HeraCane Sports (shown on your Home Screen as HC Sports) is an independent, non-commercial sports app made by one person. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to ESPN, MLB, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, Formula 1, the ATP, the WTA, or any league, team, or federation. This policy covers the app on iPhone and iPad, and its widgets.
The short version
No accounts, no sign-in, no ads, no analytics, no tracking, and no crash-reporting tools. If you turn on alerts, follow news, or follow a live game, the app sends an Apple push token and your sports choices to its own server, so it can send you the right alerts and stories. That server does not record your IP address. Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared for advertising.
What the app sends to its own server
The server keeps a record only while you have alerts, Live Activities, or news follows turned on. If every one of those is off, it keeps nothing, and the app removes the record it stored before.
- Apple push tokens. A random identifier that Apple issues so the app can receive notifications, and, if you use it, a second one that lets a Live Activity start on its own. They are not your name, email, phone number, or Apple Account.
- Your favorites. The teams, drivers, and players you star in each sport.
- Your alert choices. Which alerts are on for each sport, whether Live Activities start on their own, and the games you turned on "Alerts for this game" for.
- Your news delivery choices. Whether news arrives as it breaks or in daily editions, your edition times, and your device's time zone, so editions arrive at your local time.
- What you ask for. The News tab loads its stories from this server. If you follow teams or players, those follows are part of the request. When you follow a live game, the app asks which live-update channel belongs to that game. Player pages also ask it for style rankings and the list of Wikipedia article names, without the push token. These requests are answered, not stored.
These choices are stored together in one record, filed under the push token. The record has no name or contact details, but it does describe your sports interests.
What the app does not collect
Your name, email, phone number, contacts, location, photos, health data, advertising identifier, or browsing history. The app does not send crash reports or usage analytics, and it does not track you across other apps or websites. Your other settings, such as appearance and text size, stay on your device.
Where it is kept, and for how long
On a privately operated server run by the developer. The server does not store IP addresses. Its service log notes the first 8 characters of a push token when a device signs up or an alert fails to send. That fragment cannot reach your device, and the log is deleted after 30 days. The server is used only to send the alerts, Live Activity updates, and news you asked for, through Apple's push service.
- Your record is deleted when you turn off every alert and news follow in the app, or when Apple reports that the push token no longer works (for example, after you delete the app).
- To avoid sending the same alert twice, the server keeps a short note of which alerts went to your device, filed under a one-way scrambled form of the token. It is deleted after 48 hours.
- If you use news editions, the server keeps a copy of each edition it sent you, so the edition opens exactly as it was printed. Those copies are filed the same scrambled way and deleted after 30 days.
Other services the app talks to
Like any web request, each of these sees your IP address. Their own privacy policies apply, and the developer does not control them.
- ESPN and the NHL. Public scores, schedules, and stats come straight from their data services. When you search for a player, the text you type goes to ESPN's search.
- Cloudflare. Hosts a signed scores file the app reads for live scores, and the history downloads you choose in Settings. These requests carry no push token.
- Tailscale. Carries the connection between the app and its own server.
- News publishers. Opening a story loads the publisher's page in Safari inside the app, and story pictures load from the publisher.
- YouTube. Game highlights play in YouTube's own player, which loads from YouTube (Google). YouTube may collect data under the Google Privacy Policy. The app uses YouTube API Services, and watching a highlight means you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service.
- Wikipedia. Player and team pages load the opening paragraph of the matching Wikipedia article from the Wikimedia Foundation's servers.
- Apple. Notifications, Live Activities, and the maps on venue pages.
Feedback email
Send Feedback in Settings opens your own email app with the app version, iOS version, and device model filled in. Nothing is sent unless you send that email yourself.
Your choices
Turn off alerts and news follows in the app's Settings, or turn off notifications for the app in iOS Settings. Deleting the app also ends everything. Because your record has no name or email, it cannot be looked up by person; switching everything off in the app is what deletes it.
Children
The app is for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. It does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the new version is posted here before it takes effect.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: email feedback@heracane.net.