This policy explains what information the WildObserve™ software and the WildObserve™ pages of our website handle, and what happens to it. WildObserve™ is made by Quantitative Science Consulting, LLC ("QSC", "we", "us"). Questions: info@qsc.earth.
What stays on your computer
WildObserve™ processes everything on the computer it's installed on. All of the following stay there, and none of it is sent to us or to anyone else:
- your images, and the thumbnails WildObserve™ makes of them;
- their metadata: capture times, GPS coordinates and other locations, camera details, file names and folder paths;
- your projects, deployments and settings;
- your annotations: boxes, species names, reviews and their history, and the AI's detections and suggestions;
- the species models WildObserve™ trains on your computer from your labels;
- the accounts of the people who use WildObserve™ on that computer: their names, email addresses, and passwords (stored only as secure hashes).
WildObserve™ contains no analytics, telemetry, advertising or tracking. Exports you make are files on your computer; where they go next is up to you.
When the app goes online
WildObserve™ connects to the internet only for these three things. Each sends only what it needs, and none sends anything from your projects.
- Checking for updates. When it opens, and at most once a day after that, WildObserve™ downloads a small file describing the newest version from GitHub, where we publish releases. The request says which WildObserve™ version, operating system and type of processor you have, and nothing else.
- Activating a license. When you enter a license key, WildObserve™ downloads your license from GitHub. The download's name is derived from your key, but the key itself isn't sent. Near the end of a license's term, WildObserve™ looks for its renewal the same way, at most once a day.
- Signing in with Google, if you choose to. Google's sign-in page opens in your web browser. Google then tells WildObserve™ on your computer your basic profile (such as your name), your email address and whether Google has verified it. WildObserve™ uses the email address only to find your WildObserve™ account on that computer, and doesn't keep anything else from Google. To confirm the sign-in, WildObserve™ sends Google the one-time code Google gave it, a one-time check value, and WildObserve™'s own identifiers.
Like any internet request, these reveal your computer's IP address to the service that answers them: GitHub for updates and licenses, Google for sign-in. Their privacy policies apply to what they collect: GitHub's and Google's. We don't receive information from these requests.
An administrator can turn all of this off in WildObserve™ (About > Updates), and organizations can start it with --offline. Everything else in WildObserve™ works without the internet. Without it, licenses are added from a license file, and people sign in with a password.
Google user data
WildObserve™ asks Google only for your basic profile and email address. It uses your email address solely to sign you in to the WildObserve™ account an administrator created for that address on the same computer. It doesn't store, transfer or share information from Google, and it never uses it for advertising. WildObserve™'s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. You can remove WildObserve™'s access at any time in your Google Account settings.
Buying a license, and contacting us
When you buy a license or write to us, we receive what you give us: typically your name, organization, email address and billing details. We use it to issue your license, invoice you, answer you and provide support. Each license names the organization it's for, and we keep a record of the licenses we issue for as long as we need it for business, tax and legal purposes.
Our website
- Our website is hosted by GitHub Pages, whose servers log visits, including IP addresses.
- We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used, such as which pages are visited. It uses cookies. You can block them in your browser, or opt out with Google's opt-out add-on.
- Messages sent with our contact form are delivered to us by Formspree, which processes them on our behalf.
Sharing
We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it except with the service providers described above, when you ask us to, or when the law requires it.
Your choices and rights
Everything WildObserve™ keeps is on your computer, under your control: you can view, export or delete it there. For information we hold about you, such as license and correspondence records, write to info@qsc.earth to ask for a copy, a correction or its deletion, subject to records we must keep by law.
Children
WildObserve™ is made for researchers, organizations and other professionals. It isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information.
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll post the new version here with a new effective date. If a change affects what WildObserve™ sends over the internet, the new version of WildObserve™ will describe it too.
See also the WildObserve™ Terms of Service.