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Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 30, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains what data On Island (operated by Onisland.app LLC) collects, why we collect it, how we use it, and the choices you have. It covers the website and installable web app at onisland.app and the On Island apps for iOS and Android. We try to keep this short and direct.

1. What we collect

If you browse anonymously: standard server logs (IP address, browser, page accessed, timestamp), used for security, abuse detection, and aggregate traffic analysis. Rate limiting keys some counters to your IP address. Your persona choice (visitor / local / villa owner / snowbird) and language choice are kept in cookies on your device so the app stays personalized without an account.

If you create an account: email address, password (stored as a salted hash by our auth provider — we never see the plaintext), optional display name, optional phone number, your user type, your language preference, your home island (the island the app opens on, and the one whose storm alerts you receive if you turn them on), and — for snowbirds and villa owners — the months you are on-island and property count, if you provide them. We also keep sign-up and sign-in timestamps, and when you last chose a language or home island, so that a newer choice made on another device is never overwritten by an older one.

If you save listings, call, or review: the listings you saved, the reviews you wrote (public, shown with your display name), and engagement events — views, calls, saves, and shares of listings. Engagement is shown to business owners only as aggregate counts on their own listing; owners viewing their own listing and administrators are not counted.

If you submit a beach report (locals): the beach, the conditions you reported, and the timestamp. Reports feed the public beach-status grid.

If you suggest a category: the name you suggested, any note you added, and your email address, so we can tell you when it goes live.

If you join an island waitlist: your email address and whether you are a visitor or a business, so we can tell you when that island launches. Email support to be removed from a waitlist.

If you turn on notifications: for each device where you allow them, the push token that Apple, Google, or your browser issues for it, the platform, the app version, which sign-in session registered it, and delivery status (such as when it last received a notification); your choice of which notifications you want; and a record of which notifications we have sent you, so the same one is never sent twice. An account can have up to 10 devices. A device is removed when you sign out on it, when that sign-in ends in any other way, or when its push service tells us the token no longer works.

If you list a business: owner name, business name, public contact phone and email, business address and map location or service area, photos and menu files (public on your listing; menus are also machine-read, including optical character recognition, to power menu search), hours, description, social links, subscription and payment status, and optionally a private contact address and USVI license number — those last two are visible only to our administrators and are never published. When you accept the Business Terms we record the date, your IP address, and your browser user-agent as a permanent record of the agreement. We also record which island you were browsing when you applied; only our administrators see it, and they use it to catch a listing placed on the wrong island.

Moderation records: administrator actions (approvals, declines, suspensions, content removals) are logged with the acting administrator and IP address as a permanent audit record.

Cookies and on-device storage: a session cookie when signed in, language, island and persona cookies, and Sentry error-monitoring identifiers. On your device, the app stores things like an in-progress business signup draft (never your password), your install-prompt dismissal, and offline page caches. If you allow notifications in a web browser, the browser also keeps your account id and language — never a password or sign-in token — so it can hide a notification meant for a different account; this is cleared when you sign out. The iOS app keeps your account id on the device for the same check. In the iOS and Android apps, your sign-in is kept only on the device where you signed in and is not included in backups or transfers to a new phone, so a new or restored phone asks you to sign in once. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

2. Why we collect it

  • Run the directory: display listings, route phone calls, sort search results, render the daily Brief
  • Account features: save / review / report only work with a signed-in account
  • Payments: business subscriptions and Quick Access placements need billing records
  • Moderation and abuse prevention: stop fake businesses, review spam, and account abuse
  • Communication: transactional email (sign-up confirmation, password reset, business approval and decline, listing-edit decisions, subscription setup reminders, renewal reminders, payment receipts, failed-payment, suspension and cancellation notices, new-review notices to business owners, a notice if a review of yours is removed, and a note when a category you suggested goes live), and the notifications you turn on: storm alerts for your home island and, for business owners, notifications that mirror their business emails. We never send marketing email or promotional notifications
  • Analytics for owners: businesses see aggregated views/calls/saves/shares on their own listings; we run no third-party analytics or ad trackers

3. Who we share it with

On Island does not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We share data only with the services that run the product:

  • Hosting and infrastructure — Supabase (database, authentication, file storage), Vercel (hosting), Upstash (rate limiting), Sentry (error monitoring; when an error occurs a replay of the affected session may be captured to diagnose it)
  • Payments — Braintree, a PayPal service (business subscriptions and placement purchases). Card details go from your browser directly to Braintree; we receive only a customer reference and a card label such as brand and last four digits.
  • Email — Resend delivers our outbound email; inbound mail to @onisland.app addresses is forwarded to our support inbox by ImprovMX
  • Notifications — Apple Push Notification service (iOS), Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android), and your browser's push service (from Apple, Google, Mozilla, or Microsoft) deliver our notifications. They receive the device's push token and the notification, which carries your account id so each device can check that it belongs to the account signed in there
  • Maps — the website uses Mapbox, the iOS app uses Apple Maps, and the Android app uses OpenFreeMap; map requests carry your IP address to whichever of those is drawing the map, but no account data
  • Bot protection — Cloudflare Turnstile checks sign-up and password-reset submissions
  • Menu processing — uploaded menu files are sent to Google Cloud Vision for text extraction
  • Translation — Anthropic's Claude translates public content we publish, such as category names, beach descriptions, weather alerts, and holiday names, into Spanish; no personal data, and nothing written by users or business owners, is sent
  • Password safety — passwords are screened against the Have I Been Pwned breach database using k-anonymity: only the first five characters of a one-way hash leave our server; your password never does
  • Public data feeds — NOAA, USGS, NDBC, Open-Meteo, AeroDataBox, CruiseMapper, and similar read-only sources for the Island Brief; we send them no personal data
  • Legal compliance — if required by law, court order, or to protect On Island, our users, or the public

There is no advertising network and no tracking pixel from Google, Meta, or anyone else.

4. Where data is stored and how long

Data is hosted with Supabase (US East region) and Vercel. Connections are encrypted and backups are encrypted at rest. We retain data while your account is active. After deletion, most personal data is removed immediately (see below); business agreement records, subscription and payment records, and moderation audit logs are retained as legal, tax, and accounting records (typically 7 years for transactional records).

5. Your rights and choices

  • Access the data we hold about you — email support@onisland.app
  • Correct your data via your account or business dashboard
  • Delete your account. You can delete a consumer account yourself on the web and in the iOS and Android apps (Account → Delete account); deletion is immediate and removes your profile, reviews, saved listings, flags, beach reports, category suggestions, notification devices and choices, and the record of notifications sent to you, and disconnects your remaining engagement events from your identity. Business accounts are closed through support because billing and legal records must be preserved — see the Business Terms.
  • Block anyone whose reviews or beach reports you would rather not see — tap Block on one of their reviews. Blocking is private: the other person is not told, keeps their own posts, and cannot see that you blocked them. Undo it any time from your Account screen.
  • Notifications — choose which ones you get under Account → Notifications, or turn them off for On Island in your device or browser settings. Signing out stops notifications for your account on that device.
  • Export your data as JSON on request
  • Language — your language preference is stored only to serve you the right language

All email we send is transactional; there is no marketing list to unsubscribe from. Business owners can stop new-review emails for a listing, and subscription setup reminders, with the link in those emails.

6. Children

On Island is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child has signed up, contact us and we will delete the account.

7. Security

We use industry-standard practices: encrypted connections (HTTPS), password hashing and breach screening, row-level database security, signed single-use email actions, rate limiting, and a permanent audit log of administrative actions. No system is perfectly secure; if we detect a breach affecting your data we will notify you promptly, in the manner and timeframe required by law.

8. Changes to this policy

We update this page and the "Last updated" date when the policy changes. For significant changes that affect how we use your data, we will email account holders before the change takes effect.

9. Contact

Privacy questions, data requests, or complaints: support@onisland.app

On Island · Onisland.app LLC · St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands