Privacy notice

Who we are

WindChaser is run by Zenoo Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 11093114. Our registered office is c/o Azets, Westpoint, Lynch Wood, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE2 6FZ, United Kingdom. We decide how personal data on windchaser.ai and in the WindChaser app for iPhone is used, which makes us the controller under UK data protection law.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZA730354. We have not appointed a data protection officer. For anything in this notice, write to privacy@windchaser.ai.

The short version

• WindChaser is free, and you can use it without an account.
• We do not sell personal data, we run no advertising, and we do not track you across other websites.
• We set no cookies for visitors. What the site keeps in your browser is there because you asked for it, such as a saved spot, your theme or your sign-in.
• The iPhone app has no account. Your saved spots and your location stay on your phone, as set out under If you use the iPhone app.
• If you sign in, we keep your email address and what you choose to add to your account.
• If you suggest a change to a spot page, no other rider sees your suggestion, and a person at WindChaser decides whether the page changes.
• Our suppliers include companies in the United States, so some data leaves the UK. How it is protected is set out below.

When you browse

Like any website, ours receives your IP address and basic browser details with every request. Our host, Vercel, records these in request logs, which we use to keep the site running and secure.

Some parts of a page are loaded from other services, so your browser also sends your IP address and browser details to them:

• Google Fonts, for the typeface on every page.
• unpkg, a public code delivery network, for the map stylesheet.
• Unsplash, for photos on the home page.
• CARTO and Esri, for map tiles when a map is shown. They also learn which area of the map you are looking at.
• Mapbox, for the satellite and street map on spot pages. It also learns which area of the map you are looking at.

Spot information on the site (spot descriptions, tips, points of interest, climate and wind figures, forecasts) is about places, not people, except for the local businesses we list, which are covered under If we list your business. Photos of local businesses credited to Google Places are fetched by our server, so your browser does not contact Google for them and nothing about you is sent.

Analytics, and why there is no cookie banner

To understand how the site is used, we run PostHog and Ahrefs Web Analytics. We do not use Google Analytics.

PostHog receives the pages you view, the website that sent you, your browser and device type, and which links and buttons you use. It also receives your IP address, which it uses to estimate your country and city. The requests go through our own address (windchaser.ai/ingest) to PostHog's EU cloud in Frankfurt. We have set PostHog to keep everything in memory only: it sets no cookie and stores nothing on your device, so one visit cannot be linked to the next. It builds no profile of you, records no screen sessions, and is never sent your email address, even when you are signed in. If something on a page goes wrong in your browser, PostHog also receives the error message and where in our code it happened, with every web address in it cut back to its path and any email address removed.

Ahrefs Web Analytics counts visits. Your browser loads its script from Ahrefs and sends it the page, the website that sent you and your screen size, along with your IP address. It sets no cookie and stores nothing on your device.

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, none of this loads and the site works exactly the same. That is also the simplest way to object to analytics; you can object by email too.

We do not show a cookie consent banner because we do not need to ask. The law requires consent before a site stores information on your device, or reads it, unless that is strictly necessary for something you have asked for. Everything the site stores in your browser is of that kind: a setting you chose, something you saved, or your sign-in. The analytics described above store nothing on your device. If that ever changes, this page changes first, and we will ask for your consent before anything non-essential is stored.

What the site keeps in your browser

The site uses your browser's local storage and session storage, which stay on your device. We cannot read them from our servers, and clearing your browser data removes them. Session storage is also removed when you close the tab. The local storage keys are:

• wc-theme: the light or dark theme you chose.
• wc-locale: the language you chose.
• wc-web-saved: spots saved in your browser by an earlier version of the site. Spots you save now are kept on your account, not in your browser. A few pages still read this list, and if you are signed in they copy any spots in it to your account.
• wc-web-saved-search: the last spot-finder search you saved (sport, month, water, level).
• wc-compare: the spots you added to Compare (up to four), by the name in their page address.
• wc_auth_redirect: a page to return to after signing in. It is deleted as soon as it is used.
• windchaser-profile: a riding profile (sports, skill, riding style, and a home area if you gave one) that an earlier version of the site stored when you filled it in. If it is there when you sign in, we copy your sports and skill levels to your account once, and record that we did so under windchaser-profile-migrated followed by your email address.
• sb-…-auth-token: your sign-in session, kept by our sign-in provider's code when you sign in. It is removed when you sign out. (Its full name is sb-, our project's reference, then -auth-token.)
• sb-…-auth-token-code-verifier: a one-time value, kept by our sign-in provider's code while a sign-in by email, Apple or Google is in progress. It proves that the sign-in was started in this browser, and it is removed when the sign-in finishes or you sign out. If you start a sign-in and do not finish it, it stays until you next sign in or sign out.

The session storage keys are:

• wc-fb-resend: followed by the spot's name as it appears in the page address: a suggestion you have written but not yet sent, kept while you sign in so that it is not lost if signing in takes you away from the page. It holds the part of the page you commented on, your answer, your note (up to 280 characters), anything you said was missing (up to 500 characters) and when it was kept. It is deleted when you send the suggestion or leave the mode for suggesting changes, it is not used after 30 minutes, and it is removed when you close the tab. It is not sent to us until you send the suggestion.
• wc-signed-in: after you sign in from the link in our email, a note of the spot page the link opens and the time, so that page can show which account you are signed in to. It does not hold your email address. It is deleted when that page reads it, it is not used after one minute, and it is removed when you close the tab.
• wc-site-filters: the filters you chose when finding spots (sport, month, level, region, sort order, your search text and the cards or chart view), so they stay the same as you move between pages.
• wc-site-toast: a short message for the next page you open, "Signed out", or "Signed in as" with your email address shortened to its first letter and its domain. It is deleted when that page shows it.
• wc-pending-save: the spot you tapped the heart on before signing in with Apple or Google, which takes you away from the site, so it can be saved to your account when you come back. It is deleted once the spot is saved, or if that sign-in cannot start.

The site sets no cookies for visitors. The one cookie in the code, wc_admin, signs our own staff in to internal pages for 12 hours. You will never receive it.

If you use the iPhone app

The WindChaser app for iPhone has no account and no sign-in. It contains no analytics, advertising or tracking software, and it does not track you across other companies' apps or websites.

• Spots you save, and the months you mark with a heart, are kept on your phone only. They are never sent to us. Deleting the app deletes them.
• If you allow it, the app uses your phone's location to show how far each spot is from you and to answer the planner's question about how far you will travel. Your location is used on your phone only: the app never stores it and never sends it to us or anyone else. The app works without it, and you can turn it off at any time in your iPhone's Settings.
• The app requests spot information, forecasts and photos from our servers. Each request names only the spots or the sport it asks about. As with the website, our servers receive your IP address and basic details of your device with each request and keep them in request logs.
• The map in the app is Apple Maps. Apple receives your IP address and the area of the map you view, under its own privacy notice.
• When you share a spot, your phone's share sheet sends it only where you choose. Links to our website open in your browser, where the rest of this notice applies.
• If you test a pre-release version through Apple's TestFlight, Apple shares with us your tester details and any feedback, screenshots and crash reports you choose to send. If you have chosen in your iPhone's settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may also give us crash reports and usage figures for the app that do not identify you.

If you sign in

Signing in is optional. You can sign in in these ways, which are the options on our sign-in page:

• Email. You give us your email address and we send you one email with a sign-in link and a 6-digit code. Tap the link or type the code: either works once, for 15 minutes. Supabase, our sign-in provider, sends it from our windchaser.ai address through Postmark. Asking for the email creates your account with Supabase, holding your email address, even if you never use the link or the code. A weekly job deletes an account that is never confirmed in this way after 7 days, unless it holds a report, a waitlist request or a suggestion.
• Continue with Apple. Apple confirms who you are and tells us your email address, or a private relay address if you choose to hide yours. Apple may also share your name.
• Continue with Google. Google confirms who you are and tells us your email address and the name on your Google account.
• Use phone number instead. This option appears only when phone sign-in is switched on in our sign-in service. It is switched off, so the option is not shown and we keep no phone number.

Apple and Google appear on the sign-in page when they are switched on in our sign-in service. Their own privacy notices cover what they do.

When you first sign in, we create an account record holding your email address. We never make a name out of your email address, and your profile starts private. Your browser then holds a sign-in session (described above). We use your email address to sign you in and to send you what you ask for. We do not add you to a mailing list.

Before we send a sign-in email, Cloudflare Turnstile checks that the request comes from a person and not an automated script. Your browser loads the check on the sign-in form, and Cloudflare receives your IP address and details about your browser and device. Most people never see it.

If you ask us to email you a report

On a spot report you can ask us to email it to you. You give us your email address and tick a box to agree. We send one email from our windchaser.ai address through Postmark, with a link to the report and no attachment. We record your email address, the spot, the wording you agreed to, whether you also asked for the monthly email, and the time. We delete that record 30 days after your request.

A second box, unticked unless you tick it, asks for the monthly WindChaser email. If you tick it, we keep your email address for that until you ask us to stop by emailing privacy@windchaser.ai. If you leave it unticked, you do not receive it.

Cloudflare Turnstile checks the request, as on our sign-in form. To stop the form being used to send many emails, we also keep a keyed hash of your IP address for 24 hours. It cannot be turned back into the address.

What you can add to your account

Only if you choose to, you can add or use:

• A profile: display name, country, a short bio and a photo. Your profile is not shown to other riders. A profile photo you upload is stored at a public link: anyone who has the link can open it.
• Saved searches: a name and the search settings, so you can run the search again.

If we invite you to review a spot guide

We sometimes ask local riders and instructors to check the facts on a spot page, using a personal link. We hold your name and role against that link. When you use it, we record your answer to each fact (right, wrong or out of date), any correction you type, and anything you add. We use this to correct the guide.

If you suggest a change

When you are signed in, you can suggest a change to a spot page or its map. We store your account ID, how you signed in, the spot, the part of the page or the map pin you commented on and what it showed, your answer, any note you write, and for a map pin its type, name, the position you marked and why we can trust it (that you saw it yourself and roughly when you last rode there, or a link you give us). We also store the sport and month you were looking at, whether you used a phone or a computer, the version of the page and the version of our terms.

No other rider sees your suggestion, and a pin you suggest is shown only to you until we have checked it. We never show your name or email with a suggestion, and when a page changes we write the new wording ourselves.

If we accept a map pin you suggested, it appears on the spot map for everyone at the position you marked, with the words "Added by a local rider" and the month it was added. Your name, email and account are never shown with it.

If you use "I'm here" to place a pin, your browser asks your permission, then gives the page your device's current location and how accurate it is. We use it only to place that one pin. We store the position as the pin's position in your suggestion, and a note that it was placed with your device's location and to what accuracy in metres. We do not store where you were at any other time, we do not track your location, and nothing is kept if you do not send the pin. You can turn location off in your browser at any time and place the pin by hand instead.

If you tap "Still here" on a pin, we store your account ID, the spot, the pin and when you tapped, so that each rider counts once. The map shows only the total, for example "Confirmed by 3 riders", never who. We keep these for 400 days, and you can ask us to delete them. Tapping "Gone" sends a suggestion like any other.

We check each suggestion before a page or its map changes, against another source where there is one. While checking, we may describe the reported issue, never who reported it, to the harbour, council, club or business concerned. We use automated tools, including AI provided by Anthropic, to compare suggestions with sources, and a person at WindChaser decides. If a suggestion needs checking, we may email you.

You can withdraw a suggestion while it waits, ask us to delete your suggestions at any time, and object to this use by emailing privacy@windchaser.ai. If we block an account for misuse, we keep a keyed hash of its email address and of each sign-in ID linked to it (Apple, Google or email), scrambled with a secret key held on our server. We never keep the email address itself for a block. We keep these for as long as the block lasts and 12 months after, even if the account is deleted, so that the block still applies to a new account. You must be 13 or over to sign in or send a suggestion.

To apply the limits on how many suggestions an account can send, we keep a separate record of each suggestion you send, change or restore: a keyed hash of your account ID (scrambled with a secret key held on our server), the spot, the kind of suggestion and the hour. It holds nothing you wrote. We keep it for 2 days, including after you delete your suggestions, so that deleting them does not reset the limits. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in preventing abuse of those limits.

If you ask a school or shop for a lesson or kit hire

On some spot pages you can ask a school or kit hire shop that has signed up with us for one lesson or hire. You need to be signed in. We record your account, your email address, the spot, the school or shop, what you asked for (the service, day, start time and number of people), any note you add, and a fingerprint of the summary you agreed to send. We email the school or shop your request and your note, but not your email address. If they confirm, we email you their contact details, and we show them your email address so they can reach you about it.

We use these details to pass on your request and their answer, to provide the service you asked for (Article 6(1)(b)). We send these emails from our windchaser.ai address through Postmark. We take no payment: you pay the school or shop directly, and once they have your details they are responsible for how they use them.

When you send a lesson or kit request to a school that takes requests on WhatsApp, we send your request (the service, date, time, number of people and your note, not your email address) to the school through WhatsApp, which Meta runs.

We delete a request two years after the day it was for. You can ask us to delete it sooner by emailing privacy@windchaser.ai.

If we list your business

Our spot guides list schools, kit hire, shops and places to stay. For each, we keep the business name, what it offers and the contact details it publishes, taken from its own website or public business listings. Where a published address names a person, that address is personal data.

We use these details to tell a business it is listed, to ask it to check its listing or send photos, and to handle its corrections, photo permissions and requests. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in keeping the guides accurate (Article 6(1)(f)); you can ask for our written assessment. You can object at any time by replying "stop" or emailing privacy@windchaser.ai, and we will not contact you again. We act on it the same day.

We send these emails with Instantly (United States), our processor under a data processing agreement. We do not track whether you open our emails.

We keep a business's contact details while it is listed and for 12 months after our last contact with it if it is not. If you ask us not to contact you, we keep only what we need to make sure we never do (the address, or a keyed hash of it) for as long as we send such emails. We keep a photo permission, and the email that gave it, for as long as we show the photo and six years after.

Zenoo Ltd, whose registered office is c/o Azets, Westpoint, Lynch Wood, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE2 6FZ, United Kingdom, is the controller of these details, as it is for everything else in this notice.

Why we use your data, and our lawful basis

• To provide what you ask for (signing in, your account, saved searches): because it is necessary for our agreement with you to provide the service (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)).
• Emailing you a report, and the monthly email: your consent, which you give by ticking each box and can withdraw at any time (Article 6(1)(a)).
• Request logs, security and analytics: our legitimate interests in running a secure site and understanding how it is used, balanced against yours by collecting little and storing nothing on your device (Article 6(1)(f)).
• App test feedback and crash reports: our legitimate interest in finding and fixing faults in the app (Article 6(1)(f)).
• Spot guide reviews: our legitimate interest in publishing accurate information (Article 6(1)(f)).
• Suggestions: our legitimate interest in keeping spot pages accurate and safe (Article 6(1)(f)). We have weighed that interest against yours in a written legitimate interests assessment, which you can ask us for. You can object at any time by emailing privacy@windchaser.ai, and we will stop using your suggestions unless we have a compelling reason that overrides your interests.
• Businesses we list: our legitimate interest in keeping the guides accurate (Article 6(1)(f)), as set out under If we list your business.

We do not make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects on you. When automated tools compare a suggestion with other sources, a person at WindChaser makes the decision.

Who receives your data

These suppliers process personal data for us, only on our instructions and only for the purposes above:

• Supabase (Supabase Inc., United States): our database, file storage and sign-in service. Your account data is stored in its EU (Ireland) region.
• Vercel (Vercel Inc., United States): hosts the website and keeps its request logs.
• Railway (Railway Corporation, United States): runs our backend, which handles alerts and forecasts, and keeps its request logs. It does not handle sign-in.
• Postmark (ActiveCampaign, LLC, United States): sends our sign-in emails, the reports you ask us to email you, and the emails about a lesson or kit hire request.
• ImprovMX: forwards email sent to our windchaser.ai addresses to our mailbox.
• Instantly (United States): sends our emails to the businesses we list, as described under If we list your business. We do not use it to email riders.
• Anthropic (Anthropic PBC, United States): reads the text of a suggestion while we check it, as our processor under its commercial terms, and deletes it within 30 days (or up to 2 years if it is flagged for a breach of Anthropic's usage policy). It is not sent your name or email address.
• GitHub (GitHub, Inc., United States): holds the site's code. When a checked suggestion changes a spot page, the change is recorded there with a check reference number only, which carries no personal data.
• Mapbox (Mapbox, Inc., United States): map tiles for the spot page map. It receives your IP address and the area of the map you view, and keeps IP addresses for 30 days, or longer if they are needed for a security or fraud investigation.
• PostHog (PostHog Inc.): usage analytics, stored in its EU cloud.
• Ahrefs (Ahrefs Pte. Ltd., Singapore): visit counts.
• Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., United States): Cloudflare Turnstile, the check on our sign-in forms and on the form that emails you a report.

Apple distributes the iPhone app and provides its map, as described under If you use the iPhone app. Apple and Google receive your data when you choose to sign in with them, and Google Fonts, unpkg, Unsplash, CARTO and Esri receive your IP address when your browser loads their content, as described above. They act under their own privacy notices.

We may also disclose data where the law requires it, or to protect the safety of any person.

International transfers

Several of our suppliers are in the United States, including Supabase, Anthropic and Mapbox, and Ahrefs is in Singapore, so personal data is transferred outside the UK. Where it is, we rely on the safeguards UK law recognises: the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for suppliers certified under it, or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the European Commission's standard contractual clauses in the supplier's data processing terms. PostHog analytics data is stored in the European Union, which the UK recognises as giving adequate protection. You can ask us for details of the safeguard for any supplier.

How long we keep it

• Your account, profile, photo, saved spots, saved searches and report records: until you ask us to delete your account.
• Sign-in links and codes: they expire after 15 minutes, as described above.
• An account created by asking for a sign-in email that is never confirmed: deleted after 7 days by a weekly job, unless it holds a report, a waitlist request or a suggestion.
• Withdrawn suggestions: deleted within 30 days.
• Rejected suggestions: the text and the link to your account are anonymised after 12 months.
• Accepted suggestions: anonymised after 24 months, keeping only the part of the page, the decision, how closely it was checked and the outcome.
• Suggestions from an account that is deleted: anonymised at once.
• The record of what happened to each suggestion: kept with the suggestion. It holds no free text and no account ID.
• Checks of a suggestion against other sources: 24 months. They hold excerpts from the sources, not your words.
• Blocked accounts: a keyed hash of the email address and of each linked sign-in ID, for as long as the block lasts and 12 months after, even if the account is deleted.
• Counts of refused suggestions: 90 days. They hold no personal data.
• The record used to apply the suggestion limits: 2 days.
• The note that a pin was placed with your device's location: kept with that suggestion and deleted with it.
• "Still here" confirmations of map pins: 400 days, or until you ask us to delete them.
• A request to email you a report: 30 days. If you also asked for the monthly email, your email address until you ask us to stop.
• The keyed hash of your IP address kept with a report email request: 24 hours.
• A lesson or kit hire request: two years after the day it was for.
• Emails sent through Postmark: 45 days.
• The contact details of a business we list, and a photo permission it gave: as set out under If we list your business.
• Request logs at Vercel and Railway, including requests from the iPhone app: no more than 30 days.
• TestFlight feedback and crash reports for the app: as long as we need them to fix the fault, and no more than two years.
• Analytics events at PostHog: no more than 12 months.
• Spot guide review answers: kept with the guide they correct, until you ask us to delete them.
• What the site keeps in your browser: until you clear it, or for the sign-in session, until you sign out.
• Emails you send us: as long as we need them to deal with your message, and no more than two years.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to correct it if it is wrong;
• ask us to delete it;
• ask us to restrict how we use it;
• object to our use of it where we rely on legitimate interests, including analytics and suggestions;
• ask for data you gave us in a portable format;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To use any of these rights, email privacy@windchaser.ai from the address you signed in with, or tell us which address it is. There is no charge. We reply within one month, and tell you if we need longer for a complex request. If you have never signed in, we hold nothing about you beyond request logs and analytics events, which are not linked to a name or an email address. If we list your business, we also hold its published contact details, as described above.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please tell us first at privacy@windchaser.ai so we can put it right. We acknowledge a complaint within 30 days of receiving it and tell you what we are doing about it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

Children

WindChaser is not directed at children. You must be 13 or over to sign in or send a suggestion, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has signed in, tell us and we will delete the account.

Changes to this notice

If what we collect changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top is updated. We will not quietly start collecting something new.

For the technically minded

This notice is checked against a data inventory generated from the site's code. The database tables, storage and functions the site uses that hold personal data are:

• windchaser_users: account records.
• windchaser_saved_searches: saved searches.
• windchaser_user_favourite_spots: the spots you save, copied to your account while you are signed in so they follow you to another browser.
• avatars: the public file store for profile photos.
• windchaser_review_session, windchaser_review_answers, windchaser_submit_fact_review and windchaser_submit_review_addition: the spot guide review functions.
• windchaser_suggestions, windchaser_suggestion_events, windchaser_suggestion_checks, windchaser_contributor_blocks, windchaser_contrib_refusal_counts and windchaser_contrib_write_counts: suggested changes to spot pages, what happened to each, the checks against other sources, blocked accounts (held as a keyed hash of the email address and of each linked sign-in ID), counts of refused sends, and the record used to apply the suggestion limits (a keyed hash of the account ID and the hour, kept for 2 days). windchaser_contrib_spots and windchaser_contribution_config hold the settings, and no personal data.
• windchaser_suggestion_observations: which map suggestions were placed with the device's location, and how accurate it was (no position of its own). windchaser_pin_confirmations: "Still here" taps on map pins.
• windchaser_contribution_status, windchaser_submit_suggestion, windchaser_my_suggestions, windchaser_edit_suggestion, windchaser_withdraw_suggestion, windchaser_restore_suggestion and windchaser_delete_my_suggestions: the functions a signed-in rider uses to send, see, change, withdraw and delete their own suggestions. windchaser_submit_observed_suggestion sends a map pin placed with the device's location, and windchaser_confirm_pin, windchaser_my_pin_confirmations and windchaser_delete_my_pin_confirmations record, show and delete a rider's own "Still here" taps. windchaser_pin_confirmation_counts and windchaser_pin_confirmations_retention run only on our side. windchaser_suggestion_digest (a daily count for WindChaser, with no rider text and no identity), windchaser_suggestions_retention (which applies the retention periods above every day) and windchaser_contrib_sync_spots run only on our side.

Sign-in runs on Supabase Auth in WindChaser's own project, in its EU (Ireland) region: one email through Postmark with a sign-in link and a 6-digit code, or Apple, or Google. Asking for a sign-in email creates an account before the link or code is used. A weekly job deletes unconfirmed accounts after 7 days, unless they hold a report, a waitlist request or a suggestion. Cloudflare Turnstile checks the sign-in form before any email is sent.

The pages that handle personal data are /login, /auth/callback, /auth/confirm (where the sign-in link lands: its token stays in the part of the address your browser never sends to us, and is used only when you tap Continue), /account, /saved and /spots/[slug], the spot pages, where suggestions are made. Our internal staff pages need the wc_admin cookie described above.

Outside services and browser storage used by the spot page map and the sign-in form:

• api.mapbox.com: map tiles from Mapbox for the spot page map, when that map is switched on. Your browser sends Mapbox your IP address and the area of the map you view.
• wc-map-base: kept in your browser, whether you chose the Satellite or Street map.
• challenges.cloudflare.com: Cloudflare Turnstile, a check on the sign-in form that stops automated abuse. It sees your IP address and details of your browser.

A page change that follows a suggestion is recorded on GitHub with a check reference number only, and no personal data. Anthropic receives the text of a suggestion during a check, not your name or email address.