Privacy Policy

Last updated: 14 October 2026

This policy explains how Moss Lane Farm ("we", "us", "our") handles personal information when you use our website and our Nature Recorder mobile app (the "app"). We are the data controller for the purposes of UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

Who we are: Moss Lane Farm, Chat Moss, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
Contact: hello@mosslanefarm.org.uk

We've designed the app to collect as little personal information as possible, and we do not use advertising or third-party tracking.

Information we collect

Your account. When you first open the app it creates a simple, pseudonymous account for you automatically — a friendly "farm animal" name (for example "Clever Lamb") and a random identifier for your device. You can optionally:

choose a display name and an animal avatar; and
add an email address so your records aren't lost if you change phone. Adding an email is entirely optional.

Nature records. When you log a sighting we store what you record: the species or a description, a count, habitat, any notes, the position you tap on the illustrated farm map, the date and time, and any photos or videos you choose to add.

Location. Location is optional and stays off until you allow it on your phone. The app never tracks you in the background or follows you around the farm. It only reads your phone's position at these moments:

Adding a sighting. If you've already allowed location, the app adds your position when you start a new sighting, so the record is mapped where the wildlife was seen. You can remove it before you save. If you haven't allowed location, nothing is read unless you tap the button to add it.
Volunteering. If you've allowed location, the app notes where you are when you check in, when you check out, and when you add a photo or video to a volunteer session (see "Volunteering" below). If you haven't been asked yet, your phone asks the first time you check in.

Everything works without location: you can record wildlife and check in either way. You can turn the permission off at any time in your phone's settings.

Technical information. Basic information needed for the app to work, such as the device identifier described above and standard request logs.

To record nature we do not ask for your real name, home address or phone number. We only ask for those if you sign up to volunteer (see "Volunteering" below). The app does not contain third-party advertising or analytics trackers.

How we use your information

To run the Nature Recorder — save your sightings and keep them attached to your account across sessions and devices.
To place sightings on the map (using your chosen map position and, if you added it, your GPS location) and to build an accurate picture of biodiversity on the farm.
To show the community biodiversity map and recent sightings, which are visible to other users of the app and on our website (see "Sharing" below).
To maintain, secure and improve the service.

Our legal bases are your consent (for example, choosing to add an email, a photo, or your location) and our legitimate interests in running a community nature-recording project and keeping it secure. For volunteering, we rely on our legitimate interests in running volunteer sessions safely and keeping a record of volunteer hours, and on your explicit consent for any allergy or health details you give us.

Sharing and publication

Community sightings are public. Records you submit — including the species, count, notes, map position, the display name you choose and any photos or videos you attach — are shown to other people on the community map and recent-sightings feed, and may appear on our website. Please don't include anything private in a sighting, and only attach photos you're happy to share.

We use trusted service providers to host and run the service (our hosting and platform infrastructure, provided through the eightyfour studio). They process data only on our instructions. We never sell your personal information. We may disclose information if required by law. If our hosting processes data outside the UK, we rely on appropriate safeguards (such as UK "adequacy" regulations or standard contractual clauses).

Photos and videos

Photos and videos you add to a sighting are uploaded to our service and shown publicly alongside the sighting. Photos and videos you add to a volunteer session are not public: only you and farm staff see them. Media files can sometimes contain embedded metadata (for example the time, camera settings, or location). Only add media you have the right to share, and avoid capturing other people, especially children, without permission.

Volunteering

If you help out at the farm, you can sign up as a volunteer and check in through the app. None of this is public: only you (in the app) and farm staff (in the farm's admin) can see it. Our website only shows the farm's total volunteer hours for each month.

Your volunteer sign-up. Before your first check-in we ask for your full name, home address, a contact number, an emergency contact's name and number, and any allergies or health conditions we should know about (you can write "None"). We keep these so we can look after you on the farm and reach someone if you're hurt or unwell. Once you sign up, the name you give replaces your farm-animal name, and your first name is shown with any sightings you record from then on.

Check-ins. Each time you volunteer we keep:

when you checked in and out, and how long you were here;
any journal notes you write during the session;
any photos and videos you add to the session; and
if you've allowed location, where you were when you checked in, when you checked out, and when you added each photo or video.

Jobs. When you sign up for a farm job, we keep which job it is, the day you plan to do it, and when you started and finished it.

Volunteers without the app. Farm staff can also keep a volunteer record by hand, for example for group days, with the name and contact details you give them, and log your sessions and jobs against it.

How long we keep it. We keep your volunteer details and check-ins for as long as you have an account, so you and the farm can see your hours. You can update your details in the app at any time. If you delete your account, your sign-up details, journal notes, photos, videos, locations, unfinished check-ins and job sign-ups are deleted with it. We keep only the start and end times of your finished sessions, with no name attached, so the farm's volunteer hours still add up. The one exception is a record farm staff keep for you by hand: sessions and jobs logged against that record stay on it, with their notes, photos and locations, until staff remove it or you ask us to. Email hello@mosslanefarm.org.uk and we'll delete it.

Children's privacy

The Nature Recorder is often used by children at supervised sessions, including Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) events. We take this seriously and keep the app child-friendly by design:

accounts are pseudonymous: no real name is needed to record nature, and children can use a farm-animal name and animal avatar;
an email address is optional and never required to record nature;
location is optional and off until switched on: the app never tracks location in the background, and only reads it at the moments listed under "Location" above (adding a sighting, and checking in, checking out or adding a photo or video during a volunteer session); and
there is no advertising and no behavioural profiling.

Where children take part in organised sessions, the organisers and parents/guardians are responsible for supervising use and providing any consent required, including for using the location and camera features. A parent or guardian can ask us to access or delete a child's records at any time by emailing hello@mosslanefarm.org.uk.

Keeping and deleting your information

You can edit or delete your own sightings in the app at any time, and you can permanently delete your whole account and its data from the app in a couple of taps (see how to delete your account). Deletion is immediate and irreversible. The one thing we keep is the start and end times of your finished volunteer sessions, so the farm's volunteer hours still add up; they're kept with no name, notes, photos or location attached. If farm staff also keep a volunteer record for you by hand, what's logged on that record stays until staff remove it or you ask us to (see "Volunteering" above). If you can't use the app, contact us and we'll remove your personal information for you, unless we're required to keep some of it by law.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to access, correct, delete, or restrict our use of your personal information, to object to certain processing, and to data portability. To exercise any of these, contact hello@mosslanefarm.org.uk. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information. No online service can be guaranteed completely secure, but we work to keep your data safe and to limit what we collect in the first place.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We'll change the "last updated" date above and, where appropriate, tell you in the app.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your information? Email hello@mosslanefarm.org.uk or write to Moss Lane Farm, Chat Moss, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.