Privacy
Effective 2 October 2026
Tidewalker has no accounts and asks for nothing about you. It keeps a little on your phone so your collection is still there next time, and it tells our server what you pick up so the beach can be shared.
What stays on your phone
- Your collection: which finds you kept, and the date you kept each one.
- A count of how many times you've played, and a few game settings.
- Copies of find models downloaded from our storage, so they don't download twice.
- A random player id (see below).
This is stored in the app's own storage. Deleting the app deletes it.
What the app sends to our server
The beach is shared, so the app talks to our game server while you play. It sends:
- A random player id, made on your phone the first time you play. It's a string of random characters; it isn't connected to your name, Apple ID, email, phone number or device identifiers.
- Which stretches of the beach you're near, so the server can tell you about finds there. These are places on the game's imaginary shore, not your real location. Tidewalker never asks for or uses your location.
- Finds you pick up, put back or keep, so they disappear for other players while you hold them and are gone for good if you keep them.
The server keeps the finds you kept, listed under your random id. Your connection's IP address reaches the server as part of any internet connection; it isn't stored with your id, and appears only in the server's short-lived logs.
Services involved
| Service | What for |
|---|---|
| Fly.io | Runs the game server (United States). |
| Upstash | The server's database: the shared beach and kept finds. |
| Amazon Web Services (S3) | Stores the 3D models of finds, which the app downloads. |
| Apple TestFlight | Delivers beta builds. If you choose to send feedback or crash reports through TestFlight, Apple shares them with us under its own terms. |
Each handles data under its own privacy terms. We don't sell or share data with anyone else.
What Tidewalker never collects
- Names, email addresses, phone numbers or contacts.
- Your location, photos, microphone or camera.
- Advertising identifiers. There are no ads, no analytics services and no tracking across apps or websites.
Children
Tidewalker isn't directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect personal information from them.
Your choices
Deleting the app removes everything on your phone and discards your random id, which breaks the link to anything recorded under it on the server. Because the id isn't connected to you, we can't look you up by name or email. If you have a question or a request about your data, write to jeff@seethroughlab.com.
Changes
If what the app collects changes, this page will change first, with a new date at the top.
See-through Lab LLC · jeff@seethroughlab.com