Your records and your choices

Private account records

Sign in with ChatGPT to create your equipment locker and save hunts and finds. The site receives an account identifier and email from its host. Equipment, hunt details, and breadcrumb coordinates are account-private. The member feed does not include account identifiers, email addresses, exact coordinates or private hunt links.

Sharing

Finds start private. Sharing a find publishes its title, notes, photo, display name and any ZIP you entered to signed-in SSL members. Photo location metadata is removed during upload, but visible details and written notes can still reveal a location. You can make a shared find private or delete it from My records. Other people may already have copied public content.

Area broadcasting is separate and optional: your display name and manually entered US ZIP are shown to signed-in members for 30 minutes, or until you stop sharing. There is no public exact-position broadcast.

Equipment reviews

Publishing an equipment review makes its written text, optional star rating, chosen public name and dates visible to everyone on that model’s equipment listing. Your account identifier and email stay private. A saved locker entry establishes self-reported ownership, not verified purchase or SSL certification. You can edit or remove your reviews in your locker, including reviews of equipment you later remove from it. Removing equipment alone does not remove a published review. Other visitors may have copied public content.

Leaderboard and comments

Leaderboard participation is off until you choose it. Joining shows your display name and activity totals to signed-in members, including the number of private finds, without exposing their contents. Hours count visible, signed-in use. Steps and contribution quantities are self-reported. Signed-in members can comment on public finds and delete their own comments. The find owner can remove the find and its discussion.

Device storage and uploads

Queued photos, find details, contributions and breadcrumb points are held in this browser until the server confirms them. These queues are scoped to the signed-in account. Keep this device secure; clearing browser data can erase unsent records. Full offline reopening and background operation are not available in this beta.

Maps

Private location recording starts automatically when you start or reopen an active hunt and requests your browser permission. Hiding the trail or closing the map only changes its display; Finish hunt ends tracking. Browser GPS may stop while the page is hidden, closed or the screen locks. Returning to an active hunt reconnects tracking; missed positions cannot be recovered. Map backgrounds load only when selected. OpenStreetMap receives requests that reveal the viewed map area, IP address, browser information and site origin. Read the OpenStreetMap privacy policy. You can record a private route without loading the map background.

Find my location takes a single position to check regional guidance on this device. It does not publish your position or start breadcrumbs. State and restriction matching uses locally loaded boundary data; it does not send your GPS position to a geocoder. During active-hunt breadcrumb recording, the same local check runs as positions arrive. Directions links send the selected public venue address to the mapping provider.

Website visitor measurement

Public reference pages use Google Analytics to count page visits and clicks on selected public account-setup links. These clicks measure interest, not completed registration or private tool activity. Analytics may store first-party cookies and receives your IP address and browser information. The page information we send contains a public path without query strings or fragments. We do not send private account records, hunt routes, photos, form contents or account identifiers to Analytics. Private member pages are excluded, advertising features are disabled, and this integration respects Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. Read Google’s privacy policy.

Detecting assistance requests

Drafts are private to their requester. Deliberately published requests, their descriptions and optional processed photos are visible only to signed-in members. Map positions are rounded server-side to 0.02-degree steps before storage; distances are approximate. Do not type private addresses or contact details or include identifying details in photos. Assistance JPEGs have application and comment metadata, including EXIF, removed. Exact addresses and contact fields are not collected by the request form. Private replies are visible only to the requester and the helper in that conversation. Closing or withdrawing removes the request from nearby results; deleting removes its request and conversations and revokes photo access. Object cleanup can lag when storage is unavailable. Previously copied content cannot be recalled.

The nearby viewer’s selected center stays in this browser. Use my location takes one position only after your click, with a manual alternative. Optional map backgrounds send the viewed area to OpenStreetMap. There are no help-request emails, alerts or background tracking.

Scout marks, waypoints and field cards

Car, equipment and dropped-pin coordinates are private to your account. Waypoints and generated field-card sets are also cached in this browser and queued for account saving when connected. Your framed-find choices remain on this device. Dedicated waypoint and bookshelf deletion controls are not yet available. Direct guidance uses GPS while this page is open; browser suspension can interrupt it.

Loading US weather sends your coordinates, rounded to two decimal places, through SSL to the National Weather Service. This happens only when you request a forecast. Cached forecasts show their retrieval time and are not continuous warning monitoring.

Optional field comparisons

Field reports start private. A separate research checkbox lets signed-in SSL members compare your selected target identity, exact detector and coil, target-match confidence, recorded VDI and depth, ground conditions, and the named equipment-setting fields. Your name, account identifier, exact location, photos, coin details, find notes and the freeform Other settings field are excluded from this comparison. Do not put personal details in shared setting fields. Turning research sharing off or deleting the find removes it from future comparisons; previously copied results cannot be recalled. These observations stay labeled self-reported and do not become SSL verified tests.

Retention and deletion

Saved records remain in the application database until deleted. Finds and contribution counts can be deleted in My records; equipment can be removed from the locker. Uploaded images that are no longer linked to a find are inaccessible to public visitors but may remain stored. Full account and photo-storage erasure controls are not yet available.

Research and external websites

No account records, private coordinates or photos are exported to manufacturers, marketing partners or AI training by this release. Submitting an unlisted model is a separate option that adds the equipment identity to a pending catalog-review queue. External manufacturer and shop websites have their own policies. Hosting services may retain ordinary access logs. Existing private-development storage is not imported or changed.

Club registration

Club submissions are saved with your signed-in account and stay pending until their public sources are reviewed. You can see and withdraw your own pending submissions. Review notes are private. Approved club names, public websites and meeting information may appear in the directory; email and phone are published only when separately approved on the form. Do not submit personal home addresses or private detecting locations.