CottageSync helps families and co-owners share a cottage — the calendar, the costs and the upkeep. This policy explains what the app stores, who can see it, and what you can do about it.
The short version. Your data is stored so the people you share a property with can see it — that is the whole point of the app. It is not sold, not shared with anyone outside that circle, and not used for advertising. There is no ad-tracking SDK in the app. We do use Google Analytics for Firebase to learn which features are used — see the Analytics section below. You can export everything or delete your account from inside Settings.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your name, email address, and phone number (if you add one) | Collected when you sign in with Apple, Google, or email/password. Used to sign you in and let other family members recognize you. Phone number is optional, so co-owners can reach you. |
| The property's address and its coordinates | Geocoded to show the property's weather and, optionally, a 911 civic address for guests. Never your device's current location. |
| Stays, expenses, settlements, checklists, supplies, meal plans, guide content | The shared record your family uses. Visible to everyone who shares that property. |
| Documents and photos you upload to The Logbook | Kept for the property's records. Visible to the family members of that property. |
| Receipt scans | If you use receipt scanning, the image and its text are processed on your device — never uploaded to any cloud OCR service. |
| Crash reports | To find and fix crashes. Automatic capture only. |
| A push notification token per device | To send you the reminders you've switched on. Readable only by your own account. |
Google, through Firebase, provides sign-in, the database your family's data syncs through, file storage for The Logbook, the hosting for this page and your public Guest Hub page, and crash reporting.
Resend delivers the email we send you — address verification, password resets, invitations, and any notification you chose to receive by email. It receives the address the message goes to and the message itself; on an invitation, also the sender's name and their email address, so a reply reaches them rather than us. Resend is in the United States.
Apple WeatherKit supplies the conditions and short forecast the app shows. It receives the coordinates of the property's saved address and nothing else — never your device's own location.
All three process this on CottageSync's behalf and none uses it for advertising. See Firebase's privacy documentation and Resend's privacy policy.
We use Google Analytics for Firebase to understand which parts of the app people use, and which they never open. This tells us what to improve and what to remove.
What is collected: the names of the screens you open and when, your app version and general device type, your CottageSync account identifier, and an approximate location derived from your IP address. This is city-level at best and is not your device's location — CottageSync never requests location access.
What is not collected: we do not use the advertising identifier (IDFA), we show no advertising, and we do not combine this data with other companies' data or use it to track you across other apps and websites.
Where it is processed: Google processes this data as our service provider, on servers in the United States. This means analytics information about your use of the app is transferred outside Canada, where it may be accessible to US authorities under US law. Google's privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy.
How long it is kept: analytics events are retained for 14 months by Google Analytics, and for 730 days in our own analytics records. Two years lets us compare one cottage season against the next, which is the main question these records exist to answer.
If a family member publishes a Guest Hub page, that page is public to anyone with the link — that is what it is for. It contains the guide content, Wi-Fi details, house notes, emergency contacts, and local places they chose to publish. It never contains expenses, settlements, the calendar, or The Logbook — don't publish anything else there you wouldn't want a guest to see. A guest who opens the app through an invite can see the same guide content and can claim a dinner; they cannot see anything else.
Your data is kept while your account exists. Deleting your account removes it as described above. Files already uploaded to The Logbook are retained in storage but become unreachable — no account can open them again — because The Logbook is deliberately built so that no one co-owner can destroy the property's records.
Product analytics events are also retained as described in the Analytics section above — 14 months by Google Analytics and 730 days in our own records. These events record identifiers, never names, email addresses or anything you have written. They are the one record that outlives an account, and they cannot be traced back to you once the account is gone.
CottageSync is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Accounts are intended for adults sharing a property, and sign-in is not intended for use by minors.
If this policy changes in a material way, we'll update the date at the top of this page. Continued use of CottageSync after a change means you accept the updated policy.
Most of this policy is about the CottageSync app. This section is about the website you are reading it on.
The contact form. If you send us a message, the form opens your email app with your name, email address and the message filled in, addressed to hello@cottagesync.ca. We use it to reply to you and nothing else. It is not added to a mailing list and it is not shared with anyone.
Where it goes. Your message is sent directly to our inbox by your own email provider. We do not store your submission on any server or database.
How long we keep it. We keep messages in our inbox for as long as we need them to deal with your enquiry, and delete them once the conversation is finished.
Analytics. This site has none. There is no Google Analytics, no advertising pixel, and no third-party tracking script of any kind.
Fonts. Page fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means Google receives your IP address and browser details in order to serve them. That is the only third-party request the site makes.
Your choices. To ask what we hold about you, or to have it deleted, email hello@cottagesync.ca.
Questions about this policy, or about your data: hello@cottagesync.ca.