Houby — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 5 November 2026 · Covers Houby for iPhone and Houby for Android

Short version. No account, no advertising, no tracking and no analytics, on iPhone and Android. Your saved spots, your reports of what you found and your walks stay on your device. To score a place, Houby sends only that place's coordinates for its weather, never who you are.

What leaves your iPhone

Weather for a place you open: when you tap the map, open a saved spot or Houby checks your saved spots for alerts, the app asks Apple Weather (WeatherKit) for that place's weather, directly from your iPhone, under Apple's privacy policy.
Weather for the map: to color the map, the app asks our server (a Cloudflare Worker) for weather at fixed grid points covering the area on screen. The request contains only those grid points, no identifier and no location of yours. The server keeps one shared copy of each grid point's weather for everyone and keeps no record of who asked. Cloudflare processes the network request, including your IP address, under its own policy.
Sunny forest edges: when you turn this on, the app loads tree-cover images for the area on screen from the European Environment Agency's map server, which sees your IP address and that area, under its own policy.
Apple Maps: the map, place names, parking near a spot and the driving times in the trip planner come from Apple Maps under Apple's privacy policy.
Importing finds from photos: if you choose photos of past finds, Houby reads each photo's location and date on your iPhone. The photos are never uploaded. To score the day of each find, only that place's coordinates and the date are sent to Apple Weather, as above.
Directions in other apps: if you choose Google Maps, Waze or Mapy.com for directions, that app or site receives the destination you picked.

What stays on your iPhone

Saved spots, their last reading, your reports of what you found ("Nothing", "A few", "Plenty") and the alert setting are stored only on your iPhone. They are not synced to iCloud by Houby and are deleted when you delete the app.

Location

Houby asks for location "While Using the App". It shows where you are on the map and opens the map on your area, and uses it to check you're at a forest when you report what you found, to plan trips from where you are, and during a walk you start, to follow you through the forest and show the way back, also on the Lock Screen. Your location and route are never stored or uploaded, and the walk ends when you stop it.

Alerts

If you turn on alerts, iOS lets Houby check your saved spots in the background a few times a day. The check runs on your iPhone, asks Apple Weather for each spot's coordinates as above, and posts a notification from your iPhone. No server sends or stores anything about your spots.

Purchases

Houby Pro is an Apple subscription handled entirely by Apple. We receive no name, email or payment details, only aggregate sales numbers from Apple.

Houby for Android

The Android app has no account, no saved spots, no alerts and no purchases. What leaves your phone:

Weather for the map and for a place you open: the app asks our server (a Cloudflare Worker) for weather at the grid points covering the area on screen and at the place you tap. The server rounds every coordinate to a fixed grid of roughly 20 km, keeps one shared copy of each grid point's weather for everyone, and keeps an anonymous list of which grid points were asked for in the last 7 days so it can refresh them ahead of time. Requests carry no identifier, and the server keeps no record of who asked. The server gets its weather from Apple Weather (WeatherKit); Apple sees only the grid point, not you. Cloudflare processes the network request, including your IP address, under its own policy.
Forest, elevation and protected-area data: loaded in map tiles from our server for the area on screen, the same for everyone.
Base map: streets, place names and terrain come from OpenFreeMap, which sees your IP address and the map area it serves, under its own terms.
Apple Weather logo: the attribution mark is loaded from Apple's server, which sees your IP address.
Directions: if you open a forest in another maps app, that app receives the destination.

Location: Houby asks for location permission to show where you are and open the map on your area. Your location itself is never stored or sent; only the weather grid points for the area on screen are requested, as above. You can use the map without location.

On your phone: only app settings (for example that you finished the introduction and the last map position) are stored, and they are deleted when you uninstall the app. If Android backup is on, these settings can be part of your phone's backup, which Google keeps under your Google account. Google Play handles the download under Google's privacy policy; we receive only aggregate statistics from Google Play.

Data we collect for other purposes

None. No analytics or crash-reporting SDK, no advertising or attribution SDK, no data sold or shared with third parties.

Children's privacy

Houby is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes

If a future version changes how data is handled, this page and its date will be updated and the App Store privacy details and the Google Play data safety section will match.

Contact

Questions about this policy: [email protected].