Privacy & data handling

This page describes how Scout Snap, operated by the scout group's leadership team, handles photos and videos of children. It is maintained by the section leadership and complements the section's own privacy notice.

What we store

Photos and videos uploaded by leaders, the children tagged in them, and the parent accounts linked to each child. We store the minimum information needed to identify a child and link them to their parents.

How media moves through the app

  1. Upload. A leader uploads photos or videos into a section album. Files go straight into private storage — never to a public URL.
  2. Tagging window (14 days). For a short window after upload, parents in that section can see new, untagged media so they can identify and tag their own child. Leaders can also tag media as a group photo or as containing no section members.
  3. After tagging. Once the tagging window closes, each parent only retains access to media tagged with their own child (plus items leaders marked as group photos). Anything still untagged is no longer visible to parents.
  4. Retention. Albums and media are automatically deleted at the end of the section's retention period.

Leaders may also mark media as internal-only, in which case it is never shown to parents.

Who can see what

  • Leaders of a section see all media for their own section.
  • Parents see media tagged with their own child, plus newly uploaded media in their child's section during the 14-day tagging window.
  • Every file is served through a short-lived, one-off link generated only after a permission check. Originals are never reachable from a public URL.

Retention

Each section sets a retention period (default 12 months). Albums and media past that date are deleted automatically. Untagged media stops being visible to parents 14 days after upload, regardless of the section's retention period.

Your rights

Parents can, at any time, sign in and request:

  • Access — a download of every photo and video tagged with their child.
  • Erasure — deletion of every photo and video tagged with their child. Media that also tags other children is untagged rather than deleted.
  • Removal — flag an individual photo for leader review and removal.

A leader will action the request and the audit log records who did what and when.

Audit log

Uploads, tags, downloads, removal requests and deletions are all recorded. Leaders can review the log for their section.

For specific questions, contact your section leader.