Fish Vault

Privacy policy

Last updated 19 October 2026.

Fish Vault is made by Pikeworks, a sole trader in Northern Ireland. This is what the app keeps, what leaves your phone, and why. The short version: your log, your photos and the places you have fished live on your phone. Signed in to a Pikeworks account, they are backed up with it so you can get them back, and the places are sealed on your phone first so only your phones can read them. A Pikeworks account and friends are optional and off until you choose them, and nothing you share with friends ever says where you were fishing.

What stays on your phone

Your catches, the fish that got away, sessions, named spots, photos, notes, your tackle box and its photos, the places and times of your fish, and your settings are kept in the app's private storage on your phone. Without an account none of it is sent anywhere. Signed in, it is backed up with your account, with every place sealed so that only your phones can read it, as described under Cloud backup below. Apart from that sealed backup, the places your fish were caught are never sent anywhere by the app, other than the rounded position described under Weather.

A backup file or a spreadsheet export is only made when you tap to make one, and it goes wherever you choose to send it.

Your location

Fish Vault asks to use your location so it can put a fish on your map as you log it, find the named spot you are at, and work out sunrise and sunset where you are, which is how it knows whether a fish came out at dawn. Your position is read on the phone and stored with the catch on the phone. It is not collected by me or sent to anyone, apart from the rounded position used for the weather and, if you're signed in, your backup, where it is sealed so only your phones can read it.

Where a photo was taken

When you add a photo from your gallery, the app reads the time and the place written into that photo by the camera, so a fish logged after the day it was caught lands on the right day and on the right water. This happens on the phone and only for the photos you pick, whether one at a time on a catch or a batch of old catches at once, and the original photos are never changed. On Android the phone asks once whether the app may read photo locations; the prompt is worded about photos and videos in general, but the app only ever opens the pictures you choose. The copy the app keeps is saved again without those details.

Maps

The map is drawn from OpenFreeMap, a free map service built on OpenStreetMap. To show a part of the map, your phone asks OpenFreeMap for that part, so it receives which area you are looking at and, like any website, your IP address. It is not told about your fish or your spots. The map shows the fish from your own log over those map pieces on the phone.

Weather

When you log a fish at the water, the app asks the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway) for the weather there: air temperature, pressure, wind and cloud. It sends a position rounded to about a kilometre, never the exact place, and nothing else about you or the fish. MET Norway receives that rounded position and your IP address. You can turn this off in Settings, under At the water.

Shop links

Each thing in your tackle box has a Find it on Amazon button, and a shared kit list can carry the same links. Tapping one opens Amazon in your browser with that thing's name as the search. Amazon then receives the search and, like any website, your IP address and whatever it sets in your browser. Nothing else from the app goes with it: not your log, not your places.

Pikeworks may join the Amazon Associates programme. When the app is in it, these links carry a tag that tells Amazon the visit came from Fish Vault, Pikeworks earns a small commission on qualifying purchases, and the price you pay is the same. The app says so beside the link whenever that is the case. The tag identifies the app, not you.

Sharing a fish

The Share button on a fish makes a picture or a line of text for you to send wherever you choose, through your phone's own share menu. It has the species, the size, the day and, if you added one, the first photo. It only names the spot if you switch Say where on, and it never includes the map or the coordinates.

Your Pikeworks account, if you make one

You don't need an account to use Fish Vault. Without one, everything stays on your phone and the app works fully. A Pikeworks account is one sign-in for every Vault app, and you choose whether to make one, in Settings.

If you make one, the Pikeworks account service keeps:

• the email address you sign in with, if you use one, stored encrypted, with a scrambled copy so it can be found when you sign in;
• if you sign in with Google or Apple, the account number they give me, and with Apple a token I keep only so I can tell Apple when you delete your account. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, I only ever see the hidden address;
• your password, if you set one, scrambled so it can't be read back, not even by me;
• the public half of any passkey you make (the private half never leaves your phone);
• which phones and apps are signed in: the app, the kind of phone, and when each was last used;
• a short security log of sign-ins and changes to the account, which for 30 days also holds a scrambled tag made from your internet address, to slow down anyone guessing passwords.

I use these only to run the account you asked for and to keep it secure. Keeping it secure is a legitimate interest; running it is what you asked me to do. I never sell any of it, never use it for marketing, and never send you anything but sign-in codes and notices about your own account, such as a new way in being added.

Who handles it for me: Cloudflare runs the service and stores it in the European Union. Sign-in codes and notices are sent by Resend, which keeps the messages it sends in the United States under its data processing agreement, protected by the standard contractual clauses and the UK's addendum to them, and by Cloudflare's own email service. Cloudflare and Resend are companies in the United States.

How long I keep it: for as long as you have the account. A phone that hasn't used it for 18 months is signed out. If nobody signs in to the account for 24 months, I email you once, and delete it 30 days later unless you sign in. The security log is kept for 12 months. When you delete the account, everything above goes at once, and it is gone from my backups within 30 days.

Deleting it: in any Vault app, open Settings, then Pikeworks account, then Delete account. You can also do it on the web, from pikeworks.co.uk/delete-account, or by emailing fishvault@pikeworks.co.uk. Your entries on your phone stay where they are.

Your rights: you can ask for a copy of what the account holds, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, or object to how it's used, by emailing fishvault@pikeworks.co.uk. Where the account has an email address, the copy is sent to that address as a file, so it only reaches you. I reply within a month. If you want to complain about how I handle your information, write to the same address: I'll say within 30 days that I have it, and what happens next. If you're still unhappy, you can go to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

The account isn't for anyone under 13.

Cloud backup, while you're signed in

While you're signed in to your Pikeworks account, Fish Vault backs up your log with your account, so you can get it back on a new phone or have it on another one: your catches, the fish that got away, sessions, spots, tackle, notes, settings and photos. It backs up by itself shortly after you change something, and only while you're signed in. Signed out, nothing is backed up.

Where you fish is sealed on your phone before it leaves. The places of your catches and sessions, and your spots' names, places and notes, are encrypted on the phone with a key that only your own phones hold. On Android the key is kept in your Google account's Block Store, which needs a screen lock to travel to a new phone; on iPhone it is kept in your iCloud Keychain. You can also save the key yourself as a code from the Cloud backup card, to open your places on a phone that has neither. Anyone with that code and your account could read them, so keep it somewhere safe. I can't read those places, and nor can anyone else who sees the backup. A phone that hasn't got the key shows them as locked.

The rest of the backup, photos included, is for your account only: read only by Fish Vault signed in to your account. I don't look at it or use it for anything else, and it never goes to friends. Cloudflare stores it for me in the European Union, in storage that isn't public. Cloudflare is a company in the United States.

Deleting it: deleting your Pikeworks account deletes the backup and its photos straight away, and I keep no other copy of them. "Stop backing up this log here" in Settings stops this phone backing up.

Friends, if you turn them on

Friends is optional, and it's off until you turn it on. It needs a Pikeworks account. With it on, you can add people you know by their handle, a link or a QR code, see what they choose to share, and react and comment. Nobody can search for you, nothing suggests you to anyone, there are no public profiles, and nothing can be reshared. You can have up to 200 friends.

Every app starts private. Nothing from Fish Vault reaches anyone until you say so in Fish Vault, and then only the entries you switch sharing on for when you save them. A note starts switched off every time, and so does anything that says where you were.

If you turn friends on, the friends service keeps:

• your handle, and a display name if you add one. Your picture is drawn from a random pattern; you can't upload one;
• your invite code, which version of the community rules you agreed to, for each app whether it's shared with friends or private and whether you want a notice when a friend posts, and which app gets notices about friend requests;
• your friends, the friend requests you've sent and received, and the people you've blocked;
• the posts you share: what the share screen showed for that entry, such as its name and your rating, and only if you switched them on, a note, a photo or where it was;
• the comments and reactions you add;
• notices for you, such as a friend accepting your request or commenting on your post;
• in apps with friends tables, a few numbers for this year worked out from your log, such as how many different things you've logged, and for some tables the name of your top entry. The log itself never leaves your phone for this;
• for each phone that gets friends notifications: an identifier that Google's Firebase, or Apple, gives that phone for Fish Vault, whether it's Android or iPhone, and the phone's time zone, so notices arrive quietly at night;
• photos you share. Your phone makes a copy 1,080 pixels across and takes out everything the camera recorded, such as where and when it was taken, and the service turns away any photo that still has those details;
• any report you make, and if someone reports something of yours, a copy of what they reported, kept so that deleting it doesn't destroy the evidence;
• a record of anything I do about a report, such as taking something down or switching friends off for an account. If an account is barred from friends for good, I also keep the Google or Apple account number it signed in with and a scrambled fingerprint of its email address (never the address itself), so the same sign-in can't come back to friends on a new account.

Fish Vault also keeps a copy of what you've seen in friends on your phone, so it works without signal. That copy is kept apart from your log, isn't included in your phone's backup or the app's backup file, and is wiped when you sign out.

Who sees what: your friends see your posts from Fish Vault, and where you come in Fish Vault's tables, while Fish Vault is shared with friends and neither of you has blocked the other. Set Fish Vault back to private and they stop seeing them, without anything being deleted. Comments and reactions are seen with the post they're on, by the person whose post it is and by their friends who can see it. Some of them may not be your friends, so they see your handle, your display name and what you added. Someone you send a friend request to sees your handle and display name. Anyone with your invite link or QR code can send you a request; the link carries a code, not your handle, and making a new link stops the old one working. Handles, display names, posts and comments are checked automatically against a list of words that aren't allowed, and a display name can't hold a web address. Nothing else is read unless it is reported, and then I read it myself.

I use all this to run friends, which you asked for when you turned it on, and to keep it safe, which is a legitimate interest. When the law requires me to report something, as it does for anything that puts a child at risk, I do so because of that legal duty. I never sell any of it and never use it for marketing.

Who handles it for me: Cloudflare runs the friends service and stores what it holds, photos included, in the European Union. Notifications go through Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging and, for iPhones, Apple's push service. Each one carries the app's name and one plain line saying who did what, with the title of the post it is about cut to 40 characters, such as "Sam commented on your Neck Oil": never a note, a comment, anything else anyone wrote, or a photo. Where Firebase is used on your phone, it starts only when you turn friends on, with its analytics off. When something is reported, a private Discord channel gets a one-line alert with the kind of report, the app, the reason and a reference number, never a handle or what was written. Cloudflare, Google, Apple and Discord are companies in the United States. Friends never sends email, so Resend, which sends the account's sign-in codes, handles none of it. If something shared puts a child at risk, I report it to the National Crime Agency, as UK law requires, with the details of the account that shared it.

How long I keep it: for as long as you have the account, except where it says otherwise here.

• A photo on a post is deleted after 90 days, and the post stays, saying the photo is no longer shared. A photo that isn't added to a post within a day is deleted.
• Notices are kept for 60 days, and only this year's table numbers are kept.
• A friend request nobody answers lapses after 30 days.
• A phone's notification identifier goes when you sign out on that phone, or when the phone hasn't refreshed it for 30 days.
• When you change your handle, the old one is held for you for 30 days.
• Something taken down for breaking the rules is deleted 30 days later, and its photo straight away.
• Something reported is kept, where nobody in the app can see it, until the report is dealt with, even if it is deleted or its 90 days pass. A report is kept for a year after it is closed, and the record of what I did about it for a year.
• Anything reported because it may put a child at risk is kept until I have looked at it, even if it is deleted. If it is child abuse, I report it to the National Crime Agency, as the law requires, and it is kept for a year from the day I send that report, with what the law calls relevant data about the account that shared it: its posts, comments, photos, fish handed over, sessions and friend connections from the two weeks before. Then it is deleted unless the Agency asks me to keep it longer. The Agency's reference number for my report is kept for five years. If it is not child abuse, it is let go that night.
• A bar from friends for good is kept after the account is deleted, because that is its purpose.

Whatever is deleted is gone from my backups within 30 days.

Block and Report: every post, comment, friend and friend request has Block and Report, and so does everything else friends lets someone send you. Blocking someone works in every Vault at once. It ends the friendship, cancels your requests to them, and hides your posts, comments, reactions, notices and table rows from each other. They aren't told, and a request from them never reaches you. You can unblock someone under Blocked in Friends; that doesn't bring the friendship back. I read every report myself and aim to do it within a day, and the person you report is never told who reported them. Anything reported as putting a child at risk is hidden straight away, and anything three people report is hidden until I've looked at it. Breaking the rules can mean what you shared is taken down, and friends switched off for your account for 7 days, 30 days or for good; your own log and backups aren't touched.

Deleting it: you can delete any post or comment of yours, and any comment on your own posts, at any time. Deleting your Pikeworks account, as above, deletes everything friends holds about you too: your profile, friends, requests, blocks, posts, comments, reactions, notices, numbers and photos. Reports about you are closed and their copies deleted, apart from anything held because it may put a child at risk. Reports you made stay open, with your account taken off them, so what you reported is still looked at. Your handle is freed 30 days later.

Your rights: the rights described for the account cover friends too. Email fishvault@pikeworks.co.uk to ask for a copy of what friends holds about you, to have it corrected or deleted, or to object to how it's used.

Friends isn't for anyone under 13, or under 18 in an app that is for adults.

What a fish shared with friends carries

A fish only goes to friends when you switch Tell friends on as you save it, and that switch starts off every time. It carries the species, its weight or length as you logged it, whether it went back and the day. Your note and its first photo go only if you switch them on for that fish. Never the spot, the water, the coordinates, the session, the bait or the time of day: the app doesn't even read them to make a post, and the service drops anything of the kind a post could carry.

Fish Vault's tables show the number of different species each of you has caught this year, and each person's biggest fish this year against the record for its species, as a percentage, with the species named. Your phone works those out from your log and sends only the two numbers and the species' name.

Fishing with friends

With friends on, you can ask friends along to a session you are fishing, or join one a friend asked you to. Only friends can be asked, and only by someone already in the session. A session lasts a day, or until the last person leaves it, and up to 12 people can be asked or in it. Joining one takes you out of any other. Sessions work even while Fish Vault is private to friends, because joining one is up to you.

• Everyone who has joined sees who has joined, the session's name if it was given one, and each person's fish in it: the species, the weight and length, whether it went back, and the time it came out. Never where. Someone who was asked and hasn't joined, or said no, is shown only to the person who asked them.
• A friend in the session can log a fish for you, because the phone that takes the picture is often not yours. What they send goes to you alone: the species, the size, when it came out, whether it went back, the method, bait and weather they logged, their notes, and up to six photos. Their phone makes each photo 1,600 pixels across and takes out everything the camera recorded, and the service turns away any photo that still has those details. It never carries where the fish was caught: the service drops any place before it stores anything.
• Only you and the friend who sent it can open that fish, until you keep it or turn it down, they take it back, or two weeks pass. Then its details and photos are deleted from the service. What stays, until the session itself is deleted, is a line saying that a fish of that species went from one of you to the other, and whether it was kept.
• When you keep a fish a friend logged for you, it goes into your log on your phone like any other, with its photos. Your phone adds where it was from your own session at that time, or asks you to pick one of your spots, and that place never goes to your friend.
• A friend can send you a fish for a week after the session started, because the send often waits for signal until they are home.
• The service deletes a session, with everything in it, 30 days after it ends.

Block and Report work here too: on a session's name, on a fish logged for you, and on anyone in a session with you. Blocking someone takes back any invitation between you and ends any fish waiting between you, and each of you is left out of the other's view of a session you share. The notifications for sessions say only who did what: "Sam asked you to join their session", "Sam logged a fish for you", "Sam kept the fish you logged for them" or "Sam said the fish you logged was not theirs". Never a session's name, and never a fish.

The old Vault Social, which has closed

Earlier versions of Fish Vault ran friends and group sessions on Vault Social, an older service I ran on a server in the United Kingdom, with an account made from a handle rather than an email address. Friends now run on your Pikeworks account instead, and nothing is moved across from an old Vault Social account: not its handle, its friends or its posts.

Until it was deleted on 19 October 2026, the old service held what it kept for anyone who turned it on in an earlier version: the handle, display name and bio; a sign-in key for each phone, stored scrambled, with the phone's system version and when it last signed in; a scrambled recovery phrase, if one was made; if you signed in with Google or Apple, the account number it gave, and with Apple a sealed token used only to end that link; the fish shared with friends (species, weight, length and whether it went back), and the species caught with how many and the best; friends, requests, blocks, reactions, comments and reports; and from group sessions, everyone's tally and any fish logged for you, which carried where it was caught and its photos until you answered it. Your internet address was used there to stop abuse, such as mass sign-ups, and kept for two days.

It was switched off on 10 October 2026. On 19 October 2026 every account on it and everything in them was deleted, its backups included. There's nothing you need to do: see an old Vault Social account.

Feedback you send

If you write to me from the "Tell me what you think" box in Settings, what you type is sent to the Pikeworks feedback service along with the app version, whether you are on Android or iPhone, and the model of phone, so I do not have to ask. If you leave its "Send this picture of the screen" switch on, it also carries a picture of the screen as it was when you opened the feedback box, so I can see what you saw; turn the switch off and no picture goes. That is all that goes: not your account, no identifier, and nothing else from the app.

The email address is optional and is only there so I can write back. It goes to the Pikeworks feedback service, which runs on Cloudflare and keeps what you send in the European Union; Cloudflare is a company in the United States. Your IP address is used to stop abuse and is never stored. A copy of the message is posted to a private Discord channel that only I can read, so I see it on my phone straight away; Discord is a company in the United States. Feedback is kept until it has been dealt with, and deleted within six months after that, Discord copy included. You can ask for yours to be deleted sooner using the address below.

Purchases

Fish Vault Pro is a one-off purchase through Google Play or the App Store. RevenueCat checks the purchase. It receives an anonymous app user ID and the purchase receipt, so it can confirm what you bought and restore it on another phone. It isn't told about your Pikeworks account. I never see your name, email address or payment details. RevenueCat's policy is at revenuecat.com/privacy.

Permissions

Fish Vault asks for your location, as described above, the first time you log a fish or start a session. It asks for the camera only when you tap to take a photo or to scan a friend's code. Photos you pick from your gallery are chosen through the system's own file picker, so the app only sees the ones you pick, and on Android it asks once to read where those photos were taken, as described above. On Android it asks once, when you first start or join a live session, whether it may show notifications, for the live session at the top of the phone. Notifications from friends are asked about separately, once you have turned friends on. It doesn't ask for your contacts.

Age

Fish Vault isn't aimed at children. A Pikeworks account and friends aren't for anyone under 13.

Deleting your information

Uninstalling Fish Vault deletes everything it stored on your phone, including your photos. Deleting your Pikeworks account deletes the account, its cloud backup and everything friends holds about you, as described above, and it's gone from my backups within 30 days. Do it in Settings, then Pikeworks account, then Delete account, or on the web from pikeworks.co.uk/delete-account, without installing anything. Deleting the account doesn't touch your log on your phone. For an old Vault Social account, see the section above.

Your rights

For your Pikeworks account, its backup (the places in it are sealed, so I can't read them), friends and anything you've sent me, you can ask for a copy, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, or object to how it's used, by emailing the address below, and complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes and the new version replaces this one.

Contact

Email me at fishvault@pikeworks.co.uk.