Captain's Log Privacy Policy

01Who we are

Captain's Log is built and operated by Traffic Ventures Inc., a corporation registered in Ontario, Canada. We are the party responsible for the personal information described here, and we are accountable for it under Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

In this policy, "the app" means the Captain's Log mobile and web application, "we" means Traffic Ventures Inc., and "you" means the person using the app.

02What we collect

Everything below is information you enter or generate by using the app. We do not buy data about you, and we do not collect anything from other apps on your device.

The app works offline. Your log is written to a database on the device first and synced to our server when you have a signal, which is why much of the table above lives in both places.

What we do not collect

No advertising identifiers. No third-party analytics or tracking software. No contacts, photos, microphone or health data. We do not use your data to train machine-learning models.

03Location data

The app asks for location permission because a fishing log without positions is not a fishing log. Here is precisely what that permission does.

While you are logging, the app reads your GPS position to drop waypoints, mark buoy strings, and draw your boat on the chart. Those positions are saved to your log, which is yours.

The app also requests background location on iOS. This is so your position keeps updating while the screen is off or you are in another app during a haul — a phone in a pocket on a moving boat would otherwise lose the plot. It is used for the same purposes as foreground location and nothing else.

You can withdraw location permission at any time in your device settings. The app will keep working — you will simply have to enter positions by hand.

04Sharing with other captains

Fishing positions are commercially sensitive, and we treat them that way.

Sharing is off until you turn it on. By default no other user can see your waypoints, your catch records or your vessel position. When you add a buddy or join a fleet, you choose what becomes visible, and you can revoke it at any time — after which they stop seeing new data immediately.

Access is enforced on our server by row-level security rules in the database itself, not merely hidden in the app. A request for another captain's data comes back empty unless that captain has granted it.

Please bear in mind that anything you knowingly share with another captain can be read, written down or repeated by them. We can control access; we cannot control what someone does with what they have already been shown.

05Who else sees it

We do not sell personal information, and we do not disclose it for advertising. We share it only with the service providers below, and only so the app can function.

Our hosting provider

Our database, authentication and document storage run on Supabase, which hosts on Amazon Web Services in Canada (see where it is stored). They process data on our instructions and have no right to use it for their own purposes.

Chart and tide services

To draw the chart under your boat, the app requests map tiles from OpenStreetMap, OpenSeaMap and CARTO, depth and hydrographic data from the Canadian Hydrographic Service, and spatial layers from Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

When the law requires it

We will disclose information if we are compelled to by a valid legal order, or where disclosure is necessary to protect someone's safety. If that ever happens we will tell you, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

If the business changes hands

If Traffic Ventures Inc. is sold or merged, your information may transfer to the new owner. They would be bound by this policy, and we would give you notice and a chance to export or delete your data first.

06Reporting to DFO

Captain's Log is being developed to submit electronic logbook returns to Fisheries and Oceans Canada on your behalf, as a qualified third-party service provider.

If and when you use that feature, the catch, effort and landing information required by your licence conditions is transmitted to DFO under your fisher identification. That submission is a legal obligation of your licence, not something we decide — and we send only the fields the applicable logbook requires.

You will always be told what is being submitted and asked to confirm it before it is sent. Nothing is reported to DFO from your log without that confirmation.

07Where it is stored

Data is held on servers in Canada — Amazon Web Services' Canada Central region, in Montréal — and is subject to Canadian law. This has been the case since 25 August 2026.

Everything moved together: your log, trip and catch records, your account and password, the marks you share with your fleet, and the boat documents you have uploaded.

The United States database we previously used was deleted on 27 August 2026. We no longer operate any service, or hold any account of yours, on United States infrastructure.

08How long we keep it

Your log is a business record, and in most fisheries a legally required one, so we keep it for as long as your account is open. We do not quietly expire your history.

• Log, trip and catch records — kept while your account is open, and for seven years after closure where fishery record-keeping rules require it.
• Vessel position — only the most recent fix is stored, and it is replaced each time a new one arrives.
• Boat documents — kept until you delete them, or until your account is closed.
• Messages — kept until you or the recipient delete them, or the account is closed.
• Anonymous heat-map contributions — retained indefinitely, because they contain nothing that identifies anyone.

When you close your account we delete your personal data within 30 days, apart from anything we are legally required to retain for the period above.

09Your rights

Under PIPEDA and comparable provincial law you may:

• See what we hold — request a copy of your personal information and an account of who it has been disclosed to.
• Correct it — have anything inaccurate or incomplete fixed.
• Take it with you — get your full log in an open, machine-readable format. This is yours by right, and it is not conditional on why you want it.
• Delete it — have your account and data erased, subject only to records we must retain by law.
• Withdraw consent — including turning off location or sharing, at any time.
• Complain — to us, and to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca if we have not put it right.

Write to the address in section 13 and we will respond within 30 days, at no cost to you.

10Security

Everything travels over encrypted connections (TLS), and is encrypted at rest on our servers. Access between accounts is enforced by row-level security in the database, so the rules hold even if a flaw appeared in the app. Uploaded boat documents sit in a private store that is not reachable by a public link. We take daily backups with point-in-time recovery.

We should be straight with you about two limits. Messages between captains are encrypted in transit and at rest, but not end-to-end — meaning we hold the keys and could in principle read them, though we do not. And no system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your information, we will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.

11Children

Captain's Log is a tool for licensed commercial fish harvesters and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

12Changes

We will update this policy as the app changes — the DFO reporting feature is expected to prompt a revision. The effective date at the top always reflects the current version.

This version records the move to Canadian hosting, completed 25 August 2026, and the deletion of the previous United States database on 27 August 2026.

If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect, rather than quietly amending this page.

13Contact us

For any privacy question, an access or deletion request, or a complaint, reach our Privacy Officer: