Privacy Policy

1. Information about you

In short: Your account details and the basics needed to keep your account secure.

• Name, email address, and a password (stored only as a one-way, salted hash — we can't read it).
• When you accepted our policies and which version.
• Sign-in sessions, including the IP address and browser type used, so we can keep your account secure and let you sign out everywhere.
• Your unit memberships and role (Admin, Leader, or Viewer).

2. Information on unit rosters

In short: What unit leaders enter about the youth and adults in their unit, and about people interested in joining.

• Names, nicknames, birth dates, member IDs, school, and den/patrol.
• Contact details for youth and their parents or guardians, if the unit chooses to record them.
• Advancement progress: requirements signed off, awards earned, and who signed them off.
• Youth leadership positions (such as Patrol Leader, Denner, or Crew President) and the dates each one was held.
• Service hours youth give outside unit events: the day, how many hours, a few words about what the service was, and the rank or award it counts toward.
• For adults: positions, training dates (such as Youth Protection Training), and merit badges counseled.
• Unit events — meetings, campouts, fundraisers, and service projects: dates, places, plans and agendas, sponsors, and, for each youth and adult, whether they said they would come, whether they attended, and any service hours they gave.
• Short notes leaders choose to add.
• Photos and short videos that leaders share with the unit, their optional captions, and the albums they are in. Before anything is stored, hidden details in the files — including where a photo was taken (GPS location) and the device used — are removed, and we don't keep the file's original name.
• Posts that leaders share with the unit: their text, who wrote them and when, and the photos, album, event, or poll they include. For polls, each member's choices, so they can be counted and changed.
• Comments that members write on posts and events: their text, who wrote them and when, and, when a member reports a comment to the unit's leaders, who reported it and when.
• People interested in joining a unit, recorded by its leaders so they can follow up: a name, whether they're a young person or an adult volunteer, a young person's grade, a parent's or guardian's name, an email address and phone number, where they are in joining, where the unit met them, a date to follow up, and short notes. Which events are recruiting events.
• Recruiting materials that leaders share with the unit, such as flyers (PDFs or images) and links.
• The unit's gear and supplies (Quartermaster): things it needs to buy, with notes and a date they're needed by; when they were bought, by whom, what they cost, and a note; things that need repair, with an optional photo of the item; and a list of the gear the unit owns. Each shows who added it.
• The unit's fundraisers: a name, where each one is at, dates, a money goal, a written plan, which of the unit's events are part of it, tasks (with who's doing them, in the words leaders write, and when they're due), checklists, money that came in and costs (amounts, dates, and notes), and shifts — with the names of the people covering them. When you sign up for a shift, your name is shown on it.

3. Security records

In short: A log of important actions, and short-lived counters that stop password guessing.

• A log of security-relevant actions (for example sign-ins, role changes, member approvals, deletions, and policy acceptances), with the time and IP address.
• Short-lived counters used to slow down password guessing and other abuse.

4. What we do not collect

In short: No ads, no trackers, and no highly sensitive information.

We do not use advertising, analytics trackers, social-media pixels, or third-party scripts. We do not ask for or want medical information, Social Security numbers, financial details, or custody and legal documents — please don't put them in notes.

5. Why we use it

In short: Only to run ScoutHitch for your unit and to keep it secure.

• To provide the service: rosters, advancement tracking, search, and unit management.
• To control access so people only see the units they belong to, at the level their role allows.
• To keep accounts and youth information secure, investigate misuse, and meet legal obligations.
• To contact you about your account, security issues, or changes to our policies.

6. Who can see what

In short: Only approved adults in the same unit, limited by role. We never sell or share data for marketing.

• Admins and Leaders of a unit can see and edit that unit's roster and advancement, including youth and guardian contact details.
• Viewers can see names, units, dens/patrols, leadership positions, advancement, service hours, the unit's events (including who is going and who attended), the unit's photos and videos, and its posts. They cannot see youth birth dates, schools, contact details, guardian information, member IDs, notes, or what service a youth did outside unit events.
• Only Admins and Leaders can add, caption, organize, or delete photos and videos. Every member of the unit can see the photos and videos shared with it; nobody outside the unit can.
• Only Admins and Leaders can post to a unit, pin posts, or delete them; only the person who wrote a post can change its text. Every member of the unit, including Viewers, can read the unit's posts and vote in its polls; nobody outside the unit can. Unless a poll is marked anonymous, members can see who chose what; in an anonymous poll, only the totals are shown to anyone.
• Every member of a unit, including Viewers, can read and write comments on its posts and events; nobody outside the unit can see them. The person who wrote a comment, and the unit's Admins and Leaders, can delete it, and Admins and Leaders can turn comments off on a post or event. Any member can report a comment to the unit's Admins and Leaders, who see how many people reported it but never who did.
• Only Admins and Leaders of a unit can see the people it has recorded as interested in joining. Every member, including Viewers, can see the unit's recruiting events and materials.
• Every member of a unit, including Viewers, can see its Quartermaster lists, costs, and repair photos; only its Admins and Leaders can change them. A repair photo is shown only with that repair, never in the unit's Photos.
• Every member of a unit, including Viewers, can see its fundraisers — plans, tasks, lists, money, and who signed up for each shift. Only its Admins and Leaders can change them; any member can sign themselves up for a shift or take themselves off one.
• People who are not approved members of a unit cannot see anything about it.
• A scout who belongs to more than one unit (for example after crossing over from a pack to a troop) has one record that leaders of each of those units can see.

We share information with service providers only as needed to run ScoutHitch — our hosting provider (which also stores files such as photos and videos, privately) and our database provider — under agreements that require them to protect it. We may disclose information if the law requires it, or when we believe in good faith it is necessary to protect a young person's safety. We never sell personal information and never share it for advertising.

7. Children's privacy

In short: Children never use ScoutHitch directly. Their records are kept by their unit's adult leaders.

ScoutHitch is not directed to children and does not let anyone under 18 create an account. Information about youth members, including children under 13, is entered by adult unit leaders acting for the unit and its chartered organization, for the purpose of running the unit's program. We do not collect information directly from children.

A unit may also record a child who might join — their name, grade, and a parent's or guardian's contact details — when the parent or guardian asks the unit to follow up. Only the unit's Admins and Leaders can see it, and it is deleted automatically a year after it was last updated.

Parents and guardians can ask to review, correct, or delete their child's information. The fastest way is to ask your child's unit leaders; you can also email privacy@scouthitch.com and we will work with the unit to respond.

8. Cookies and browser storage

In short: Only what the app needs to work, including offline copies on your device. No tracking cookies.

• A secure, HTTP-only session cookie that keeps you signed in.
• A cookie that remembers which of your units you were looking at.
• Your display preferences (theme, text size, contrast, motion) are saved in your own browser and never sent to us.
• Small preview images of your unit's photos may be kept in your browser's cache so albums open quickly. Your access is checked again every time one is shown. Full-size photos and videos are never kept by your browser.
• Offline use. So ScoutHitch works without signal (for example, at camp), your browser saves copies of the pages you open — and, if you turn on “Keep my units saved” (on by default in the installed app), the scout, unit, and advancement pages for your units and their recent and upcoming events — along with advancement changes you make while offline until they sync. These copies stay on your device, contain only what your role already lets you see (Viewers never get youth contact details), and are not shared with anyone. They are deleted when you sign out, when a different person signs in on that browser, when your session has ended and the device next goes online, or 14 days after they were last updated, and you can remove them any time from the Account page.

9. How long we keep it

In short: Only as long as needed. You can delete your account any time.

• Sign-in sessions end after 7 days without activity, or when you sign out.
• Security logs are deleted automatically after 1 year.
• Abuse-prevention counters are deleted automatically within a day.
• Offline copies on your device are deleted when you sign out, or 14 days after they were last updated. To make sure an offline change is never applied twice, we keep a random identifier for each one (not its contents) for 30 days.
• When you delete your account, your login, sessions, and memberships are deleted right away, and you are removed from the adult rosters of the units you belonged to.
• Unit records about youth are kept until the unit's admins delete them. Admins should delete records that are no longer needed.
• Events, with their RSVPs, attendance, and service hours, are kept until a leader deletes the event. Deleting a scout or an adult from the roster also deletes their RSVPs, attendance, and hours.
• Leadership positions and service hours given outside events are kept until a leader deletes them or deletes the scout from the roster.
• Photos and videos are kept until a leader deletes them; deleting one deletes the file and its preview. Deleting an album keeps its photos. Photos stay with the unit if the person who shared them later deletes their account. Uploads that are cancelled or never finish are never shown, and are deleted right away when cancelled or the next time someone in the unit uploads.
• Posts are kept until a leader deletes them; deleting a post deletes its poll votes and comments, but not the photos, album, or event it shared. When you delete your account, your poll votes are deleted, and posts you wrote stay with the unit, shown as written by a former member.
• Comments are kept until the person who wrote them or a leader deletes them, or the post or event they are on is deleted. Reports on a comment are kept until a leader reviews it. When you delete your account, your comments and your reports are deleted.
• Records of people interested in joining are deleted automatically one year after they were last updated, or sooner when a leader deletes them. Deleting an event keeps the people met there. Recruiting materials are kept until a leader deletes them; deleting one deletes its file.
• Quartermaster records, including purchase history and costs, are kept until a leader deletes them; deleting a repair, or replacing or removing its photo, deletes the photo. When you delete your account, records you added stay with the unit, shown as added by a former member.
• Fundraisers are kept until a leader deletes them; deleting one deletes its plan, tasks, lists, money records, and shifts, but not its events. When you delete your account, you're taken off every shift you signed up for; fundraisers and records you added stay with the unit.
• Deleted data may remain in encrypted backups for a limited time before those backups expire.

10. How we protect it

In short: Encryption, strict access control, and careful engineering. See the Security page for details.

All traffic is encrypted with HTTPS, data is encrypted at rest by our database provider, passwords are hashed, every request is checked against your unit role on the server, and sign-in attempts are rate limited. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your information we will notify affected users and unit admins promptly and as required by law. See our Security page for more.

11. Your rights and choices

In short: See, correct, export, or delete your information.

• See and update your account details at any time.
• Delete your account yourself from the Account page.
• Remove offline copies from a device from the Account page, or by signing out.
• Ask for a copy of your information, or for corrections or deletion, by emailing us.
• Ask your unit's leaders to correct or remove roster information about you or your child.

Email privacy@scouthitch.com. We respond within 5 business days and may need to confirm your identity first.

12. Changes to this policy

If we make a meaningful change, we will update the date at the top and ask every account holder to review and accept the new version before continuing to use ScoutHitch.