Privacy Policy
McFarm is a farm management service. This policy explains what information the service holds, why, who can see it, and what you can ask us to do with it. It is written for the people who use McFarm: farm owners, managers, workers, viewers such as an accountant, and customers who buy through a farm's shop.
1. Who is responsible
The operator of the McFarm platform ("we", "us") is responsible for the platform itself: accounts, sign-in, hosting and security. Each farm's owner decides what records their farm keeps in McFarm and who on their team may see them, and is responsible for telling their workers what is recorded about them.
2. What we hold
- Account details. Your username or email address and a one-way hash of your password. We never store the password itself. If you sign in with Microsoft 365, we store the identifier Microsoft gives your account, your email address and display name, so we can recognise you next time.
- Farm records you enter. Animals, health and weight records, tasks and chores, inventory, crops, harvests and batches, buyers, suppliers and purchases, sales and orders, finances, pay settings and pay runs, daily work reports, and the production calendar. These belong to the farm.
- Photos and documents. Animal photos, weight photos and videos, and receipt images or PDFs you attach.
- Who did what. Records carry the name of the person who entered them and when. An audit trail keeps key actions such as sign-in, farm selection, team changes and payments, together with the time and the network address they came from.
- Technical data. Server logs with network addresses, browser type and the pages requested, kept for security and troubleshooting.
- Shop customers. If you order from a farm's shop, the name, contact details and delivery details you give, and the order itself. Payment card details never reach McFarm; they go directly to the payment provider.
3. Why we hold it
- To run the service you asked for: keep the farm's records, show them to the people the owner has allowed, and calculate reports, margins and pay.
- To keep accounts secure: sign-in, lockout after repeated failed attempts, and the audit trail.
- To support you when something goes wrong.
- To meet legal duties, for example keeping financial records for the period the law requires.
We do not sell personal information, show advertising, or use analytics trackers. The only cookie McFarm sets is the session cookie that keeps you signed in.
3a. Improving McFarm through research
We study animal and crop outcomes across farms to make McFarm better: which feeding, health and weighing patterns go with better weights and fewer losses, what harvests and processing yields look like by season and by area. For this we use production records only, with the farm's identity removed:
- Included: species, breed, sex and age band; health records, scores and treatments; weights; feed used; crop types and varieties; bearing windows; harvest and waste quantities; processing batches and yields; the month; and the farm's district and village or town.
- Never included: the farm's name or address, any person's name or contact details, pay, daily work reports, buyers, suppliers, prices paid, sales or revenue. Animal tags are replaced with random identifiers.
The results are for the platform operator's own research and product development. They are not shown to other farms and are not sold. Where figures are grouped by village or town, a figure is only produced when at least three farms contribute to it, so no single farm can be recognised. If we ever wish to share such statistics with a government agricultural or statistical body, it would be in that same aggregated form and this policy would say so first.
On the free Backyard plan, contributing to this research is a condition of the plan (see the Terms of Use). On the Homestead and Estate plans a farm can switch it off under Settings, for records from that point on.
4. Who else sees it
- Your farm's team, according to the role the owner gave each person. Workers see operations but not finance, sales or pay. Viewers see but cannot change.
- Microsoft, when you choose to sign in with Microsoft 365. Microsoft's own privacy statement applies to that sign-in.
- Payment providers (PayPal, Belize Bank) when a payment is made through the platform or a farm's shop. They receive what is needed to process the payment and apply their own terms.
- Our hosting provider, whose servers store the service and its backups.
- The public, only for what a farm chooses to publish in its shop: product names, prices, availability, and the farm name and contact details the owner enters for the shop.
- Authorities, when the law requires it.
5. Workers and pay
Daily work reports and pay runs record days worked, chores completed and the pay calculated for each worker. That information is visible to the farm's owner and managers and to the worker's own slip. The farm owner is the employer and is responsible for informing workers that these records are kept and for handling them lawfully.
6. How long we keep it
For as long as the farm and the account exist. An archived farm keeps its records so they can be restored. When an account or farm is deleted, its records are removed from the live service; copies may remain in backups for up to 90 days, and financial records may be kept longer where the law requires. Server logs are kept for a limited period for security.
7. Security
Connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are stored as one-way hashes. Access is limited by role and each farm's data is separated from every other farm's. No system is perfectly secure, and you are responsible for keeping your password private and signing out on shared devices.
8. Your rights
Under the Belize Data Protection Act, 2021 you may ask to see the personal information we hold about you, have it corrected, or have it deleted where we no longer need it. Farm records that also concern the farm, such as a pay run, may be kept by the farm as its business records. Where you signed in with Microsoft 365, unlinking is handled through your farm owner so you are not locked out.
9. Children
McFarm is a business tool for adults. Accounts may not be created by anyone under 18.
10. Changes
We may update this policy. The date at the top changes when we do, and material changes are announced in the app.
11. Contact
Questions about this policy or your information: privacy@mcfarm.bz.