Caretta Friends ("the app") is a free tool for volunteers protecting sea-turtle nests. We keep data collection to a minimum, and the app is offline-first — you can record a nest with no signal, and it syncs when there is some.
What we store
- Nest records you add — photos, notes, the nest's location and timestamps. They are saved on your device and synced to our database so your volunteer community sees the same nests. This happens without an account: the app signs in anonymously on first run so your records can be attributed to you and kept apart from everyone else's.
- The photos themselves — uploaded to our own storage (Cloudflare R2) so a nest you photograph reaches the rest of the community with its picture. We remove the metadata first: the camera's EXIF — coordinates, timestamp, device — is stripped from every upload. The location belongs to the nest record, not to the image file.
- Device location — to show nearby beaches and nests, to attach a position to a nest you record, and, if you start one, to record a patrol track. A patrol stays on your phone until you choose to publish it.
- Optional account — an email address, only if you decide to save your account so your work survives a lost phone. The app is anonymous by default and fully usable without one.
- Usage counts — how many times the app is opened and how many nests are recorded, through our own counter (superduper-analytics, self-hosted). The identifier is a random id created when you install the app; it is not your account, not a device id, not an advertising id, and it disappears when you delete the app.
Who can see the nests
Nest records — including their coordinates — are visible to everyone using the app, and signing in is anonymous and open. In other words: treat a nest you record as shared with the whole community, not as a secret. Nests on protected beaches are also marked physically on the sand, with stakes and signs. If your local group needs stricter handling of coordinates, tell us and we'll build it.
What we do NOT do
- No ads and no advertising trackers.
- No third-party analytics, and no profiling. Our counter answers "how many people" — never "who".
- We never sell your data or share it for marketing.
Third-party services
- OpenStreetMap / MapLibre / Overpass — map tiles and the beach outlines. A search coordinate is sent to find beaches near you.
- Supabase — our database and sign-in.
- Cloudflare — R2 storage for the photos, and the service that checks your sign-in before letting anything in or out.
- Open-Meteo, Sensor.Community, Air Signal — weather and air quality for a nest or a beach. A coordinate is sent to get a local answer; nothing that identifies you goes with it.
Keeping and deleting your data
Local data lives on your device — deleting the app removes it, along with its photos and the usage identifier. Delete account in the profile erases your account on our server and everything on this phone. The field records themselves — nests, observations, counts — stay on the shared map but are detached from you: they are the community's conservation record, and observations are never destroyed. Anything else: write to us.
Children
The app is rated 4+ and does not knowingly collect personal data from children.
Contact & changes
Questions or deletion requests: [email protected]. If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date above.