Privacy Policy

What we collect

Things you create in the app: photos of ears and cross-sections, the measurements Kernel derives from them, the plant population, hybrid, planting details and notes you enter, and the estimate itself, with the date and time it was made.

Where an estimate was taken: if you allow location access, Kernel records the GPS coordinates of each estimate so it can be named and shown on the map. This is precise geolocation.

Account and profile details, if you create an account: your name, email address, an optional phone number, a profile photo if you add one, and whether you are a farmer, work in agriculture, are a student, or something else.

Identifiers and device information: an account identifier, an identifier for your installation of the app, and — where you have allowed it on your phone — the advertising identifier; the app version, device model and operating system.

How you use the app: which features you use and when, crash reports, performance data, and a short technical log the app keeps so we can investigate problems you report. Messages you send us through Give Feedback or by email.

Your birth month and year, which we ask everyone for once, before sign-in or before the data-sharing choices, and which decides how your information may be used.

Your choices: the versions of these documents you have accepted and the data-sharing consents you have given or withdrawn, with the time of each. Your consents and your birth month and year are also recorded against each estimate you upload.

How we use it

To run the app and back up your estimates. To improve Kernel — in particular, to train and evaluate the machine-vision models that do the counting and measuring, which is what makes the estimates more accurate over time. For agronomic research and to build datasets, maps, benchmarks, reports and other products from what Kernel measures. To answer support requests and act on feedback you send us. To contact you about Kernel and about products and services from Gee LLC and our partners. For our own advertising and marketing, and to measure how well it works. To keep the service secure and to meet legal obligations. And for any other purpose we describe to you when we collect the information.

How we share and sell it

We share information with service providers who host our data, deliver notifications and report crashes, under contracts that limit what they may do with it; with our affiliates; if the law requires it, or to protect rights and safety; and if the business is sold, merged or reorganised, as part of that transaction.

Turning a choice on applies to every estimate you have made, including earlier ones. Turning it off applies to estimates you make from then on: estimates made while it was on remain shareable, because field data identifies a piece of land rather than you. Contact details are different — turning off Data partners stops any further sharing of your name, email address and phone number at once. Once information has been delivered to a recipient, it is held and used under that recipient's own terms and is not recalled. The only ways to withdraw estimates already stored are the deletion routes described under "How long we keep it".

In the language of state privacy laws, the sharing described in the Field data and Data partners choices is a sale of personal information and, for the Data partners choice, sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising. Precise geolocation is sensitive personal information. We do not sell or share the personal information of anyone we know to be under 16

.De-identified and aggregated data — measurements, photos and estimates with the identifying details removed and locations coarsened, or combined across many users — may be used, shared and sold by us freely, to anyone, for any purpose. We commit not to try to re-identify it and require the same of anyone we give it to.

Personal information — information that identifies you or your fields — is shared and sold only with your consent, which you give and withdraw in the app's Data Sharing settings. There are two choices:

Field data. If you turn this on, we may share and sell your field data — the precise location of each estimate, the hybrid and planting details, and the measurements, estimates and photos — under a pseudonymous identifier, to seed and crop-input companies, agronomists and agricultural retailers, universities and research organisations, agricultural data platforms, and other businesses interested in corn production.

Data partners. If you also turn this on, we may share and sell all of the information described in this policy, including your name, email address and phone number and the identifiers above, to the recipients listed above and additionally to data brokers and data marketplaces, advertising and marketing companies, and other partners, who may combine it with information from other sources and use it for their own purposes, including advertising, under their own terms. On iPhone, this choice also requires the tracking permission that iOS asks for.

Your choices

Data sharing is off until you turn it on. You can turn either choice on or off at any time in Settings → Data Sharing. Turning one off is a request to stop selling and sharing your personal information, and to limit the use of your sensitive personal information; it takes effect at once for your contact details and for estimates you make from then on, as described under "How we share and sell it". You can also make that request by writing to privacy@kernelyield.com or at https://kernelyield.com/do-not-sell. We will never treat you differently for the choice you make.

Location is optional — Kernel works without it, and you can turn it off in your phone's settings at any time. Your phone number is optional and you can leave it blank. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link.

You can delete your account and your personal details in Settings, or by writing to us.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights over your personal information under your state's law, including rights to know what we hold, to correct it, to delete it, to opt out of its sale or sharing, to limit the use of sensitive information, and to appeal a decision we make about a request. To exercise them, contact us at privacy@kernelyield.com. We will verify a request using the email address on your account. An authorised agent may make a request for you with your written permission. Our website does not track visitors and honours the Global Privacy Control signal.

How long we keep it

Account details are kept while your account exists. Your data-sharing choices are kept as a record of consent for as long as the law requires.

Field data is kept permanently. The photos, measurements, estimates, hybrid and planting details, and the exact location of each estimate are retained indefinitely, whether or not you have an account, because a field location identifies a piece of land rather than a person and that link is what makes the data useful for research and for the products built from it.

If you delete your account, we delete your personal details — your name, email address, phone number, profile photo and your ability to sign in — and remove the free-text names and notes on your estimates. The field data stays, under a pseudonymous identifier that is no longer connected to your identity. Whether the exact locations may be shared or sold continues to depend on the Field data choice you had made; without it, locations are coarsened in anything we share. Information already delivered to a partner before deletion is not recalled.

If your state's law gives you a right to have that field data deleted as well, write to privacy@kernelyield.com from the email address on your account; once we have verified the request we will delete it. We keep a salted, one-way hash of the email address of each deleted account solely so that such a request can be matched to the data it concerns.

Children and young people

Kernel is meant for people working or studying in agriculture. We ask everyone for their birth month and year.

Under 13: Kernel is not directed to children under 13 and they may not create an account or turn on data sharing. The app still works on the phone, and nothing they make leaves it. If we learn that we hold personal information from a child under 13, we delete it.

13 to 17: young people may use Kernel, create an account, and make the same data-sharing choices as everyone else. Where the law of the state an estimate was made in restricts the sale of a minor's personal information or requires their consent for it, we apply that rule to their estimates before anything is shared or sold, using the estimate's location and the age we have on record. We do not use young people's information for targeted advertising where the law prohibits it.

Security

Your estimates are stored on your phone and, if you sign in, in your account on our servers. We use industry-standard measures to protect them, including encrypted connections and access controls. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as Kernel changes, and will note the date of the most recent update at the top of this screen. If a change is significant we will tell you in the app, and if it would expand how personal information collected earlier is shared or sold, we will ask for your consent again.

Contact us

Questions about this policy, and requests about your information, are welcome. Write to Gee LLC at privacy@kernelyield.com.