Privacy
Last updated 3 October 2026.
This notice covers the TerraMesh iPhone app and this website. In short, your surveys stay on your phone unless you choose to share them, and when you share, the exact places you stood stay behind.
On your phone
Everything you record stays in the app's own storage on your phone: photos, video, sound, 3D scans, positions, notes, names and measurements. Species and sound identification runs on the phone, and no photo or recording is sent anywhere to be identified. Your surveys may be included in your own device backups, and they leave the phone only when you export or share them.
Signing in
While TerraMesh is in testing, you sign in with Apple and an administrator approves each person. Apple gives the app an identifier for you and, the first time only, the name and email you choose to share, which can be a private relay address. The approval list is kept in Apple's iCloud and holds a salted hash of that identifier, the name you give and the time. It holds no surveys, photos or positions.
When you share a survey
Sharing is always your choice, one survey at a time. When you share, the phone sends a public copy that was made on the phone:
- Places as map tiles, never coordinates. Most surveys show street-sized tiles (about 0.1 km²). Tide pool surveys show neighborhood tiles and no photos or 3D. Shark sightings show region tiles. Some places, like abalone crevices, are never sent at all.
- Photos without hidden data. Photos are re-encoded with no location or camera metadata.
- No observer names. The copy records how many people searched and for how long, never who they were.
Our server checks every copy again and drops anything it doesn't recognize. A shared page has a random link and asks search engines not to list it. You can take it down or delete it at any time, and deleting your account deletes every survey you uploaded.
Naming species for others
If you help name species at /review, we keep the display name you choose, the names you suggest and a score of how often others agreed with you. Volunteers see only the photo, the mission, a broad map tile and the month, and never each other's suggestions. The person whose survey it is sees the names given and your display name. You can withdraw a name you gave.
The sign-up form
The form at /join keeps what you type: your name, email, institution, the region you work in and what you study. Anything that looks like coordinates is removed before it is stored. Only the TerraMesh team can read these notes. To stop abuse we keep a salted hash of your IP address for the rest of that day, then delete it. Ask us and we'll delete your note.
Weather, tides and other context
Some missions add context from public services. Before a position is sent to one, it is rounded to about 100 m, and the request carries no account or device identifier.
| Service | What it is used for | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| Open-Meteo | Weather and wind | Rounded position |
| US National Weather Service | Fire-weather alerts and surf forecast | Rounded position |
| NOAA tides and buoys | Water level and waves | A station number only |
| Macrostrat | Geologic map unit | Rounded position |
| EPA AirNow and UV index | Air quality and UV | Rounded position, or a postal code that Apple looks up from it |
| USGS elevation | Ground height | Rounded position |
| Apple Maps | The map in the app | The map area you view and anything you search |
These services keep their own logs, usually including your IP address, under their own policies.
What we don't do
- No analytics, advertising or crash-reporting code in the app, and no tracking across apps or websites.
- No cookies on this website. Pages load no outside scripts or fonts, and the map tiles on shared pages come from OpenFreeMap.
- We don't sell or rent anything about you.
The website runs on Cloudflare, which processes requests, including IP addresses, to deliver and protect it.
Permissions
The app asks for the camera, the microphone, location while you use it, and motion. Each one can be refused or withdrawn in iOS Settings, and the app still opens without it. Location stops when a recording ends; the app never tracks you in the background.
Children
The app is for approved testers and is not directed at children. Classroom use, when it comes, will use class codes, with no sound recording, no photos leaving the phone and nothing shared beyond the class.
Changes and contact
When this notice changes, the date at the top changes too. For questions, or to have your data deleted, write to hello@terramesh.earth.