Privacy policy — Buckhour

Last updated 1 October 2026

This policy explains what Buckhour ("the app"), published by Escape Plan Software Ltd, uses, where it goes, and the choices you have. It is specific to Buckhour and takes priority over the general company policy at escapeplan.software/privacy for anything the two disagree on.

Who we are

Escape Plan Software Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17262078, with its registered office at Suite 10906, 5 Brayford Square, London E1 0SG, United Kingdom. We are the data controller for Buckhour. You can reach us at support@escapeplan.software.

The short version

Buckhour itself does not collect personal data about you. Your stands, sits, notes and photos are stored only on your iPhone. The app has no account, no advertising and no tracking. To get the weather, the app asks Apple Weather for the forecast at each stand's area, with the location rounded to about 1 kilometer (two decimal places) first. The app itself never sends a stand's exact coordinates. Apple Maps sees the map area you are looking at, and only two things you choose can carry exact coordinates: what you type in the map's search box goes to Apple Maps, and Share on a stand passes its coordinates to the app you pick. Nothing you enter is sent to us. To improve the app, it sends anonymous usage counts that cannot be linked to you, and you can turn them off in Settings or, without a subscription, under "Your Data" on the subscription screen (details below). When someone buys or renews, Apple's servers notify ours; we count the sale without keeping anything that identifies you (details below).

What Buckhour uses, and where it goes

• Account: None. The app does not ask for your name, email or any sign-in.
• Stands: the name, type, ground (ridge, slope, bottom or flat), map position, good-wind directions, notes and time zone of each stand or blind you add. Stored only on your device.
• Weather (Apple Weather): for each stand, the app sends the stand's latitude and longitude, rounded to two decimal places (an area of roughly 1 km), to Apple's WeatherKit service and receives an hourly forecast. Stands close together share one request. Apple states that WeatherKit uses location only to provide weather forecasts, does not associate it with personally identifiable information, and does not track it between requests. We do not receive this location or the forecast request. The last forecast for each area is kept on your device for up to 3 days so the app works without signal, then deleted. When you open a stand's page, the app also asks Apple Weather for the hourly weather of the same rounded area in up to four past Novembers (up to twelve requests), to show how often the wind suited that stand ("Past Novembers"). Only the resulting counts and shares are kept on your device, never Apple's weather values. The app asks again when you move the stand to another area, change its good wind or another November has ended, or when the last attempt failed. If the evening wind reminder is on, the app may also refresh the forecasts in the background when iOS allows it, sending the same rounded areas.
• Maps and place search (Apple Maps): the map and its search box use Apple Maps, which receives the map area you are looking at and what you type in the search box (a place name, or a coordinate while you are still typing it; once the box holds a complete coordinate, the app reads it on your iPhone and does not search for it). To find a stand's time zone, the app asks Apple for the time zone of the stand's area, rounded to about 1 km like the forecast. This is handled by Apple under its own privacy policy; we do not receive it.
• Your location (optional): iOS asks for your location only after you tap the location button while placing your first stand ("At your stand? Use where you are.") or "Allow Location (optional)" in Settings, and the app uses it only while it is open ("While Using"). Once you have allowed it, Buckhour also reads your position without another tap: the Stands map shows where you are, and a map with no stands on it opens near you instead of on the whole country. Your position is used to center the map or place a stand where you are. It is not recorded as a track and is not sent to us. You can turn location off at any time in iOS Settings → Buckhour → Location; every feature works with stands placed by hand.
• Hunt log: for each sit, the stand, start and end time, the number of does, bucks and other deer you counted, your note, and the conditions at the start of the sit in Buckhour's own categories (wind sector, wind band, whether it was gusty, whether the wind suited the stand, temperature band and change against the day before, pressure trend, rain band, time of day), never the weather values themselves, and, if you say, whether the wind at the stand was as forecast, different or swirling. Stored only on your device.
• Sharing a stand: if you tap Share on a stand's page, the app writes a short text (the stand's name, type and good wind, the wind now if there is a forecast, and its exact coordinates) and hands it to the iOS share sheet. Where it goes is your choice; nothing is sent to us.
• Photos: if you add a photo to a sit, you choose it with Apple's photo picker (the app does not get access to your photo library), and a resized copy is stored only in the app's own folder on your device. The app never uploads or shares photos.
• Settings and season dates: your rut dates, state or province, reminder time and sit, and display choices. Stored only on your device.
• Medals: which milestone medals you have already been shown. Stored only on your device and cleared by Delete All Stands and Sits.
• Notifications: if you switch on the evening wind reminder or renewal reminders, the app schedules local notifications on your device. Nothing is sent to a server.
• Links: state and provincial wildlife agency pages and their rut timing pages, our privacy, terms and support pages, and Apple's weather data sources page open in Safari's in-app view only when you tap them.
• Purchases and subscriptions: Apple handles payment through the App Store. We never see your card details. The app checks Apple's signed record of your subscription on the device. Apple gives us sales reports that do not identify you, and its servers notify ours of each purchase event (see Purchase notifications from Apple).
• Age range: in regions where the law requires it, iOS may tell the app your age range (for example 18 or over). The app keeps this in memory only; it is not stored or sent anywhere, and it does not change what you can do in the app.
• Backups: like other app data, your stands, sits and photos can be included in your own iCloud or computer backup of the device, which Apple and you control and we cannot access.
• Analytics or crash reporting: Anonymous usage counts and daily purchase totals only, with no identifiers; see Anonymous usage counts and Purchase notifications from Apple. No third-party analytics, advertising or crash-reporting code. If you have chosen in iOS to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports under Apple's own terms.
• AI features: None.
• Support messages: if you email support@escapeplan.software, we keep the message and your email address to reply and keep a record. Please don't send us stand locations or photos unless we ask for something specific to fix a problem.

Anonymous usage counts

Buckhour counts how the app is used: that the app was opened for the first time; which onboarding screens are reached, roughly how long each takes and whether you moved on, went back or left the app; whether the first stand was placed and roughly how long it took; whether the location permission was granted; whether the subscription screen was shown, where it was opened from, roughly how long it stayed open and how it closed; which plan was tapped, whether a purchase started and how it ended (completed, cancelled, pending or failed, or completed later), with or without the free trial (for the first purchase, also whether the first stand was placed and roughly how long onboarding took); whether the offer of renewal reminders was shown and accepted or declined; whether the app is opened again later in the first week, in the second week, in the second month or after that; at most once a day that a sit was logged, and at most once a day that the forecast for one of your stands was on screen; once a day, how many counts are still waiting to be sent and how many were lost; and why any counts were lost. Every count also carries the app version, whether this Apple Account first downloaded the app more than a day before this install (a reinstall or a second device), and whether it came from an App Store copy or a test build.

The app sends these without any account, device, advertising or install identifier, without the time of any event (only the week the app was installed; our server adds the day it receives them), and without your country, device model or language. It never sends a stand, its name, a place, a location or coordinates, a wind or any other weather, a sit, a deer count, a photo or anything you type. Our server adds each count to a daily total and keeps neither the count itself nor your IP address. So that a batch of counts sent twice is added only once, it keeps the random number the app gives each batch (a new one for every batch, never tied to your device) for eight days. The totals cannot be linked to you. Nothing about your health is ever counted.

Like any request over the internet, each batch reaches Cloudflare, which runs our server, together with your IP address. The request carries nothing else about your iPhone: it names the same fixed app label and the same language ("en") on every device, not your language setting. Our server does not read or keep your IP address; Cloudflare may keep IP addresses for a few days in its security logs to protect the service.

The app may show one of two versions of a screen to learn which works better. Which version you see is decided on your device and is sent only as part of these anonymous counts, never with an identifier.

• Why: to find where the app is confusing and improve it.
• Legal basis: our legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). Storage and access on your device for statistical purposes rely on the exception in PECR Schedule A1 paragraph 5 (inserted by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, section 142(1) and Schedule 12).
• Processor and location: Cloudflare runs our server. It processes the counts only on our instructions, under its data processing addendum, and protects them at least as well as this policy describes. The daily totals are stored in the European Union and deleted after 25 months.
• Your choice: turn it off at any time in the app's Settings ("Share anonymous usage counts"), or, without a subscription, from "Your Data" at the bottom of the subscription screen. The app then stops sending and deletes anything it has not sent yet.
• See for yourself: press and hold "About" in the app's Settings, or the line about usage counts on the first screen, for three seconds. The screen that opens shows whether counting is on and why, which screen versions this iPhone was given, and how many counts are waiting or were lost. It reads only your iPhone and sends nothing.
• EU and EEA: if your Apple Account uses the App Store of a country in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, the app sends nothing and the setting is not shown (the app checks this each time it starts).

Purchase notifications from Apple

When someone starts a free trial, subscribes, renews, gets a refund, turns off renewal, has a billing problem or otherwise changes a purchase or subscription, Apple's servers send our server a notification about it (Apple's App Store Server Notifications). It comes from Apple, not from your iPhone, and the app plays no part in it.

Our server first checks that Apple signed the notification. It then uses only the app, the plan (yearly, yearly billed monthly, monthly or lifetime), what happened (for example "trial started", "renewed" or "refunded"), the kind of offer used if any (such as a free trial or an offer code), Apple's category for a refund request, the country or region of the App Store, the price and currency, and the day, and adds them to a daily total. To tell, for example, a trial start from a renewal, it also reads the purchase dates and offer details while it handles the notification, without keeping them. Apple's notification also contains numbers that identify the transaction. They pass through our server's memory while it checks the notification, but they are never stored or logged, and we keep nothing that could link two purchases to the same person. So that a notification Apple sends twice is counted once, our server keeps Apple's identifier for the notification itself, with the day it arrived, for up to about eleven days; we never use it to look up you or your purchase.

When a trial start, purchase, renewal, upgrade, refund, cancellation or billing problem is counted, our server also sends us a one-line message on our own phone with only the app, what happened, the plan, the country or region of the App Store and the price. It never says who you are. The message goes through Pushover (Pushover, LLC, in the United States), a push notification service, which deletes it once it is delivered (or after 21 days if it cannot be), and through Apple's push service. It contains no personal data.

• Why: to know how many people buy, renew, cancel and ask for refunds, in which countries and at what prices, and to hear about it straight away.
• Legal basis: our legitimate interests in running our business (Article 6(1)(f) of the UK GDPR and, where it applies, of the EU GDPR). Nothing is read from or stored on your iPhone for this.
• Processor and location: Cloudflare runs our server, as for the usage counts. The daily totals are stored in the European Union and deleted after 25 months; the notification identifiers after up to about eleven days. Our database's automatic backups can keep deleted entries, and show when a total changed, for up to 30 days.
• Your choice: the setting "Share anonymous usage counts" does not turn this off, because Apple sends these notifications from its own servers, not from the app. There is no setting for it in the app.
• Your rights: because we keep nothing that identifies you, we cannot find, show or delete a particular purchase of yours. You can still object to this use by emailing support@escapeplan.software, and you can complain to the Information Commission (the ICO) or, if you live in the European Union or the EEA, to the data protection authority where you live.
• EU and EEA: Apple sends these notifications for purchases in every country, and our server handles a purchase in the App Store of a country in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway in the same way as any other.

Why we use this data

• Stands, sits, photos and settings on your device, and the rounded location sent to Apple Weather: to provide the forecast, the wind verdict at each stand and the log you asked for (performance of our contract with you).
• Your current location: with your consent through iOS, which you can withdraw at any time. The question appears only after you tap a location button; once you have allowed it, the maps use your position without another tap.
• Anonymous usage counts: to improve the app (our legitimate interests; see above).
• Support emails: to answer you (our legitimate interest in helping people who contact us).
• Purchase notifications from Apple: to count purchases, renewals, cancellations and refunds and to hear about them straight away (our legitimate interests; see above).
• Purchase records from Apple: to meet accounting and tax obligations.

Who we share data with

Buckhour sends nothing that identifies you to us. The only thing it sends to us is the anonymous usage counts above, to our own server, which Cloudflare runs for us as our processor. Apple provides the weather (WeatherKit), maps and search, distributes the app and processes payments, each under Apple's own privacy policy. If you email us, the message passes through Cloudflare (which routes mail for our domain) and our mailbox provider, as described in the company privacy policy. When Apple tells our server about a purchase, we send ourselves a one-line message through Pushover (Pushover, LLC, in the United States), which delivers it through Apple's push service; it carries only the app, what happened, the plan, the country of the App Store and the price, nothing about who you are. We do not sell personal data and do not share it with advertisers.

International transfers

The rounded stand locations go to Apple's services, which may process them outside your country under Apple's terms. The anonymous usage counts are stored in the European Union, which UK law treats as adequate. Cloudflare, Inc., which runs our server and routes our support email, is based in the United States and certified under the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework; our mailbox provider may store messages outside the UK, in which case we rely on the UK's adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. The one-line purchase message passes through Pushover, LLC and Apple in the United States; it contains no personal data.

How long we keep data

Data in the app stays on your device until you delete it: Settings → Delete All Stands and Sits removes every stand, sit and photo (and the saved forecasts, Past Novembers counts and medals), and deleting the app removes everything too. Saved forecasts are deleted after 3 days. The Past Novembers counts stay until you delete the stand or clear them in Settings → Clear Saved Forecasts. There is no copy on our side. Counts not yet sent are deleted when you turn the setting off; the daily totals on our server are deleted after 25 months, and our database's automatic backups keep earlier copies for up to 30 days. Support emails are kept for up to two years after the last message in the conversation, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to access, correct, or delete personal data we hold about you, to restrict or object to how we use it, or to receive a copy in a portable format. For Buckhour, the only personal data we could hold is a support email you sent us; everything else is on your device, where you can view and delete it yourself. The anonymous usage counts and the purchase totals from Apple's notifications cannot be linked to you, so we cannot find, show or delete yours (Article 11 of the UK GDPR); you can stop the usage counts at any time in Settings or under "Your Data" on the subscription screen, and you can object to either use (Article 21) by emailing us, in which case we weigh your objection against our reasons and, if it prevails, stop that processing for everyone. Email support@escapeplan.software and we will respond within one month. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Information Commission (the ICO) at ico.org.uk.

Children

Buckhour is a general-audience app. It is not directed at children under 13, it is not in the App Store's Kids category, and the app does not collect personal data from anyone (the anonymous usage counts are not personal data, and from Apple's purchase notifications we keep nothing that identifies a person). If you believe a child has sent us personal data by email, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we update the date at the top of this page. If a change materially affects how we use your data, the app will tell you the next time you open it.