Last updated: September 25, 2026
This policy explains how Nature Wonders: Hike, Identify handles information. Nature Wonders is published by Soft Flourish, an independent software studio and publishing house based in California, USA. It supplements the general Soft Flourish Privacy Policy and controls where the two differ for this app.
You can use Nature Wonders as a guest, without location, and with your journal only on your device. Location, an account and cloud sync are each optional. Identification photos and sounds are processed to give you an answer and are not kept. We do not sell personal data.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Location (optional) | Only if you allow it: near-me search, current conditions, and live trip tracking on iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows. You can search by place name instead. Trip tracks and journal coordinates leave the device only with Pro sync on, and each journal entry carries its own privacy level. |
| Identification photos and sounds | Sent to our server only when you ask for an identification, passed to the identification providers below, and not stored by us afterwards. Bird-song recordings are handled the same way. |
| Account (optional) | Email, Google or Apple sign-in on iPhone, iPad and Mac; email or Google on Android; email, Google or Microsoft on Windows. We keep your account ID and email so Pro and sync follow you across devices. Guest mode needs none of this. |
| Journal, saved places and trips | Stored on your device. With Pro sync on, they are stored in your account (Google Firebase) so they appear on your other devices. |
| Subscription status | RevenueCat records whether you have Pro and which store it came from, keyed to your account ID. We never see your card details. |
| Ads data (free tier, iPhone, iPad and Android only) | Google AdMob shows non-personalized ads and receives approximate location from your IP address, a device identifier, ad interactions and diagnostics. On Android, Google's consent form appears first where the law requires it; on iPhone and iPad no ad is requested at all in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland. There is no cross-app tracking and no ads on Mac, on Windows, or for Pro. |
| Usage and diagnostics | Firebase Analytics events (which screens and features are used) and App Check tokens that stop other software from abusing our server. |
Identification: plant photos go to the Pl@ntNet API; other domains, and plants Pl@ntNet cannot match, go to Google Gemini on Google Cloud Vertex AI, which does not use them to train its models. Names are checked against Plants of the World Online and GBIF. Places: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and the U.S. National Park Service; map tiles from OpenFreeMap; walking routes from the FOSSGIS OSRM service; weather from MET Norway. Accounts, sync, analytics and App Check: Google Firebase. Subscriptions: RevenueCat, with Apple, Google or Stripe handling payment. Ads: Google AdMob and Google's User Messaging Platform. Our own server runs on Google Cloud Run in the United States.
Search requests carry the place or coordinates you searched and your account ID (guest accounts included), so we can apply daily limits and stop abuse. We count identifications per account per day; the counter resets daily. Place reports you send are kept until they are reviewed.
Nature Wonders is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. On Google Play it is listed for ages 18 and over.
Identification media: not retained. Synced journal, places and trips: until you delete them or your account. Identification counters: rolled over daily. Deleting an entry syncs as a deletion to your other devices.
In the app open Settings, then Account, then Delete account, or sign in at softflourish.com/naturewonders/account. We delete your synced journal (including synced photo thumbnails), saved places, trips, place reports and identification counters, then your sign-in account. Data held only on your device is removed when you delete the app. Purchase records stay with Apple, Google, RevenueCat and Stripe as the law requires. Cancel an active subscription first where you bought it; deleting the account does not cancel it. Full steps: softflourish.com/naturewonders/deleteaccount.
You can ask for a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion by emailing us from the address on the account. You can export your journal from the app at any time.
If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top and describe the change here. Continuing to use Nature Wonders after a change means you accept it.
Questions about this policy, or a request about your data: [email protected], or the contact form.