The Scythebill application does not send or store sighting data to its servers in any way; all such data is maintained on your computer. (If you choose to store your sightings files with cloud storage, the data will reside there, and be subject to privacy policies of your cloud storage provider.)

The Scythebill application does send requests to the Internet. These requests are:

• Scythebill sends, at most once every five days (and only when Scythebill is actively running), a small request to a server with four pieces of information:
  • The version of Scythebill you are running
  • Your operating system
  • Your "locale" (language and country)
  • A feature string, noting optional features you have used in Scythebill. (As of June 2025, the only such feature is multiple observers.)
  
  
  These requests are used by the Scythebill application to check for available updates. They are logged to support understanding the basics of the Scythebill user base; the logs are only available to one person, are not shared with anyone else, and are discarded after 30 days.
  
  These requests cannot be disabled.


• When looking for latitudes/longitudes of locations, and for the inverse (looking for location names near a given latitude and longitude), Scythebill will send requests to Google Maps APIs and eBird APIs. These calls do not send or store cookies to Google or eBird, but do send your IP address to those servers. The calls to Google Maps APIs will send latitudes/longitudes, as well as full location names. The calls to eBird will send latitudes/longitudes, but do not send location names.
  
  Either or both of these can be disabled on the Preferences screen as of Scythebill 18.2.0.
  
  
• When displaying a map for a location with a latitude/longitude, it will load static maps centered on that latitude/longitude. These calls also do not send or store cookies. By default, Scythebill uses Google Maps. Similarly, Scythebill offers a feature to click on an icon for a location with a latitude/longitude and load an internet map in a browser. By default, these will load in Google Maps. In both cases, only the latitude/longitude is made available - no cookies are sent or stored, nor are any location names.
  
  You can switch to OpenStreetMaps or disable maps altogether.

When enabled, use of Google Maps features and content is subject to the then-current versions of the: (1) Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service at https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps; and (2) Google Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

When enabled, use of eBird APIs is subject to the then-current version of the eBird privacy policy, linked from https://ebird.org/about.

When enabled, use of OpenStreetMap is subject to the then-current version of the OpenStreetMap privacy policy at https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy.

Please email support@scythebill.comwith any concerns or requests for clarification.