Borrowed TineBORROWED TINE

Borrowed Tine Privacy Policy

Effective: October 12, 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.

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.

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 only 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; only the line shapes are kept there, not owner names or addresses.

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.

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.

The Android app. Borrowed Tine for Android keeps no scouting log of its own on the phone. It 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. Its forecast comes from Open-Meteo, a weather service, which gets the same approximate point (rounded to about one kilometer) and nothing about you. Its maps are drawn with MapLibre, open-source software, using pictures from the U.S. Geological Survey. Subscriptions are not sold in the Android app at this time.

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. So that our servers can confirm what your plan includes, the app sends us Apple's signed record of your subscription. We keep which plan you have, when it runs out and Apple's reference number for the subscription, tied to your account. We never see your payment details.

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. 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, comments, likes and follows from our servers. 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
support@borrowedtine.com