Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 26, 2026

Front Nine ("the App") is a golf course ranking app. This policy explains what data we collect and how we use it.

What We Collect

Account Information When you sign in with Apple, we receive your name and email address (or Apple's private relay address if you choose to hide your email). We store your display name and the unique handle you create.

Rankings & Activity The courses you rank, your ratings, and your ranking activity are stored to power the app's features. If your profile is public, other members can see your rankings.

Location With your permission, the App accesses your location once to show nearby golf courses. We do not track or store your location.

Photos Profile and course photos you choose to upload are stored using Firebase Storage and displayed with your profile or ranking activity according to the app's sharing features.

Advertising Measurement With your tracking permission, we use Meta's iOS SDK to measure installs and app sessions and whether an eligible user saves their first course ranking. Meta receives device identifiers (including an SDK-generated identifier and, when authorized, Apple's advertising identifier), app and device information, event timestamps, SDK diagnostic information, and network information such as the IP address used to connect to its services. This information helps measure advertising for Front Nine on Facebook and Instagram and may be linked with information Meta receives from other apps and websites for advertising measurement.

The first-ranking event contains no course name, location, rating, notes, photos, email address, or Front Nine account identifier. We do not supply account information to Meta for advanced matching.

We also use Apple's privacy-preserving install attribution. Apple may send aggregate attribution postbacks to the ad network without sharing your advertising identifier, independently of your tracking choice.

Crash Reports If the App crashes, a crash report is sent to Firebase Crashlytics so we can find and fix the problem. It contains technical details — the app and iOS versions, device model, and what the app was doing when it crashed — plus an identifier for the app installation. It does not include your name, email, Front Nine account, rankings, notes, photos, or location, and it is not used for advertising.

How We Use Your Data

• To display your rankings and profile to you and (if public) to other members
• To power social features: following, activity feeds, and ranking comparisons
• To search for golf courses near you
• With your tracking permission, to understand which ads bring people to Front Nine and whether they begin ranking courses
• To find and fix crashes

Third-Party Services

• Firebase Authentication — manages sign-in securely
• Cloud Firestore — stores account data, rankings, and social connections
• Firebase Storage — stores photos you choose to upload
• Firebase Crashlytics — receives crash reports so we can fix problems. See Firebase's privacy information.
• Apple MapKit — powers course search (queries go directly to Apple)
• GolfCourseAPI.com — helps identify golf courses and provides course information and statistics (par, slope, rating)

• Meta iOS SDK — measures Front Nine advertising and app activation with your tracking permission. See Meta's Privacy Policy.
• Apple SKAdNetwork — provides privacy-preserving install attribution to participating ad networks.

Your Tracking Choice

Front Nine asks for tracking permission using Apple's system prompt. You can decline and continue to use every app feature. You can change your choice in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. We check this choice when the app becomes active and before sending our measurement events. Rankings completed without tracking permission are not later replayed as first-ranking events if you grant permission.

Changing your permission affects future tracking; it does not delete information already received by Meta. Contact us about information associated with Front Nine, and consult Meta's privacy controls for information Meta holds.

Data Deletion

You can request account deletion from the Profile tab in the app. After you confirm, we remove your account, profile, rankings, social connections, activity, uploaded profile and course photos, and individual community contributions. Community summaries are recalculated without your contributions. The app also clears that account’s local data from the device used for deletion.

Deletion may take time to complete. We retain a limited deletion record to prevent delayed uploads or synchronization from restoring removed account data. Restricted backup and recovery copies are separate from the live app and may remain until they expire or are securely removed. Deleted photos remain in Firebase’s protected recovery storage for seven days under our current configuration; these recovery copies are not available through the app.

Contact

If you have questions about this policy, contact us at frontnineapp@gmail.com