DetectDock Privacy Policy

Last updated: 30 October 2026

DetectDock is a companion for metal detectorists. This page explains what the website and the DetectDock app keep, where it goes, and the choices you have. Farms, finds and locations are sensitive, so DetectDock keeps them private unless you choose to share them, and says plainly when something leaves your phone.

On your phone

• Everything you record is saved on your phone first (in the browser's or app's own storage), so DetectDock works in a field with no signal: finds and their photos, detecting sessions and GPS routes, fields, permission boundaries and landowner details, notes, saved spots, LiDAR marks and your settings.
• Some things are only ever kept on your phone and never backed up: saved spots (car, gate, recheck…), LiDAR marks, the beaches Beach Mode remembers, the contact details you type into the permission letter or the landowner report, and an unfinished session until you finish it.

Backed up privately to your account

• Account details: your email address, username and, if you add one, a profile picture (profile pictures are public). Sign-in is handled by Google Firebase Authentication (Google, Apple in the iPhone app, or email and password).
• Your backup: when you are signed in, your finds, find photos, finished sessions with their GPS routes (a very long session's route is backed up simplified; the full route stays on your phone), fields and permissions (including boundaries and landowner details) and field reports are backed up to your account, so they appear on your other devices. Only you can see them in the app. They are stored with Cloudflare, encrypted at rest by Cloudflare, but not end-to-end encrypted: we don't look at them, and our admin tools don't show records or locations, but someone with direct access to the database could read them.
• Photo location data (EXIF) is removed before anything is stored on our server.

Location

• Your phone's location is used while you record a detecting session, use the map, or have Automatic Field Tracking switched on with the app open. In the iPhone and Android apps, a session you are recording can keep tracking with the screen off if you allow it. DetectDock doesn't track you when you aren't recording or using it.
• Exact positions stay on your phone and in your private backup unless you share them (below).
• Map pictures come straight from the map providers (OpenStreetMap, Esri, the National Library of Scotland, MapTiler and the British Geological Survey), so they see which area you are looking at, as with any online map. Place search sends only what you type, and only to one service: a UK postcode to postcodes.io (open ONS and Ordnance Survey data), a place name to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim, with the area of the map on screen rounded out to about 10 km so nearer places come first. Grid references and coordinates (even half typed) are read on your phone and never sent. Looking up the name of a place you are viewing goes straight to Nominatim (the point being looked up). Weather comes from Open-Meteo using your position rounded to a quarter of a degree (about 25 km).
• Research (protected sites, mapped history, LiDAR, recorded finds, beach data) goes through our server, which receives the area to about 100 metres and asks Historic England, Cadw (through the Welsh Government's DataMapWales), Historic Environment Scotland, OpenStreetMap, postcodes.io (to confirm the country and parish), the Environment Agency, the Portable Antiquities Scheme and others for a wider area (about 1 km, an 800 m square for LiDAR, or a parish), never your field's boundary. Results are cached by area, with no account attached.

Microphone

• Smart Listen / Live Listen analyses your detector's tones on your phone to log signals. That analysis happens on the phone; the sound isn't recorded or uploaded for it.
• Hey Dock voice commands use your browser's or phone's own speech recognition. On many phones and in Chrome this sends what you say to Google or Apple to turn it into text, under their privacy terms. DetectDock only receives the text.
• Live detector audio and commentary: if you switch these on for a live link, your detector's sound and/or your voice is uploaded while you are recording and played to the people with that link who are allowed to hear it. Our server keeps only the last 90 seconds, then deletes it. They are off unless you turn them on, and switching one off deletes what's stored.
• The microphone is only used while one of these features is on. You can turn off microphone access in your phone's settings at any time.

Sharing is always your choice

• Private live links (a farmer, friend or family member watching one session): every option starts off, including exact GPS. You choose what each link shows; links expire (1 hour to 7 days) and you can revoke them at any time. Privacy maps and the 3D simulation don't show your real location. Live data is deleted from our server when the link expires, at the latest.
• Field-share links show one permission to someone without an account. They only include what each switch allows, can have a passcode, expire within 90 days, and can be revoked.
• Group Dig members see only what you choose for that dig. "Group coverage" shares the ground you walked to about 2 metres, with times; live position can be off, status only, approximate (about 50 m) or exact. Leaving a dig or being removed deletes what you shared at once.
• Trusted Family isn't working yet. It stores who you have invited and the choices you make for each person, but watching your sessions and alerts aren't built, so nothing is shown or sent to them. For the permissions you pick it keeps only an internal id, not the name (names saved before 23 October 2026 stay stored, never shown, until you next change that person's settings); a family member would be told how many permissions, never which.

Public on Community

• Posts, comments, ID suggestions, your public profile and follows are public. Posts never include coordinates, a field, a session or an exact date, and the server refuses obvious coordinates, grid references and postcodes in text. Place names you type yourself aren't always caught, so leave them out.
• Public live broadcasts show a 3D simulation, never a map, your route or your position, and everything viewers see runs behind you by the delay you choose (30 seconds to 5 minutes; 1 minute unless you change it). Only finds you approve appear, without their positions. To work out the simulation's time and distance, your phone uploads the session's GPS route to our server; viewers never receive it. For a broadcast on its own, finds are uploaded only when you approve them, without positions (if the session is also on a private live link, its finds are already uploaded for that link). The upload is deleted when you stop broadcasting, unless a private live link still uses it. If your phone can't reach us when you stop, or the broadcast ends without you stopping it, the upload is deleted automatically 2 days after you went live (or when the private link expires, if that is later).
• If you choose "Keep a public replay", a frozen copy of what viewers saw (no route and no positions, with the photos of finds you approved) stays public for 30 days and is then deleted automatically. You can delete it sooner.
• Mutual friends can get an in-app alert when you start a public broadcast. Private sessions never send these. You can turn friend live alerts off in Community → Messages.

Private messages

Messages are stored with Cloudflare and are available only to the two people in the conversation through the app. They are not end-to-end encrypted. Location pins, permission boundaries and map snapshots are only sent when you preview and confirm them.

• Exact places: the position in a location pin and the outline in a permission boundary are removed from the message 30 days after it was sent (for messages sent before 23 October 2026, 30 days after that date). The label and the rest of the message stay.
• Everything else (text, photos, map snapshot pictures and other attachments) has no time limit. It stays until you unsend your own message, or the conversation is deleted: a message request you decline is deleted at once, and a conversation is deleted for both people when either person deletes their account. When you decline a request, a note that you did is kept so that person can't send you another unless you message them.
• The other person can keep a copy of anything you send. A report records the reason and who is reported; it doesn't give anyone your messages.

AI

• Find identification only runs when you press "Identify with AI". The photo (with location and camera details removed) is sent to Google's Gemini service and, where enabled, Google Cloud Vision web matching. Your find's position and notes are not sent. We don't store the photo for this.
• Field Insight sends Google Gemini a summary of facts the app has gathered about a field (such as terrain, mapped history, nearby recorded finds, the parish and the field's name), never its coordinates or boundary.
• AI suggestions are never treated as verified identifications.

How long things are kept

• Your backup and account details: until you delete them or delete your account.
• Private live-share GPS data: deleted when the share's last link expires (24 hours if no link was made), or sooner when you stop sharing. Live audio: 90 seconds. Group Dig live positions: 24 hours after the last update.
• Public broadcasts: the upload is deleted when you stop, otherwise 2 days after you went live (later only if a private live link still uses it). Kept replays: 30 days.
• Community posts: until you delete them or your account. Messages: as above (exact places 30 days; the rest until unsent, declined or an account is deleted).
• Expired data is removed by an automatic clean-up that runs every hour.
• When an account is deleted, a record that it was deleted is kept, so an old phone can't upload its data again. Administrators' actions (such as suspending or deleting an account) are logged.

Your choices

• Delete your account: Settings & privacy → Delete account…. This deletes your profile, backup, live links and replays, field-share links, Community posts, comments and follows, your conversations (for both people), and your Group Dig and Trusted Family data from our server. Copies already on your phone are kept.
• Remove your data from a phone: Sign out → "Sign out and remove my data from this device". It only runs once everything is confirmed in your backup, and it lists anything that isn't in your backup (such as saved spots) before deleting it. If you sign out and keep your data, anyone using that phone can still see it in the app.
• Export: Settings → Your data.
• You can turn off location, microphone and camera access in your phone's settings at any time.

We don't sell your data, show adverts or use analytics or third-party tracking.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: [email protected]

The rules for using DetectDock are in the Terms of Use.