Privacy policy

Customer emails

We send account verification, password reset, payment confirmation and support emails to provide and protect your account. You may separately choose to receive October and November reminders about annual access. Seasonal reminders are optional, start switched off and are only sent while that year’s access remains unpaid. We record your preference, when and where you gave consent, and delivery status. You can turn reminders off in Your settings or use the unsubscribe link in a reminder without signing in. Unsubscribing from reminders does not stop essential account and payment emails. Changing your email address switches seasonal reminders off until you choose them again.

Who we are

Track The Sleigh is operated by Drayton Digital Limited, trading as Track The Sleigh. Registered company number 04609887. Our address is Commer House, Station Road, Tadcaster, LS24 9JF, United Kingdom.

We manage the personal information used to operate accounts, provide support and keep this service secure. Organisations choose the organisation and collection information they publish.

Information we use

• Account information: your name, email address, hashed password credentials and organisation membership.
• Organisation details: name, address, contact details, country, timezone and any donation link you add.
• Collections: sleigh names, routes, streets, stops, timings and updates.
• Enquiries and support: messages and files you send, and records needed to resolve your request.
• Security: account activity, sign-in and technical records needed to operate and protect the service.

Your password is stored as a one-way hash. It is not displayed to other account holders. Avoid adding sensitive information about donors, children or volunteers to public descriptions or support attachments.

Why we use it

We use account and organisation information to provide the service you request. We use enquiry, support and security records for our legitimate interests in helping customers, preventing misuse and maintaining the service, while considering your rights. Where required, we retain records to meet legal obligations. Any optional processing that needs consent will be explained before it begins.

What families can see

A published organisation page may show the organisation’s name and description, its donation link, eligible sleighs, published schedules and public updates. Each sleigh has its own tracking page. While a volunteer shares their location, that sleigh’s map shows the latest accepted position and an optional dotted trail of recorded travel during the active collection. Locations captured before its advertised start are not published. Private account details, billing addresses, invoices, volunteer pairing codes and support conversations are not published. Public tracking pages are available only for eligible sleighs.

The website’s illustrated examples are demonstrations. They do not collect a visitor’s GPS location. Families viewing public maps are not asked to share their own location.

Optional planned stop locations

When an organiser uses address search, our server sends their search text and the organisation’s country to Geoapify to find matching places. We cache search results for up to 30 days to reduce repeat requests. The organiser chooses and confirms a map pin, which is saved with the stop and can be reused on later visit dates. See the Geoapify privacy policy.

Confirmed stop names, addresses, approximate times and map pins may appear on eligible public sleigh pages and embeds before a visit starts. These planned locations are separate from the volunteer phone’s live GPS position. Stops and location search are optional; do not enter sensitive information into public stop details.

Volunteer location tracking

The Track The Sleigh mobile app is for volunteers carrying a tracking phone in the vehicle towing the sleigh. It does not create a personal volunteer account. A private ten-digit sleigh ID pairs the phone with an organisation’s sleigh. The app generates a random installation ID and stores its pairing credential securely. Authorised organisation account holders and our staff can use that installation ID to identify the paired app; it is not the phone’s hardware identifier and is not shown on public maps.

Location sharing requires the volunteer to tap Start and allow location access. Precise coordinates, GPS accuracy, capture times, speed and available movement information are sent to our tracking service over HTTPS. Background location allows this to continue when the screen is locked or the app is in the background. On iPhone, optional Motion & Fitness permission helps distinguish moving from stationary when GPS speed is unavailable. Denying motion permission does not prevent GPS tracking. We do not use these data for advertising.

Accepted positions and a sampled journey trail appear on the sleigh’s public map while sharing is authorised. This means anyone with access to that public page can see the sleigh’s location. Locations captured before the advertised visit starts are not published. Temporary test-run maps use a private link that the organiser should share only with people helping with the test.

Tap Stop to withdraw location sharing and stop collecting new locations. Capture stops on the phone even if it is offline. The app asks the server to remove the position and journey trail; while offline, these may remain visible until that request reaches the server or the session expires. Normal tracking sessions expire at the collection’s configured finish time, using the organisation’s timezone. Test runs expire after eight hours or when the organiser stops the test, whichever comes first.

Stop retains the phone pairing; Unpair phone removes the pairing and ends tracking. During connection problems the native tracking SDK keeps a private queue containing the latest pending GPS fix for retry, retaining its original capture time. The server accepts fixes captured within the last ten minutes; older fixes cannot update the public map. Stop clears pending locations. A small local record of the latest ten app errors helps diagnose problems. We use Transistorsoft’s Background Geolocation SDK for on-device capture, buffering and delivery to our server; it is not configured to send locations to Transistorsoft’s demonstration servers. Location capture can stop if the app is force-closed or the phone restricts background activity.

Who receives information

Drayton Digital Limited, trading as Track The Sleigh, provides the hosting for the live service. Authorised organisation account holders and our staff can access information relevant to their roles. Website enquiries are private to our staff. Providers supporting hosting, email and support may process information needed to operate the service. We do not sell personal information or use advertising trackers.

Public maps load imagery from Stadia Maps or OpenStreetMap’s tile service, as identified by the attribution on the map. The selected provider receives technical request details, including your IP address, our website origin and the map area being viewed. App connection credentials are not sent to the map provider. See the Stadia Maps privacy policy and OpenStreetMap Foundation privacy policy.

Payments use Stripe Managed Payments. Stripe/Link receives the information needed to complete the transaction and acts as merchant of record for payment, tax and transaction records. Stripe’s privacy notice applies to those activities. Payment details are entered in Stripe’s checkout, not in the volunteer app. Donation links lead to the organisation’s own provider, whose privacy policy applies there.

How long we keep it

The tracking service retains the latest accepted position during an authorised session and a sampled journey trail from its advertised visit start. Trail samples are stored at most once every ten seconds after at least five metres of travel and exclude poor-accuracy fixes. Gaps in received locations are not presented as a continuous travelled path. Stop, device disconnection or sleigh ID replacement clears the stored position and trail. Neither is published after session expiry or loss of eligibility. An hourly cleanup removes session records and any remaining journey points that ended or expired more than a day ago. Backed-up data is retained for no more than six months in accordance with our internal backup retention schedule. This is separate from the live tracking cleanup, so data deleted from the live service may remain in backup copies during that period.

Retention of other information depends on its purpose: operating an active account, responding to enquiries, resolving support issues, investigating security incidents or meeting accounting and legal obligations. We consider whether information is still needed and whether it can be deleted or anonymised. You can ask about retention or request deletion using the contact options below.

Form security

We use Google reCAPTCHA v3 to help prevent automated abuse of signup, sign-in and contact forms. When you open a page containing a protected form, Google processes technical information such as your IP address, browser and interaction information to assess the request. The security service may set cookies. Our server sends Google the security token to verify the result; it does not send your password, contact message or other form contents for this check. Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. reCAPTCHA is not used in the volunteer phone app or to track sleigh locations.

Cookies and browser storage

We use essential cookies for account access and security, including reCAPTCHA form protection, and browser storage to remember your cookie choice and, if you select one, your pricing currency. Exchange rates are fetched by our server; your details are not sent to the rate provider. We do not use analytics or advertising trackers. Google’s security service has its own privacy terms as described above. See our cookie policy or open cookie settings.

Your rights, deletion requests and questions

Depending on the circumstances, you can request access, correction, erasure, restriction or portability of your information, object to certain uses, and withdraw consent where it is used. These rights have legal limits. To request deletion of app-related data or an organisation account, use our contact form and choose Privacy, use Support in your account, or write to our registered address above, marking your message “Privacy”. You can use the contact form without signing in or installing the app. Identify the organisation or sleigh and the data you want removed; do not send passwords or private pairing codes. We may verify your authority before deleting account data and explain any information we must retain, such as accounting or security records.

You can also raise a concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office.