Chirp privacy policy
Last updated October 9, 2026 (location added)
Chirp is a bird call detection system that runs on its operator's own server. This page covers the Chirp app and the service at ourchirp.com, operated by Joshua Salvi.
What Chirp stores
- Your account: username, password (stored only as a one-way hash), and an email address if you add one.
- Recordings and detections: audio clips from your Chirp devices or ones you upload, the birds identified in them, and notes you add.
- Location settings: the location of a Chirp site, set by its administrator, used to decide which birds are likely nearby.
- Live Detect location (optional): if you allow it, your phone's location while Live Detect runs is saved with the recordings it makes and used to judge which birds are likely there. Turn it off with "Use my location" in Live Detect.
- Notification tokens: if you allow notifications, the push token Apple gives the app, so alerts reach your phone.
Microphone
The app uses the microphone only for Live Detect, while you have it running. Live Detect sends short clips to the Chirp server to identify birds; they are deleted automatically unless you choose to save the session.
Who else receives data
- Apple delivers push notifications.
- Bird information services (such as eBird, iNaturalist, Wikipedia and Xeno-canto) receive species names to fetch photos, sounds and descriptions. They do not receive your recordings or account details.
- AI services, only if the site administrator turns on AI features: a spectrogram image of a recording and the species list may be sent to the configured provider to produce a second opinion or a journal entry.
- iNaturalist, only when you choose to submit an observation with your own iNaturalist account.
Chirp does not sell data, show ads or use third-party analytics or tracking.
Keeping and deleting data
Data stays on the Chirp server until it is deleted. You can delete your account in the app under My Profile → Delete account: that removes your sign-in, notes, notifications and push registrations. Recordings made by a site's listening station belong to that site and stay. You can also ask for deletion by email.
Contact
Joshua Salvi — [email protected]