Privacy Policy

1. What PathReel Collects

PathReel only ever accesses data you explicitly grant permission for, and only for the purpose of building your personal journey atlas. We collect the following on your device:

Location

• GPS coordinates, speed, altitude, and timestamps — while you are actively recording a trip, or when an enabled geofence detects you have left home.
• Background location (the iOS "Always" permission) is required only to keep recording when the screen is off. You may use the app with "While Using" permission, but trips will pause when the app is backgrounded.

Photos

• Photo metadata (timestamp, GPS coordinates, dimensions) — read from your iOS Photos library to match photos to your routes.
• Photo thumbnails are loaded into the app for display. Photos are never uploaded anywhere.

Apple Health (HealthKit)

• With your permission, PathReel reads workout routes (running, cycling, walking, hiking, etc.) from HealthKit to import as PathReel trips.
• PathReel only reads from HealthKit. It never writes to your health data.

App Preferences

• Settings you configure (units, language, recording defaults, group names) are saved in a local SQLite database within the app sandbox.

2. What PathReel Does Not Collect

• No account, email, phone number, or password — PathReel has no login.
• No analytics SDK and no crash reporting SDK from PathReel itself.
• Your trip GPS data, photos, and workouts are never sent off your device for advertising, profiling, or any other purpose — they are not shared with Google AdMob or anyone else (see section 4 for what AdMob does and does not see).
• No contacts, calendar, microphone, or camera access.

3. Where Your Data Lives

On Your Device

All trip data, photos thumbnails, settings, and workout imports are stored in a SQLite database inside the PathReel app sandbox on your iPhone. This data is governed by iOS Data Protection and is encrypted at rest while your device is locked.

iCloud (Optional)

If you enable iCloud sync in Settings, your trip database is backed up to your personal iCloud Drive container. This is end-to-end encrypted by Apple. PathReel cannot read this data and Apple cannot decrypt it. Disabling iCloud sync stops new backups and removing the app from iCloud is described in section 6 below.

PathReel Servers

There are none. PathReel does not operate any server that receives, stores, or processes your data. The app makes no network requests other than:

• Fetching map tiles from Apple Maps when you view a trip.
• Fetching attraction information from Wikipedia, UNESCO, and similar public sources when you tap to see details about a place. These requests contain only the coordinates of the place you tapped, not any identifying information about you.
• Optional update checks against the App Store.

4. Third Parties

Google AdMob (Advertising)

PathReel displays ads served by Google AdMob to keep the app free. AdMob is provided by Google LLC and operates under Google's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy. Ad partners may also act under Google's list at https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9012903.

When you launch the app for the first time, iOS shows an App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompt asking whether PathReel may track you across other apps and websites to deliver personalized ads:

• Allow Tracking — AdMob may read your iOS Advertising Identifier (IDFA) to serve personalized ads.
• Ask App Not to Track — AdMob does not read your IDFA. You will still see ads, but they will not be personalized.

You can change this choice anytime in iOS Settings → PathReel → Allow Tracking. Regardless of your choice, AdMob may collect non-identifying device-level signals (device model, OS version, language, coarse network type, ad-interaction events) as described in Google's privacy policy. PathReel itself does not send any of your trip data, photos, workouts, or names of places you've visited to AdMob.

Other SDKs

PathReel uses no other third-party data-collection SDKs. There is no Firebase, Crashlytics, Amplitude, Segment, Mixpanel, Sentry, or Facebook SDK in this app.

Apple System Frameworks

The app interacts with the following Apple-provided system frameworks on your device, governed by Apple's own privacy policy:

• HealthKit — to read workout routes you grant access to.
• Photos / PhotoKit — to read photo metadata for trip matching.
• Core Location — to record GPS while a trip is active.
• MapKit — to render maps inside the app.
• iCloud Drive — for optional end-to-end encrypted sync.
• Game Center — for leaderboard participation.

5. How Your Data Is Used

• To display your trips on a map and globe.
• To generate cinematic 3D video replays of your routes.
• To compute statistics (countries visited, distance traveled, etc.) for your eyes only.
• To match photos to trips by timestamp and location.

Your trip data, photos, and workouts never leave your device for advertising, profiling, or any other purpose. Only the ad-related signals described under "Google AdMob" in section 4 are read by the AdMob SDK to display ads. PathReel does not sell or share any of your personal data with anyone.

6. Data Retention and Deletion

Delete a Single Trip

Open the Trips tab → long-press any trip → Delete. This permanently removes the trip and its associated track points from your device.

Delete All PathReel Data

Uninstall PathReel from your iPhone (long-press the app icon → Remove App → Delete App). iOS wipes the entire app sandbox, including the SQLite database and all cached data.

Delete iCloud Backups

iOS Settings → tap your Apple ID at the top → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → PathReel → Delete Data. This permanently removes the iCloud backup. Apple's privacy policy governs the deletion timeline.

Export Your Data

Settings tab → Export Data exports a JSON file containing every trip, point, and group you've recorded. You can store this wherever you wish — Files app, iCloud Drive, email, etc. This is portable and re-importable.

Revoke Permissions

iOS Settings → PathReel → here you can revoke Location, Photos, and Health permissions independently at any time. Revoking a permission immediately stops PathReel from accessing that data type. Existing already-imported data remains in the app sandbox until you delete it as described above.

7. Children's Privacy

PathReel is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from minors. As described above, the app does not collect personally identifiable information from anyone. If you are a parent or guardian and have concerns, please contact us using the address below.

8. Changes to This Policy

If our data practices change, we will update this page and update the "Last updated" date at the top. Material changes will be noted in the app's release notes on the App Store. We will not retroactively change how previously-collected data is used.

9. Contact

PathReel is built and maintained by a small independent developer. Email [email protected] with any privacy question, deletion request, or concern. We aim to respond within a few business days.