Effective June 7, 2026
AcreScope is a mobile app that shows locust activity from public data feeds and community sightings, and gives growers a location-aware risk score. This Privacy Policy explains what data the app collects, why, who processes it on our behalf, and what choices you have. It applies to the AcreScope iOS app and, where present, its web version.
The app is operated by Yuvraj Dhamija, an individual developer (the “developer”, “we”, “us”). For the purposes of the EU/UK GDPR and similar laws, the developer is the data controller.
| Category | Specific data | Purpose | Linked to you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Precise location (latitude / longitude from GPS, Wi-Fi, or cellular) and coarse / approximate location, obtained through the device operating system. | Show observations near you on the map, compute your personalized risk score, and decide whether to send you a push alert for a swarm within your notification radius. | Yes App Functionality |
| Identifiers | A Firebase Installations ID (a per-install identifier generated by Google’s SDK), a Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) push token, and, on iOS, an App Attest / DeviceCheck attestation token issued by Apple for abuse prevention (Google Play Integrity is the equivalent on Android). | Identify your installation so the app can sync your data, route push notifications to your device, and verify that requests to our backend come from a genuine, untampered copy of the app. | Yes App Functionality |
| User content | Community sighting submissions you create, consisting of structured fields (date, behaviour, maturity, location, etc.). No free-text fields and no photo uploads. Submissions are stored with the Installations ID of the submitter for moderation and abuse handling. | Display your sighting on the public map after review, allow moderation, and let us restrict abusive submitters. | Yes App Functionality |
| Diagnostics | Crash data (stack traces, breadcrumbs, device model, OS version, app version) via Firebase Crashlytics. Performance traces (app start time, screen transitions, network call timings) via Firebase Performance Monitoring. | Detect and fix bugs and performance regressions. | Yes App Functionality |
| Network metadata | IP address, request timestamps, and standard HTTP headers, observed by our backend and by service providers whenever your device makes a network request. | Operate, secure, and rate-limit our backend; required to route any internet request. | Yes App Functionality |
| Contact info | Your email address, only if you choose to email us for support. | Respond to your support message. | Yes App Support |
We want to be specific about this, because many apps in this category do collect these and we don’t.
Location is the core input to the app. When you grant the permission, your device’s operating system (Apple Core Location on iOS, Google Play Services Fused Location on Android, or the browser Geolocation API on the web) returns latitude / longitude to AcreScope.
registerPushDevice Cloud Function (running on Google Cloud Platform in us-central1), together with your Installations ID and FCM token, so that we can send you push alerts when a relevant locust observation appears near you.us-central1). Tile requests carry your IP address and the tile coordinates you are looking at, but no Installations ID, FCM token, or sighting content.You can revoke location permission at any time in your device settings (iOS: Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > AcreScope). If you revoke it, the map will still load, but the risk score, “sort by distance,” and nearby-push features will not work.
If you allow notifications, Firebase Cloud Messaging issues a push token for your installation. We store that token together with your most recent reported location and chosen notification radius, so our backend can decide whether to push you an alert about a swarm. Apple Push Notification Service relays the message to your iOS device; Google Mobile Services does the equivalent on Android.
You can turn off notifications at any time in your device settings or in-app. If you turn them off, we stop sending pushes; the token and last-known location used for push routing are deleted on your next interaction with the app or on your request.
AcreScope lets you submit a sighting using a set of structured fields. There are no free-text fields and no photo uploads. Each submission is stored with the Installations ID of the submitter, is reviewed by us before it appears on the public map, and is visible to other users with the location and structured fields you selected (but not with any identifier that ties it to you).
You can report another user’s sighting in-app. We may remove a sighting and/or restrict an installation from submitting further sightings if it violates these terms or applicable law. This complies with Apple’s App Review Guideline 1.2 for user-generated content.
The app uses Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Performance Monitoring to collect crash reports and performance traces. These are linked to a Firebase Installations ID, not to your name or email. The app uses Firebase App Check (backed by Apple App Attest / DeviceCheck on iOS and Google Play Integrity on Android, and Google reCAPTCHA v3 on the web) to verify that backend requests come from a genuine copy of the app. Apple, Google, and Google reCAPTCHA see hashed device or site signals as part of this attestation.
We use the following service providers to operate AcreScope. They process data on our behalf, under their own privacy and security commitments, and are not permitted to use your data for their own purposes.
| Provider | Role | Data they touch | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google LLC — Firebase & Google Cloud Platform (Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL / PostGIS, Cloud Pub/Sub, Secret Manager, Cloud Messaging, App Check, Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring, Installations) | Backend database, server-side compute, push delivery, crash/performance reporting, abuse-prevention attestation. | Installations ID, FCM token, location, sighting fields, crash and performance data, IP address. | United States (primary region us-central1) |
| Google LLC — Google Maps Platform | Renders the base map and, on the web shell, loads the Maps JavaScript API. | IP address and the current map viewport. No Installations ID, FCM token, or sighting content is sent to Maps. | United States |
| Apple Inc. — Apple Push Notification Service, App Attest, DeviceCheck | Delivers iOS push notifications; provides device attestation tokens used by App Check. | APNs token, hashed device signals. | United States |
| FAO Locust-Hub (informational, not a sub-processor) | Public source of official locust observations. Data flows from FAO to our backend, never the other way around. The app does not call FAO directly. We are not affiliated with FAO. | None of your data is sent to FAO. | Public service |
Our backend and all of the sub-processors above operate in the United States. If you use AcreScope from outside the United States — including the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Kenya, Nigeria, India, or anywhere else — your data is transferred to and processed in the United States.
For transfers from the EEA / UK, we rely on the Standard Contractual Clauses adopted by the European Commission (and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum where applicable), which our sub-processors (Google, Apple) make available to their customers. For transfers from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and similar jurisdictions, we rely on the equivalent transfer mechanisms permitted by local law.
If you are in the EEA or the UK, you have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict processing of, and port your personal data, and to object to processing. The legal bases on which we rely are: performance of a contract (operating the app you have installed), legitimate interests (security, abuse prevention, crash and performance debugging), and consent where required (location, push notifications). You may withdraw consent at any time without affecting prior processing. You may also lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we have collected, to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of any “sale” or “sharing” (we do neither). Precise geolocation is treated as sensitive personal information under California law; we use it only to provide the service you requested, which is one of the purposes for which sensitive personal information may be used without a separate right-to-limit signal under CPRA. We do not discriminate against users who exercise these rights.
Where local law (e.g. the Kenya Data Protection Act 2019, the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, South Africa’s POPIA, India’s DPDP Act 2023) grants you rights similar to those above, we honour those rights. Contact us at the address below.
AcreScope is intended for farmers, field teams, and adult users. It is not directed to children under 13 (or the equivalent age in your jurisdiction), and we do not knowingly collect personal data from such children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it.
We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards, including Firebase App Check attestation, Google Cloud Identity & Access Management, and Secret Manager for credentials. Locally-stored sensitive values use Apple Keychain on iOS and Android EncryptedSharedPreferences on Android. No system is 100% secure; if we become aware of a security incident affecting your data, we will notify affected users and regulators as required by law.
If we make material changes to this policy — for example, adding a new sub-processor, a new data category, or a new purpose — we will update this page and change the “Effective” date above. The App Store privacy labels will be updated in parallel.
AcreScope is operated by Yuvraj Dhamija (individual developer). For any privacy question or to exercise any right above, email AcreScopeApp@gmail.com with “AcreScope Privacy” in the subject line.