Borrowed TineBORROWED TINE

Borrowed Tine Privacy Policy

Effective: October 12, 2026 · Last updated: October 30, 2026

Borrowed Tine is made by Borrowed Tine L.L.C., a Michigan limited liability company ("Borrowed Tine", "we", "us"). This policy explains what the Borrowed Tine app for iPhone and Android collects, where it goes, and what you control.

The short version

What stays on your phone

Most of what you put in Borrowed Tine lives only on your iPhone:

We can't see any of this. If you delete the app without a backup, it's gone. Backups you make from the app go wherever you save them (for example, your own iCloud Drive).

What we collect when you make an account

What leaves your phone, and only when you choose

Public posts. When you post a video or a trail camera photo publicly, we store a clean copy and show it to other users with your username, the title and caption you wrote, the buck's name if you gave one, and your state. Likes, comments and follows on public posts are visible to others. The number of views is public; who viewed a post is visible only to the person who posted it.

Crews. A crew is a private group you create or are added to. Inside a crew you can share:

Crew content is stored on our servers and is visible only to members of that crew.

Crews that can be followed. A crew is private and can't be found unless its owner switches on "Let hunters follow this crew." If they do, any user can find the crew by name, see the crew's name and the usernames of its members, and follow it. Following a crew works like following each of its members: the follower sees those members' public posts and receives the follower alerts described below. Followers never see anything shared inside the crew: not its posts, bucks, maps, stand names or locations. The owner can switch this off at any time, and any member can leave the crew.

Hunting clubs. A crew's owner can switch the crew into a hunting club so members can reserve stands and blinds. We store the names the owner gives the club's spots, each reservation (the spot, the day, morning or evening, and which member made it), the name a member types in when reserving for a guest, each member's "member since" date as set by the owner, and a record of each time a senior member takes over a reservation. Only members of that club can see any of it. Spots are names only: a reservation carries no map location.

Invite codes. A crew owner or competition organizer can create a short code and send it to someone by text. Entering the code adds that person to the crew or competition. We store the code, what it is for, who created it and when it expires.

Competitions. If you start or join a competition, we store the competition (its name, dates, rules and who is in it) and each entry: the score or count you enter, the photo you choose (saved as a clean copy with no location or camera data), the date of the kill or find, and, if you give them, the buck's name, your state and your state's harvest confirmation number. Entries are visible to the people in that competition. Nothing in a competition includes a location, a stand or a camera. You can leave a competition, and its organizer can delete it.

The topics you pick. The kinds of content you choose at sign-up or in Edit profile are saved to your profile so the feed can show them first, and a public post can carry the topics you give it. You can change or clear them anytime.

An ID for each install. Each copy of the app makes a random ID the first time it runs. It rides along with what you send to a crew so your own phones can tell their posts apart and nothing is duplicated. It is not tied to your phone's hardware, is not used for advertising, and changes if you delete and reinstall the app.

Messages. You can send another user a direct message: text, photos, or a public post, map pin or buck card you choose to share. Messages and their photos are stored on our servers so they reach the other person, and only the two people in a conversation can read them. A pin you send in a message carries what Share this pin always carries: its name, kind and exact location (and its good winds, if it's a stand), because you chose to send it. Photos are redrawn before they're sent, so no location or camera data from the original file goes with them. A message from someone you don't follow and aren't in a crew with waits in Requests until you accept or reply; they can't tell you've read it until then. Unsend takes a message (and its photo) back from both sides. Deleting a conversation removes it from your side only; the other person keeps theirs. If you block someone, neither of you can message the other and the conversation leaves both inboxes. We don't read messages, except one that a person in the conversation reports to us (see Reports below).

Crew chat. Each crew has a group chat for its owner and the members who've accepted: text, photos, and public posts, map pins or buck cards you choose to share there. Its messages and photos are stored on our servers so they reach the crew, and only the crew's owner and accepted members can read them; someone who's been invited but hasn't accepted can't, and leaving or being removed from a crew ends your access to its chat right away. A pin you send to a crew chat carries the same name, kind and exact location as Share this pin, because you chose to send it. Photos are redrawn first, so no location or camera data from the original file goes with them. When you post in a crew chat, the crew's other members are alerted (if they haven't switched Crew chat off in Alerts), and the server keeps who has read the chat up to when, so it can show unread counts. Unsend takes your message (and its photo) back from everyone. "Clear the chat on my side" hides earlier messages for you only. If you block someone, their crew chat messages stop showing to you. We don't read crew chats, except a message that a member reports to us (see Reports below).

Followers. People who follow you can be told that you're hunting, that you took a shot, that an animal is down, and that you posted a public video. They are never told which stand or property. You can turn these alerts off.

Regional report. If you opt in, the app sends anonymous counts (region, week, time of day, wind, pressure, moon, temperature range, and whether a mature buck was seen). It never sends GPS, camera, stand or buck names, or photos.

Hunter record. Your tier and record score are shown on your profile unless you hide them. If you opt in to brand and affiliate deals, we can see that you did.

Features that use outside services

The Guide (AI). The Guide is off until you turn it on. When you ask it a question, the app sends our AI provider, Anthropic, your question, the conversation so far, and a summary of your scouting data needed to answer it: buck names and patterns, stand and camera names, the winds that work for each stand, recent sits, scrape activity and the weather forecast. Places are described as a distance and direction from the center of your property, never as GPS coordinates. A chat never sends photos. Our servers pass the request along and do not keep your questions or the answers; your chats are saved only on your phone. Anthropic processes the request to produce the answer and, under its terms for business customers, does not use it to train its models. Anthropic says it deletes what it receives and returns within 30 days, and may keep material longer where its safety systems flag a request or the law requires it. We keep a count of how many questions you've asked, to apply plan limits.

Describe from photos (AI). On a buck's profile you can ask the AI to describe him from his photos. This happens only when you tap it, and it asks for your OK first. The app sends Anthropic only the photos you pick (up to four), reduced in size, with the trail camera stamp cropped off. No location, camera name, date or other scouting data is sent with them, and the location and camera details stored inside the photo files are removed. Our servers pass the photos along and do not keep them or the description. Anthropic processes them to produce the description and, under its terms for business customers, does not use them to train its models. Anthropic says it deletes what it receives and returns within 30 days, and may keep material longer where its safety systems flag a request or the law requires it. Each read counts as one Guide question.

Buck suggestions in a trail camera import (AI). With All Access you can switch on "Suggest bucks from my photos" when you review a trail camera import. It is off until you switch it on, and you can switch it off at any time. While it is on, for each sighting in that import still waiting for a buck, the app sends Anthropic up to three of that sighting's photos (or a still from a clip) and up to four photos each of your own bucks on that property (up to 30 bucks), with those bucks' names, which season each photo is from, and your own notes on their racks ("Rack & body"). Every photo is reduced in size and redrawn, so the location and camera details stored inside the files are removed, and the trail camera stamp is cropped off. No location, camera name, date, weather or other scouting data is sent with them. Anthropic says which of your bucks it thinks is in the photos; the app shows that as a suggestion you confirm or change, and nothing is filed without you seeing it. Our servers pass the photos along and do not keep them or the answer; we keep only a count of how many sightings were looked at, to apply plan limits. Anthropic processes them to produce the suggestion and, under its terms for business customers, does not use them to train its models. Anthropic says it deletes what it receives and returns within 30 days, and may keep material longer where its safety systems flag a request or the law requires it. When buck suggestions are switched off, the same switch can still read which way a buck was walking: then only that sighting's photos (reduced, redrawn and cropped the same way) are sent, with no photos, names or notes of your bucks, and the app turns the answer into a suggested direction using the way your camera faces, which stays on your phone.

Help chat and support email (AI). The help chat on borrowedtine.com and in the app (Help) answers questions about Borrowed Tine with AI. What you type there, the conversation so far, where you're asking from (website, iPhone or Android) and the app's version are sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to write the answer; nothing else from your phone goes with it (no photos, locations or scouting data). Passwords and card numbers you type are blanked out before anything is sent. Our servers don't keep the conversation: the app keeps it on your phone, and the website keeps it only in that browser tab. To limit misuse we count messages per hour and per day, keyed by a scrambled form of your internet address (and your account, if you're signed in); those counts are deleted after two days. If you tap Send this to Jake, the conversation, the email address you type, and your phone model and app version are emailed to our support mailbox (Google Workspace) so a person can answer you. Emails you send to [email protected] are also read by an AI assistant (Anthropic) that sorts them and drafts a reply, which a person reviews before anything is sent; card numbers and passwords are blanked out first. We use all of this only to answer you and run support, never for advertising or anything else. Anthropic processes it under its terms for business customers and does not use it to train its models; it says it deletes what it receives within 30 days, and may keep material longer where its safety systems flag a request or the law requires it.

Property lines. Parcel lines and owner information come from Regrid, a parcel data company, using public county records. When property lines are switched on, our server requests the map tiles for the area on your screen, and when you ask for a parcel's owner, our server sends Regrid the point you picked. Requests go through our server and are not sent under your name. Parcels you look up are saved on your phone. We keep a count of tiles and lookups, to apply plan limits. Parcel outlines you have already viewed are kept on your phone for up to 30 days so they load without asking again, together with the owner name and acreage the map tiles carry (shown when you touch a parcel, to subscribers whose plan includes property lines); addresses and parcel numbers are not kept in that copy. That copy is kept in the app's private cache, is not included in backups, and is deleted when property lines are switched off. To spare repeat lookups, our server also keeps the county record of each parcel any subscriber has looked up (owner name, acreage, parcel number, address, county and outline, from Regrid), for up to a year, and shows it to other subscribers who open the same parcel. It does not record who looked a parcel up, and it is deleted if our Regrid service ends.

Sharing a pin. On iPhone and Android you can share one camera, stand or sign pin with anyone through the messaging or other app you choose. What goes is a picture made on your phone (Borrowed Tine's logo, an aerial view around the pin, the pin's kind, name and coordinates, the property's name unless you switch it off, and a stand's good winds) and a link carrying the pin's name, kind, coordinates and a stand's winds. Your notes on that pin go too only if you switch them on. Nothing about your bucks, sightings or photos goes with it. The coordinates sit in the part of the link after the "#", which browsers keep on the phone, so opening the link doesn't send the spot to our servers. The aerial view comes from Apple Maps on iPhone and from the U.S. Geological Survey's public aerial photos on Android; to draw it, the phone asks that service for the small area around the pin, as it does when you look at that spot on the map. Once sent, it is in the hands of whoever you sent it to and the app you sent it through.

Weather. To fill in conditions for sightings and to show the forecast, the app sends a weather service (Apple WeatherKit) an approximate location near your property (rounded to about one kilometer) and the dates needed. For a hunt logged without a property (public land or somewhere else), the app uses your phone's location at the start of the hunt (or when you tap I was hunting near here on a hunt from earlier), rounded to two decimal places (about one kilometer), only to ask for that hunt's weather. That rounded point is kept on your phone with the hunt (and in your phone's own backup); it is never sent to a crew, never shown in the app or in a post, and only the hunt's label ("Public land" or the name you type) goes to your crew.

Bringing pins in from another app (switched off in the first release; this describes it for when it's on). You can open a map file exported from another app (GPX, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON or CSV) to bring your stands, cameras, sign and property line into Borrowed Tine. The file is read on your phone, and what it brings in is kept the same way as pins you drop yourself: on your phone, private, and shared with a crew only if you share that property's map. When an import creates a new property on iPhone, the app asks Apple's maps service which state and time zone one rounded point falls in, with nothing about you attached. If you use "Send us this file and we'll set it up", you email the file to us yourself; it contains the locations in it, we use them only to help set up your map, and we delete the file when we're done.

Maps. Maps are provided by Apple Maps. Public land outlines, elevation lines and the terrain views (LiDAR shading, steepness, slope direction, topo maps and infrared air photos) come from the U.S. Geological Survey; when those layers are on, the app asks USGS for the area on your screen, with nothing about you attached. The nautical chart layer comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the same way. Offline maps (iPhone): when you download a property or an area for use without signal, the app asks USGS for that area's air photos (NAIP), LiDAR shading, steepness, slope direction, topo map, elevation lines and public land the same way, with nothing about you attached, and keeps the pictures on your phone until you delete the download (they are not in your backups). If you have Pro + Lines, the download also keeps that area's property line shapes for up to 30 days, fetched through our server like the lines on your map and counted toward your monthly line views; owner names and addresses are never kept with them. Your last forecast is kept on your phone so the map can show it with no signal. Nothing new about you or your hunting goes to us or anyone else. Apple's own map pictures are never saved.

The Android app. Borrowed Tine for Android mostly shows and works from what is already on our servers under your account: your posts, and what you and your crews have shared. Anything you add from an Android phone (a trail camera photo, a hunt, a video) is sent to your crews or posted as you choose at the time. Your map on Android (pins you drop, and pins and property lines you bring in from another app's map file) is kept on the phone. A property's map is sent to our servers only when you switch on sharing that property's map with one of your crews, and then it is visible only to that crew's members, the same as on iPhone; with the switch off it stays on the phone. A "where he beds" pin you place for a buck stays on the phone only. What is kept only on the phone is removed if you delete the app or clear its data. Parcels you look up with property lines are saved on the phone, as on iPhone, and are left out of your phone's Google backup. Photos and clips you pick from your phone's gallery to make a video stay in your gallery: the app keeps only a reference to each (with Android's permission to read it later) and reads it from there when you edit or make a video, making a temporary copy in the app's cache that is deleted afterward. Clips you add to a hunt get a clean copy to send to your crew, which the app removes by itself once it has been sent and the original is still in your gallery. Finished videos are kept in the app.

Maps on Android. The Android app's map and satellite photo come from Google Maps. To draw the map, Google's software in the app sends Google the area of the map you are looking at, your phone's internet address and some information about your phone and the app, and Google handles that under the [Google Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy). We do not send Google your account, your pins, your bucks or your photos. If you allow location, your phone's position is drawn on the map as a dot on your phone. The terrain views, elevation lines and public land outlines come from the U.S. Geological Survey, as on iPhone. If you download a map for offline use, the download asks USGS for that area's map pictures and saves them on your phone (left out of your phone's Google backup) until you delete them; Google's own map is never saved. A download on Pro + Lines also keeps that area's property line shapes, without owner names or addresses, for up to 30 days.

Weather on Android. The Android app's forecast comes from Open-Meteo, a weather service. The request goes through our server, which passes along the same approximate point (rounded to about one kilometer) and the dates, with nothing about you attached, and does not keep it. A hunt without a property works the same way as on iPhone: the phone's location, rounded to two decimal places, is used only for that weather request and stays on the phone.

Reading trail cam stamps on Android. The Android app reads the date, time and camera name printed on a trail cam photo using Google's ML Kit, which runs on your phone: the photo is not sent to Google or to us. Google's library does send Google some usage statistics about itself (such as how often it runs and how long it takes), under Google's own privacy policy. On iPhone this is done by Apple's built-in text reader.

Purchases. Subscriptions are handled by Apple on iPhone and by Google Play on Android. So that our servers can confirm what your plan includes, the iPhone app sends us Apple's signed record of your subscription, and the Android app sends us Google Play's purchase token, which our server checks with Google. We keep which plan you have, when it runs out and the store's reference number for the subscription, tied to your account, so a plan bought on one phone also works on the other. We never see your payment details.

Creator codes and discounts. If you type a creator's code, we keep which creator's code is on your account and when it was added, and, for each purchase made after that, the plan, price and date, so we can pay the creator their share; the monthly report we pay creators from has totals, not your name or account. When a purchase uses a creator-code discount or a posting reward, we keep which discount it was, so it isn't given twice. To stop a creator-code discount being used again from a new account on the same Apple ID, we keep a scrambled (one-way) form of the App Store's subscription number after a code discount is charged; it has no account, name or email in it, and we keep it even after your account is deleted.

Notifications. If you allow notifications, Apple (on iPhone) or Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging (on Android) gives your phone a push address, and the app saves it on our servers with your account, along with which kinds of alerts you've switched off in Alerts, so we can send the alerts you've chosen as they happen, even with the app closed. When something happens that you'd be told about (a crewmate starts hunting, a message arrives, someone comments on your post), our server writes the alert's words and sends them through Apple's or Google's push service to your phone; Apple and Google carry the words to deliver them. Crew alerts can name a stand, as they do in the app; follower alerts never do. The push address is removed when you log out, when Apple or Google tells us it no longer works, and with your account.

Hosting. Accounts, public posts and crew content are stored with Supabase, our hosting provider, in the United States.

Location

Borrowed Tine uses your phone's location only while the app is open, to show you on the map and to pin a camera, stand, sign, shed or sighting where you're standing. It never tracks you in the background. Your live position is never shared with other users or sent to our servers. Pins reach a crew only if you share that property's map with them, and a single pin reaches someone else only when you share it yourself. You can turn location off in iPhone Settings.

Camera, photos and microphone

What we don't do

How long we keep things

Deleting your account

In the app: Profile → ☰ → Delete account. This deletes your account, profile, public posts, crew posts and the photos and videos you sent to crews, comments, likes and follows from our servers, your push addresses, your plan record, and your messages and crew chat messages and the photos you sent in them (the people you messaged, and your crews, lose those messages too). Deleting your account doesn't cancel a subscription: cancel it in iPhone Settings → your name → Subscriptions, or in the Play Store → Payments & subscriptions. Scouting data on your phone stays until you delete the app. Copies that crewmates already saved or that you shared to other apps are outside our control.

Your choices and rights

You can see and edit your profile in the app, switch any post between private and public, leave a crew, turn the Guide off, turn alerts off, hide your record, and delete your account. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or to have it corrected or deleted. Email us and we'll respond within 30 days. We won't treat you differently for making a request.

Children

Borrowed Tine is for people 13 and older. If you're under 18, you need a parent or guardian's permission. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email us and we'll delete it.

Security

Connections to our servers are encrypted. Access to crew content is limited to crew members by rules in our database. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't promise that nothing will ever go wrong; if a breach affects you, we'll tell you as the law requires.

Where your information is processed

Our servers and service providers are in the United States. Borrowed Tine is offered to users in the United States.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The in-app privacy promise you agreed to at sign-up is part of how we operate; if we ever need to change one of those promises, we'll ask you to agree again.

Contact

Borrowed Tine L.L.C.
P.O. Box 393
Muskegon, MI 49441
[email protected]