Certus is named for certainty, and that ought to apply to how we describe our own product. This policy says plainly what Certus does with your data — including the parts that leave your phone.
The short version
- Your swings, rounds, and journal sync to our servers. Recording a swing uploads the video to our cloud storage. Your scores, shots, stats, and journal entries are stored there too, so they follow you across devices.
- Swing analysis runs on your iPhone — the pose and measurement work is all on-device. AI features are opt-in: only after you allow them does Certus send your stats, swing frames or a scorecard photo to our AI provider, Anthropic (or, when it’s unavailable, some coaching to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute).
- We don't sell your data, we don't run advertising, and we don't embed third-party tracking or analytics SDKs.
- Location is used only to power course features while you're using them — and, during a round you've started, with the screen locked so your Lock Screen yardages stay current. It stops when the round ends.
- Apple Health is write-only. On Apple Watch, a round can be saved to Health as a Golf workout. Certus reads nothing from Health, and Health data never leaves your devices through us.
- You can delete your account and its data from inside the app, at any time.
01Information we handle
Swing videos
When you record a swing, Certus compresses the clip and uploads it to our cloud storage, then keeps a cached copy on your device for quick playback (older clips are cleared from the phone as space is needed; your library stays in the cloud). This happens automatically for every swing you save — if you're offline at the time, the clip is queued and uploaded once you reconnect. Uploading is what lets your swing library exist across devices rather than living and dying on one phone.
Swing analysis itself runs on your device. The pose detection and the measurements derived from it are computed on your iPhone, not on a server.
On an iPhone with LiDAR, a depth recording (distances and camera calibration only, no picture) is saved with the clip and uploaded alongside it, so your swing measures the same on your other devices. Swings recorded in Certus are saved without sound; a video you import from your library keeps its original audio, but location details stored in it are removed before it's uploaded.
When you send a clip to a paired iPad, that transfer goes directly between your two devices over an encrypted local connection — it doesn't route through us.
Round & performance data
Your rounds, hole scores, shots, clubs, yardages, launch-monitor sessions, practice logs and plans, hole notes, and the swing measurements saved with an AI Swing Review are stored on our servers and cached on your device. This is what powers your stats, history, and strokes-gained analysis.
Journal entries
Journal entries and the folders you organize them into are stored on our servers alongside your other data.
Location
With your permission, Certus uses your location to provide GPS distances, hole previews, plays-like distances, nearby-course search, and local weather. Your approximate location is sent to our course-data and weather providers to answer those requests. Location is used while you're using these features.
During a round. Once you start a round, Certus keeps using your location when the app is in the background or your screen is locked, so the distances on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island stay current and shots can be logged without opening the app. iOS shows the location indicator while this is happening. Background location turns off as soon as you end the round; outside a round, Certus doesn't use your location in the background at all. Certus only asks for “While Using the App” permission — never “Always” — and location is never used for advertising or tracking.
Apple Watch. During a round, the Watch app uses the Watch’s own GPS for distance to the flag.
Apple Health (Apple Watch)
If you use Certus on Apple Watch and allow Health access, Certus runs a Golf workout for the length of each round. The workout is what keeps the Watch app open and its GPS running while your wrist is down, and when the round ends it's saved to Apple Health so it counts toward your Activity rings.
What Certus writes to Health: the workout itself (activity type, start and end time, duration), the active energy burned and the walking distance your Watch measures during it. Certus doesn't read any Health data. Workouts are written on your device by Apple's HealthKit; Certus never sends Health data to our servers or to any provider, never uses it for advertising or marketing, and never sells it. Rounds shorter than ten minutes aren't saved.
Health access is optional — scoring on the Watch works without it. You can turn it off, or delete saved workouts, at any time in the Health app (Profile → Apps → Certus) or in Settings → Health → Data Access & Devices.
Account information
Creating an account means we handle what's needed to authenticate you — an email address, or a sign-in identifier from Apple. If you use "Sign in with Apple," you can choose to hide your email address, and we'll only ever see Apple's relay address.
Photos you scan
If you scan a scorecard, the photo is sent to our AI provider to read the numbers off it. Please don't scan a card with information on it you'd rather not send.
Subscription
Apple handles the purchase and your payment details; we never see them. To unlock paid features on our servers, the app sends Apple's signed record of your subscription, which we verify with Apple and store with your account: the product, Apple's original transaction ID, the expiry date, whether it was refunded or shared through Family Sharing, and whether it's a test (sandbox) purchase. The purchase also carries an anonymous token that ties it to your Certus account. Apple also tells our server about renewals, expirations and refunds so that record stays current.
Crash reports
If Certus crashes, it writes a diagnostic log — the error and, where available, a stack trace, your device model, iOS and app version, and a short trail of recent app events (screens opened, the GPS hole you were on, memory use) — and uploads it to our servers automatically the next time you open the app. Crash logs are sent without your account ID or email, so they aren't linked to you — which also means we can't look up one person's logs. We use them only to find and fix bugs.
Separately, Apple may share aggregate crash and usage data with us if you've opted into that in Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements. That one is Apple's, and you control it there.
Launch waitlist (certusgolf.com)
If you join the waitlist on our website, we store the email address you enter, which page you signed up from, and when. We use it only to email you about Certus: launch news and occasional behind-the-scenes updates before and around the launch. It isn't linked to an app account. It's kept in our Supabase backend and shared with Loops (loops.so), the service that sends our emails, which stores it only to send them. Every email has an unsubscribe link, or you can write to info@certusgolf.com to be removed and have the address deleted.
02How we use it
- To provide the app's core features — storing and reviewing your swings, computing your stats, and showing course information.
- To sync your data across your devices and restore it if you get a new phone.
- To generate AI-assisted coaching, swing analysis, and round recaps when you ask for them.
- To keep the app secure, stable, and working — including fixing the crashes you hit.
- To respond to your support requests.
We do not use your data to build advertising profiles, we do not sell it, and we do not use your swing videos or your golf data to train our own models.
03Where your data goes
Certus relies on a small number of providers. Only the data needed for each feature is shared with each one:
- Supabase — our hosted backend. This is where your account, rounds, shots, stats, journal entries, swing videos, and crash logs are stored, along with website waitlist sign-ups.
- Anthropic — our AI provider (Claude), for coaching, round summaries, Ask Coach, AI Swing Review and scorecard scanning. Nothing is sent until you allow AI Features in the app, and you can turn them off any time in Profile → AI Features. What gets sent depends on the feature: round summaries and coaching send your performance data as text; AI swing analysis sends still frames extracted from your swing video (up to ten JPEG images per analysis); scorecard scanning sends the photo you scanned. Your full swing video file, your name and your email are never sent. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, this data isn't used to train its models. We log each AI request's feature, model and size (not its content) to manage usage limits.
- Apple — for Sign in with Apple, WeatherKit forecasts, and Maps/location services, under Apple's privacy terms. If you've allowed AI Features and Anthropic can't answer, some coaching cards and round recaps are written by Apple’s Private Cloud Compute instead, which receives your performance data as text under Apple’s Private Cloud Compute privacy protections. Without AI permission, round recaps can still be written by Apple’s on-device model, and nothing leaves your phone. Apple Health workouts are written on your device and never pass through Certus's servers.
- Golf Intelligence — our course-data provider, for course search, hole layouts, tees, and green maps. Your location is sent when searching for nearby courses.
- Open-Meteo and OpenTopoData — terrain elevation for plays-like distances. Only coordinates along the holes of the course are sent, with no account information.
- OpenWeatherMap — the rain-radar layer on the weather map. The app asks our server for radar images of the area on screen, and our server fetches them from OpenWeatherMap, so OpenWeatherMap sees that map area but not your device. Nothing else is sent.
We encourage you to review Apple's and Anthropic's privacy practices.
04Sharing & selling
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing. We share data only with the providers described above, to operate the features you use, or when required by law.
If you deliberately share something — a round card, a swing clip, a share link — that content goes wherever you send it, and this policy stops governing it at that point.
05Retention & deletion
We keep your data while your account is active. Deleting a swing, round, or journal entry in the app removes it from our servers.
You can delete your entire account from inside the app — Profile → Delete Account. That removes your account and its associated data from our systems. If you use Sign in with Apple, Apple asks you to confirm and Certus is removed from your Apple ID. Deletion is permanent and we can't undo it, so export anything you want to keep first.
06Security
We use reasonable technical measures to protect your information: all network traffic is encrypted in transit, device-to-iPad transfers are encrypted, and your account data is scoped to you.
Swing videos are stored privately. Your videos sit in private cloud storage that only your account can read. When the app plays one, it asks for a signed link that expires within an hour, so a copied link stops working soon after. If you share a swing clip yourself, the copy you send goes wherever you send it.
No method of storage or transmission is ever completely secure. We work to protect your data, but we can't guarantee absolute security.
07Children
Certus Golf is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us information, please contact us and we will remove it.
08Your rights & choices
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal information, or to object to certain processing. You can:
- Manage location, photo, Health, and analytics permissions in your device settings at any time.
- Delete individual swings, rounds, and journal entries directly in the app.
- Delete your whole account and its data from Profile → Delete Account.
- Turn AI Features on or off in Profile → AI Features, and Apple Health access in the Health app.
- Email us to request access to, export of, or deletion of any data we hold.
We won't discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.
09Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we'll revise the "Last updated" date above, and for material changes we'll provide a more prominent notice where appropriate.
10Contact
Questions about this policy or your data? Email us at info@certusgolf.com. We'll do our best to help.
Certus Golf · certusgolf.com