Privacy Policy

SailSpo is an iPhone app and a website (sailspo.com) for planning sailing trips with your crew, finding itineraries and anchorages, and keeping a Sailor ID of your sailing experience. SailSpo is run by its owner, Mark Schwab (“SailSpo”, “we”, “us”). This policy explains what we collect, why, who can see it, and how to delete it. Questions go to support@sailspo.com.

The short version

• We collect what the app needs to work: your account, your trips, and what you choose to share.
• No ads, no analytics, no tracking across apps or websites. We never sell your data.
• Your trip is seen by the people aboard it. Routes, comments and reviews you post publicly are public.
• The passport check is optional. Face matching runs on your iPhone. We never store your passport number or the chip photo.
• You can delete your account in the app at any time.

1. Your account

• Sign-in. Your email address and a password, or Sign in with Apple. With Apple we receive an Apple account identifier and an email address, which can be Apple’s private relay address if you choose to hide yours. Passwords are handled by our sign-in provider and stored only in hashed form; we never see them.
• Profile. Your display name, profile photo and Venmo handle. People you share a trip with can see these. Your name (and photo, where shown) also appears next to comments and reviews you post.
• Home city and home airport. Optional. Only you can see them. We use them to suggest flights and look up fares from home.
• Settings. Your notification choices and the list of sailors you have blocked.

2. Trips and your crew

A trip holds what you and your crew add to it. It is visible to the people aboard that trip, and no one else.

• The trip’s name, destination, dates, boat, route and stops, plans, proposals, lists and budget.
• Crew berths: the names, titles and roles the captain gives each berth, RSVPs, and a phone number if the captain adds one. People you nominate for the crew, with any name, phone number and note you give.
• Money: expenses, who paid and who shares them, deposits, payments and settle-ups. When you scan a receipt, the text is read on your iPhone to fill in the total; the receipt photo is uploaded only if you attach it.
• Documents, and the photos and videos posted to the trip’s shared log.
• Flights: flight numbers, dates, times and who is on which flight.
• Cheers, coins and the trip leaderboard.

Anyone with a trip’s invite link or join code can ask to come aboard, so share those only with your crew. SailSpo does not move money. Settling up in Venmo happens in Venmo, under Venmo’s terms.

3. What you share with everyone

• Shared itineraries. When a captain shares a route, we save a snapshot of its stops, days, times, distances and notes, under the author name shown on it. The snapshot never includes the crew, money, photos or dates. Shared routes are reviewed before they are public. We count saves and copies.
• Comments on itineraries, shown with your name.
• Place reviews: your stars, words and up to four photos, shown publicly with your name.
• Places and suggested edits. Places you add to the library and changes you suggest. Nothing changes until a SailSpo reviewer approves it.
• Reports. When you report a comment, review, route or place, we keep the reason and any note you add. The person you report is not told who reported them.

4. Sailor ID

Your Sailor ID is your sailing résumé. It belongs to you, not to a trip.

• Voyages: destination, charter company, dates, your role, the boat (make, model, length, hull), overnight passages, and a reference’s name and contact if you add one. A trip’s captain can also log a voyage for you. You attest that each voyage is true; changes made after 30 days are kept as revisions.
• Boats you have owned: make and model, length, hull, years and home port.
• Certifications: issuer, course name, certificate number, issue date, and a photo or PDF of the certificate if you attach one. The text on a certificate photo is read on your iPhone. The photo or PDF is kept in private storage that only you can open.
• Your level, which SailSpo works out from the above.

5. The passport identity check

Verifying your Sailor ID with your passport is optional. It proves that the name on your Sailor ID is yours. Here is exactly what happens.

On your iPhone

• You photograph the passport’s photo page. It is read on your iPhone to unlock the passport’s chip.
• Your iPhone reads the chip over NFC, including the chip photo.
• You do a short face check (for example turn your head, blink or smile). Face matching, comparing your face with the chip photo, runs on your iPhone using a face-recognition model downloaded once from models.sailspo.com and kept on your iPhone.
• The chip photo never leaves your iPhone. Only a fingerprint (hash) of it is sent, to prove it was not swapped.

Sent to our server for the check

The chip’s data page (name, date of birth, nationality, passport number, issuing country, expiry date), the chip’s security data and signature, the face-match score, the timing of the face-check actions, one selfie from the face check, and an App Attest signature. The server checks that the passport was signed by its issuing country, that the chip is genuine and not cloned, that it has not expired, that it is not already linked to another Sailor ID, and that the face check passed.

What we keep

• Your legal name, date of birth, nationality and passport expiry date.
• A keyed hash of your passport number (a one-way code made with a secret key), so one passport can link to only one Sailor ID. It cannot be turned back into the number.
• How the chip proved it was genuine, and the date you were verified.
• The selfie that matched your passport, in private storage, as your Sailor ID photo.
• A record of each check attempt (when it started), used to limit attempts to five a day.

What we never store

• Your passport number.
• The chip photo, and the rest of the chip’s raw data and security data. These are used for the check and then discarded.
• The photo of your passport’s photo page.

Our server logs record only a short result code for each check, never what was read. Your date of birth and nationality are never shown on your Sailor ID or its shared link. When your passport expires, your Sailor ID shows the verification as expired.

App Attest

The check uses Apple’s App Attest to confirm the request comes from the genuine SailSpo app on a real iPhone. We keep the public key Apple’s system creates for the app on your iPhone, and a counter, linked to your account. It is not used to identify or track your device.

6. Sharing your Sailor ID

• Your Sailor ID link (sailspo.com/id/…). Anyone with the link can see your name (your legal name once verified), whether and when you were verified, your Sailor ID photo once verified, your level, your certifications (issuer, name and how they were checked), the voyages you attested (including any reference’s name and contact you added), and your boats (including home port). It never shows your date of birth, nationality, certificate numbers or certificate scans. You can turn the link off or replace it at any time.
• Apple Wallet pass. If you add your Sailor ID to Apple Wallet, Wallet registers your device for updates: we keep the pass’s serial number and the device and push identifiers Wallet sends, so the pass stays current.
• The charter PDF is made on your iPhone. It includes your name, account email, level, certifications, voyages and boats, and a phone number if you add one; that phone number is kept on your iPhone only. The PDF goes wherever you send it, and nowhere else.

7. Push notifications

If you allow notifications, we store your iPhone’s push token so we can tell you about trip activity, such as new photos, comments, votes, cheers, settle-ups, the trip countdown and flight changes. Notifications are delivered by Apple. Choose what you get in the app, or turn them off in iPhone Settings.

8. Analytics, ads and cookies

SailSpo has no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. The app contains no ad or analytics software, and we do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites. The website sets only the cookies it needs: your sign-in session and a note of the last trip you opened. Like any online service, our providers keep ordinary request logs (such as IP address and time) to run and secure the service.

9. Who processes your data for us

We use these providers to run SailSpo. Each gets only what its job needs.

• Supabase: our database, file storage, sign-in and server functions (including the passport check).
• Cloudflare: sailspo.com’s front door, Sailor ID pages and Wallet passes, storage for trip photos and videos, and the face-model download.
• Netlify: hosts the website.
• Apple: Sign in with Apple, push notifications, App Attest, Apple Wallet, and maps and place lookups in the app.
• AeroDataBox: flight status, looked up by flight number and date through our server.
• Ignav: fare lookups. It receives airport codes and dates only.
• Open-Meteo: weather and sea forecasts for the places on your route. It receives map coordinates.
• Geoapify: place search on the website. It receives what you type in the search box.
• Map tiles from EOX and OpenSeaMap, which receive the map area being shown.
• Garmin ActiveCaptain, if you connect it: you sign in with Garmin directly, and community notes and markers you post go to Garmin under Garmin’s own privacy policy.

Charter search shows boats from booking partners. When you tap through to book, you leave SailSpo for the partner’s site, and its privacy policy applies. Venmo opens only when you tap to pay someone.

10. We don’t sell your data

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We disclose it only to the providers above, when the law requires it, to protect someone’s safety or our users, or as part of a sale or transfer of SailSpo, in which case this policy continues to apply.

11. How long we keep it, and deleting your account

We keep your information while your account exists. You can delete your account at any time: in the app, go to the Crew tab → Your profile → Delete my account (or, if you are not on a trip, My Trips → Delete my account), or on the website at sailspo.com/account.

Deleted with your account

• Your sign-in, profile (name, photo, Venmo handle), home city and airport, and notification settings.
• Your push tokens and your blocked-sailors list.
• Your whole Sailor ID: the verified identity and its selfie, voyages, boats, certifications and their photos or PDFs, your share link and your Wallet pass.
• Your comments, place reviews, saves, and the reports you made.
• Trips where you are the only person aboard, with their photos, documents and other files.

What stays with trips and the library

• In trips you shared with others, your berth stays under the name the captain gave it, with the expenses, payments, photos, documents and flights you added, so the crew’s records still add up. They are no longer linked to your account.
• Routes you shared, places you added and edits you suggested stay in the library, no longer linked to your account. A shared route keeps the author name shown on it.

If you are the last captain of a trip that still has crew aboard, the app asks you to make someone else captain first. To have something specific removed without deleting your account, such as your verified identity, email us. Copies in our providers’ backups are removed as those backups roll over.

12. Security

Data travels over encrypted connections. Database rules limit each person to their own data and their own trips, and identity data, selfies and certificate files sit in private storage. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect what you trust us with.

13. Children

SailSpo is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, email us and we will delete it.

14. Your choices and rights

You can see and change most of your information in the app. You can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete it, by emailing support@sailspo.com. Depending on where you live (for example the EU, the UK or California), you may have further rights under local law, and you can complain to your local data protection authority.

15. International users

SailSpo is run from the United States, and our providers may process your information in the United States and other countries. Wherever it is processed, we protect it as this policy describes.

16. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top, and tell you in the app or by email when a change is significant.

17. Contact

SailSpo, owner Mark Schwab. Email support@sailspo.com.