Privacy Policy — Tree Reports
Updated 10 October 2026
The app is used by volunteers to map the town's trees and their condition, so that an up-to-date map can be handed to the local council. This document is short because the collection is small.
What is collected
- Your Google account identifier and its email address, for signing in only. The sign-in token Google issues also carries your name and profile picture, but we neither store nor use them — only the identifier and the email address are kept.
- The tree photographs you take, and the GPS location and time of the report.
- While the map is open the app reads your precise location continuously, to draw the blue dot and to centre the map. That location stays on the device and is never sent to the server — only the location of a report you send is.
- Your answers about the tree's condition — a short form of species, condition and shade.
- Ordinary technical server logs, which include an IP address.
The app contains no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising and no third-party tracking components. We do not follow you across apps or websites.
What it is used for
The tree survey and nothing else: building the map, allowing the same tree to be resurveyed in later years, and knowing who reported what. The data is never sold and is never used for advertising.
Who sees it
- Google — verifies your sign-in.
- Map tile servers (Esri, OpenStreetMap) — receive your device's IP address and which map area is being viewed, in order to send the map background.
- The local council — receives the survey results: tree locations, conditions and photographs. This is the purpose of the project.
- The public — the public gallery shows anyone, without signing in, the reports of approved reporters: where the tree is, the answers about its condition, the date of the report, and the photographs at a medium size. The reporter's name and the time of day are not shown.
Two things worth knowing
- A report is linked to the person who sent it, so the database can show that you were at a particular place at a particular time.
- A photograph is stored as taken, including the metadata the camera adds. Photographs are meant to show trees — and because they are shown publicly, if a person, a vehicle or a number plate was caught incidentally, you can ask for it to be removed.
Is providing it required
There is no legal obligation. Using the app and sending reports are entirely voluntary. If you do not sign in and do not report, you simply cannot send reports; nothing else follows from it.
How the data is kept
Everything travels over an encrypted connection and is stored on a server in Europe, shared with one other project of ours. An approved reporter's photographs are shown publicly as a medium-size copy with the photo metadata removed (including the GPS position the camera records). Until a reporter is approved, their photographs are available only to them and to administrators. The original, at full size and with its metadata, is available to administrators only.
Reports are kept for as long as the survey is maintained — comparing a tree's condition from year to year is the point of the survey. Server logs expire on their own, and backups are held for 14 days, so data deleted at your request may persist in a backup for up to two more weeks.
Your rights
You may see the data held about you (section 13 of the Privacy Protection Law), ask for it to be corrected if it is wrong (section 14), and ask for your account and your photographs to be deleted at any time. Write to the address below and we will act on it.
Full detail on account deletion — what goes, what stays and for how long: the account deletion page.
Who is responsible
The controller of the database is Gal Vine, acting as a private individual. For privacy enquiries, access, correction or deletion: galvine@gmail.com