Privacy Policy

Birdies & Bets: Golf Scorecard · Effective 20 October 2026

Birdies & Bets is a golf scorecard app that keeps score and tracks the side games a group agrees to play. An account is optional. Without one, everything you enter stays on your phone. If you sign in, your rounds are kept in your account so they follow you to any phone. Either way, what you enter is saved on your phone first, and a signed-in phone syncs it to your account when it has a connection.

This policy covers the Birdies & Bets app and this website, www.birdiesandbets.com.

Who we are

Birdies & Bets is made and run by St. Margaret’s Ventures Inc., a company based in Ontario, Canada, which is responsible for the personal information described here (the “controller” under data protection laws such as the GDPR). In this policy, “we” and “us” mean St. Margaret’s Ventures Inc. You can reach us about anything in this policy at hello@birdiesandbets.com.

What we collect

Only what the app needs to keep your golf with you. There is no advertising, we never sell data, and the app does not track you across other companies' apps or websites. If you use the app without an account, none of the items below leaves your phone: they are kept in the app's private storage, and in a backup file only if you make one.

• Your account, if you make one. When you sign in with Apple we receive a private account identifier from Apple, and your name and email only if you choose to share them (Apple lets you hide your email behind a relay address). When you sign in by email we receive your email address, used only to send your sign-in codes.
• Your name as you want it shown on scorecards.
• Your golf. The rounds you play and score, your round history, the players you add (their names and handicap indexes, as you enter them), courses you create or import, and the round settings and preferences that should follow you between phones (what points are called, the handicap allowance, your home course, and the bag and home area that older versions asked for).

With an account, we use this only to run the app: to sign you in, to keep your data in sync between your phones, and to bring it back if you reinstall or change phones. Device-only settings (haptics, your privacy choices, your profile photo) stay on the phone.

Purchases. If you buy a subscription or other in-app purchase, it is paid through Apple's App Store. Apple handles the payment, and we never receive your card or payment details: the app only learns which purchases are active, so it can unlock the features you paid for.

Two more things can leave your phone, with or without an account, and neither is linked to you: crash reports, which are on unless you turn them off, and usage counts, which are off unless you turn them on. Both are under Profile → Settings → Privacy.

Where it is kept

If you sign in, your account and synced data are stored with Supabase (operated by Supabase, Inc.), our database provider, protected so that only your signed-in account can read or change it. A copy also stays in the app's private storage on your phone. Signing out removes that copy from the phone; your account keeps it. Without an account, your data exists only on your phone (and in any backup file you save), so deleting the app deletes it.

Why we use it

Where data protection laws such as the GDPR ask for a legal reason to use personal information, ours are:

• To provide the app you asked for (performing our agreement with you): your account, sign-in, and syncing and restoring your golf.
• Your consent: usage analytics, which are off unless you turn them on. You can withdraw consent at any time in Settings → Privacy.
• Our legitimate interest in a working, secure app: crash reports (which you can turn off), course search, update checks, and the routine server logs our providers keep to run their services and stop abuse.
• Answering you: if you email us, we use your email address and message to reply.
• Early access, with your consent: if you ask for early access, we use your email address only to send you launch news and test invitations for Birdies & Bets. Every one of these emails has an unsubscribe link, or you can reply and ask us to stop.

How long we keep it

• Account and synced golf: for as long as you have an account. When you delete your account it is removed from our database straight away, along with the records of your sign-ins; copies in our database provider's routine backups are overwritten as those backups expire.
• Data on your phone: until you delete it, sign out, or delete the app. We cannot see it.
• Crash reports: deleted automatically within 90 days.
• Usage counts: not linked to you or your phone, so they cannot be traced back to you or deleted per person.
• Emails to us: kept as long as needed to deal with your question, then deleted.
• Early-access requests: kept until the app launches, then deleted unless you have written to us about something else.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app under Profile → Settings → Account → Delete account. That permanently deletes your account and everything stored with it from our database, and clears it from the phone. If you signed in with Apple, we also revoke the app's access to your Apple ID. You can also email us to ask for deletion; Delete your data explains both ways and exactly what goes. If you only want to stop using one phone, sign out instead.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• see the personal information we hold about you, and get a copy of it;
• correct it (most of it you can edit in the app yourself);
• delete it (see Deleting your account);
• stop or limit a use of it, or object to it; and
• withdraw consent you have given, such as for usage analytics, without affecting what happened before.

Email hello@birdiesandbets.com from the address on your account (or tell us your Sign in with Apple relay address) so we can confirm the account is yours. We will reply within 30 days and will not charge you or treat you differently for asking. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland and are unhappy with our answer, you can also complain to your local data protection authority. If you are in Canada, our handling of your information is governed by Canada’s federal privacy law (PIPEDA), and you can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

California and other US state privacy laws: we do not sell your personal information, do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and do not use it to profile you. The categories we collect are listed under What we collect, and the rights above apply to you.

Shared scorecards

When you share a finished scorecard, the app sends the picture of the card along with a link to it. The link itself carries what is on that card: the course and tee names, the date, the hole pars, each player's name, scores and handicap strokes, and the game results. That information sits in the part of the link after the #, which web browsers never send to a server, so our website never receives it. The page at www.birdiesandbets.com/card reads it inside the recipient's browser, or the app opens it directly. Nothing from a shared card is stored by us. Anyone who has the link can see the card, so share it with the people you played with.

Network requests the app makes

• Update checks. On launch the app may ask Expo's update service (EAS Update, operated by Expo / 650 Industries) whether a newer version of the app's code is available. That request carries the app version, platform and runtime identifier, a random ID for this installation of the app and, if the app crashed on its last launch, that error message. Expo's servers also see your IP address. It carries no scores, names or courses.
• Course search. When you type in the course search box, the text you type is sent to our course lookup service (a Cloudflare Worker we operate) which forwards it to GolfCourseAPI to find scorecards. Those services see the search text and your IP address. Our lookup service keeps your IP address for up to a minute to limit abuse, and keeps search results for up to 7 days, stored by the search text and not linked to you, so repeat searches are fast. Nothing else from the app is sent. Courses you download are stored on your phone; saved courses and manual entry work without any connection.
• Connection checks. While you are signed in, the app checks about once a minute whether it is online, so it knows when it can sync, by sending an empty request to Google (clients3.google.com, operated by Google LLC). Google sees your IP address; the request carries nothing about you or your golf.

Crash reports

When the app hits an error, it can send a crash report to Sentry (operated by Functional Software, Inc.) so we can find and fix the bug. Crash reports are on by default, and you can turn them off at any time under Settings → Privacy → Crash reports. Nothing is sent before your settings have loaded.

A crash report contains the error message and where in the app's code it happened, a short log of what the app was doing just before it, your phone model, iOS version, app version and update ID, and general device details such as screen size, memory, language and time zone. Before a report leaves your phone the app removes your device's name, and it never includes player names, scores, courses, notes or anything you typed. The report carries no account, advertising ID or other identifier for you. Sentry's servers see your IP address when the report arrives; we do not store it with the report. Reports are deleted automatically within 90 days.

Usage analytics

If you say yes, the app sends usage counts, not linked to you, to Aptabase, a privacy-first analytics service, so we can see which features get used. Usage analytics are off unless you turn them on, either when the app first asks or under Settings → Privacy → Usage analytics, and you can turn them off at any time.

The only events are: a round started (how many holes and players, which games, shotgun start or not), a round finished (how many holes were scored, and which games), a round discarded (how many holes were scored), a course imported or created, a scorecard shared, and a backup saved or restored. Each event also carries your iOS version, app version and build number, a language code, and a random session number that changes after an hour without use. There are no names, scores, course names, locations, device identifiers or advertising IDs. Aptabase does not use cookies or fingerprinting and does not store IP addresses.

This website

www.birdiesandbets.com has no accounts, forms, cookies, ads or analytics, and stores nothing in your browser. Its fonts and code are served from the site itself, so your browser contacts no other company to show it. The site is hosted on GitHub Pages (GitHub, Inc.), which, like any web host, sees your IP address and browser details and may log them to run and secure the service, under GitHub's own privacy policy. A shared scorecard page loads the same way, and the card's contents stay in your browser.

Where your information is processed

We are based in Canada. We and the providers named in this policy may process your information in Canada, the United States and other countries whose data protection laws can differ from yours. Where the law requires it, these transfers rely on safeguards such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses that the providers offer.

Security

Everything the app and this website send travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Synced data is protected so that only your signed-in account can read or change it, and the app collects as little as it can in the first place. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach ever affects your personal information, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Money

The app never holds or moves money between players. It shows a tally of points and provides no way to pay, deposit, withdraw, or transfer anything between players. The only payments are for the app itself, such as a subscription, and those go through Apple (see Purchases).

Children

Birdies & Bets is for people 13 and older, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has made an account, email us and we will delete it. If you are under 16, or under the age of digital consent where you live (14 in Quebec, for example), ask a parent or guardian before turning on usage analytics.

Children as players. Younger golfers can still be on the card: an adult can add them as a player in their own round. Their name and handicap are then stored with that adult's rounds like any other player's. Only add a child with their parent's or guardian's OK. We never contact players or use their details for anything except your scorecards, and a parent or guardian can email us to have a child's details deleted.

Crash reports and usage counts are not linked to the person using the app and contain no names, scores or courses.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new effective date. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us, we will ask for your consent where the law requires it.

Contact

Questions about privacy: hello@birdiesandbets.com