PRIVACY POLICY

Project SHIELD LLC

Project SHIELD Initiative

Last Updated: September 16, 2026

Project SHIELD LLC (“Project SHIELD,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects the privacy of firefighters, first responders, public-safety personnel, website visitors, and other individuals who interact with Project SHIELD.

Project SHIELD is a firefighter-driven wearable technology initiative designed to support health, wellness, awareness, recovery, and operational readiness. Protecting the privacy and autonomy of the individual first responder is a core principle of Project SHIELD.

This Privacy Policy explains how Project SHIELD may collect, access, use, store, disclose, and protect information through the Project SHIELD website, applications, wearable-device integrations, research activities, and related services.

1. Information We May Collect

Website and Contact Information. When an individual contacts Project SHIELD, we may receive information such as name, email address, organization or department, and information voluntarily included in a message or inquiry.

We use this information to respond to inquiries and conduct legitimate Project SHIELD business. Submission of a contact form does not automatically enroll an individual in marketing or promotional communications.

Wearable, Health, Wellness, and Activity Information. When expressly authorized by the user and supported by the applicable device or service, Project SHIELD may access or process information such as heart rate, activity, steps, sleep, stress, recovery-related metrics, Body Battery, Pulse Ox, respiration, and other compatible health, wellness, activity, or device-derived information.

The specific information available may depend on the user's device, permissions, Garmin services, Project SHIELD features, and future integrations.

2. Garmin and Wearable Data

Project SHIELD is being developed for integration with compatible Garmin devices and services.

Access to Garmin-derived user information will be based on the user's authorization and the permissions applicable to the relevant Garmin service or integration.

Project SHIELD will access and use Garmin-derived information only for purposes authorized by the user and necessary to provide the applicable Project SHIELD functionality.

Data provided to Project SHIELD through an application or integration is provided to Project SHIELD and is subject to this Privacy Policy. Garmin is not responsible or liable for data submitted to or independently processed by Project SHIELD.

Garmin may separately collect, process, and store information through Garmin devices, Garmin Connect, and other Garmin services according to Garmin's own terms and privacy practices.

Current Project SHIELD Data Practices

At the time of this Privacy Policy, Project SHIELD does not operate a separate external server or database that stores users' Garmin-derived health, wellness, or biometric information.

Current Project SHIELD application data is stored locally on the compatible Garmin device. Information handled separately by Garmin products or services remains subject to Garmin's own systems and privacy practices.

If Project SHIELD later introduces cloud storage, server-side processing, account-based storage, or other forms of external data processing, this Privacy Policy will be updated to describe those practices before or when they are introduced, as appropriate.

3. Individual Control of Health and Wellness Data

Project SHIELD is designed around the principle that an individual's health, wellness, biometric, activity, and recovery information should remain under that individual's control.

Participation in Project SHIELD through an employer, department, agency, research partner, or other organization does not by itself authorize that organization to access an individual's identifiable health or wellness information.

Project SHIELD does not automatically disclose identifiable individual health, wellness, biometric, or recovery information to a user's employer, fire department, agency, command staff, chief officers, supervisors, coworkers, family members, insurers, or other third parties.

Where additional sharing or use is offered, the user will be informed of the applicable purpose and will be given an opportunity to provide any consent or authorization required for that use.

Project SHIELD is intended to support individual awareness—not individual surveillance.

4. How We Use Information

Subject to the user's permissions and the functionality being used, Project SHIELD may use information to:

• provide requested application features and functionality;

• present health, wellness, activity, and recovery information to the individual user;

• help users understand personal baseline, on-shift, and post-shift patterns;

• provide user-facing wellness, hydration, recovery, readiness, or similar information and notifications;

• maintain and improve Project SHIELD applications and services;

• troubleshoot and support Project SHIELD functionality;

• respond to inquiries and conduct legitimate business operations;

• support research where appropriate consent and privacy protections are in place; and

• develop future functionality consistent with this Privacy Policy and applicable user permissions.

Project SHIELD will not use Garmin-derived user information for materially different purposes without providing appropriate notice and obtaining consent when required.

5. Personal Baselines, Shift Data, and Recovery

A planned purpose of Project SHIELD is to help firefighters and other participating first responders better understand how occupational demands may affect their individual wellness and recovery.

Future functionality may allow users to compare personal baseline information with information associated with shifts and post-shift recovery.

Project SHIELD may also explore functionality that associates operational information—such as shift periods, call timing, or incident-related periods—with biometric and recovery trends to better understand the effects of emergency-response work and support education, awareness, and recovery.

Such functionality will be implemented subject to appropriate privacy protections and user permissions.

6. Department and Organizational Access

Project SHIELD does not treat participation in an employer- or department-supported program as blanket consent for command staff or an employer to view an individual's identifiable health information.

Future Project SHIELD services may provide department-level, organizational, aggregated, or summary information when appropriate. Any functionality involving identifiable individual information will require appropriate disclosure and user consent or authorization.

The availability of Project SHIELD through a department or agency does not by itself grant that organization ownership of or unrestricted access to an individual's health or wellness information.

7. Research and De-Identified Information

Project SHIELD may in the future support research intended to improve understanding of firefighter and first-responder health, occupational stress, recovery, wellness, and related public-safety issues.

Where reasonably possible, Project SHIELD's preferred approach is to use de-identified and/or aggregated information for research rather than directly identifiable individual information.

Because combinations of biometric, operational, temporal, or other information may sometimes increase the possibility of re-identification, Project SHIELD will not represent information as anonymous unless the applicable method and circumstances reasonably support that characterization.

If a research activity requires identifiable individual information, additional disclosure, consent, authorization, and other safeguards may be required for that particular research activity.

Participation in optional Project SHIELD research will not constitute blanket consent for unrelated research uses.

8. Consent and Withdrawal

Where Project SHIELD relies on a user's consent for an optional use of information, users may withdraw that consent.

Withdrawal will apply to future collection, use, or sharing governed by that consent as applicable.

Project SHIELD will delete or cease retaining Garmin-derived user information when required following withdrawal of consent or a valid deletion request.

In some circumstances, information that has already been legitimately incorporated into completed analyses, reports, or genuinely de-identified or aggregated datasets may no longer be reasonably capable of being associated with or removed on behalf of a particular individual.

Any study-specific or legally required consent terms may provide additional information concerning withdrawal.

9. Data Retention and Deletion

Project SHIELD will not retain personal information longer than reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, except where the individual has expressly authorized longer retention or retention is otherwise permitted or required by applicable law.

At present, Project SHIELD does not maintain an external Project SHIELD database containing users' Garmin-derived biometric or wellness information.

As Project SHIELD's technical infrastructure evolves, applicable retention and deletion practices will be described in this Privacy Policy and/or relevant user notices.

Users may contact Project SHIELD regarding Project SHIELD-controlled personal information or deletion requests using the contact information below.

10. No Sale of Personal Health Data

Project SHIELD does not sell or rent identifiable health, wellness, biometric, activity, or recovery information.

Project SHIELD does not provide identifiable user health information to advertisers, data brokers, or insurance companies for advertising, behavioral profiling, or commercial data-broker purposes.

Garmin-derived user information will not be sold, rented, or transferred in violation of applicable Garmin developer requirements.

11. Alerts and Individual Privacy

Project SHIELD wellness or health-related features are designed primarily to provide information to the individual user.

Project SHIELD does not currently automatically transmit an individual's identifiable biometric or wellness alerts to employers, departments, command staff, family members, or other third parties.

If Project SHIELD later offers an optional information-sharing feature, the applicable sharing and consent process will be disclosed to the user.

Project SHIELD is not an emergency-response service and should not be relied upon as a substitute for emergency medical evaluation, professional medical care, or an emergency communication system.

12. Security

Project SHIELD takes the privacy and security of user information seriously.

As Project SHIELD develops systems that store or process information outside the user's device, Project SHIELD will implement reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information and will require applicable service providers handling Project SHIELD user data to maintain appropriate protections.

No electronic system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Project SHIELD will update its security and privacy practices as its technical infrastructure and data-processing activities evolve.