AnglersHub (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a South African angling community platform operated from Johannesburg. We respect your privacy and only collect what we genuinely need to run the site and improve your experience. This page explains what we collect, why, and what choices you have.
1. Information we collect
- Account info - when you sign in with Google we receive your name, email address and profile photo from Google. You may also choose to add a username, team name, phone number, province, city and bio on your profile.
- Activity - fishing spots you save or mark as visited, posts you publish on pages you own, and edits you submit.
- Newsletter - your email address (and display name, if signed in) if you subscribe to our newsletter, either via the form or by leaving the newsletter box ticked when you create a profile.
- Analytics - Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights measure page speed and visits without cookies. When you accept cookies we also load Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity to understand how the site is used. Clarity records how visitors move around a page (clicks, taps and scrolling) so we can find what is confusing. If you accept, we also send interaction events to Google Analytics: outbound clicks, WhatsApp taps, signups, page views, and fishing sessions logged. No third-party ad cookies. You can decline at any time from the cookie banner.
- Product usage analytics - we store anonymous event rows on our own servers (page views, saves, searches, outbound clicks, WhatsApp taps, session summaries, and similar) so we can improve AnglersHub. To count daily users we also store a random id in this browser, once per day. Those rows do not include your name, email, or account id. This first-party usage data is separate from cookie-gated Google Analytics.
- Essential cookies - used to keep you signed in and to remember your cookie-consent choice.
2. How we use your information
- To create and operate your AnglersHub account.
- To show you content tailored to your saved spots, species and province.
- To send you the AnglersHub newsletter - only if you chose to subscribe. You can opt out from your profile page at any time.
- To moderate content and keep the community safe.
- To measure signups, fishing sessions, page views, engagement, outbound clicks, and WhatsApp enquiries so we can see which venues and brands anglers use.
- To respond to messages you send us through the contact, suggestion or support forms.
3. Newsletter
We add you to our newsletter list when you leave the newsletter box ticked while creating your profile (you can untick it there), by using a newsletter sign-up form, or by switching it on from your profile page. You can unsubscribe at any time with the one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom of every newsletter email, from the small toggle on your profile page (above the delete-account section), or by replying to any newsletter email asking to be removed.
Newsletters are sent through our email provider, Resend. To do that we share your email address, your first name (so the email can greet you) and whether you are subscribed. If you unsubscribe in one place, it is updated everywhere.
4. Sharing your information
We do not sell your data. We share information only with the service providers we need to run the site:
- Google (sign-in)
- Firebase / Google Cloud (database, authentication, file storage)
- Vercel (hosting and anonymous analytics)
- Resend, our email provider (newsletter and notifications)
- Paystack, our payment provider, if you subscribe to AnglersHub Pro (your email address and payment details, which Paystack handles directly; we never see your full card number)
- Anthropic, our AI provider, for the messages and photos you send to Billy and the other AI tools
We may also disclose information if required by South African law, or to protect the rights, property or safety of AnglersHub, our users or the public.
5. Your rights
Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you have the right to access, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you. You can:
- Edit most of your profile data directly from the profile page.
- Unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time using the link in any newsletter email or the toggle on your profile page.
- Permanently delete your AnglersHub account using the “delete account” option that appears while editing your profile.
- Email us at info@anglershub.co.za with any other privacy request.
6. Data retention
We keep your account data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, your profile is removed and you are unlinked from any pages you own. Newsletter records may be retained as “unsubscribed” so we don’t accidentally re-add you.
7. Security
We use Firebase Authentication and Firestore security rules to protect your data. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password on your Google account and let us know immediately if you spot anything suspicious.
8. Children
AnglersHub is intended for users aged 13 and over. If you believe a child under 13 has signed up, please contact us and we will remove the account.
9. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we’ll change the “Last updated” date at the top. Significant changes will be announced on the site or via the newsletter.
10. Contact
Questions about this policy or your data? info@anglershub.co.za.