Wild Where — Terms and Conditions

Version: v2.0 Supersedes: DRAFT v1.0 (never published) Last Updated: 2026-10-18

Quick summary (informational, not a substitute for the full Terms)

• You must be 18 years or older.
• You keep ownership of your sightings and photos; you give us a license to host, display, and process them so the App works.
• Wild Where is for informational purposes only. It is not a safety aid, and not a safety guarantee. Alerts can be late, missed, or wrong. Never substitute the App for situational awareness, Parks Canada / Alberta Parks guidance, bear-aware practices, or carrying wildlife deterrents where permitted. If you are in danger, call 911 — the App does not contact emergency services.
• Don't fake sightings, don't try to deduce sensitive-species precise locations from coarsened data, don't harass other users, don't scrape our data.
• We may automate certain decisions (trust score, integrity flags); a human will review any of them on request, and can reverse them. Your trust score never has legal effects on you.
• Wildlife sighting data is provided for Alberta and British Columbia only. Outside that Service Area the App has no coverage, and the absence of a report never means wildlife is absent.
• By default, disputes are governed by Alberta law and go to the Court of King's Bench of Alberta in Calgary — but the mandatory consumer-protection law where you live always prevails over these Terms to the extent of any conflict.

1. Acceptance & Eligibility

By installing, opening, or otherwise using Wild Where (the "App"), you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions (these "Terms") and the Wild Where Privacy Policy v5.0 (the "Privacy Policy"). If you do not agree, you must not use the App.

These Terms form a binding legal agreement between you and Ascendaris Inc., an Alberta corporation ("Wild Where," "we," "us," or "our").

1.1 Minimum age

You must be 18 years or older to use Wild Where.

At onboarding you must confirm that you are 18 or older (an age attestation — we do not collect your date of birth). If you cannot truthfully confirm, the App does not proceed and no record about you is created. If you are under 18, you must not use the App.

1.2 Authority to bind

If you are using Wild Where on behalf of an organization (e.g., a parks agency, conservation group, or research institution), you represent that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

1.3 Geographic scope

Wild Where is operated from Alberta, Canada. The App is currently distributed through the following storefronts:

• Apple App Store — Canada
• Google Play — Canada

App store availability is set by country and cannot be limited to particular provinces or states. The fact that the App can be downloaded in a given territory does not mean that wildlife data coverage is available there — see §1.4. If you use the App from a territory not listed above, we do not represent that the App is appropriate, lawful, or available for use there, and you are responsible for your own legal compliance.

1.4 Service Area and coverage limits

Wild Where's wildlife sighting reports, alerts, species lists, coarsening rules and safety guidance are provided only for locations within Alberta and British Columbia (the "Service Area"), and are calibrated for that region and no other.

Outside the Service Area the App has no wildlife data coverage. You will not receive sighting information or alerts, and the absence of a report or an alert does not mean that wildlife is absent. You must not rely on the App for wildlife sighting information outside the Service Area.

We may change the Service Area from time to time. The current Service Area is published in the App and at wildwhere.com, and we will give advance notice of any reduction in the Service Area in accordance with these Terms.

Nothing in this section limits any right you have under the consumer protection or privacy legislation of your province or territory, which continues to apply regardless of where the App is used.

2. Account & Authentication

2.1 An account is required

You need an account to use Wild Where, and an account requires a working email address. We use it to send you a copy of these Terms and the Privacy Policy when you accept them, to give you advance notice before either document changes materially, and for account recovery and transactional notices. We do not send marketing email.

Your account is pseudonymous to other users: the sightings, sign reports and votes you submit appear on the community map without your name, profile or email address. See Privacy Policy §2 and §5.

2.2 Linked accounts

You may link Sign in with Apple for cross-device sync, account recovery, and to preserve your data if you change devices. When you link Apple Sign In, Apple shares your Apple ID identifier with us, and you choose whether to share your Apple address or supply a different one. We use this information only as described in the Privacy Policy.

2.3 Account responsibility

You are responsible for safeguarding your device and any credentials linked to your account, and for all activity that occurs under your account. If you suspect unauthorized access, contact us at privacy@wildwhere.com.

2.4 One account per person

You agree to maintain at most one active Wild Where account. Creating multiple accounts to circumvent trust-score, moderation, or rate-limit decisions is prohibited (§5).

2.5 Account closure

You may close your account and delete your data at any time via Settings > Delete Account. The deletion cascade is described in the Privacy Policy (rights section).

3. License to Use Wild Where

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Wild Where grants you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to install and use the App on devices you own or control, solely for your personal, non-commercial wildlife sighting and observation purposes.

This license does not permit, and you specifically agree that you will not:

• Sell, rent, lease, sublicense, or commercially exploit the App or any portion of it.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the App except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law.
• Use the App to build a competing product or service, or to train any machine-learning model.
• Use the App to scrape, harvest, or otherwise extract our community sighting data, sub-processor map tile imagery, or any other content delivered through the App, in bulk or by automated means.
• Remove, obscure, or alter any proprietary notices — including attribution to MapTiler, OpenStreetMap (which is licensed under the Open Database License), Open-Meteo, or any other sub-processor listed in the Privacy Policy's sub-processor section.
• Use the App in any way that violates these Terms, the Privacy Policy, applicable law, or the rules of the platform (Apple App Store, Google Play) that distributed the App to you.

4. User-Generated Content (UGC)

4.1 What counts as Your Content

Wild Where lets you submit wildlife sightings, sign reports, photos, votes (confirm / deny / flag), behavior notes, trip recordings, profile information, and other content (collectively, "Your Content"). Some of Your Content (sightings, sign reports, votes) is visible to other Wild Where users on the community map and in sighting alerts; and some of Your Content remains invisible to other users (trip recordings, profile information you mark private).

4.2 Ownership

You retain ownership of Your Content. These Terms do not transfer ownership of any of Your Content to Wild Where.

4.3 License you grant to Wild Where

By submitting Your Content, you grant Wild Where a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, revocable, transferable license to host, store, process, copy, modify, create derivative works of, display, perform, distribute, and otherwise use Your Content for the purpose of operating, providing, and improving the App and related services. This license includes, without limitation, the right to:

• Display Your Content on the community map and in sighting alerts to other users.
• Apply server-side modifications required for safety or legal compliance, including coordinate coarsening for sensitive species (§8 below; see Privacy Policy §4).
• Enrich Your Content with weather, road, trail, habitat, time-zone, and reverse-geocoded location metadata via the sub-processors listed in the Privacy Policy.
• Combine de-identified copies of Your Content with other users' de-identified content to produce aggregate data (e.g., density maps, coverage statistics).
• Run automated integrity, authenticity, accuracy, and relevance checks (§10).

This license survives account deletion only as to (a) content already incorporated into aggregate / de-identified datasets that no longer contain your personal identifiers, and (b) backups retained for the disaster-recovery window described in the Privacy Policy. Personal copies of Your Content are deleted on account closure per the Privacy Policy.

4.4 Your representations and warranties about Your Content

You represent and warrant that, for every portion of Your Content that you submit:

• You own or have the necessary rights, licenses, consents, and permissions to grant the license in §4.3.
• Your Content does not infringe any third-party intellectual property, privacy, publicity, contractual, or other rights.
• Your Content does not contain identifiable individuals other than yourself, unless you have their explicit permission.
• Your Content is accurate to the best of your knowledge — wildlife sightings are honest reports of what you actually observed, not fabricated, hoaxed, staged, or generated by AI / image-generation tools to depict wildlife you did not see.
• Your Content does not violate the Acceptable Use rules in §5.

4.5 Photos

When you attach a photo to a sighting, embedded metadata is stripped on your device before upload (Privacy Policy §2). No photos are sent to any AI service; if that ever changes, we will give at least 30 days' in-app notice first.

4.6 Moderation and removal

We may, but are not obligated to, review, screen, or moderate Your Content. We may remove or restrict access to Your Content at any time without prior notice if we determine in good faith that it violates these Terms, applicable law, the rights of any third party, or the safety / integrity of the App. We will provide notice and a path to human review for adverse decisions affecting your account in line with §10.

5. Acceptable Use / Prohibited Conduct

How moderation works, in plain language: Wild Where combines automated checks (integrity flags, per-sighting scoring, trust scores) with human review to keep the community map accurate and safe. Community votes are inputs, not verdicts. Any adverse decision made about your content or account — automated or human — comes with notice and a right to ask a person to review and reverse it. The full description is in §10.

You agree that you will not, and will not attempt to:

5.1 Falsify or manipulate wildlife data

• Submit sightings of wildlife you did not actually observe.
• Submit fabricated, staged, edited, AI-generated, or otherwise misrepresentative photos.
• Submit sightings at locations other than the location of the actual observation (the App records GPS; deliberate spoofing violates these Terms).
• Use multiple accounts, bots, or coordinated voting to inflate trust scores, suppress legitimate sightings, or influence community decisions.
• Submit information designed to lure animals (e.g., misrepresenting a sighting to draw users to a hunting location) or to enable poaching, harassment, or harm to wildlife.

5.2 Defeat sensitive-species protections

• Attempt to reverse-engineer or geographically triangulate the precise locations of sensitive-species sightings from coarsened public data, push-notification routing, or any other source.
• Submit a known-sensitive-species sighting under a different species ID to dodge coarsening, or submit a precise modified coordinate that is in fact the actual location of a sensitive-species sighting.
• Aggregate, redistribute, or publish sensitive-species data extracted from the App, by any means, without our prior written consent.
• Use the App to HUNT, TRACK, OR POACH WILDLIFE, or in furtherance of any activity prohibited by the federal Species at Risk Act, the Alberta Wildlife Act, or any other applicable wildlife or conservation law.

5.3 Harass, dox, or invade privacy

• Use Your Content or any feature of the App to harass, stalk, threaten, dox, or invade the privacy of any other person — including other Wild Where users, landowners, indigenous communities, parks staff, hunters, anglers, photographers, or anyone else.
• Submit photos containing identifiable individuals (other than yourself) without their permission.
• Use the App's trip-recording feature to track another person's movements without their knowledge and consent.

5.4 Scrape, abuse infrastructure, or interfere with the service

• Use any robot, spider, scraper, crawler, headless browser, or other automated means to access the App or its data, except for search-engine indexing of any public web pages we operate.
• Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the App or any related infrastructure, except via a coordinated-disclosure security report to privacy@wildwhere.com (we welcome these).
• Decompile or extract embedded credentials (e.g., the MapTiler API key), or use any extracted credential outside the App.
• Use the App to transmit malware, spam, or unsolicited communications.
• Impose an undue load on the App's infrastructure (e.g., scripted submissions, request flooding).

5.5 Other prohibited content

• Submit content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, hateful, or promotes violence against any individual or group.
• Submit content that infringes any third party's intellectual property or contractual rights.
• Submit advertising, promotional materials, or other content unrelated to wildlife sightings.

5.6 Consequences

We may, in our reasonable discretion, take any of the following actions in response to violations of this §5:

• Remove or restrict access to specific content.
• Apply integrity flags to a sighting or your account (see §10).
• Lower your trust score, with a human-review path per §10.2.
• Suspend or terminate your account (§13).
• Notify law enforcement or regulatory authorities if we believe a violation involves criminal activity, an imminent safety risk, or conduct affecting protected wildlife.

Repeated abuse of reporting or flagging mechanisms (for example, repeatedly submitting notices about content that plainly does not violate these Terms) may itself lead to the suspension of your ability to submit votes and flags.

6. Wildlife Safety Disclaimer

THIS SECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THESE TERMS. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY. IF YOU ARE IN IMMEDIATE DANGER, CALL 911 (OR YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY NUMBER). WILD WHERE DOES NOT CONTACT EMERGENCY SERVICES.

6.1 Wild Where is for informational purposes only, is not a safety aid, and is not a safety guarantee

WILD WHERE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. IT IS NOT A SAFETY AID, AND IT IS NOT A SAFETY GUARANTEE. Your acceptance of a Wildlife Safety Acknowledgement is a necessary condition to the use of the App, and each acknowledgement will be recorded in your consent ledger (userConsents + consentAuditLog) alongside the exact text shown to you and the version of this section in force at the time.

Wild Where is an information-sharing platform through which users share wildlife sightings they report. It is not designed, tested, or offered as a means of avoiding wildlife encounters. It is a supplemental information source, not a substitute for any of the following:

• Your own situational awareness, training, and good judgment when in a bear country or any other wildlife habitat.
• Where permitted in accordance with applicable laws, carrying and knowing how to use wildlife deterrents.
• Following guidance from Parks Canada, Alberta Parks, the federal Wildlife Service, provincial wildlife authorities, indigenous community guidance, and posted signage where you are traveling.
• Travelling in groups, making noise, and following bear-aware / cougar-aware / wolf-aware best practices.
• Carrying appropriate gear, communication devices that are available in remote areas, navigation tools, and emergency supplies for backcountry travel.

6.2 Alerts may be late, missed, or absent

Wild Where alerts depend on (a) other users in the area having reported the animal, (b) the report passing automated integrity checks, (c) your device having an active network connection or cached data, (d) your device having battery and notification permissions, (e) the alert arriving in time relative to your travel speed and the animal's movements. Any one of these can fail. The absence of an alert tells you nothing about whether wildlife is present.

6.3 Sightings may be inaccurate

Community sightings are user-submitted and unverified at the time of reporting. Species identification, behavior descriptions, animal counts, and even the fact of the sighting itself may be inaccurate. Trust scores and confidence indicators are statistical signals only; they do not certify accuracy. Wildlife information in the App may be wrong, incomplete, or out of date at the moment you read it.

6.4 Sensitive-species coarsening reduces precision by design

For species designated sensitive in our current configuration (at this version: caribou year-round, and grizzly bear after its 72-hour fresh-sighting safety window — see Privacy Policy §4), the public location shown on the map is deliberately reduced to a 10–50 km grid cell to discourage poaching and other unlawful activity. Wild Where makes no representation that any grid cell, radius, distance, or time window shown in the App is accurate, current, or complete, and you should draw no inference from it about where an animal is or is not. Coarsening and fresh-sighting windows are applied to discourage poaching, wildlife harassment, and other activities contrary to applicable laws. The designated list can change as conservation designations evolve; §8 is the authoritative statement at any time.

6.5 Dead-zone alerts may not arrive at all

In documented cellular dead zones, the App attempts to use cached data and proximity-based alerting, but real-time push notifications cannot arrive without network connectivity. Plan accordingly.

6.6 No emergency dispatch

Wild Where is not an emergency service and does not contact 911, parks dispatch, or wildlife authorities on your behalf. If you are in immediate danger, call emergency services (911 in North America) directly. If you observe a wildlife-related public-safety hazard (e.g., a habituated bear, a wolf-pack pattern), report it to the appropriate local authority in addition to (not instead of) submitting it to Wild Where.

6.7 Encounter-of-last-resort guidance is general, not personal

Any educational content the App displays about wildlife encounters (e.g., what to do if you see a grizzly) is general guidance derived from public sources such as Parks Canada and the BC Bear Aware program. It is not personalized advice and may not apply to your specific situation. Defer to expert guidance and posted regulations in any jurisdiction you visit.

6.8 Assumption of risk

You acknowledge and agree that wildlife observation, hiking, camping, backcountry travel, hunting, fishing, off-road and remote-area driving, and other outdoor activities in connection with which the App may be used carry inherent and substantial risks — including unpredictable animal behaviour and attack, terrain, weather, isolation, loss of connectivity, equipment failure, and the acts or omissions of other persons — that can result in serious personal injury, illness, property damage, and death. You further acknowledge that these risks cannot be eliminated by information of any kind, including information available through the App.

You are solely responsible for evaluating conditions, for deciding whether, when, where, and how to undertake any activity, and for your own preparation, equipment, competence, and conduct. You must not rely on the App, or on the presence, absence, timing, or content of any sighting, alert, map, or other output of the App, as a basis for any decision affecting your safety or the safety of others.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, YOU VOLUNTARILY AND KNOWINGLY ASSUME ALL RISKS DESCRIBED ABOVE AND ALL OTHER RISKS ARISING FROM OR CONNECTED WITH YOUR USE OF THE APP, WHETHER KNOWN OR UNKNOWN, FORESEEN OR UNFORESEEN, AND YOU RELEASE AND FOREVER DISCHARGE WILD WHERE AND ITS AFFILIATES, AND THEIR RESPECTIVE DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AND AGENTS (THE "RELEASED PARTIES") FROM ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, DEMANDS, ACTIONS, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS, DAMAGES, AND EXPENSES OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THE APP OR ANY ACTIVITY UNDERTAKEN IN CONNECTION WITH IT, INCLUDING CLAIMS ARISING FROM THE NEGLIGENCE OF ANY RELEASED PARTY.

Nothing in this section releases, excludes, or limits liability for gross negligence or wilful misconduct of a Released Party, or any other liability that cannot be released, excluded, or limited under applicable law. This section survives termination of these Terms and is in addition to, and does not limit, the disclaimers in §17 and the limitations in §18.

6.9 Alert delivery depends on your device and circumstances

No user should rely on the App as a source of wildlife-safety information, whether as a sole source or otherwise. Whether an alert is delivered, perceived, and acted on in time depends on your device, its settings, connectivity, and your own circumstances, none of which are within Wild Where's control.

Wild Where does not restrict access on the basis of ability. The App may be used for recording sightings, trip logging, and community contribution, and no feature of the App is offered for the purpose of avoiding or managing wildlife encounters.

7. Safe Use of the App

7.1 Hands-free use only

The availability of hands-free features depends on your device, its operating system, and third-party platforms, and Wild Where does not warrant that any such feature will be available, functional, or supported at any time.

7.2 Do not interact with the App unless it is safe to do so

You agree that you will not touch, type into, or otherwise interact with the App while operating a motor vehicle, boat, or other equipment, while in the presence of wildlife, or in any other situation in which diverting your attention could endanger you or another person. If you wish to submit a sighting, change settings, or respond to a banner, do so only once you have stopped and it is safe to do so. Alerts may be delayed, missed, or absent; act according to your own observations, posted signage, and the conditions around you, and not in reliance on the App.

7.3 Compliance with local distracted-driving laws

You are responsible for complying with all applicable laws regarding mobile-device use while driving in the jurisdiction where you are operating the vehicle. Wild Where's hands-free affordances are not a defense to a distracted-driving offence; consult your local rules.

8. Sensitive Species Protection

8.1 Mandatory coarsening

For each species designated sensitive in our published configuration (see Privacy Policy §4 and the list available on request), we apply server-side coordinate coarsening to every sighting submission of that species, including yours. The public sighting and all alert payloads carry only the coarsened coordinate. You cannot opt out of coarsening for these species. You can still delete the sighting at any time.

8.2 No attempt to circumvent

You agree not to attempt, directly or indirectly, to circumvent this protection. Examples of conduct that violate this section include — without limitation:

• Submitting a sensitive species under a non-sensitive species ID.
• Submitting an obviously incorrect location intended to "anchor" the coarsening grid in a misleading place.
• Cross-referencing FCM topic routing, geohash prefixes, push notification timing, or any other side-channel to estimate a sensitive sighting's precise location.
• Publishing, aggregating, or redistributing coarsened or inferred sensitive-species locations.

8.3 Editing your own sensitive sighting

If you need to correct the public pin of a sensitive sighting you submitted — for example, you reported in the wrong place and want the public dot to reflect your actual observation — use the in-app edit sighting flow. The server re-coarsens the corrected location before republishing; your precise corrected location is held only in the admin-gated collection.

9. Research and Conservation Use

Wild Where operates no research-data pipeline. We share no sighting data — aggregate, de-identified or otherwise — with research institutions, conservation partners, government agencies or any other third party for research purposes, and the App offers no research contribution setting.

If that changes, we will publish the terms that would govern it, update these Terms and the Privacy Policy, and give you at least 30 days' notice and a fresh, opt-in choice before any of your data flows under them.

Indigenous data sovereignty. If we ever do create a research dataset covering Indigenous lands, co-managed parks, or species of cultural significance to a First Nations, Inuit, or Métis community, Wild Where will not share that data with any partner until the First Nations Information Governance Centre's OCAP® principles (or the equivalent data-governance framework for the affected nation) have been satisfied — specifically, community engagement, a data-sharing agreement, and a documented community-benefit return. This commitment is in addition to, not a substitute for, the per-user opt-in described above.

The mandatory sensitive-species coarsening in §8 is independent of all of this and applies to every sighting of a listed species.

10. Automated Decisions & Community Moderation

10.1 What is automated

We use automated systems to help manage the volume of user submissions and to determine how sightings are displayed, ranked, and surfaced in the App. These systems do not verify, validate, or guarantee the accuracy of any sighting. In summary:

• Trust score and reporter level — computed from your sighting history, community votes on your sightings, the share of your sightings with photos, integrity-flag counts, and a small tenure bonus.
• Per-sighting scoring — three scores (authenticity, accuracy, relevance) computed from each sighting's content and context.
• Retention and purge decisions — low-scoring sightings may be purged automatically; community-confirmed sightings are retained.
• Integrity flags — automated detection of suspicious patterns (e.g., out-of-range GPS, implausible animal counts) may flag a sighting for human review or hide it from the community map.

Trust scores have no legal or similarly significant effects on you. Your trust score affects only how your contributions are weighted and displayed inside the App (for example, how quickly a sighting appears on the community map). It does not affect any price you pay (the App is free), your access to any essential service, any credit, employment, insurance, or housing decision, or any legal right, and it never gates your access to the App or to any feature of it.

10.2 Your right to human review

You have the right to ask a human to review any automated or moderation decision and to have the decision reversed if the reviewer agrees it was wrong. Settings > Privacy Settings > Automated Decisions > Request human review. A person on our team aims to respond within 30 days. If the reviewer agrees, they clear the integrity flag, unhide the sighting, or adjust your trust score directly — the reversal is an operational change, not just an explanation. Adverse decisions come with a notice that explains what was decided and how to request review (§12.4).

10.3 Limits of community moderation

Community votes (confirm / deny / flag) are inputs to our scoring systems. They are not direct moderation decisions, and they are themselves subject to anti-manipulation safeguards. We retain the final decision on what stays on the community map.

10.4 Routing overrides for sensitive species

For sensitive species (§8), sighting alerts are routed using the server-known precise location even when the public coordinate is coarsened. The integrity-flag penalty in the trust-score formula is also automatically waived if a human reviewer has accepted a reversal request affecting one of your sightings.

11. Privacy

Your use of the App is also governed by the Wild Where Privacy Policy v5.0, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. The Privacy Policy describes:

• What personal data we collect and how we use it
• Cross-border data transfers and our sub-processor list
• Your rights (access, correction, deletion, portability, appeal — granted to all users regardless of residence)
• Data retention and deletion
• Children's privacy

If there is any conflict between these Terms and the Privacy Policy regarding the handling of personal data, the Privacy Policy controls.

12. Push Notifications & Other Service Communications

12.1 Push notifications

Wild Where uses Apple Push Notification service (APNs) on iOS and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) on both iOS and Android to deliver wildlife sighting alerts and certain account / moderation notices to your device. By enabling notifications, you consent to receive these messages. You can disable notifications at any time through your device's system settings.

Operational messages vs. promotional messages. Wild Where's wildlife sighting alerts, account notices, moderation notices, and similar operational messages are sent to deliver the service you have requested. They are not marketing: under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), they are not "commercial electronic messages" (CEMs).

If Wild Where ever introduces engagement, marketing, or other promotional messages, those will require their own separate, express, opt-in consent (a dedicated toggle in Privacy Settings, default OFF) before any such message is sent, in every jurisdiction, and we will document that opt-in in your consent ledger. Enabling push notifications for sighting alerts is never treated as consent to promotional messages.

12.2 Delivery is best-effort

Push notifications are best-effort delivery. We do not guarantee that any specific notification will arrive, will arrive in time to be useful, or will not be silenced by your device's Do Not Disturb or Focus settings. See §6.2.

12.3 Time-sensitive vs. routine notifications

Wild Where flags high-threat species alerts (e.g., grizzly, cougar, wolf) as "time-sensitive" using Apple's iOS interruption-level mechanism, so they may deliver even when Focus modes are active — subject to your own device configuration. Routine notifications (e.g., a sighting confirmation in a quiet area) are delivered at standard priority.

12.4 Adverse-decision notifications

If we take an adverse moderation action affecting one of your sightings or your account (e.g., hide a sighting, apply an integrity flag), we may notify you via push and by writing to your in-app notifications. The in-app record is the authoritative copy if the push fails to deliver.

12.5 Email

We send transactional email to the address on your account: a copy of these Terms and the Privacy Policy when you accept them, advance notice before either changes materially (§22), account recovery, data-request and deletion confirmations, and breach notifications if required by law. We do not send marketing emails.

13. Service Modifications, Suspension, and Termination

13.1 Modifications

We may modify, add, or remove features of the App at any time. For material changes that adversely affect the App's core wildlife sighting function, we will provide at least 30 days' advance notice in the app and by email, on the same footing as a change to these Terms (§22).

13.2 Suspension or termination of your access

We may suspend or terminate your access to the App, with or without prior notice, if we believe in good faith that you have:

• Violated these Terms or the Privacy Policy
• Engaged in conduct that endangers the safety, integrity, or legal posture of the App or its user community
• Engaged in fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful activity
• Not used the App for an extended period (currently undefined; we will give 30 days' notice and an opportunity to log in before treating an account as abandoned)

You have a right to human review of any decision under this §13.2 via the path in §10.2.

13.3 Your right to terminate

You may stop using the App at any time. You may delete your account and your data via Settings > Delete Account (Privacy Policy rights section).

13.4 Effect of termination

On termination — by you or by us — your right to use the App ends immediately. The provisions of these Terms that by their nature survive termination remain in effect, including §4.3 (residual UGC license over de-identified aggregate data), §6 (Safety), §15 (IP), §17–§19 (Disclaimers, Liability, Indemnification), and §20 (Disputes).

14. Third-Party Services

Wild Where uses third-party services ("sub-processors") to deliver parts of the App, including Google (Firebase), MapTiler, Open-Meteo, OpenStreetMap (Overpass API), and Apple. These services have their own terms; in some cases (e.g., the Open Database License governing OpenStreetMap data) those terms also impose obligations on you as the end user. The current sub-processor list and our cross-border transfer mechanisms are described in the Privacy Policy's sub-processor and international-transfers sections.

You are responsible for complying with any third-party-service terms that apply to you (e.g., OSM attribution if you republish OSM-derived map content; Apple Media Services Terms for App Store transactions).

15. Intellectual Property

15.1 Our IP

The App, its underlying source code, branding, logos, icons, written content (other than Your Content), automated-decision models, scoring formulas, and configurations are owned by Wild Where or our licensors and are protected by Canadian, U.S., and international intellectual-property laws. Nothing in these Terms grants you any right, title, or interest in any of the foregoing other than the limited license in §3.

15.2 Your IP

You retain ownership of Your Content (§4.2). The license you grant us in §4.3 does not transfer ownership.

15.3 Trademarks

"Wild Where" and the Wild Where pawprint compass mark are trademarks of Ascendaris Inc. You may not use them in any way that suggests endorsement, partnership, or affiliation without our prior written consent.

15.4 Feedback

If you send us feedback, suggestions, or feature requests, you grant us an unrestricted, royalty-free, perpetual license to use them without obligation to you.

16. Copyright & Intellectual-Property Infringement Notices

16.1 Canadian notices (notice-and-notice)

For Canadian copyright complaints, Canada's Copyright Act "notice-and-notice" regime (ss. 41.25–41.27) applies instead of the DMCA's notice-and-takedown procedure. Send a notice meeting the s. 41.25(2) content requirements to legal@wildwhere.com (subject: "Copyright Act Notice"). We will forward compliant notices to the user who posted the material where the Act requires, and we may — but are not automatically required to — remove the material.

16.2 Repeat infringers

We may terminate the accounts of users found to be repeat infringers.

17. Disclaimers of Warranties

THE APP IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Wild Where disclaims all warranties of any kind, express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including without limitation:

• Implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, quiet enjoyment, and non-infringement.
• Any warranty that the App will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, virus-free, or free of harmful components, or that any defect or error will be identified or corrected.
• Any warranty that wildlife alerts, sightings, coarsening, integrity flags, trust scores, or any other output of the App will be accurate, timely, complete, current, or sufficient to prevent injury, harm, death or damage to property, human life or wildlife.
• Any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, currency, or reliability of any community-submitted content, map data, weather data, trail data, road or habitat data, or any other information sourced from users or third parties.
• Any warranty regarding GPS accuracy, location services, network connectivity, or cellular coverage, including in documented dead zones or areas of degraded signal.
• Any warranty that the App is or will remain compatible with, or will function correctly on, any particular device, operating system, or platform version, including following a platform-initiated update.
• Any warranty regarding the availability, performance, security, or continued operation of any sub-processor or third-party service on which the App relies (§14), including Firebase, MapTiler, Open-Meteo, OpenStreetMap, or Apple services.
• Any warranty concerning the outcome, timing, or result of any automated decision, moderation action, or human review request under §10.
• Any warranty that the App, or your use of it, complies with the laws, regulations, permits, or park or land-management rules of every jurisdiction in which you use it, including provincial, territorial, federal, and Indigenous governance regimes applicable to wildlife viewing, protected areas, or backcountry travel.

No advice or information, oral or written, obtained from Wild Where or through the App creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, conditions, or statutory guarantees. In those jurisdictions, the disclaimers above apply only to the maximum extent permitted by law, and you may have additional non-waivable rights under your local law.

18. Limitation of Liability

18.1 Excluded damages

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WILD WHERE, ASCENDARIS INC., AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, LICENSORS, AND SUB-PROCESSORS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, including without limitation damages for personal injury, wildlife encounters, lost profits, lost data, business interruption, or any loss arising from your reliance on a wildlife alert, the absence of a wildlife alert, the accuracy or inaccuracy of any sighting, or your use or inability to use the App.

18.2 Aggregate cap

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Wild Where's aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the App will not exceed the greater of:

• (a) the total amount you paid Wild Where in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or
• (b) CAD $1,000.00.

This cap applies to every claim, including claims for damage to property, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

18.3 No exclusion of liability that cannot be excluded by law

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that, under applicable law, cannot be excluded or limited — including liability for gross negligence, willful misconduct, fraud, or death or personal injury caused by negligence in jurisdictions that do not permit such exclusion. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for certain kinds of damages; in those jurisdictions, the limitations in this §18 apply only to the maximum extent permitted by law.

18.4 Allocation of risk

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, your use of the App, and any decision made in reliance on any output of the App, is at your sole risk. Nothing in the App is a substitute for the judgment, training, equipment, or third-party guidance described in §6.

You acknowledge that the disclaimers and limitations in §17 and §18 are a fundamental basis of the bargain between you and Wild Where — Wild Where would not be able to offer the App at all (let alone for free, as we currently do) without them.

19. Indemnification

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Wild Where, Ascendaris Inc., and its officers, directors, employees, agents, licensors, and sub-processors from and against any claim, liability, damage, loss, cost, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to:

• Your Content, including any claim that it infringes, misappropriates, or violates the rights of any third party, or that it is false, inaccurate, defamatory, or misleading
• Your breach of these Terms or the Privacy Policy
• Your violation of any law or any third party's rights
• Your use of the App in connection with any misuse or unlawful activity, including any violation of the Species at Risk Act, the Alberta Wildlife Act, or other wildlife and conservation laws

Except to the extent any such claim, liability, damage, loss, cost, or expense arises from Wild Where's own gross negligence or wilful misconduct, we may, at our option, assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you. You agree to cooperate, at your own expense, with our defense of any such claim.

This §19 does not apply where and to the extent it is unenforceable under applicable consumer-protection law.

20. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

20.1 Governing law (default)

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Alberta, Canada, and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

Mandatory consumer-protection law in your place of residence overrides this choice of law to the extent of any conflict.

20.2 Forum (default)

You and Wild Where agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the App will be resolved exclusively by the Court of King's Bench of Alberta, sitting in Calgary, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of that court.

This forum-selection clause does not override the mandatory consumer-protection law of your place of residence to the extent that law provides protections you cannot waive by contract, or gives you a non-waivable right to sue where you live (consistent with Douez v. Facebook, Inc., 2017 SCC 33).

20.3 Informal resolution first

Before starting any formal proceeding, you agree to first contact us at legal@wildwhere.com with a description of the dispute and give us 30 days to try to resolve it informally. This step is free, does not require a lawyer, and does not waive or shorten any limitation period or other right you have.

20.4 No contractual limitation period

These Terms do not shorten any statutory limitation period. The time you have to bring a claim is governed by the applicable statute of limitations in your jurisdiction (in Alberta, the Limitations Act, RSA 2000, c L-12).

20.5 Class proceedings

These Terms do not waive your right to participate in a class proceeding.

21. Platform Addenda

21.1 Apple App Store EULA Addendum (iOS users only)

If you obtained the App through the Apple App Store, you acknowledge that:

• Apple is not a party to these Terms. Wild Where, not Apple, is solely responsible for the App and its content.
• Apple Standard EULA. The Apple Media Services Terms and the "Licensed Application End User License Agreement" published at https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ apply to your use of the App as a baseline, in addition to these Terms. Where they conflict, the more user-protective of the two applies.
• License scope. Your license to use the App is non-transferable and limited to use on Apple-branded devices you own or control, and as permitted by the Apple App Store Usage Rules.
• Maintenance and support. Wild Where, not Apple, is responsible for any maintenance or support you require for the App.
• Warranty. Wild Where, not Apple, is responsible for any warranty as to the App (and we disclaim all warranties to the maximum extent permitted by law in §17). If the App fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund your purchase price (the App is currently free, so the refund amount is CAD $0). To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever with respect to the App.
• Product claims. Wild Where, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any of your claims relating to the App, including product-liability and consumer-protection claims.
• IP claims. Wild Where, not Apple, is responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of any claim that the App infringes a third party's intellectual property rights.
• Export law. You represent that you are not located in, and are not a national of, any country subject to U.S. government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Third-party beneficiary. Apple and Apple's subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

21.2 Google Play Addendum (Android users only)

If you obtained the App through Google Play, you acknowledge that:

• Google is not a party to these Terms. Wild Where, not Google, is solely responsible for the App and its content, and Google has no responsibility for the App or for your use of it.
• Google Play baseline. The Google Play Terms of Service and the Google Play Usage Rules apply to your use of the App as a baseline, in addition to these Terms. Where they conflict, the more user-protective of the two applies.
• License scope. Your license to use the App is non-transferable and limited to use on Android devices you own or control, as permitted by the Google Play Usage Rules.
• Maintenance and support. Wild Where, not Google, is responsible for any maintenance or support you require for the App.
• Warranty. Wild Where, not Google, is responsible for any warranty as to the App, and we disclaim all warranties to the maximum extent permitted by law in §17. The App is free, so Google Play's refund policy yields a refund amount of CAD $0.
• Product claims. Wild Where, not Google, is responsible for addressing any of your claims relating to the App, including product-liability and consumer-protection claims.
• IP claims. Wild Where, not Google, is responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of any claim that the App infringes a third party's intellectual property rights.

22. Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time, and either request your consent to agree to the revised Terms upon your next use of the App, or follow the notice procedures under §22.1 below. The current version is always available at wildwhere.com/terms and in the in-app "About" section.

22.1 Notice of material changes — what we will always do

If we make material changes — for example, changes that expand your obligations, narrow your rights, modify dispute resolution, change fees (there are currently none), or materially affect the safety disclaimers in §6 — we will, for every user:

1. Send you written notice at least 30 days before the change takes effect, by email and by in-app notice, with the key changes highlighted.
2. In that notice, identify the specific new or amended clause, showing the clause as it read before (if it existed) and as it will read after, together with the date the change comes into force.
3. Give you the right to refuse the change and cancel this agreement without cost, penalty, or cancellation charge — by deleting your account (Settings > Delete Account) at any time before the change takes effect, or within 30 days after it takes effect if the change increases your obligations or reduces ours.

22.2 Changes affecting sensitive data

For changes to these Terms or the Privacy Policy that substantively affect the handling of sensitive data — for example, precise geolocation — we may either require your consent and agreement to the amended Terms or Privacy Policy, or follow the same 30-day notice and refuse-and-cancel path in §22.1, before the change takes effect.

22.3 Non-material changes

Non-material changes (e.g., typo fixes, structural improvements that don't change substantive rights) take effect on posting.

22.4 Acceptance of changes

Your continued use of the App after the effective date of a change, following the notice in §22.1, constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms. Material changes additionally trip the in-app re-acceptance flow, and your acceptance (with the version you accepted) is recorded in your consent ledger. If you do not agree, your remedy is to stop using the App and, if you wish, delete your account.

Changes that must take effect immediately — for example, to comply with a legal or regulatory requirement, a court or regulator order, or to address a security or safety risk — may be presented to you for review and acceptance the next time you use the App, rather than after a 30-day notice period. We will tell you at the time why the change took immediate effect.

23. Miscellaneous

23.1 Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any in-app notices incorporated by reference, constitute the entire agreement between you and Wild Where regarding the App, and supersede all prior agreements on the same subject.

23.2 Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect. The parties will replace the invalid provision with an enforceable one that most closely reflects the original intent.

23.3 No waiver

Our failure to enforce any provision of these Terms is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

23.4 Assignment

You may not assign or transfer your rights under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign or transfer these Terms freely — including in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets — provided that successor entities are bound by the same obligations.

23.5 Force majeure

Wild Where is not liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from causes outside our reasonable control, including natural disasters, network outages, sub-processor failures, government action, civil unrest, or pandemics.

23.6 Electronic communications

You consent to receive communications from us electronically. We will communicate with you by in-app notice, by email (if you have provided one), and through the channels described in the Privacy Policy.

23.7 Independent contractors

Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, employment, or fiduciary relationship between you and Wild Where.

23.8 Language

These Terms are drafted in English. A French translation is made available in the App and at wildwhere.com/terms for convenience; in the event of any inconsistency, the English version governs, except where the law of your province provides otherwise.

23.9 Headings and interpretation

Headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation. "Including" means "including without limitation."

23.10 No reliance

You acknowledge that, in agreeing to these Terms, you have not relied on any statement, representation, assurance, or warranty (whether made innocently or negligently) that is not set out in these Terms.

24. Contact

For questions about these Terms, including dispute notices, copyright notices (§16), and assignment notices, contact:

Ascendaris Inc. Calgary, Alberta, Canada legal@wildwhere.com

For privacy questions, including any matter requiring the attention of the Privacy Officer designated under PIPEDA Principle 4.1 and Alberta PIPA s.5(3):

Privacy Officer, Ascendaris Inc. privacy@wildwhere.com

We aim to acknowledge legal correspondence within five business days and to respond substantively within 30 days of receipt.

End of Terms and Conditions v2.0.