PrivacyPolicy

Supconnect, LLC runs supconnect.com, a stand up paddle board publication. This policy explains what we collect when you read the site, sign up for the newsletter, send us something or open a member account, why we collect it, who helps us handle it, how long we keep it and what you can do about it. Using the site also means our Terms of Use apply.

You can read everything on supconnect.com without telling us who you are. Anything personal you give us, such as your email address, you give by choice.

The Short Version

• We do not sell your personal information for money. Google, which serves our ads, may use cookies to personalize them, which some US state laws call "selling", "sharing" or "targeted advertising". You can opt out on Your Privacy Choices, and we honor Global Privacy Control automatically.
• Visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland only ever see non-personalized ads.
• Your member account and your saves are never given to advertisers or used to target ads at you.
• Your profile page is public from the day you join if you are 18 or older (your name, your handle, your picture and the sections you leave on), and you can make it private in Settings at any time; members under 18 start with a private profile. If you claim your Power Score athlete record, the claim form says your profile will be public, with a switch to keep it private, and that choice applies once an editor confirms the claim (never for a junior). Messages between members are private to the two of you; our editors read one only when it is reported, or when safety or the law requires it.
• Paddles you record in the Supconnect app are shown publicly once you have read our notice and confirmed you are 18 or older, with the start and end of the route hidden near your privacy zones; you can make them all private, or one at a time, any time. Nothing you recorded before the notice changes. Paddles of members under 18 are never shown to others, and heart rate and other health readings from the app stay on your phone and are never sent to us.
• Your email address is used only for what you gave it to us for: the newsletter you asked for, questions about something you sent us, or the account email notices you can switch off in your settings, or a short personal note from our team about your account, such as a welcome.
• We share personal information only with the services that run the site for us, listed below, and only so they can do that job, or when the law requires it.
• We keep submissions and contact messages for at most 24 months; conversations between members stay until the members delete their accounts. You can ask us to see, correct or delete what we hold about you at any time.

What We Collect

When you read the site. Like any website, the servers that deliver our pages receive your IP address and basic details about your browser and device. From your IP address our host works out which country you are in, which we use only to decide which kind of ads to show (see "Visitors in the EEA, UK and Switzerland"). Google Analytics records the pages you visit, roughly where you are (city or region), the kind of device and browser you use and how you arrived. Google Ad Manager receives similar details to show and measure ads. We see this as totals and trends, such as how many people read a review this week, not as a file on you.

When you sign up for the newsletter. We collect your email address and send it to Mailchimp, which runs our newsletter, the Weekly Recap. Mailchimp emails you a link to confirm first, and you join the list only once you click it. Members can also subscribe from their account settings, but only by ticking the Weekly Recap box and pressing Subscribe; signing in never adds your account email to the list.

When you contact us. The contact form sends your name, email address, the topic you choose and your message to us. We keep them in our database, where only our team can read them, so we can answer you, and Formspree also delivers a copy to our inbox. If you email us directly, we receive whatever you write. We use it to answer you.

When you send us an event, a destination, a place, photos or a Photo Contest entry. The forms collect what you type in them, such as event, destination or place details (including a correction to a place we list and how you know it), your name, your email address, where you are based, your website or Instagram, a short bio, notes to our editors, and the photos you upload. We use this to review your submission, publish what we accept and contact you about it. What we publish is the event, destination or place details, your photos and your name as credit, as each form explains. Your email address is never published. Before we publish a photo we resize it and remove the camera and GPS data stored inside the file.

Race results you send us. When you submit race results on supconnect.com, we collect the files or the results page address you send, the race they belong to, and your name, email address, role (for example organizer or timer), organization, any note, and when you ticked the permission line. If the race is not on our calendar yet, we also keep the event details you give us. We use these to check and publish the results, to credit your event and to contact you about them. If you tick "Send results after every edition", we may email you after later editions of the race to ask for their results. This is not our newsletter: we never add you to it, and you can ask us to stop at any time by replying or writing to info@supconnect.com. Your details are kept with the submission in our private submissions store and our editors' review record for at most 24 months, like other submissions. Results files can include the names, nations, age groups and times of the paddlers who raced. We never store home towns, addresses, emails, phone numbers or full dates of birth from them, and we never name a junior.

Race courses you send us. Signed in, you can send us the course of a race: the race, the course details you type (its name, distance, laps, water, start, board classes, where the course comes from and a description in your words), your role, how you would like it credited, and up to three GPS files (GPX, KML or GeoJSON) and three course map images. We keep these with your member ID and when you ticked the permission line, in our private submissions store, and copy the details into our editors' private review page. From a GPS file we read only the positions, never the times or anything else recorded in it, and we publish only a simplified line drawn from them; the files and images themselves are never published. A published course is credited as you asked, or otherwise to your role, never to your account. We tell you under Notifications when your course arrives and when it is live. If the race is not on our calendar yet, the event details you give us are kept as an event submission. Everything you send is kept for at most 24 months, like other submissions; if we decline the course, we delete your files when we close it.

When you open a member account, set up a profile, follow, message or post. See "Member Accounts" below.

When you claim a business listing. To claim a place we list as your business, you sign in and tell us your role, a business email address and phone number, and how we can check that you work there (an email at the business's domain, a page on its website that names you, or a note). We use these only to verify your claim and to contact you about the listing. They are never published, never added to a mailing list and never sent to Anthropic.

When you manage a listing. Once your claim is approved, the changes you make to the listing (hours, description, website, booking link, phone) are published on its page. We keep a record of each change: the field, what it said before and after, when, and the account that made it, so our editors can check and undo it. When you delete your account, that record stays with the listing, no longer linked to you.

When you organize an event or lead a club. To manage an event on our calendar, you sign in and tell us your role, an email address and phone number, and how we can check that you run it; a club leader claims the club's listing the same way. We use these only to verify your claim and to contact you about the event or club; they are never published. The changes you propose to an event are kept with your member ID and published only after an editor checks them. The meet-ups you add for your club (day, time, launch spot, level and notes) are published on the club's page and its city hub, and we keep a record of each one you add or remove so our editors can check and undo it. When you delete your account, your event claims are deleted, and these records stay, no longer linked to you. Event pages. Once we approve your claim, you run the event's page, which covers every edition of the event. Public on that page: the organizer name you give, the words and photos you add (with their credits), the divisions you list, your announcements, and your handle if your profile is public. Your email address and phone number are never public. We keep what you add with the member ID of whoever added it, and a record of each change to the page (the field, before and after, when, and the account that made it) so our editors can check and undo it; we keep that record for 24 months. Announcements are public posts about the event: they show on its page, in the community feed and in the Following feed of members who follow the event, under the rules in "Posts" below. Signed in, any member can follow an event. We keep each follow with the member's ID and when it started; the organizer and everyone else see only how many people follow, never who. We tell followers under Notifications when the event posts an announcement (at most one notice a day for each event), when a new edition is listed and when new results go live. The events you run and follow are in your data download. When you delete your account, your follows and your role on an event's page are deleted; the page stays, and its change record stays, no longer linked to you.

When you add photos to a place. Signed in, you can upload up to five photos at a time of a place we list, each with an optional caption of up to 140 characters. We keep each photo in private storage with your member ID, the place, the caption, its size and when you sent it, and our editors review it there; for a newer member nothing is public until one of them approves it. Photos from members with an established record of approved contributions and no upheld reports, and from city Hosts and verified owners of the listing, are published at once and reviewed afterwards, and an editor can remove any photo at any time. A published photo appears on the place's page, resized and with the camera and GPS data inside the file removed, with the caption as its description and your display name as credit while "Show my display name" is on, otherwise "A Supconnect paddler" (always "A Supconnect paddler" for members under 18); your member ID and email are never shown. Once a photo is published or declined, we delete your original file and keep only the resized copy we publish. We count how many photos you add (10 a day) to stop abuse, and we notify you in the account menu when a photo is live. The photos are in your data download, and deleting your account deletes them, published or not.

When you report a problem with a place. Signed in, you can tell us that a place we list has closed, has wrong details, raises a safety concern or is spam, with a short note. We keep the report with your member ID so our editors can check it; it is never published. When you delete your account, the report stays, no longer linked to you.

When you apply to be a Host or act as one. To apply to be a city Host, you sign in and give the profile paddlers would see (your name, a short bio and your story, credentials, an optional photo link, website and Instagram) and a note on why you would like to host. Our editors read the note; it is never published. Once we approve you, the profile is public on that city's hub, and we keep a record of each change you make to it (the field, before and after, when) so our editors can check and undo it.

When you message a Host. Signed in, you can write to a city's Host from its hub: the name you sign with, a subject and your message, and any replies either of you send. We store the conversation so that only you and that Host can read it on the site. An automatic check holds messages that look like spam (several links, promotional wording, mostly capitals); a Supconnect editor then reads the held message to deliver it or keep it from the Host. Editors can also read a conversation when someone reports abuse or we must investigate misuse. Messages are never published, never sold, never added to a mailing list and never sent to Anthropic. We count how many messages you send (5 a day) to stop abuse. Once email notices are switched on, we email you when the Host replies, and email a Host when a paddler writes, unless you turn that off (see "Email notices" under "Member Accounts"); the email says who wrote and links to the conversation, but never includes the message itself.

Notifications. When a Host replies, a message reaches you as a Host, another member follows you, asks to follow you or accepts your request, a member writes to you, our editors decide on your claim, Host application, place report or post with photos, a place you suggested while signed in goes live (for which we keep your member ID with that suggestion), or an event you follow posts an announcement, lists a new edition or has new results live, we keep a short notice for you under Notifications in the account menu: a one-line title that never contains a message's text or anyone's contact details, a link, when it arrived and when you read it, only your latest 200, included in your data download and deleted with your account.

How We Use It

• To run the site and keep it working and secure. To protect our forms and member features from abuse, we count how often each is used, by member ID for members and otherwise by a one-way, daily-changing hash of your IP address that cannot be turned back into it; the IP address itself is never stored, and these counts are deleted within 2 days.
• To understand which stories, reviews and guides readers use, so we can make more of what helps.
• To count clicks on the booking and website links on our place pages, which we do without recording who clicked.
• To show ads, which help pay for a free publication.
• To send the newsletter to people who asked for it.
• To answer messages and review, edit and publish what readers send us.
• To give members their saved guide, and the email notices they choose.
• To show which places, events and stories members save most, on our city hub and country pages and in how our world map ranks its pins. We show only a total, such as "Saved by 12 members", and only once at least five members have saved the item; we never show who saved it.
• To meet our legal obligations and protect our rights, for example answering a copyright notice.

Services That Help Us Run the Site

These companies handle data for us. Each has its own privacy policy, linked here.

• Vercel hosts the site and its files, including the photos we publish, and receives the details any web host gets when you load a page, such as your IP address and the country it comes from. Submissions and their photos are kept in private Vercel storage that only our editors can reach, and the raw GPS points of paddles you record in the app in private Vercel storage that only your own signed-in account can download from. Vercel privacy policy
• Google Analytics measures how the site is used. Google privacy policy
• Google Ad Manager chooses, shows and measures the ads on the site. How Google uses information from sites that use its services
• Mailchimp (an Intuit company) stores the newsletter list and sends the newsletter. Intuit Mailchimp privacy statement
• Formspree delivers contact form messages to our inbox. Formspree privacy policy
• Google Workspace runs our email, so messages to info@supconnect.com are stored there. Google privacy policy
• GitHub is where our editors review submissions. The details you send, including your email address, are copied into a private review page that only our team can see. GitHub privacy statement
• Anthropic provides Claude, an AI model that helps our editors check submissions before a person reviews them, for example whether an event matches the organizer's own website or a photo shows paddling. It receives the submitted details and small previews of photos, but not your name or email address on event, destination and place submissions, and not your email address on photo submissions. A person always makes the decision. Anthropic privacy policy
• Clerk runs sign-in for member accounts. Clerk privacy policy
• Neon hosts the database that stores contact form messages, members' saves, email settings, listing and event claims, the event pages organizers run (their details, photos, divisions, team and change record) and the events members follow, club meet-ups, place reports, Host profiles and messages to Hosts, and members' profile settings and welcome answers, hometowns and the places members paddle, follows, messages, blocks, posts and reports, and the paddles they record in the app with their routes, privacy zones and sharing settings. Neon privacy policy
• Resend sends our account email notices (Host replies, messages to Hosts, messages from other members or our team, saved-event, paddle and profile reminders, Power Score rank notices and new-follower notices) once email notices are switched on. For each email it receives your address, the subject and the email's text. Resend privacy policy

Some pages load content from other services. Videos come from YouTube: the page shows a still image from YouTube, and the player, from YouTube's privacy-enhanced youtube-nocookie.com domain, loads only when you press play (Google privacy policy). Maps on our travel pages load their map images from OpenFreeMap. Both receive your IP address when they send you their content.

Cookies and Your Choices

Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. Supconnect.com uses these:

• Google Analytics sets its own cookies on supconnect.com to tell new visitors from returning ones and to count visits.
• Google Ad Manager and the Google ad services behind it may set and read cookies and similar identifiers to show ads, limit how often you see the same one, measure them, prevent fraud and, unless ads are limited for you as described below, choose ads based on your interests.
• Our region cookie (sc-region) records only whether your visit comes from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, so the right kind of ads are shown. It lasts one day.
• Our location cookie (sc-near) uses your approximate location from your IP address so that "Near You" opens your city hub or, outside our city hubs, the map of your country. It stores only your country code, your approximate coordinates rounded to about 7 miles (11 km), and the name of the city hub you are in, if any. It never stores your exact location, and it lasts one day.
• Our language cookies. When you open a page we also publish in Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese, our server reads the language your browser sends with every request (and, only if your browser sends none, Vercel's estimate of your country from your IP address) to show you that edition. We do not store either. Our sc-lang cookie is set only when you choose a language yourself, with the globe at the top of a page, the language links at its foot, or "Read in English", and from then on we follow your choice. It stores only that choice (English, Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese) and lasts one year. Our sc-lang-auto cookie is set only when we have shown you an edition automatically, so the page can say so and offer the English original. It stores only the edition's code and is deleted as soon as the page has read it, or after five minutes.
• Clerk sets cookies to keep you signed in, only if you sign in to a member account. The site also keeps a small note in your browser's storage so a single visit is counted as one sign-in, and, right after you create an account, a note for that browser tab so the welcome opens once.
• Your privacy choice. If you opt out on Your Privacy Choices, we store that choice in your browser's storage (sc-optout-ads) so every page can honor it.

We do not show a cookie banner. Analytics and ads load for every visitor, but we limit them for you automatically in three cases: your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, you opted out on Your Privacy Choices, or you are visiting from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland. When they are limited, we ask Google for non-personalized ads only, ask it to restrict how it uses data from your visit (Google's "restricted data processing"), and turn off Google signals and ad personalization signals in our analytics. Non-personalized ads can still use cookies to limit how often an ad is shown, to count ads and to prevent fraud. We do not respond to the older "Do Not Track" browser setting, which has no agreed meaning; Global Privacy Control replaces it.

You stay in control:

• Your browser. You can block or delete cookies in your browser's settings, or use private browsing. Reading the site works without them; signing in to a member account needs Clerk's cookies.
• Ads. Opt out on Your Privacy Choices. You can also turn off personalized ads from Google in My Ad Center, and opt out of interest-based ads from many ad companies at optout.aboutads.info.
• Analytics. Google offers a browser add-on that opts you out of Google Analytics on every site.
• Email. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. One click takes you off the list, and our signup form never adds you back after you unsubscribe.

Member Accounts

A Supconnect account is free and optional. You can read everything on the site without one. An account lets you save events and stories to your own guide and tick them off once you have been or have read them, review and add photos to places, and, where these features are switched on, keep a profile page, follow other paddlers, message them and post.

How you sign in. Sign-in is run for us by Clerk, a company that handles accounts for websites. You sign in with a one-time code sent to your email, or with an account you already have, such as Google. We never see or store a password. Clerk keeps your email address, your name and profile picture if your sign-in account shares them, and the records it needs to keep your sign-in safe, such as active sessions. Clerk's own privacy policy covers how it handles that data.

What we store. In our own database we keep a short record for each member: the member ID Clerk gives you and the date your account was created. Your email and picture stay with Clerk, not in that record; if your profile is public, we read your picture from Clerk to show on it (see "Your profile page"). We copy the name your sign-in account gives us (first and last name) as your display name, make a handle from it, and ask your birth year when you set up your profile, to keep members under 18 private; the birth year is never shown. A profile photo you upload yourself is kept by us (see "Profile photo"). For each event, story or place you save, we store its page address on supconnect.com, what kind of page it is, the area it belongs to (such as San Diego), the date you saved it and, if you tick it, the date you marked it done. What else we keep depends on what you choose to do, as the rest of this section explains.

How we use it. We use your saves to show you your guide and the Saved state on the pages you have saved. Our site analytics (Google Analytics) counts sign-ups, sign-ins, saves and the steps of the welcome as anonymous events, such as "a story was saved", without your email, name or member ID. We do not sell your account data or your saves, and we do not give them to advertisers or use them to target ads at you. We share them only with the services that run the site for us, such as Clerk and our database and hosting providers, and only so they can do that job.

What our team sees. To run the service and look after members, our staff can see each member's account email and whether it is verified, how they signed up, when they joined and last signed in, and what they have done on the site (such as saves, follows, photos, posts, reviews, claims and reports) on private admin pages only they can open, are told a new member's name (never their email) when they join, and may use this to write to you about your account, for example to welcome you, but never to add you to the newsletter.

Email notices. Once email notices are switched on, we send short emails to the verified email address on your account only about your account: when a Host replies to a message you sent, when another member (or our team) writes to you (once until you have read it), if you are a Host, when a paddler writes to you, a week before an event you saved, the day before a paddle you joined (where Paddle Connect is switched on), when a new Power Score list moves your rank or rating or counts a new result of yours, when someone follows you (if you chose that), and, after your athlete claim is confirmed, at most two reminders (about three days and two weeks later) to finish your profile with a picture, a hometown and where you paddle; those two stop as soon as your profile is done or you tap "Not now" or "Stop these reminders", and we never send a third. Host replies, messages from members and to Hosts, paddle reminders, rank notices and profile reminders are on unless you switch them off; the event reminder is off unless you switch it on; new-follower emails are on once an athlete claim is confirmed, and otherwise off unless you switch them on. None of them contains advertising. Each email says what happened and links to the page on supconnect.com; it never includes the text of a message. We send them through Resend. We do not keep your address: we read it from Clerk when an email goes out. We store only your choices and, for each event reminder, which event it was about and when we sent it, so we never send the same reminder twice, and, for profile reminders, which of the two we sent and when (kept for 24 months). To stop them, untick their boxes in Settings (supconnect.com/me/settings); every email links there, and each also carries a link that stops that one kind of email with one click, without signing in (the link names your account by its internal id, never your email address, and works for 90 days). These notices are separate from the Weekly Recap and never add you to it.

Sharing a guide. If you choose to share one of your guides by link, anyone with that link can see only what you chose to share, the titles of what you saved in that place and links to them, never your email or ticks (nor your name, unless you choose to show it), and you can turn sharing off at any time, after which that link stops working for good (sharing again makes a new one).

Your profile settings. In Settings you can change your display name and your handle (we set both when you join), and add a home city and your preferred units, which we keep in your member record, include in your data download and delete with your account. Your display name appears on a guide you share, and your handle in a public link to it, only if you turn those options on.

The welcome. Right after you create an account we ask three optional questions: your home water (one of our city hubs, or elsewhere and your country), what brings you here (racing, paddling near home, planning a trip, running a shop, school, club or race) and whether you want our Sunday email about the paddling near you. You can skip them. We keep your answers in your member record to choose what we show you first, include them in your data download and delete them with your account. The Sunday email choice is only stored for now: we do not send that email yet, and when we start, every one will have a link to stop it. You can change your home water any time in Settings.

Your profile page. You have a profile page at supconnect.com/u/your-handle from the day you join. It is public from 18 unless you choose otherwise, private under 18, and you can switch between Private and Public in Settings at any time.

• Private (the default under 18). Only you see your profile. Anyone else sees your name (see below), your handle, and that the profile is private. Nothing else is read from our database for them, not even hidden on the page.
• Public (the default from 18). Anyone can see your name (see below), your handle, your picture (your own profile photo if you uploaded one (and, for a member under 18, an editor approved it), otherwise the picture from the account you sign in with, read from Clerk when the page is shown, or your initials if you have none or chose no picture), your bio of up to 160 characters, your home city, the month and year you joined, how many people follow you and you follow, your posts, and only the sections you leave on: your place reviews (on to start with), your published place photos (on), the places and stories you saved (on) and your upcoming saved events (off). Turning a section off hides it at once.

Hometown and where you paddle. In Settings you can pick a hometown from a list of towns (towns of 1,000 people or more, from GeoNames, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence) and up to five public launch spots, venues, clubs or race courses we list. We store the town's name, region, country and the centre point of the town, never an address, a street or your exact location; nothing finer than a town can be typed into the hometown field. Your hometown also sets your home water (the city hub around it, or elsewhere and your country), which chooses what we show you first. If your profile is public, your hometown and the first three of your places show on it (you can hide the places with the "Show the first three on my profile" switch under "Where You Paddle"). If your profile is public and you tick "Show my hometown on the map", the map shows one dot on your town with the number of paddlers from there and, when someone taps it, your name as your profile shows it; untick it any time and the dot forgets you within an hour. Juniors are never shown on the map or counted in its numbers. We also count hometowns and places to say things like "12 paddlers call San Diego home" or "Home water for 7 paddlers" (never under five members for a place, never who) and to decide where to open the next city hub. Signed in with a hometown, "Near You" opens the map around your hometown instead of using your IP address. Hometown, places and these choices are in your data download and deleted with your account.

How your name shows. Other people see your display name unless you turn off "Show my display name" in Settings; then they see your @handle. For members under 18 it starts off. That one switch covers your profile page (private or public), follower lists, follow notices, messages and post bylines. You always see your own name. The same switch covers the credit on a photo you add to a place: your display name while it is on, otherwise "A Supconnect paddler", never your @handle, and always "A Supconnect paddler" for members under 18 (see "When you add photos to a place"). Your email address is never shown anywhere on the site.

Following. You can follow another member. Following a public profile takes effect at once; following a private one sends a request that the member can accept or decline, and you appear as their follower only once they accept. We keep each follow with both member IDs, whether it is accepted or waiting, and when it started. Your follower and following lists can be seen by anyone if your profile is public, and only by you and the members you accepted if it is private. You can unfollow, decline a request or remove a follower at any time, and that deletes the follow. The member you follow is told in their notifications. We count follows (30 an hour) to stop abuse.

Messages between members. Signed in, you can write privately to another member. In Settings you choose who may start a conversation with you: any signed-in paddler, only people you follow (the default) or nobody; a conversation already open carries on whatever you choose. Our team can write to you about your account through the same messages, marked "Supconnect team", whatever your setting; blocking stops that too. We store each conversation, its messages, who wrote them and when, and when each of you last read it, so that only the two of you can read it on the site. Messages are plain text of 2 to 2,000 characters, and we remove email addresses from a message before we store it, so neither of you can see the other's address. Our editors read a message only when one of you reports it, and otherwise only if the law requires it or we must look into a serious safety concern or misuse of the site. Messages are never published, never sold, never used for ads, never added to a mailing list and never sent to Anthropic. We count how many you send (10 new conversations a day, 10 messages a minute and 200 a day) and run the same spam check as for messages to Hosts, which refuses a message that looks like spam. Messages cannot be unsent one by one; a conversation is kept until an account is deleted, as described below.

Reporting a message. You can report a message another member sent you as spam, harassment or something else, with an optional note of up to 500 characters (email addresses removed). We keep the report with your member ID so an editor can check the message and decide to hide it or keep it; a hidden message disappears for you and shows as removed to the member who wrote it. We count reports (10 a day). If you delete your account, your reports stay, no longer linked to you.

Blocking. You can block a member from a conversation with them. While a block stands, neither of you can write to the other, the conversation leaves both inboxes, you drop out of each other's follower and following lists, and neither of you sees the other's posts. The site does not tell the other member why they cannot write. We keep the block with both member IDs and when you made it; you can see and undo your blocks in Settings.

Posts. You can post on your profile: plain text of up to 1,000 characters, optionally naming a place we list, and up to four photos, each with an optional description of up to 140 characters. We keep each post with your member ID, its place, its dates and its status. A post shows on your profile and in the Following feed of members who follow you: to anyone if your profile is public, and only to you and the followers you accepted if it is private.

• Photos are checked. A post with photos from a newer member waits in private storage until an editor approves it, and you are told whether it was approved. A post with photos from one of the members with an established record of approved contributions and no upheld reports, or from a city Host or the verified owner of the place it names, is published at once and reviewed afterwards, and an editor can take it down at any time. A published photo is resized, with the camera and GPS data inside the file removed, and your original file is deleted.
• Text goes up at once. A text-only post is published straight away, unless our spam check (several links, promotional wording, mostly capitals) holds it for an editor.
• Reports. Anyone who can see a post can report it as spam, offensive, harassment, unsafe or something else, with an optional note of up to 500 characters; we keep the report with their member ID, seen only by our editors. A post is hidden at once, until an editor decides to keep it or take it down for good, when three different members report it, when two members who each have a record of approved contributions report it, or when one city Host, or the verified owner of the place it names, reports it. Apart from a Host or a verified owner, one person can never take a post down alone.
• Your control. You can edit or delete your posts at any time; deleting one deletes its photos too. We count posts (10 a day, 12 photos a day), edits and deletions (30 an hour) and reports (10 a day) to stop abuse.

The community page, races and courses. If your profile is public, your published posts (with their photos and the place they name) can appear on supconnect.com/community and in the "What's Happening" section of a city hub, once you have been a member for at least seven days, have a handle and have had at least one contribution approved. A post you share about a race on our calendar or one of our courses is kept with that race or course, and, on the same terms, can also appear on the pages of that race and its courses and on the community page narrowed to that race or course. A post is listed under a city when it names a place in that city; if it names none, when it is about a race or course in that city; otherwise when that city is the home city you chose in Settings. We keep that city with the post and never use your location. Photos you add to a place can appear there too, credited with your name as the site shows it if your profile is public, and as "A Supconnect paddler" if it is private. Posts from private profiles never appear in any of these places. Signed in, the community page also shows you posts from the paddlers you follow, suggests public profiles to follow, and leaves out members you blocked; what it shows you is worked out when you open it and is not stored. Our editors see what reaches the page each day and can take it down.

Finding profiles in search. The search on supconnect.com finds paddlers too, but only public profiles with a handle, never a private or deleted one. It matches the start of your handle, words in your bio, and words in your display name only if "Show my display name" is on. A result shows your display name if you show it (otherwise your @handle), your home city and your follower and following counts, never your picture, email address or member ID. Search results are cached for about a minute, so a profile you make private drops out of search within about a minute; the profile page itself hides at once. Search engines such as Google are kept away from profile pages for now: our robots.txt asks them not to visit /u/, profile pages are marked not to be indexed, and our sitemap lists no profiles. Once we turn indexing on, public profiles may be listed in our sitemap and appear in search engines; private ones never will. If you make a public profile private after that, its page asks search engines to drop it, though their copies can take a while to update.

Power Score athletes. We publish race results that organizers, timing providers and federations make public or send us with permission, and we build an athlete record from them: the name and nation as printed, the races, places and times, and a rating. We rely on our legitimate interest in publishing a ranking of public race results, balanced against yours: we show only the name, the flag, the results and, if you choose one, a home city; never an address or a club meeting place; and nothing about juniors beyond their results. Your Power Score home city is a city hub you pick yourself and is never shown as a map pin. Separately, your member profile may carry a hometown and the places you paddle (above), which you can put on our map as a town dot if you choose to. If you claim your athlete record while signed in, we keep the claim with your member ID, the records you ticked and the results you said are not yours, the proof you chose (a federation ID, the email domain you registered with, the link to a public post with your code, or who vouches for you) and the editor's decision. An editor replies within seven days. Once your claim is approved, if you have no handle yet we give you one made from the athlete's name (you can change it in Settings), your profile goes public with your Power Score on it unless you turned that off on the claim form, and, once we send email, we email you about new followers unless you already chose otherwise in Settings. You can set your flag within our published rule (each change is listed publicly) and pick a home city from our city hubs. When a new Power Score list goes live, we tell you under Notifications if your rank or rating moved or a new result of yours counts, and keep a record of each of these rank notices (the list, your rank and rating before and after, and how many new results counted) so you are never told twice; once we send email, we email it too unless you turn that off in Settings. We keep each city you chose and when, and any local evidence an editor asked for with your answer. Your city is never taken from an address, a club or a results sheet. Anyone signed in can ask for a correction. As the athlete, you can also object to being listed: within 14 days your name comes off every page and your results show as "Athlete withdrew", still counted in other paddlers' results. Corrections are listed publicly in our words, never yours. Your claims, flags, home cities, rank notices, disputes and corrections are in your data download. Deleting your account deletes your claims, home city choices and rank notices; your disputes and correction requests stay without your member ID; the race results stay, because they are public facts from their organizers.

Following athletes. Signed in, you can follow any athlete with a Power Score page, whether or not they have claimed it, to see their new results among "People You Follow Raced" and under "Paddlers You Follow" in your guide. We keep each athlete you follow with your member ID and when you started. An athlete who has not claimed their page is never told who follows them, and we show no follower count until the athlete has claimed it. Once an athlete's claim is approved, they get a notice when you follow them, naming you as your public profile does (your display name if you show it, else your handle, else "A paddler"), and an email if they chose that. Juniors cannot be followed. You can stop following at any time, which deletes the follow; the athletes you follow are in your data download and are deleted with your account. We count follows (30 an hour) to stop abuse.

Paddles you record in the Supconnect app. Where it is switched on, the Supconnect app can record your paddles or import them from a watch, a health app or a file, and keep them in your account. Public paddles are switched on from November 6, 2026.

• What we keep. For each paddle: the sport, the board you name, when it started and ended, its duration, distance and average speed, where it started, the place you chose, a title and notes if you add them, the device that recorded it, and its track: the precise GPS points recorded about once a second (time, position and, where the device gives them, altitude, accuracy and speed) and a simplified line of the route. Heart rate, calories and other health readings from the app stay on your phone and are never sent to us, so they are never shown to anyone or used for ads. Your raw GPS points are kept in private storage, and only your own signed-in account can download them. Your track is precise location data: it can show where you launch, and so where you live or paddle regularly.
• Advertising. Your paddles and their routes are never given to advertisers or used to choose or target ads.
• Public unless you say otherwise. Paddles you record after you have read our notice in the app or on the site are shown on supconnect.com and in the app to anyone, unless you choose otherwise. We show your name as the site shows it (see "How your name shows"), linked to your profile only if your profile is public, and the paddle's title, date, sport, board, distance, time and pace, a map of its route with the start and end hidden near your privacy zones, the wind that day, your notes, and a course time only if you listed that time on a course board. When the start and end are hidden, the distance, time and pace shown to others are those of the part of the route shown, so the hidden part cannot be worked out. We never show the time of day, where exactly you launched, your raw GPS points, heart rate, altitude or device. The notice asks you to confirm you are 18 or older before any paddle of yours is shown. Paddles you recorded before you read the notice, and what you wrote on them, stay as they were: none of them becomes public unless you change it yourself. In Settings you choose whether your new paddles are public, shared only with the paddlers who follow you, or private, and you can make all your paddles private at once; in the app or on the site you can change any single paddle at any time. A paddle you make private disappears for others at once. Search engines are kept away from paddle pages for now: our robots.txt asks them not to visit them, the pages are marked not to be indexed, and our sitemap lists none.
• Members under 18. Paddles of members under 18 are always private: they are never shown to other members or the public, and they cannot be made public or shared with followers. We treat you as under 18 when the birth year you gave says so, or when you claimed a junior Power Score athlete record.
• Privacy zones. You can set up to five privacy zones: a spot you choose on a map, one of your home paddling venues or your hometown, with a radius of a quarter mile to two miles. The start and end of a public route are cut where they come within a zone, and the hidden area is drawn a little off the spot you chose, on purpose, so the spot cannot be worked out from several of your paddles. We keep each zone's spot and radius, and the hidden area drawn from them, in your member record so that our servers can cut your routes before anyone else sees them; we show the spot and radius only to you, and never publish any of them or include them in what others can see. When you add or change a zone, your public routes are redrawn to match. We also hide the first and last 650 feet (200 m) of every public route, whether or not you set a zone. If too little of a route is left to show, we show no map, only the paddle's figures.
• The heat map. A paddle is used for the paddling heat map only if you turn on heat-map sharing for that paddle and it is not private; making a paddle public does not turn sharing on. The heat map shows where many paddlers go, never one paddler's route, name or times: it shows an area only once a minimum number of different paddlers have paddled there, and never uses the first and last 650 feet (200 m) of a paddle or any part of it inside your privacy zones. Turning sharing off, or deleting the paddle, takes it out of the heat map at the next rebuild.
• Posting a paddle with photos. In the app or on the site you can post a paddle with up to four photos and a caption. A post you make public is a post like any other (see "Posts" above): it shows on your profile, in the community and city hub feeds, on the paddle's own page and in the Supconnect app, to the people your profile settings allow, and its photos are checked, resized and stripped of the camera and GPS data inside the file before they are shown. The post shows the paddle's map and figures only to people who may see the paddle itself, and never for a member under 18; to anyone else it shows only the photos and caption. If you choose "Only you", the post, its photos and caption stay in private storage: nobody but you can see them, no editor reviews them, and nobody can report them. You can make such a post public later, and it then goes through the same review as any post. Deleting the paddle deletes its "Only you" posts and their photos; a public post stays without the paddle card until you delete it. Your posts and their photos are in your data download and are deleted with your account.
• Reports and moderation. Anyone signed in can report a public paddle (for example, not a paddle, a motorized trip, someone else's, offensive words, or a route that shows a private place). We keep the report with the reporter's member ID, never shown to you. A paddle with two open reports is hidden until an editor decides to keep, hide or remove it, and we tell you under Notifications. Reports are deleted 24 months after the decision.
• Your edits. If you change a paddle's details, a later import from your device never overwrites what you changed.
• Download and delete. Your paddles are in your data download: every detail, each paddle's simplified route as GeoJSON, a link to download its raw GPS points while you are signed in, your privacy zones (each spot and radius as you set it), your sharing settings and the reports you sent. Deleting a paddle deletes its route, its public route and its raw GPS points straight away; we keep only a short record (when it was, its sport and the import's ID, without any location) so that the same activity is not imported again. Deleting your account deletes every paddle, the short records, every GPS file, your privacy zones and your settings; reports you sent stay with our editors without your member ID.

Reviews of places. When you review a place, we keep your stars, title, words, the month you visited if you give it, the name you chose to show with it, your member ID and the dates; the review, with that name, is public on the place's page and its search results data, never your email. If you report a review, we keep your reason and note, seen only by our editors. A business that manages its listing is told that a new review arrived, not who you are beyond the name on the review. Your reviews and reports are in your data download, and deleting your account deletes them.

Profile photo. In Settings you can upload your own profile photo, use the picture from the account you sign in with, or show no picture. We keep a 512-pixel square copy without camera or location data, never the file you uploaded. A new photo shows to others at once, except that every photo from a member under 18 waits in private storage until an editor looks at it; until then only that member sees it, and others see the previous picture. Other members can report a profile photo; a reported photo is hidden until an editor decides, and we tell you if it is removed. We count new photos (5 a day) and reports (10 a day) to stop abuse.

Downloading and deleting your data. Signed in, you can open Settings from the account menu (supconnect.com/me/settings) to download your data as a file: your member record and profile settings, saves, follows and follow requests, the athletes you follow, your messages to Hosts with their replies, the messages you wrote to other members (with the name of the member each conversation is with; their words are theirs to download), the members you blocked, your message settings, your posts, and your paddles with their routes and privacy zones, your sharing settings and the paddle reports you sent. You can also delete your account there. Removing a save in your guide deletes it straight away. To close your account, choose Manage account from the account menu at the top of the page and delete it there, or in the Supconnect app go to You › Delete Account. If you cannot sign in, email us at info@supconnect.com from the address on your account with the subject "Delete my account", and we will delete it for you within 30 days. Delete Your Account sets out every step and what is kept. When an account is deleted, Clerk removes your sign-in details and we delete your member record, every save, your email settings and reminder record, your shared guide links, your listing claims, any Host application, every photo you added to a place (taken off the site, with the files deleted), every message and reply you sent to or as a Host, your profile page, your follows in both directions, the athletes you follow, your blocks, every post you made with its photos (taken off the site, with the files deleted), and every paddle you recorded in the app with its GPS files, your privacy zones and your sharing settings. Messages with other members work differently, so the other member does not lose their conversation: they keep it, with your messages signed "Former member", and nobody can reply to it any more. A conversation is deleted for good once both members have deleted their accounts. If you were a Host, your profile comes off the site and we keep only your display name, so the paddlers who wrote to you still see who their conversation was with. One exception: if yours was the only approved claim on a business, we keep that claim's business email and phone, no longer linked to you, so we can contact the business about its listing.

Sharing

We do not sell your personal information for money, and we do not give it to advertisers or other companies so they can market to you. Advertisers on the site never receive your name, email address, account or saves. Google's ad services do collect the browsing details described under "Cookies and Your Choices" when they show you an ad, and unless ads are limited for you, Google may use them to personalize ads. That is the only "sale" or "sharing" of personal information, as some state laws define those words, that happens on supconnect.com, and you can opt out of it on Your Privacy Choices.

Apart from the services listed above, we share personal information only if the law requires it, to protect the rights and safety of our readers, contributors or Supconnect, or as part of a sale or merger of Supconnect, in which case the buyer must keep honoring this policy.

How Long We Keep It

• Member accounts last until you delete them. Deleting your account removes your sign-in details at Clerk and your member record, every save and your listing claims from our database (except the business contact on a business's only approved claim, as described under "Member Accounts").
• Messages between members have no set expiry: a conversation stays until its members delete their accounts. When one member deletes theirs, the other keeps the conversation, with the deleted member shown as "Former member"; when both have, it is deleted.
• Profile photos stay until you replace or delete them, or delete your account. A photo that waits for review, or is hidden after a report, stays in private storage only until an editor decides; a refused or removed one is deleted.
• Posts stay on your profile until you delete them or your account. A post an editor takes down has its photos deleted. Original photos in a post that waits for review stay in private storage only until an editor decides.
• Newsletter. Unsubscribing takes you off the list straight away. Mailchimp keeps a record that you unsubscribed so you are not emailed again.
• Submissions. We keep what you sent, and the review record that goes with it, for at most 24 months after we decide on it, then delete it. Files in our private submission storage are deleted automatically once they are 24 months old (the GPS files of paddles you record in the app are not submissions, so this rule does not apply to them), and we delete the review pages that hold your name and email address once 24 months have passed since the decision. Sooner than that: photos uploaded to a photo form that was never sent are deleted after two days; when we decline a Photographer Series submission, we delete your original photos; and for the Photo Contest and photos of places we delete your original files once an editor approves or declines them, and keep only the resized copies we publish.
• Paddles stay until you delete them or your account. A deleted paddle keeps only its short record, without location, until you delete your account. If the app's upload of a paddle's GPS track never finishes, the parts it sent are deleted once the paddle has gone 14 days without a change, and the app can send the track again if you come back. Privacy zones stay until you remove them or delete your account. Reports about a paddle are deleted 24 months after an editor decides.
• Reports of a post or of a member's message are kept until an editor decides on them, then for 24 months after the decision, and then deleted.
• Paddle sessions stay until you delete them or your account. A deleted session keeps only its short record, without location, until you delete your account. If the app's upload of a session's GPS track never finishes, the parts it sent are deleted once the session has gone 14 days without a change, and the app can send the track again if you come back.
• Event page changes. The record of each change to an event's page is kept for 24 months, then deleted. What the page shows stays until the organizer or an editor changes or removes it.
• Contact messages and emails to info@supconnect.com are kept for at most 24 months: a message sent through the contact form is deleted from our database automatically 24 months after it arrives, and from our inbox and from Formspree within the same 24 months.
• Abuse limits. The counters we keep to limit how often an account or a form can be used, such as posts or messages a day, are deleted once they are two days old.
• Our editors' decision log. Each decision an editor makes (for example approving a photo, hiding a message or suspending a member from a feature) is recorded with the editor, the item it was about and the time. An entry can name a member ID. We keep this log as our audit record, with no set expiry, including after an account is deleted.
• Analytics. Google Analytics deletes the visit data it keeps about individual browsers after at most 14 months. Totals in our reports, which do not identify anyone, are kept.
• Published work stays on the site until it is updated or taken down. To have your photo taken down, email us and we will remove it.
• Backups. Our hosting, database and email providers keep backups for a limited period under their own policies, after which they expire.

Your Privacy Rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us at any time to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, and to stop sending you email. Email info@supconnect.com.

Residents of US states with privacy laws. California (under the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA), Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, Texas, Oregon and a growing number of other states give their residents these rights, and we extend them to every US reader:

• Right to know and access. Ask what personal information we have collected about you, where it came from, why we use it and who we disclose it to, and get a copy of the specific pieces, in a portable format where that is possible.
• Right to delete. Ask us to delete personal information we collected from you, subject to the exceptions the law allows, such as finishing a transaction you asked for or keeping the record of a copyright notice.
• Right to correct. Ask us to fix information that is wrong.
• Right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information and of targeted advertising. Use Your Privacy Choices or a Global Privacy Control signal. We do not use personal information for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
• No discrimination. We will not treat you differently, charge you a different price or give you a worse experience for using any of these rights.

How to make a request. Email info@supconnect.com with what you are asking for. To protect you, we confirm the request comes from you by matching it to information we already hold, for example by writing back to the email address you used with us; we ask only for what we need to do that. We respond within 45 days. If we need more time, which the law allows in some cases, we tell you why within those 45 days.

Authorized agents. Someone you authorize can make a request for you. We ask for your signed permission, and we may ask you to confirm your identity with us directly, unless the agent holds a valid power of attorney.

Appeals. If we turn down your request, in whole or in part, we tell you why. You can appeal by replying to our answer, or by emailing info@supconnect.com with "Privacy appeal" in the subject line. We answer appeals within 45 days and explain what we decided. If you are not satisfied, you can contact your state's attorney general.

What we collected and disclosed in the last 12 months. The table uses the categories California law asks us to use. Apart from the precise location of the paddles you record in the app, we do not collect sensitive personal information as the law defines it; we use it only to give you the service you asked for, never to infer anything about you. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.

We use each category for the purposes in "How We Use It" and keep it as long as "How Long We Keep It" says. We do not disclose personal information to other companies for their own direct marketing.

Visitors in the EEA, UK and Switzerland

If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, our host tells us which country your visit comes from, and every page then serves only non-personalized ads, asks Google to restrict how it uses data from your visit, and keeps Google signals and ad personalization signals off in our analytics. We do this automatically, because we do not run a consent tool for personalized ads.

Supconnect, LLC, 4646 Bryson Terrace, San Diego, CA 92130, U.S.A., is responsible for your personal information (the "controller"). We rely on these legal grounds: your consent for the newsletter, which you can withdraw at any time by unsubscribing; providing the service you asked for, for member accounts, messages and submissions, and for the paddles you record and the choice you make, after our notice, to keep them public; and our legitimate interests in running, measuring, securing and funding a free publication with non-personalized ads, for analytics, advertising and security, balanced against your rights.

You have the right to access, correct or delete your personal information, to restrict or object to how we use it, to receive it in a portable format, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what happened before. Email info@supconnect.com; we respond within one month. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

We are based in the United States, and our service providers process data there and elsewhere. Where the law requires it, these transfers rely on the safeguards our service providers offer, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

Links to Other Sites

We link to event organizers, outfitters, rental shops, manufacturers and other websites. They are not run by us, and their privacy practices are their own. Please read their privacy policies before you give them your details.

Children

Supconnect is for people 13 and older. Member accounts are for people 13 and older, and Photo Contest entrants aged 13 to 17 need a parent or guardian's agreement. If you are under 13, please do not send us personal information. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; if we learn that we have, we delete it. If you think a child has sent us information, email us. Paddles recorded by members under 18 are never shown to other members or the public.

Security

Submissions are kept in private storage and reviewed in a private workspace that only our team can see. Access to our accounts and services is limited to the people who need it. No website can promise perfect security, but we take care with what you trust us with, and if a breach ever affects your personal information we will tell you as the law requires.

Changes to This Policy

We update this policy when the site, the services behind it or the law change. When we do, we post the new version here with a new date. If a change affects how we use information we already hold in a significant way, we will say so on the site before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your information? Email info@supconnect.com, or write to Supconnect, LLC, Website Privacy, 4646 Bryson Terrace, San Diego, CA 92130, U.S.A.

Last updated November 12, 2026.