Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Optimum Fishing collects, uses and protects personal information when you use optimumfishing.com. Optimum Fishing is operated as a sole-trader business in England. Questions about privacy or personal information can be sent to support@optimumfishing.com.
1. Information we may collect
Depending on how you use Optimum Fishing, we may collect your email address and account details; membership and subscription information, including the type and status of paid access; saved fishing locations or swims; catch and session information such as species, venue, catches, bait or lure and notes; information needed to provide fishing forecasts and recommendations; first-party usage information such as page views, sections viewed, forecast use, catch-log saves and checkout activity; and technical information necessary for security and operation of the website.
Payment-card details are handled by Stripe and are not stored by Optimum Fishing. We aim to collect only information reasonably necessary to provide and improve Optimum Fishing.
2. Saved locations and catch logs
Saved swims, fishing locations and catch/session logs are intended to be private to your account unless Optimum Fishing introduces a feature that clearly allows you to choose to share information. We do not intend to publicly reveal your private fishing locations simply because you save them in your account.
3. How we use information
We may use information to operate and secure accounts, provide fishing forecasts and recommendations, save your fishing information, provide customer support, diagnose technical problems, prevent misuse, understand how the website and its features are used, and improve Optimum Fishing.
We may also analyse fishing activity to understand relationships between catches and conditions and improve future fishing intelligence. Where appropriate, we may use anonymised or aggregated data for this purpose so that the resulting information is not intended to identify individual anglers.
4. Legal bases
Where UK data-protection law applies, we process personal information only where there is an appropriate legal basis. Depending on the circumstances, this may include providing a service requested by you, our legitimate interests in operating, securing and improving Optimum Fishing, complying with legal obligations, or your consent where consent is required.
5. Service providers
Optimum Fishing uses third-party technology providers to operate the service. These include Supabase for account and database functionality, Netlify for website hosting and related infrastructure, WeatherAPI for live weather and forecast information used by fishing forecasts, Postcodes.io for converting registered UK venue postcodes into approximate map coordinates used by the venue-recognition feature, and Stripe for payment processing, subscription management and related billing services. Other providers may be added in future for features such as mapping or environmental information.
We do not sell users' personal information.
6. Location information
Fishing locations can be particularly sensitive to anglers. Where you choose to save a fishing location or swim, we use that information to provide the relevant Optimum Fishing features. Saving a location does not by itself give Optimum Fishing permission to publicly display that location.
If you choose to use a device-location feature, your device coordinates may be sent to Optimum Fishing and WeatherAPI to provide the requested location-based forecast and to compare your position with registered fishing venues. Optimum Fishing does not send your device coordinates to Postcodes.io; that service is used only to geocode the postcodes of venues in our own venue list. You can instead enter a location manually where that option is available.
7. Children
Optimum Fishing may be used by young anglers. Users aged 13 or over may create an account. Children under 13 should use the service only with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian.
We do not intend to use children's personal information for behavioural advertising. If a parent or guardian believes that a child's information has been collected or used inappropriately, they can contact support@optimumfishing.com.
8. How long information is kept
We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including operating an account and meeting legal, security or administrative requirements. Where an account is closed, information associated with it may be deleted or anonymised unless we have a legitimate or legal reason to retain particular information. First-party analytics records are kept only for as long as reasonably needed to understand service use, security and product performance.
9. Security
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information. However, no internet service or electronic storage system can guarantee absolute security. Users should protect their passwords and should not share account login details with other people.
10. International processing
Some technology providers used by Optimum Fishing may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where UK data-protection law requires safeguards for international transfers, appropriate protections should be used.
11. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances, UK data-protection law may give you rights concerning your personal information, including rights to request access, correction, deletion in certain circumstances, restriction or objection to certain processing, and data portability where applicable. You may also withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
Requests can be sent to support@optimumfishing.com. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request. You may also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) about how your personal information is handled.
12. Cookies, browser storage and first-party analytics
Optimum Fishing uses browser storage, including localStorage and sessionStorage, where necessary to maintain your sign-in session, support the “Remember me” option and provide website functionality. A temporary analytics session identifier may also be stored in sessionStorage so repeat page loads within the same browser session can be distinguished.
Optimum Fishing also uses first-party server-side analytics event records to understand use of the website. These may record events such as a page view, viewing a main site section, running a fishing forecast, saving a catch/session log, starting Stripe Checkout or completing a paid membership payment. To estimate unique, new and returning visitors without setting an analytics cookie or a browser-persistent visitor ID, the analytics service may use request metadata such as an IP address and browser user-agent transiently to generate a pseudonymous server-side visitor hash. The raw IP address is not stored in the analytics events table. Referring website hostnames may also be recorded so Optimum Fishing can understand where visitors came from.
Known automated user agents and signed-in Super Admin activity are excluded from new analytics events where detected. Older page-view history collected before this visitor-analytics upgrade may include repeat, administrative or automated traffic and cannot be retroactively separated into unique visitors.
We do not use behavioural advertising cookies or cross-site advertising identifiers. If additional non-essential cookies or similar tracking technologies are introduced in future, appropriate information and consent controls will be provided where required.
13. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as Optimum Fishing develops or when its data practices change. The latest version will be made available through the website, and significant changes will be communicated where appropriate.
14. Contact
For privacy questions, requests concerning your personal information or other data-protection enquiries, contact Optimum Fishing at support@optimumfishing.com.