Privacy and safety

Verified emergency contacts assigned to a hike receive emails when the hike starts, time is added, finishes, or becomes overdue. Unverified and opted-out contacts do not receive those emails, even if they are visible in your account or were previously assigned.

Public share links are secret links. Anyone with the link can view that hike page without signing in. Share pages show route details, status, check-in information, and the map when a track is available, but emergency contacts are not exposed there.

The app stores check-in timestamps, event source, optional GPS coordinates, GPS accuracy, browser timezone, IP, and user agent where applicable. This data is used to derive hike status, expected finish time, and useful emergency context.

The public safety card is designed to reveal more information only when it may help someone respond. In normal states it stays restrained. In overdue or urgent states, it can show hiker phone, timing, emergency contacts, and a full-details link.

Keep your profile phone and hike notes practical. Those fields can matter when someone is trying to help and cannot reach you. Avoid decorative notes; write information that would be useful to a person making decisions.

HikeRuleOne.com is a safety logging tool, not emergency dispatch. If someone believes there is immediate danger, they should contact local emergency services or search and rescue directly. The app's role is to make accurate hike context easier to find.