Fish Vault

Privacy policy

Last updated 26 September 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 every place you have fished stay on your phone.

What stays on your phone

Your catches, sessions, named spots, photos, notes, the places and times of your fish, and your settings are kept in the app's private storage on your phone. None of it is sent to me. The places your fish were caught are never sent anywhere by the app, with the one exception described under Weather, where a rounded position is used and nothing else.

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.

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.

Vault Social, if you turn it on

Vault Social is off until you turn it on in the app. It lets you add friends by their handle and see the fish each other chooses to share. It doesn't ask for your name, email address or phone number. You can sign in with Google on Android or with Apple on iPhone instead of just taking a handle. If you do, the service keeps only the account number Google or Apple gives it, never your email address, your name or your picture. Once it's on, the Vault Social service, which I run on a server in the United Kingdom, holds:

• a handle, made up for you and changeable, and a display name or short bio if you add one;
• a sign-in key for each phone, stored only in a scrambled form that can't be turned back into the key, with the phone's operating system version and the date it last signed in;
• a scrambled copy of your recovery phrase, if you make one;
• for each fish you choose to share: the species, its weight and length, whether it went back, and its first photo;
• a photo you chose to share. Your phone shrinks it and saves it again from the picture alone before sending it, so the details cameras record, such as where and when it was taken, are not in it. Shared photos are stored with Cloudflare R2, a storage service, not on my server, and are deleted when you delete that post or your account;
• the list of species you've caught, with how many and your best, so friends can compare;
• your friends, requests and blocks, and the reactions and comments you add;
• any report you make, and, if someone reports you, a copy of what was reported until it has been dealt with;
• whether you've bought Fish Vault Pro, so friends see a small ring on your picture;
• if you sign in with Google or Apple, the account number it gives the service.

Where you caught a fish is never sent, whatever you switch on: not the spot, not the name of the water, not the coordinates. Your sessions, spots, notes, baits and the weather stay on your phone too.

Only the friends you accept can see what you share, and you can make it private in Settings at any time. There's no public profile, no directory and no search for strangers. Connections to the service go through Cloudflare, which protects it from attacks. Your IP address is used to stop abuse such as mass sign-ups, and is kept for no more than two days. There are no adverts and no analytics.

The service is only used to run Vault Social. Nothing in it is sold or shared with anyone for any other reason.

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 server along with the app version, whether you are on Android or iPhone, and the model of phone, so I do not have to ask. That is all that goes: no account, no identifier, and nothing else from the app.

The email address is optional and is only there so I can write back. Messages are kept until they are dealt with and then deleted, and you can ask for yours to be removed at any time 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. 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. Photos you pick from your gallery are chosen through the system's own picker, so the app only sees the ones you pick. It doesn't ask for your contacts.

Age

Fish Vault isn't aimed at children, and Vault Social isn't for anyone under 13.

Deleting your information

Uninstalling Fish Vault deletes everything it stored on your phone, including your photos. To delete your Vault Social account, open Settings, then Friends, then Delete the account. That deletes the account and everything it held straight away. Nightly backups of the service are kept for 14 days, so a deleted account is gone from those within 14 days. If you can't open the app any more, see deleting a Vault Social account.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what Vault Social holds about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, and complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. Vault Social relies on your choice to turn it on, and on my legitimate interest in keeping the service safe.

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.