How Crownboard treats your hive record

The short version: what you record at the hives stays on your iPhone and, if you use iCloud, in a private iCloud database that belongs to you. The developer is sent none of it and has no way to look at it.

What goes into a visit

Crownboard holds only what you tap or type in. That covers apiaries, with a name and whatever note you add about where they are; hives, with their style, the colour of the queen's mark, her source and the day she went in, and the equipment on them; each dated visit, with the queen, egg, brood and queen-cell observations, temperament, strength, frame counts, the work done, conditions and notes, and any varroa count together with its method and sample size; photographs and their captions; the reason and date of any archived hive; the reminders you write; and the app's own settings, such as whether the lock is on.

None of this identifies you to the developer. Crownboard has no sign-up and asks for no name or email address. It never reads your location: an apiary's whereabouts is only ever the text you write for it.

Where the record sits

The record is written to a database that lives on the iPhone, in space only Crownboard uses. When that iPhone is signed in to iCloud, the app also keeps the record in the private CloudKit database of your Apple Account, which is how each iPhone using that Apple Account shows the same apiaries, hives, visits and pictures. Apple hosts that database. The developer has no access to it, holds no copy of it, and operates no server of any kind. The app has no feature for giving a record to another person, and it writes nothing to a public or shared database.

If the iPhone is not signed in to iCloud, or iCloud is switched off for Crownboard in iOS Settings, the app records on that iPhone alone and carries on working. What happens to records already on an iPhone when its Apple Account signs out or is changed is handled by iOS rather than by Crownboard, so make an export before doing either.

iOS can also include the app's data in the device backups you have set up; Apple describes how iCloud Backup works.

What iOS asks for, and when

Camera. Requested at the moment you first take a photograph, from Take a photo inside a visit or Photo only on a hive. Declining it leaves everything else working.

Photo library. Adding a picture from your library goes through the system picker, which passes the app only the pictures you choose and needs no permission. Keep a copy in Photos asks for add-only access, which lets the app place that picture in your library and does not let it browse the library.

Notifications. Requested when you write a reminder or turn on the optional backup reminder. Both are scheduled on the iPhone itself.

Face ID, Touch ID or passcode. Used only if you turn on the optional lock, which starts switched off. In Settings its switch reads "Shut the yard when the app is put away". Turning it on asks for the check straight away, and from then on the yard is shut every time the app goes to the background, covering whichever screen was open. iOS runs the check, and Crownboard learns only whether it passed.

The app never asks for location, contacts or health data.

What leaves the phone, and only when you send it

Crownboard collects nothing about you or your use of it. There is no analytics code in it, no advertising, and nothing that tracks or attributes, and it does not report to the developer.

A file leaves the app only when you make it and pick its destination: the CSV of every inspection, the full JSON backup with its photographs, or a PDF of one visit or of a hive's whole history through "Share or print history" on the hive's menu. Each goes to the iOS share sheet. The working copy is deleted as soon as sharing finishes or is cancelled. What you send is unencrypted wherever it lands, and none of it reaches the developer.

The optional purchase that raises the two-hive limit goes through the App Store, which keeps it on your Apple Account. The developer never sees card details, a billing address or your Apple Account. What Apple gives him is aggregate sales and crash counts for the app, which name nobody.

Ending a record

Any record can be changed with Edit, or removed from the screen that shows it. A removal takes effect at once, and the app has no undo for it. When a colony has ended but its history still matters, archive the hive instead and every visit stays.

Removing Crownboard from the iPhone removes its local database. A copy in your private iCloud database stays until you delete it from your Apple Account's iCloud storage in iOS Settings, and device backups keep whatever your own settings keep.

The developer stores nothing, so there is nothing for him to retain, release or erase on request, and nothing he could recover for you. Your own exports are the way back to a lost record.

Privacy law, when the developer holds nothing

The EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act give you rights over personal data that someone holds about you: to see it, to correct it, to have it erased and to object to its use. Crownboard passes no personal data to the developer, so he has nothing from the app to show you, correct or erase, and he sells and shares none. The app carries no third-party code and hands your records to no third party.

Those rights still reach the places your data really is. Inside the app you read, edit and delete every record yourself. Your Apple Account, your iCloud storage and your App Store purchases are Apple's to answer for, under Apple's Privacy Policy. Any permission you granted, whether the camera, notifications, Face ID or add-only photo access, can be withdrawn at any time in iOS Settings, and the app stops using it from that moment.

An email to the developer does reach him, with your address. He uses it only to reply, puts it on no list, and deletes it when you ask. In the EU or the UK you may also complain to the supervisory authority for data protection where you live.

Who the app is for

Crownboard is made for beekeepers keeping their own records. Children are not its audience, and it gathers no personal data from anyone of any age.

When this policy is revised

Any revision changes the date printed under this page's heading, and the matching wording goes into the copy that travels inside the app with the next release.

Asking about your record

Crownboard is made by Aleksei Bukhalov, an individual developer. Send questions about this policy or about your records to alex@bukhalov.com, with Crownboard in the subject. Use of the app is governed by Apple's Standard End User License Agreement.