Gyotaku

Gyotaku

Privacy Policy

Effective November 6, 2026

Gyotaku is an app for logging your catches and sharing them with fishing friends in squads. We run no servers of our own and you don’t create an account with us: your catches, photos and fishing spots are never sent to us, and we cannot see them. This page explains what data the app uses, where it is stored and who handles it.

1. On your iPhone

  • Your catch log: photos, the cut-out fish stickers, species, length, time, location and place name, and whether the fish was released.
  • Species recognition runs on your iPhone; photos are not uploaded for recognition.
  • The nickname and avatar you set in My Profile.

2. Your own iCloud

With iCloud sync on, your catch log syncs to the private database of your own iCloud account (provided by Apple’s CloudKit). Only you can access it; we cannot read it.

3. Squads

  • Catches you choose to share to a squad (photo, sticker, species, length, time, and the spot’s coordinates and place name), your nickname and avatar, and your comments and reactions are stored in the captain’s iCloud shared space and visible to the squad’s members. Coordinates and place names are stored in CloudKit encrypted fields.
  • You can withdraw your shares, delete your comments or leave a squad at any time. When a captain removes a member or disbands the squad, the related shares are deleted.
  • Reporting: after you report a post or a member, that content is hidden on your iPhone. If you need our help, email the address below.

4. Location and maps

  • Spots are recorded with system location services, with your permission. You can turn off precise location in Settings & Privacy.
  • Place names come from Apple’s map services, covered by the Apple Privacy Policy.
  • To look up nearby water and draw rivers and lakes on the map, the app requests map tiles around the area from OpenStreetMap community services (OpenFreeMap tiles and an Overpass query service). Only tile numbers or a grid area are sent, never your exact spot, photos or the time of the catch. These services can see your IP address.

5. Notifications

Squad activity (new shares, comments, reactions) is delivered through Apple’s push notification service. You can turn notifications off in iOS Settings.

6. Gyotaku Membership purchases

  • Payments are handled by the App Store; we never see your payment details.
  • When you buy, the app attaches an anonymous identifier derived from your iCloud user ID so the membership is tied to you. It cannot be used to identify you.
  • So that members’ iPhones can confirm a squad is unlocked, the app writes the App Store-signed purchase record (product, expiry date, transaction ID and the anonymous identifier above) into the squads you lead as captain, and members’ iPhones read and verify it.

7. What we don’t do

No ads, no analytics or tracking SDKs, no tracking across apps, and we never sell or rent any data.

8. Deleting your data

  • Deleting the app removes the data on your iPhone.
  • Catch log data in iCloud: iPhone Settings › Apple Account › iCloud › Manage Storage › Gyotaku.
  • Squad content: withdraw your shares, delete your comments, or leave the squad.

9. Children

Gyotaku is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

10. Changes and contact

If this policy changes, we will update this page and its effective date. Questions: [email protected].

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