Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what Wildlife Connects, LLC (“Wildlife Connects”, “we”, “us”) collects when you use the Wildlife Connects platform, why we collect it, who we share it with, and what you can do about it. It applies to every website and application we operate, including those branded for a partner organization.

1. Two roles — ours and the organization’s

Much of the information in the platform is there because an organization put it there, or asked you for it, in order to run its program. For that information the organization decides what is collected and why, and we handle it on the organization’s behalf under our agreement with them.

For your account itself — your login, and how you use the platform — we decide, and this policy governs. If you want information changed or removed from an organization’s program records, ask that organization; ask us and we will help route the request.

2. What we collect

When you register

Your name, email address, phone number, and password (stored as a cryptographic hash — we never store or see your actual password), along with the organization and program you are joining and any member number you supply.

Your profile

Programs use profile information to place you, to confirm eligibility, and to run events safely. Depending on the program, this can include: mailing address, city, state, ZIP code and county; date of birth; gender; race or ethnicity; veteran status; whether you are employed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department; hunting license number and expiration date; hunter education certificate; shirt size and type; food allergies; how far you are willing to travel; and social media handles.

Some of that is more sensitive than the rest, and it is worth saying plainly why it is asked for. Demographic fields — race, gender, veteran status — and date of birth are collected because the programs on this platform report participation to funders, agencies and grant-makers, and because some programs are age-restricted. Food allergies exist so an event does not feed you something dangerous. Optional fields can be left blank.

Program activity

Hunt applications and their outcomes; harvest records including species, category, date, and the property and county where the animal was taken; measurements and calculated scores; scoring requests and their logistics; scorer accreditations and certification numbers; and your roles and memberships within an organization.

Property information

Where you record a property: its name, description, acreage, county, location and photographs.

Files you upload

Harvest photographs, property photographs, hunter education certificates, hunting license images, and proof of membership.

Collected automatically

IP address, browser and device information, the pages you request and when — ordinary server logs used to operate and secure the service. We use cookies that are necessary for sign-in, security and remembering your preferences. We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not sell advertising.

3. Photographs and images

Images get their own section, because of what they can carry.

• A photograph may contain more than its subject — other people’s faces, a vehicle plate, an identifying landmark, or location data embedded by the camera.
• Harvest and property photographs are shared with the people described in section 5, and may appear on public leaderboards, score boards and showcase pages that anyone can view without an account.
• Identity and eligibility documents — licenses, certificates, proof of membership — are never made public, are never used for promotion, and are visible only to the organization’s administrators and to us where we need them for support.
• We may use harvest and property images to promote the platform and the programs it supports, as described in the Terms of Service. You can object at any time and we will stop.
• Images that form part of a scoring or awards record are retained as part of that record, as described in section 7.

If you do not want something to appear in a photograph, crop it before uploading.

4. Why we use this information

• To create and secure your account, and to sign you in.
• To let the organizations you belong to administer your participation in their programs.
• To record, calculate, review and certify harvest scores, and to route entries to scorers and awards programs.
• To help you find a certified scorer near you.
• To send transactional email — confirmations, password resets, notices about entries.
• To operate, secure, debug and improve the platform, and to prevent fraud and abuse.
• To comply with law and respond to lawful requests, as described in section 6.

5. Who we share it with

• The organization whose account you belong to, and its administrators.
• Certified scorers and program officials, for the entries they handle.
• Landowners, for activity recorded on their property.
• Awards programs, when an entry is submitted to them.
• Service providers, strictly to provide the platform: Heroku (application hosting and database), Cloudflare (file storage and network delivery), Postmark (transactional email), Mapbox (maps), and Google (only if you choose to sign in with a Google account).
• Government agencies and law enforcement — see section 6.
• A successor, if Wildlife Connects is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. We will give notice before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

6. Government, law enforcement and legal process

We will disclose your information — including photographs, uploaded documents, harvest records, license numbers and property locations — where we are required or permitted to by law. That includes:

• responding to a subpoena, court order, search warrant or other valid legal process;
• responding to a lawful demand from a wildlife or natural resources authority — for example the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, a game warden, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — or from law enforcement acting under valid legal authority; and
• disclosing where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to prevent or investigate a serious crime, to protect someone’s safety, or to protect our legal rights.

We review each demand, we require that it be valid and properly issued, and we disclose only what it actually covers. Where the law allows it, and where notice would not defeat the purpose of the request or risk harm to someone, we will make a reasonable effort to tell you before we disclose.

7. Where information is held, and for how long

Information is stored and processed in the United States.

• Account information is kept while your account is open, and for a limited period afterwards as needed for legal, security and accounting purposes.
• Program records — harvests, scores and the images supporting them — are the organization’s record of its program, and are kept for as long as that organization keeps them. An accepted awards entry is a historical record and may be kept indefinitely.
• Server logs are kept for a limited period for security and troubleshooting.

8. Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Passwords are hashed, never stored in readable form. Uploaded files are held in access-controlled storage. The platform separates each organization’s data so that one organization cannot read another’s, and limits what each role can see within an organization. Two-factor authentication is available on your account — we recommend turning it on.

No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Your choices and your rights

You can view and correct most of your information from your profile at any time. You can also ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete it, by writing to team@wildlifeconnects.com. We will verify who you are before acting on a request.

Texas residents have rights under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, including the right to confirm whether we process your personal data, to obtain a copy of it, to correct it, to delete it, and to appeal if we decline a request. If we decline, we will tell you how to appeal.

Where a request concerns records that belong to an organization’s program, we will route it to that organization, since the decision is theirs to make.

We send very little marketing email; where we do, it carries an unsubscribe link. Transactional email — password resets, confirmations, notices about your entries — cannot be switched off while your account is open, because it is how the platform tells you things you need to know.

10. Children

The platform is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Where a youth program includes minors, they are enrolled by a parent, legal guardian, or the organization running the program. If you believe a child has provided us information directly, write to team@wildlifeconnects.com and we will remove it.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. When we make a material change we will update the “last updated” date on this page and, where the change affects your rights, ask you to review it the next time you sign in.

12. Contact

Wildlife Connects, LLC
team@wildlifeconnects.com