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. But when you ask for AI coaching, still frames from your swing are sent to our AI provider.
- 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.
- 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 copy on your device. 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.
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, practice sessions, and computed swing measurements 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.
If you record a mood with an entry, that value is written to Apple HealthKit on your device and read back from it. We don't store your mood data — HealthKit is the only place it lives.
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; we don't track you in the background for advertising.
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.
Crash reports
If Certus crashes, it writes a diagnostic log — the error, a stack trace, your device model and iOS version, and a short trail of the app screens you'd visited — and uploads it to our servers automatically the next time you open the app. We use these only to find and fix bugs. There is currently no in-app switch to turn this off; if you'd like your crash logs removed, email us.
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.
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.
- Anthropic — our AI provider, for coaching, round summaries, and swing analysis. 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 (roughly ten JPEG images per analysis); scorecard scanning sends the photo you scanned. Your full swing video file is never sent.
- Apple — for Sign in with Apple, WeatherKit forecasts, and Maps/location services, under Apple's privacy terms. HealthKit mood data stays on your device.
- Golf Intelligence — our course-data provider, for course search, hole layouts, tees, and green maps. Your approximate location is sent when searching for nearby courses.
- GHIN / USGA — only if you choose to connect your handicap account, to fetch your handicap index and course ratings.
We encourage you to review the privacy practices of Apple and of any handicap service you connect.
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. 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.
One thing to know about swing video links. Your swing videos are served from cloud storage over links that contain a long random identifier. Those links aren't published or guessable, but they also aren't password-protected — anyone who has a video's link can open it without signing in. Treat a swing video link the way you'd treat a shared document link.
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, 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.
- Email us to request access to, export of, or deletion of any data we hold — including crash logs.
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