Yocal privacy policy

Last updated 29 October 2026

Yocal is a local guide to the River Yealm: tides, weather, places, walks and Cal, the assistant. Most of what you tell Yocal stays on your phone. This page explains what leaves it, where it goes, and why.

Yocal is run by Matthew Gough, who is responsible for your information (the “data controller”). Contact: hello@yocalapp.co.uk.

The short version

• You don’t need an account to use Yocal. Only people who run a venue sign in.
• No adverts, no tracking, no analytics. We never sell your information.
• Your exact position is never sent to us. It is used on your phone.
• Your profile, boats, parking, timers and gym records are kept on your phone.
• Questions you ask Cal are sent to an AI service to be answered. They are not stored by us.

What stays on your phone

These are kept only in Yocal on your phone and are deleted if you delete the app:

• Your profile: local or visiting, home or where you’re staying, whether you have children or a dog with you, your bike, your wind units.
• Your boats, your own parking and launch spots, and your saved places.
• Return timers, where you parked or left your boat, and your current walk.
• Your position, and the background location and motion readings used to notice when you have parked.
• Barnhouse gym records: your health check answers, goal, age, weight, sore spots, test results and every session you log.
• Your conversation with Cal, which disappears when you close the app.

One exception: Yocal remembers whether this phone has used its free 2-hour taster of Yocal Plus, and this survives deleting the app. It is only a date and time.

Reminders and warnings are set on your phone. We don’t use push notifications.

What leaves your phone, and why

Questions to Cal

When you ask Cal something, Yocal sends your question, the earlier questions and answers in that conversation, and a short description of the moment: the tide and weather, and, if your phone knows where you are, what is near you (for example “on Yealm Road, 200 m from the Dolphin”), never your coordinates. It also sends the names and draughts of any boats you have added, and, if you have scanned a holiday house card, that house’s code so Cal can read its welcome book.

This goes through our server (Supabase, in London) to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI, which writes the answer. We don’t keep your questions. Your internet address is used for a few minutes to stop the service being overloaded, then forgotten.

If you ask Cal for a new Barnhouse gym plan, Yocal sends your goal, age, sex, weight, experience, the time you have, sore spots, notes, test results and recent sessions the same way, without your name or location. Your health check answers are not sent.

Speaking to Cal

If you use the microphone, your iPhone turns speech into words, on the phone where it can, otherwise through Apple’s speech service, as with keyboard dictation. Yocal doesn’t keep the recording.

SOS

When you open SOS, your position is sent to what3words to turn it into a three-word address you can read to the Coastguard.

Your home address

If you type an address and tap “Find on map”, it is sent to Apple’s map service to find it.

Holiday houses

Scanning the card in a holiday let sends its code to our server, which sends back the house’s name and address. Yocal forgets the house after your stay.

Accounts (venue owners and admins only)

If you sign in to look after a venue, we keep your email address (or the one Sign in with Apple gives us), and, when you ask to look after a venue, your name, phone number and how you are connected to it, so we can check you are genuine. Menu photos you upload are kept privately so the menu can be read and checked. Changes you make to a public listing record your email as the person who made them.

You can delete your account in the app: open your profile, then “Delete my account”. That removes your account, your requests and your access to any venue. The venue’s public listing stays, with the record of past changes.

Purchases

Yocal Plus passes and subscriptions are bought through Apple. We don’t see your name or payment details. Apple tells the app what you have bought.

Weather, tide and updates

Yocal fetches weather (Open-Meteo) and tide gauge readings (the Environment Agency) for the Yealm as a whole, never for your position, and checks Expo for app updates. Like any website, these services see your phone’s internet address.

Who we share it with

Only the services above, which handle it on our behalf: Supabase (our database and server, London), Anthropic (Cal’s answers, menu reading), what3words (SOS), Apple (sign-in, maps, speech, purchases), Open-Meteo, the Environment Agency and Expo. Anthropic is in the United States; information sent to it is protected by the UK’s approved safeguards for international transfers. We never sell information or share it for advertising.

Why we’re allowed to use it

To give you what you ask for (answering Cal, running your account), and our legitimate interest in running and protecting the service (stopping overload, keeping a record of changes to public listings). For gym health answers, which never leave your phone, nothing is processed by us.

How long we keep it

• Cal questions: not kept.
• Accounts and venue requests: until you delete your account, or we close it.
• Menu photos: while the venue is listed.
• Records of changes to public listings: as long as the listing exists.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct or delete the information we hold about you, object to how we use it, or ask us to stop. Email hello@yocalapp.co.uk. If you’re unhappy with our answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk.

Children

Yocal is not aimed at children under 13, and only adults should sign in to run a venue.

Changes

If this changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top.