Explorer Privacy Policy

Draft, last updated [date]. Have this reviewed before publishing. Fill in the bracketed parts. It's published at https://explorer.place/privacy.

Explorer is made by [your name] ("we"). This policy explains what happens to your information when you use the Explorer app.

The short version

• Your location history, the locations in your photos, your trips and your saved places stay on your iPhone. We don't run servers and never receive them.
• To find places, show maps and plan routes, Explorer sends what you search for to Google Maps.
• Plan with AI sends what you type to it to Explorer's trip-planning server, which asks Anthropic's Claude to write the plan. Some plans are made on your iPhone with Apple Intelligence instead, and those stay on the device.
• An Explorer account is optional. If you create one to follow friends and share trips, your profile, the trips you share and your comments are stored on Explorer's server and shown to the people you choose.
• If you choose the Free with Ads plan, Google AdMob shows ads and collects some device information to do so.
• Payments are handled by Apple. We never see your card details.

Information that stays on your device

Explorer works out which countries, provinces and counties you've been to on your iPhone, using maps built into the app. This data is stored only on your device:

• Location history, if you turn on location logging. It's recorded in the background, including when the app is closed.
• Photo locations and dates, if you allow photo library access. Explorer reads only the location and date saved with each photo. Photos are never uploaded.
• Imported location history (for example a Google Maps Timeline export) that you choose to import.
• Calendar events during your trips, if you allow calendar access and use "From Calendar".
• Trips, saved places, settings and plan tokens.

You can delete this data at any time in You → Your Data, or by deleting the app. Files you export are saved or shared only where you choose.

Your Explorer account and what you share

You can use the map, your photos, location logging, stats and your own trips without an account. An account is needed for features that send information to us or to services we use on your behalf (place searches, Plan with AI, finding calendar events on the map, and sharing). You can sign up with an email address and password, or with Google or Apple, and link more than one of these to the same account. The first time you use Google or Apple, we email a code to that account's address, to confirm it's yours before connecting it. Explorer's server stores:

• Your account: your email address and whether you've confirmed it; your password, stored only as a salted hash that can't be turned back into the password; the user IDs Google or Apple give Explorer if you sign in with them (never your Google or Apple password); the version of these terms you agreed to, and when.
• Codes we email you to confirm your address or reset your password. They're stored only as hashes and expire after 15 minutes.
• Your profile: name, username, bio and profile photo, and whether you accept follow requests automatically.
• Trips you share: title, destination, dates, caption, the places and notes you planned, and the photos you choose. Each trip is visible only to you, to followers you've approved, or to everyone, as you choose; followers is the default. Your location history and the locations of your photos are never shared.
• Comments and tips you write, people you follow and who follow you, trips you save, people you block, and reports you make.
• Token rewards you've received (for example for your first public trip).

Other Explorer users see what you share with them, your profile, and your comments on trips they can see. Reports go to Explorer for review; content reported by several people is hidden automatically. To delete your account and everything you've shared, go to You → Account & Sign-In → Delete Account. It's removed from the server straight away.

Emails with codes are sent through Resend. The server runs on Cloudflare, which stores the data on our behalf. See Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.

Information sent to other companies

Google Maps Platform provides the maps, place search, place details, photos and travel times. To do that, Explorer sends Google:

• what you search for and the area you search in
• the Google ID of a place whose details you open
• the start and end points of each leg of a trip, to get travel times
• the name and location of a calendar event you add to a trip, to find it on the map

The Google Maps SDK also collects diagnostic and usage data, such as crash reports, performance data and a device identifier. Explorer doesn't send Google your location history or your photos. See Google's Privacy Policy.

Apple Maps finds trip stops that have no location yet, such as hotels added from your calendar. Explorer sends Apple the stop's name or address. See Apple's Privacy Policy.

Wikipedia / Wikimedia provides free photos and short descriptions of destinations and well-known places, and the places "Plan with AI" chooses from. Explorer sends Wikipedia the name or location of the place or destination you're looking at. See the Wikimedia Privacy Policy.

Explorer's trip-planning server and Anthropic (Claude) write most "Plan with AI" plans. Explorer sends our server:

• your messages to Plan with AI and the trip they describe (destination, length, interests);
• the list of places from Wikipedia it plans with;
• a random ID made for this installation, so the number of free plans can be counted;
• for Premium, your App Store subscription as Apple signed it, so the server can check it's active.

Our server passes your message, trip and places to Anthropic, which writes the plan, and keeps only counts of plans made. Your IP address is used to limit abuse and is forgotten within two days. See Anthropic's Privacy Policy.

Apple Intelligence makes the remaining "Plan with AI" plans on your iPhone. Those messages are processed on the device and aren't sent to us. See Apple's Privacy Policy.

Google AdMob shows ads only if you choose the Free with Ads plan. AdMob collects device identifiers, ad interactions, diagnostic data and your approximate location (worked out from your IP address) to show ads, measure them and prevent fraud. Explorer doesn't ask for permission to track you across apps, so ads aren't personalized from your activity in other apps. Where the law requires it (for example in the EU and UK), you're asked for consent first, and you can change your choice later in Settings → Plan → Ad Privacy Choices. See how Google uses information from apps that use its services.

Apple processes subscription purchases. We receive sales reports that don't identify you. See Apple's Privacy Policy.

We don't sell your information.

Children

Explorer isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example under Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act, the EU and UK GDPR, or California's privacy laws), you may have rights to access, correct, delete or move your personal data, and to object to or withdraw consent for its use. Because your travel data stays on your device, you can view, export and delete it in the app yourself. For data held by Google or Apple, use their privacy tools. For anything else, contact us.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update it here and change the date at the top.

Contact

support@explorer.place