Lost Places ("the app") is published on Google Play by its developer ("we", shown as the developer on the app's Google Play page). This policy says what the app does with your information.
The short version: your location and everything you do in the app stay on your phone. There's no account, no advertising and no analytics. The app only goes online to download the offline packs you choose and to talk to Google Play for purchases and reviews.
Location
The app uses your phone's location on the phone itself to:
- build the column of places under where you stand, and show distances to exact, public places;
- run a walk with alerts, which you start yourself, and tell you when you're about 200 m from a place;
- only if you turn on "Alerts when the app is closed" (not offered in every version), tell you near places when the app isn't open.
Your location is compared on your phone with the offline site list. It is never sent to us or to anyone else. Background location is optional; the app works fully without it.
Walks need precise location. With approximate location the app explains this and doesn't start the walk.
Notifications
Arrival alerts, "Lost near you" notices, "Under your feet" lines and protected-area reminders are created on your phone during a walk. If you turn it on, an optional Today's line reminder appears at 08:00 when you haven't answered that day's question; it is scheduled on the phone and never sent from a server. Quiet hours (22:00–07:00 by default) keep the app silent at night unless you change them.
Camera
The optional Horizon camera view (an Explorer feature with 3 free tries) uses the camera only while it is open, to label places on the live picture. Images are processed on the phone. A photo is saved only when you press the shutter, and only to your own photo gallery. Horizon itself uses the compass, never the camera.
What is stored on your phone
- Your column: the places you added on site, with the place, its date and where you were when you added it.
- Saved places and the stories you've heard.
- Today's line: the days you answered and whether you were right.
- Alert history and muted areas, used to avoid repeating alerts.
- Settings, including a place you chose to browse from and the treasure stories you asked to hear about.
This data never leaves the phone, except that Android backup, if you have it turned on, may copy it to your own Google account backup. Offline packs are never backed up. Uninstalling the app, or clearing its data, deletes it.
Network use
The app connects to the internet only to:
- Download offline packs (site data and, if you choose, the map) from our pack host. The list of packs comes from GitHub Pages and the files from GitHub Releases (GitHub is owned by Microsoft); we may later move the files to Cloudflare R2. Like any web request, this shows your IP address and the file requested to that host, which handles it under its own privacy policy. We add no tracking and receive no information about who downloaded what.
- Talk to Google Play to check and complete the Explorer purchase, and to show the Google Play review sheet (see below).
Nothing else goes online. There are no analytics, crash-reporting or advertising services in the app.
Directions
"Directions" hands the place's coordinates to Google Maps or another maps app on your phone. That app then works under its own privacy policy. Lost Places doesn't send your location anywhere.
Purchases
Explorer is a one-time purchase handled by Google Play Billing. We never see your payment details. The app stores only whether Explorer is owned.
Ratings
The app may ask once, after a good moment, whether you'd like to rate it, using the Google Play In-App Review sheet. Google Play shows the sheet and handles any rating or review you give under Google's privacy policy. The app is never told whether you rated it or what you wrote.
Children
The app is meant for people aged 13 and over. It collects no personal information from anyone.
Where the data in the app comes from
Site information comes from open datasets: Historic England, Ireland's National Monuments Service, Wikidata, Pleiades and OpenStreetMap. Their licences are listed in the app under Settings > Sources and licences.
Google Play Data safety
Because nothing leaves the phone, the app's Data safety answers are no data collected and no data shared.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, we'll update the date above and the in-app summary (Settings > Privacy).
Questions: masoodbarkiwork@gmail.com
This policy is published at: https://nothing-all-glitch.github.io/lostplaces/privacy/