Privacy policy
HuntFix · Last updated 14 September 2026
The short version
HuntFix keeps your targets on your phone and, unless you turn it off, backs them up to your own iCloud — the private storage of the Apple Account already signed in on your phone.
I do not receive your locations. Not your position, not the places you mark, not the photos, not in summary form, not anonymised, not ever. I have no server, no account for you, and no way to read anything in your iCloud. The app has no code capable of sending any of it to me, because there is nowhere for it to send it.
Three things involve the network, all described plainly below: the iCloud backup, the map that Apple draws, and anything you choose to share.
Everything below is the detail behind those sentences.
This policy covers HuntFix only. HuntFix Journal, the companion log app, is a separate app with a different record and its own policy at huntfix.app/journal/privacy. If you use both, read both.
What changed on 6 September 2026. Until that date this page said HuntFix made no backup of its own and synced with nothing, and that was true. It now backs up to your iCloud, on by default, and this page changed before the version that does it reached anybody. The promise is narrower than it was — not "nothing leaves your phone" but "it goes nowhere I can read it" — and saying so plainly is worth more than a promise I would have to walk back.
Who this is from
HuntFix is made by one person, in New Zealand. I built it to recover animals I had shot across steep country, and I use it for the same purpose you do.
What HuntFix records
Only what is needed to mark a target and find it again:
- Where you were standing when you marked it — latitude, longitude, altitude, and how accurate the GPS said it was
- What you sighted — the compass bearing, the angle above or below level, and the range you typed in from your rangefinder
- The estimate the app calculated from those — the target's position, its altitude, and how uncertain the estimate is
- A photo of what the camera saw at the moment you locked the target, so you can recognise the spot later
- The path you walked while navigating to it
- Anything you add yourself — a name, a label, notes, a pin you moved by hand, and the true position if you record one after finding the animal
A value the phone could not measure is left blank. The app never fills in a number it does not have.
Where it is stored
In a database inside the app on your phone. Photos are part of that database rather than your photo library, and are deleted with the target they belong to. HuntFix has never asked for access to your photo library and does not have it, so a hunting position cannot turn up in your camera roll.
The iCloud backup
Unless you turn it off, that database is also copied to your iCloud, so that losing or replacing a phone does not lose your record. Signing in to the same Apple Account on another iPhone brings your targets with you.
What that means precisely:
- It is your iCloud, not a service of mine. The copy lives in the private database of your own Apple Account, held by Apple, counting against your own iCloud storage, under Apple's privacy policy. There is no account to create, nothing to sign in to, and no server of mine involved at any point.
- I cannot read it. Not the targets, not the photos, not the coordinates, not a count of them. A developer can see the shape of the data in Apple's console — the names of the fields — and none of its contents. That is not a policy I am promising to keep; it is how Apple built it.
- Everything goes: every target, the position you shot from, the sighting, the trail you walked and the sight pictures.
- You can turn it off in Settings → iCloud backup. It stops at the next time you open the app, which the screen tells you. Once it is off, the same screen offers to delete the iCloud copy outright — that removes it from Apple's servers and leaves everything on your phone untouched.
- It never gets in the way. Marking a target, ranging, calculating and navigating never wait for the network, or for iCloud, or for anything. If you are not signed in to iCloud, or there is no signal, the app works exactly as it always did and says plainly that it is not backing up.
- Your settings and counters do not go. The units, the range type, the usage counts under Settings and the compass readings from the sensor-test screen stay on the phone that made them.
Settings shows you what actually happened rather than what was meant to happen: whether you are signed in, and the time the last backup finished — or a dash, if there has not been one yet.
The backup file, which is a different thing
You can also make a backup file yourself — Settings → Your targets → Create a backup — and put it wherever you like. The app never does that for you and never sends it anywhere.
It is still worth having with iCloud switched on. iCloud covers the phone going in a river. The file covers what sync cannot: a copy that lives outside Apple, targets handed to somebody else, and getting back a target you deleted months ago — a deletion syncs too, and iCloud will not bring that one back.
What leaves your phone
Nothing HuntFix stores reaches me. There is no server of mine, no account to sign in to, and no third-party code of any kind — no analytics service, no crash reporting, no advertising or tracking libraries. The counters shown under Settings → Usage on this phone are eight numbers that never leave it.
Three things involve the network. Two are automatic, and both end at Apple. One is yours.
The iCloud backup, described above: your targets, to your own iCloud, on by default and switchable. It is the largest flow of data the app produces and the one you are least likely to think about, which is why it is named first here as well as given its own section.
The map. The confirmation, detail and navigation screens show an Apple map. To draw it, Apple's own software fetches map tiles from Apple, which necessarily tells Apple which part of the world is on screen — the area around your target. That is Apple's map, handled under Apple's privacy policy, and HuntFix adds nothing to that request. It is also the only part of the app that needs a connection: sighting, ranging, marking, saving and navigating all work with the phone in aeroplane mode. Only the map goes blank.
Anything you share. Six things can move a target off your device, and all six are things you do, one tap at a time:
- Export as GPX — a file with the target's position, the position you shot from, the path you walked, and the target's name, your notes and the times. It goes wherever you send it.
- Copy coordinates — one latitude and longitude, to the clipboard.
- Open in Apple Maps — hands one position to the Maps app.
- Share field-test results — a spreadsheet of every target you have checked against its true position. This is the most sensitive file the app can make: it is a list of places you have hunted, with the real positions of what you found. The screen says so above the button.
- A backup file — everything: every target, the position you shot from, the path you walked, and the photographs, in one file. It is made only when you ask for it, and it goes wherever you send it. It is the most complete record the app can hand over, so treat it accordingly. HuntFix does not upload it anywhere; if you put it in iCloud Drive, that is your choice and your iCloud.
- Share sensor readings — a spreadsheet of compass readings you have deliberately recorded while checking the phone against known landmarks, each with the position you took it from. Empty unless you have used that screen.
Nothing is shared automatically, and there is no default destination.
Permissions
Location, while using the app. Needed to know where you are standing and to guide you to the target. HuntFix never asks for permission to use your location in the background, and it cannot track you while it is closed. The app does carry a background permission for iCloud — the silent signal Apple uses to tell your phone that another device changed something. It carries no content, shows nothing, and has nothing to do with location. HuntFix has never asked to send you a notification and has no code that could. That is also why the breadcrumb trail records only while the navigation screen is open: the app is not watching when you are not looking at it.
Camera. Used to aim, and to keep the photo of the sight picture with each target. The app never asks for access to your photo library.
You can withdraw either permission at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security. Without location the app cannot calculate a target; without the camera it cannot show the sight picture.
Purchase
If you buy HuntFix, Apple handles the entire transaction. I never see your card details, your billing address, or your Apple Account. Apple provides me with anonymised sales totals — numbers, not people — and nothing in that reporting is connected to anything you record in the app.
It is a one-off purchase, not a subscription. Navigating to a target you have already marked works whether or not you buy, and nothing you have saved is ever deleted or hidden because of what you have or have not paid for.
Children
HuntFix is a tool for hunters and is not designed for or directed at children.
Your data is yours
Because I hold none of it, there is nothing for me to hand over, correct or delete on your behalf — and no request you need to make. That is still true with the iCloud backup running: the copy is in your Apple Account, not mine.
Everything is in two places you control. On the phone: read it, export it, or remove it by deleting the app. In your iCloud: turn the backup off in Settings → iCloud backup and use Delete the iCloud copy, which removes it from Apple's servers and leaves the phone untouched. Deleting the app on its own does not remove the iCloud copy — use that button first if that is what you want.
If you keep iPhone backups, copies made before you deleted it still exist inside those backups until they age out or you remove them; that is iOS, and it is between you and Apple.
If you are in New Zealand, the Privacy Act 2020 applies to me as a New Zealand developer. If you are in Australia, the Privacy Act 1988 applies. If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Union, the UK GDPR and GDPR apply. Under all of them, the position is the same: I am not collecting, processing or storing your personal information. The iCloud backup does not change that — the data moves between your phone and your own Apple Account, and I am not a party to it.
Changes to this policy
If the app ever changes what it does with data, this page changes with it, before the change ships. That is not a form of words: the iCloud backup on 6 September 2026 was written up here first, and this page said so before the version that does it was in anybody's hands. The date at the top tells you when it was last revised.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or about anything to do with your data: [email protected]
Anything else — problems, suggestions, or a question about how the app works: [email protected]
HuntFix estimates where a target is. It does not know. Every estimate carries an uncertainty, and the app shows it, because the compass in a phone is the least certain instrument you are carrying. You are responsible for identifying your target, for where you walk, for the land you are on, and for the law where you hunt.