Number & Line: Privacy
Last updated 7 November 2026.
Number & Line is a golf yardage book. It has no advertising and no tracking for advertising, and we don't sell anything about you. You don't need an account. When you first open the app it asks whether to share your rounds with us, to help improve it (below); the other optional parts (a shared card, a nickname, Sign in with Apple, the website) are only used if you choose them.
What stays on your phone, or in your iCloud
- Your location. Used on the phone (and on your Apple Watch, if you use Number & Line there) to measure distances on the hole and to list courses near you. It is never sent to us, with two exceptions: a pin marked on your Apple Watch by standing over the hole, and the shots in rounds you share with us (both below).
- Your rounds, scores, plans, markers, notes and bag. Kept on the phone and, if you use iCloud, in your private iCloud database, which only you can read. We can't see it, unless you share your rounds with us or use the website (below). That includes the names you write in for the players on your card, and their scores.
- Your settings, including your name on cards and your handicap index.
Cards shared with other players
- A shared card is kept in iCloud: in the private iCloud database of the player who started it, shared through iCloud with the players on it. Everyone on the card sees the names, tees, handicaps and scores on it, and who wrote each score. We can't see it. A finished card is deleted from the organiser's iCloud 30 days after it's closed; every player keeps their own copy in their rounds.
- Inviting someone from your contacts uses the system's contact picker, so the app sees only the contact you pick. Their email address or phone number is looked up by iCloud to find them; it isn't sent to us or kept. The invite goes by a message you send.
- Your nickname, if you make it findable, is published in the app's public iCloud database with your home club, so other players can find you by it. Your name and contact details are never published. Turning it off removes it.
- Invites and requests to join a card are kept in the app's public iCloud database for a day, addressed to the player they're for, with the sender's nickname, the course and the date.
- Reports of a nickname are kept for us to read, with the nickname reported and the reason.
Pins shared with other players
- Marking a pin. If you say where the pin is on a green, or that it's still there, the app sends our course service the course, the hole, the spot on the green and the time. On the phone you tap the spot, and where you're standing isn't sent. On Apple Watch the spot is your position at that moment, so the watch asks before the flag shares any, and you can turn it off with Share my pins in its Settings.
- What other players see: the spot, when it was last seen, and how many other players have confirmed it. Never who.
- How long it's kept. One per green, with no history: the next pin marked there replaces it, and it's deleted 7 days after it was last seen. You can remove a pin you marked until someone else has confirmed it.
- Your name and account aren't on it. So a phone counts only once and can't mark too many, we keep a scrambled mark made from the App Attest key below: one per pin, deleted with the pin, and a count of the day's marks, deleted the next day. A phone's marks on two pins don't match. The service is hosted on Cloudflare, which sees the request's internet address as any web host does; we don't keep it.
Rounds you share with us
When you first open Number & Line it asks whether to share your rounds with us. If you choose "Agree and share my rounds", or turn on Share my rounds in Settings later, the app sends our service each round you play, and the rounds already in your book:
- The round: the course, when you started (date, time and your time zone), the tees, the format, your handicap index for the round, and whether you signed it off.
- Each hole: par, strokes, putts, fairway, penalties and whether you picked up, and where the hole was if your watch collected it.
- Each shot you record: where on the course it was played from and where it finished, when, the club, the lie, and whether the watch noticed the swing or you added it.
- What it was played with: the app's version, your phone's model and iOS version, your units, and your Apple Watch's model and battery level as it recorded each hole.
- A random ID the app makes, so your rounds can be told apart from other players' and deleted together. It follows you to your other devices through your iCloud settings. It isn't your Apple ID, name or email, and nothing else about you comes with it.
Not sent: the other players on your card, their names or scores, who wrote a score on a shared card, your name or nickname, your contacts, or the motion your watch reads.
We use your rounds to understand and improve the app: how well it reads swings, how accurate the course drawings are, how strokes gained compares across players, and how long a round lasts on each watch. We don't sell them or use them for advertising, and nobody but us can read them. We may publish figures worked out from many players' rounds, such as an average, that can't be traced back to anyone.
Even without your name, rounds show where and when you play. So they're kept on our service, hosted by Cloudflare (whose servers may be outside your country), where only we can read them, until you delete them. Turning off Share my rounds stops new ones going. Delete my shared rounds, in Settings, deletes everything under your ID from our service, and the app makes a new ID if you share again. A round you delete from the app is deleted from our service too, the next time the app is open.
Sign in with Apple
If you sign in with Apple, the app keeps the ID Apple gives us for you (not your name or email), in your settings and your iCloud. It's also how you sign in on the website. Delete it, with your nickname, invites, name on cards and handicap, in Settings, You, Delete my account.
The website (optional)
If you turn on the website in Settings, You, or sign in at numberandline.com, your rounds and plans can be seen there. This is off until you sign in with Apple, and each device signs in for itself. While it's on, the app sends our server, for your account:
- Your rounds: the course, date, tees and format, and your own figures for each hole (par, strokes, putts, fairway, penalties, whether you picked up, and strokes gained by part of the game), with the handicap band you compare with, if you've chosen or set one. Not where you played each shot from, which clubs you used, your exact handicap, or the other players' names and scores. (Sharing your rounds with us, above, is separate and sends more.)
- Your plans: the targets you've put on each hole.
- Your bag: each club's name and how far you hit it.
- The courses in your book: their ids and names.
- The ID Apple gives us for you, to know the account is yours. Not your name or email.
We use this only to show it back to you on the website and to bring plans you make there into the book. It's kept in a database hosted on Cloudflare until you delete it. Turning the website off in the app, or deleting your account, deletes the account and everything the app sent; your book and iCloud keep their copies.
What leaves the phone, and why
- To name your town ("Kew, VIC") above the courses near you, your position is looked up with Apple's geocoding service. Apple's privacy policy covers it.
- Your shots, your swing and Health, on Apple Watch. If you track shots, the watch reads its motion to notice a swing; the motion itself isn't kept or sent. Your shots stay with your round on your devices and in your private iCloud, and reach us only if you share your rounds. A round runs as a golf workout, saved to Apple Health if you allow it; Number & Line reads nothing back from it and sends none of it anywhere.
- The weather for the course you're playing comes from Apple Weather, looked up by the course's location, not yours.
- Courses. When you download or ask for a course, the app asks our course service for that course by its id. The service is hosted on Cloudflare, which sees the request's internet address as any web host does; we don't keep it.
- Proof it's the real app. So the course service only answers Number & Line, the app makes a key for this install with Apple's App Attest, and the service keeps the key's public part with the date. It isn't tied to you or your account, and it's only used to check the app's requests.
- Reports and feedback. If you report a course error or send feedback, it carries what you wrote and when, the course, its version and the hole (for a course error), the app's version and your phone's model, and your email address if you give one. It's kept on our service and emailed to us, and your email is used only to answer you. Nothing is sent until you send it.
Your choices
- You can use the app without location: type a course's name instead.
- Share my rounds in Settings stops or starts sending your rounds to us; Delete my shared rounds deletes what you've sent.
- Removing the app removes what's on the phone. Your iCloud copy can be deleted in Settings, under your name, iCloud.