Privacy Policy

uMaps ("we", "the app") is a community map for documenting urban-exploration sites. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have. We collect the minimum needed to run the app and never sell your data.

01What we collect

• Account — the email address and username you sign up with, used to authenticate you and attribute your contributions.
• Content you submit — spots you document (including the exact coordinates you enter), reviews, visit logs, saved lists, and photos you upload. Uploaded photos are re-encoded on your device to strip embedded GPS/EXIF metadata before they leave your phone.
• Location — if you grant permission, your device location is used to center the map and to help you place a spot you are documenting. Your live location is not stored on our servers or shared with other users.
• Scout conversations — if you are a Pro member and use Scout, the app's AI area survey, we process the messages you type, the approximate area your map is centered on (rounded to roughly a kilometer, area-level only), and, where Scout draws on uMaps' own records, the names and public details of listings near that area. Section 03 explains where that goes.
• Subscription status — if you buy uMaps Pro, our payments provider (RevenueCat) and Apple process the transaction and tell us whether your subscription is active. We never receive your card details.
• Basic diagnostics — standard technical logs (e.g. error reports) needed to keep the service reliable.
• Advertising measurement — uMaps is advertised on Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and the app includes the Meta SDK so we can tell that an install or a subscription came from one of those ads. iOS asks for your permission first (the App Tracking Transparency prompt). Only if you allow tracking is your device advertising identifier (IDFA) sent to Meta Platforms, Inc. together with a small set of app events: install, account registration, your first documented spot, trial start, and subscription. If you decline, the identifier is not sent; Meta may still receive aggregate, privacy-preserving attribution signals through Apple's SKAdNetwork and aggregated event measurement.

02The location-privacy model

Protected community map pins are deliberately approximate: each protected record's published location is offset by a stable random distance within a fuzz radius. On standard sites, exact coordinates and access notes are shown to a spot's own author, to members who earned access through community reputation or contribution-earned keys, and to members with an active uMaps Pro subscription. Keys and reputation are earned, never sold. The highest-risk sites (severe difficulty, or lethal hazards) sit outside that model: no key and no subscription opens them, and other members reach them at the top reputation tier only. Some listings are marked on record only: they are published as part of the record rather than as places to explore, and their exact location does not open on any tier. Imported open-data records do not require earned keys and are available separately through our Open Data page, under their source licence.

03How we use it

To operate your account, show and attribute community content, provide map and submission features, process subscriptions, answer your Scout questions, keep the service secure, and measure how our own advertising performs. The advertising data described above is used only to measure and improve those ads — uMaps shows no ads inside the app, and we do not sell your data.

Scout runs on a third-party model. When you send a Scout message, our server passes that message, the recent turns of that conversation, the approximate map area you are viewing, and, where Scout draws on uMaps' own records, the names and public details of listings near that area to OpenAI, which acts as our processor and returns the reply. If you report a Scout reply from inside the app, the reply, the question that preceded it and the reason you chose are stored on our server so a moderator can review them; they are kept for as long as your account exists and are deleted with it. Exact spot coordinates and access notes are never sent, and we never send a GPS reading or a precise position. The area is taken from the map view you are looking at, rounded to roughly a kilometer, so if you have centered the map on yourself that area will be near you. None of it is used to build advertising profiles or to target ads at you.

04Who we share it with

Service providers who run the app on our behalf: Supabase (database, authentication, photo storage), RevenueCat and Apple (subscription processing), OpenAI (generating Scout replies, as described in section 03), and Meta Platforms, Inc. (advertising measurement — the app events listed above, plus the advertising identifier only if you allowed tracking; see Meta's privacy policy). Content you publish (spots, reviews, logs, photos, username) is visible to other users by design. We may disclose information if required by law.

05Retention & deletion

We keep your data while your account is active. You can delete your account in-app (Profile → Delete account) or by emailing us at the address below; we will action email requests within 30 days. Note that community contributions may be retained in anonymized form to preserve the integrity of the shared record.

06Your choices

• Revoke location access anytime in iOS Settings.
• Allow or refuse ad tracking when iOS asks, and change that answer later in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
• Manage or cancel your subscription in the App Store.
• Request access to, or deletion of, your data by email.

07Children

uMaps is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

08Contact

Questions or data requests: main@efngroup.biz