Privacy policy

Controller

Karol Kutrowski, c/o MDC#1879, Welserstraße 3, 87463 Dietmannsried, Germany, email: [email protected]

Hosting (Cloudflare)

This website is served via Cloudflare Pages by Cloudflare, Inc. (101 Townsend St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA). When you open a page, Cloudflare processes technically necessary connection data (such as IP address, time, requested address and browser identifier) to deliver the site and protect it against attacks. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in secure and fast operation). Cloudflare is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. A data processing agreement with Cloudflare is in place (Data Processing Addendum, part of the Self-Serve Subscription Agreement).

Audience measurement (Google Analytics 4)

On the home page, the content pages and in the map app we use Google Analytics 4 by Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) to measure reach and usage statistically. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland this only happens after your consent via Google’s consent message (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 25(1) TDDDG); before that, the site only sends cookieless pings without identifiers (Consent Mode v2). Outside these regions measurement takes place without prior consent. Google Analytics 4 does not store IP addresses (anonymisation). Cookies used: _ga and _ga_*. Data may be transferred to the USA (EU-US Data Privacy Framework). You can withdraw your consent at any time via the “privacy settings” link or the consent dialog. More information: Google privacy policy.

Data on your device

The map app stores settings, planned trips, visited camps and the downloaded offline map only locally in your browser (local storage, IndexedDB, origin private file system, service-worker cache). This data is not sent to us. Your GPS position is used only after you allow it and only on your device. You can delete all of it at any time in your browser settings (“clear site data”). If you share a trip by link, the trip is contained in the link itself.

Map data

Places and roads come from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL); the basemap is based on Protomaps. This data is loaded from our own server — opening the map sends no requests to OpenStreetMap or Protomaps.

External links

Navigation links (e.g. Google Maps) only contact an external service after you click them.

Sign in with Google (optional)

The map works without an account. Only if you want to share your own sightings with others (or report posts) can you sign in with “Sign in with Google”. Only when you open the sign-in does your browser load Google’s sign-in script (Google Ireland Limited); Google then sees your IP address and processes the sign-in under its own terms. We receive your Google account ID, your email address and your name from Google. Purpose: an account for sharing sightings and protection against abuse (legal basis Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). We store the account ID, email address, a display name (default: first name and initial of the last name, editable at any time), role and sign-in time in a database at Cloudflare (Cloudflare D1). After signing in we set a session cookie (HttpOnly, valid for 30 days) that is strictly necessary for the signed-in use (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG); the database only holds a hash of it. Your email address is never published.

Community sightings

If you share a sighting with the community, we publish your display name (pseudonym) to all visitors of the map together with the sighting data: species, number, behaviour, time, location (coordinates) and nearest road. No free text and no photos are transmitted. Rhino locations are never accepted, to protect them from poaching. Posts are shown for 48 hours and deleted after 30 days at the latest. You can delete your own posts at any time. Signed-in users can report posts; a post is hidden automatically after three reports, and we may remove posts and block accounts in case of abuse. To limit abuse we store for two days when you created posts.

Advertising (Google AdSense)

On the content pages (e.g. camp, gate and list pages), the home page and in the map app (at the bottom of the sidebar or menu) we show ads via Google AdSense, a service of Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). Google may use cookies and similar identifiers, process data about your visit (such as IP address, browser information and the page viewed) and — depending on your choice — serve personalised or non-personalised ads; data may be transferred to the USA (EU-US Data Privacy Framework). The map app only loads ads while you are online; offline it works without ads.

In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland we ask for your consent through a Google-certified consent management platform (CMP) before cookies or identifiers are stored or read for advertising (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 25(1) TDDDG). You can withdraw your consent at any time via the “privacy settings” link or the consent dialog. More information: How Google uses cookies in advertising.

Your rights

You have the right to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability and objection (Art. 15–21 GDPR) and the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. You can delete your account with all posts and sessions yourself in the map app (“Delete account” in the account menu); deletion requests and other concerns are also welcome at [email protected].

Last updated: October 2026

The German version is the legally binding one.