-anonymity threshold applies to grid cells — a 10–15 square mile area inherently aggregates multiple anglers. Sparse cells simply produce low data density, which is itself useful information for fisheries managers.