Privacy notice

1. Who we are

This website and application (“Hestia Camp Suite” or “the service”) help 4-H Programs run camps: enrollment, health forms, check-in, photos, and related tasks.

Hestia Camp Suite provides and hosts the software. Your Program (for example, your county 4-H office) uses the service for its camps and decides many camp rules, including who may enroll and what forms are required.

When you are signed in to a Program, questions about that Program’s camps are best sent to your Program’s support email. The Contact link in the site footer opens mail to that address when your Program has listed one. For general questions about the platform, email help@4hcamp.rocks.

2. Who this notice covers

This notice describes how we handle personal information about:

• Guardians and other adults who create an account and sign in (you must be 18 or older; the sign-up flow includes an attestation checkbox).
• Camp staff and Program administrators who use the service for their jobs.
• Campers, including children under 18, whose information is entered by a guardian or authorized staff. Campers do not receive login accounts or passwords.

Children never sign in. Only adults sign in. Session cookies are issued only after an adult signs in or completes account registration with the 18+ attestation.

3. What we collect

We collect only what your Program needs to run camp operations. Below is a summary by category. Your Program may require some fields for enrollment even when they are optional in the software.

Account information (adults)

Email address, name, password (stored as a secure hash, never as plain text), multi-factor authentication settings, recovery codes, session records, and security-related logs (for example, sign-in success or failure, without storing your password in logs).

Camper profile

Name, date of birth, gender, address, school, shirt size, optional race and ethnicity, 4-H membership flags, and similar enrollment fields entered by a guardian or staff.

Guardians and emergency contacts

Guardian relationship to the camper, which capabilities each guardian has (view, edit, health access), and emergency contact names, phone numbers, email addresses, and whether a contact may pick up the camper.

Applications and signed forms

Camp applications (including counselor application answers), application status, and signed forms such as code of conduct and parent notification. When you sign online, you re-enter your password to confirm; we store the form version, your typed name and relationship, the time, your IP address, browser information, session reference, and MFA method used, as signature evidence. Printed staff reports omit IP addresses; the stored record keeps them for verification.

Photo release

Whether photos may be used as described in the Program’s release text, the version you saw, your name, relationship, time, and IP address when you sign online.

ID photos and camp gallery photos

Camper ID photos (uploaded by family or staff) and camp gallery photos (uploaded by staff). Images are re-encoded and metadata such as GPS tags is removed. Gallery photos may be visible to other families in the same camp only when the camp turns photo sharing on and the camper has an approved application and an appropriate photo release.

Health information

Health forms, allergies, medications, diet restrictions, nurse notes, care visits, medication administration records, and uploaded health documents (such as insurance cards and medication forms). Sensitive health text and values are encrypted with a key unique to your Program before they are stored. Some health flags (for example, yes/no answers and fixed categories) stay unencrypted so staff can run safe lists and filters; those flags are still treated as health information inside the app.

Check-in and pickup passes

Digital passes and QR codes for camp check-in and authorized pickup, scan events at check-in stations, and related operational records. Pass tokens are stored in protected form; staff see names and photos at scan time according to their permissions.

Messages

In-app messages between authorized users. Message bodies are encrypted. The service is designed for operational messages only, not for clinical detail (see Section 4).

Security and audit logs

Records of who accessed enrollment, health, files, reports, and administrative actions, including denied attempts for health information. We may store full IP addresses in security observations for up to one year. Audit logs do not store clinical values or passwords.

What we do not collect through the app

The app does not process payments, run advertising, use analytics or tracking pixels, use artificial intelligence on your data, or sell personal information. We do not use browser storage other than the single session cookie described in Section 12.

4. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• Operate accounts, sessions, and multi-factor authentication.
• Run enrollment, applications, assignments, and camp operations your Program configures.
• Collect and review health forms and support nurse workflows.
• Check campers in and out and issue pickup passes to authorized contacts.
• Display photos and reports to users who have permission.
• Send transactional email (for example, application acknowledgments, security codes, pickup pass links) and, if you leave them enabled, reminder email about incomplete forms or photos. Reminder emails do not include health details, allergy names, or medication names; they only ask you to sign in.
• When privacy request emails are turned on, tell you that we received a privacy request and that it has a response. These emails do not include what the request says, the camper’s name, or the answer; they ask you to sign in.
• Maintain security, troubleshoot problems, and keep audit records required for accountability.

We do not use personal information for targeted advertising or profiling.

5. Who can see information

Access is deny by default. Each user sees only what their Program role or guardian link allows. Programs are separated in the database; one Program cannot read another’s records.

Every read or change to detailed health information is logged. Guardians with health access can see a log of staff access to their camper’s health information at Health center visits and access.

6. Service providers

We use service providers only to run the service:

• Hosting: application and database on a virtual private server in the United States (planned provider: Vultr, US region).
• Email delivery: outbound mail through the hosting environment’s mail server (transactional and optional reminders).
• Backups: database, audit data, encrypted health content, photos, and configuration are backed up on a schedule for recovery, separate from the record retention in Section 10.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.

7. Children under 13

Campers under 13 do not create accounts. A parent or guardian who is 18 or older enters the child’s information while signed in.

Today, the service relies on:

• Adult account creation with an 18 or older attestation (not government ID verification).
• Guardian links and Program enrollment relationships.
• Password-confirmed electronic signatures on required forms and health consents, with evidence stored as described in Section 3.

There is no separate child-directed website and no advertising to children.

8. Education records (school or university Programs)

If your Program is part of a school or university, some information you enter (for example, enrollment and health forms) may be treated as an education record under federal or state student privacy laws. In that case, the institution (not only the software provider) may have duties about access, amendment, disclosure, and annual notice.

The service supports:

• Guardian and eligible-student access through family screens while links are active.
• End of guardian access when a camper turns 18, and an adult transition process so the former camper may control their own record or have it archived read-only.
• A yearly rights notice the Program publishes, shown at Your privacy rights.
• Requests to see, copy, correct, delete, or restrict a camper’s information (Section 9).
• A record of when the Program shared a camper’s information with someone outside the Program, which guardians can view at Disclosures to others.
• Choices about directory information (Section 9).

9. Your choices and rights

Access and correction

Guardians and staff with permission can view and edit many fields directly in the app while a link or role allows it. To get a full copy of a camper’s record, use Download camp record on My campers. You can save it as a file or print it. Health sections are included only if your guardian link allows health access, and you confirm who you are again (password, authenticator code, or security key) before they are included. Each download and print is logged.

Privacy requests

Use Privacy rights requests on My campers to ask your Program for a copy of a camper’s records, a correction, deletion, restriction of use, or to withdraw consent. You and Program staff can exchange messages on a request while it is open, and you can see its status and the Program’s answer. If you contact your Program another way, staff can file a request for you.

Deletion or restriction

You may ask to delete or restrict use of personal information. Some records must be kept for camp safety, legal, or operational reasons, especially health records, which are kept for at least 10 years, and until the camper’s 21st birthday if that is later. We may respond by restricting access (for example, hiding a camper profile, revoking guardian links, hiding photos, or archiving) instead of destroying records, while retaining what the law or our retention rules require.

Photo release

If you are a guardian (or the adult camper on your own record), you can decline or withdraw photo release on the camper’s forms page at any time while the application is open. The app does not recognize faces in photos, so after you withdraw agreement, camp staff remove affected gallery photos by hand. Questions about a Program’s photo policy should go to your Program’s contact email (footer Contact link when you are signed in).

Email notifications

Signed-in users can manage reminder categories at Email notifications in the account area. Categories such as application status and account security emails cannot be turned off while your account is active. Reminder emails include an unsubscribe link that turns off that category without signing in. Some Programs do not send reminder emails at all.

Directory information

Some lists (rosters, cabin assignments, gallery) may show names or photos to other authorized families, volunteers, or staff. Your Program lists the kinds of directory information it may share. On Directory information choices you can opt a camper out of any of these: photographs, name in lists, camp assignment, demographic information, and contact information. When you opt out, volunteer copies of rosters and reports show “Not shared” in place of that information, and staff see the choice on photo lists. Opting out of photographs also declines the photo release.

10. How long we keep information

We keep information according to Program and platform retention rules:

For a full schedule by data type, see the data retention schedule (“How long we keep information”) when your Program publishes it.

11. Security

We use technical and organizational measures including:

• Multi-factor authentication for every account; privileged roles must use an authenticator app or security key, not email codes alone.
• Encryption of sensitive health text and health files with a per-Program key before storage.
• Access controls in the application and database (including row-level security) so users see only their Program and permitted records.
• Access logging for health information and many administrative actions.
• No public file URLs for uploads; photos and documents are served only through authorized requests.
• Session limits: 12-hour maximum session length; idle timeout after 15 minutes for staff-type roles and 60 minutes for guardians (see Section 12).

No online service can promise perfect security. Report suspected unauthorized access to help@4hcamp.rocks and your Program contact.

12. Cookies and similar technologies

We use one cookie:

We do not use localStorage, sessionStorage, analytics cookies, or third-party tracking. Because only this strictly necessary cookie is used, we do not show a cookie consent banner. If we ever add non-essential cookies or storage, we will update this notice and assess consent requirements first.

13. State privacy laws

Programs may operate across the United States. State privacy laws differ. If you live in a state that grants additional rights (for example, access, correction, deletion, or opt-out of certain processing), you may contact your Program (footer Contact link when you are signed in) or email help@4hcamp.rocks with your request and state of residence.

14. Changes and contact

We may update this notice when practices change. We will post the new version with an updated effective date and, when appropriate, notify Program administrators.

Contact

• Program: your Program’s support email, through the footer Contact link when you are signed in and your Program has listed one.
• Platform: help@4hcamp.rocks
• Mail: send written privacy or records requests to your Program at the postal address it lists in its contact details, when it has provided one. If you need that address, use your Program’s footer Contact link or the contact information your Program shares outside the app (for example, in camp materials).