Privacy policy

This policy explains what Pin My Map collects, why, and what you can do about it. Pin My Map is run from Portugal, and the controller of your personal data is Pin My Map, contactable at pinmymap.link@gmail.com.

The short version: we hold what you type into the app and what we need to run your account. There is no GPS tracking, nothing is collected in the background, and we do not sell anything about you.

What we collect

Your account

• Your email address, used to sign you in and to connect you with friends who invite you by email.
• Your name, your username, your profile photo if you add one, and the short bio you write about yourself.
• Your settings: the friend tags you create, who can see each kind of pin, and your display preference.
• If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google, but not your Google password.
• If you sign in with Apple, we receive your name and an email address, and nothing else. Apple lets you hide your real address behind a private relay one, and if you do that we never see the real one. Either way we do not receive your Apple password.

Your pins

• The city and country you pin, and the approximate coordinates of that city, so it can be drawn on the map.
• Whether the pin is your home base, a trip, or a wishlist destination.
• For trips, the month and year. If you choose to share a trip with Close Friends only, the exact dates you enter are stored too. That is the only case where we hold a precise date, and only that tag sees it.
• Any notes you write on a pin, and any friends you have chosen to hide that pin from.

Coordinates are those of the city you picked, not of you. They are stored alongside a geographic index so the app can work out when two friends’ pins overlap and let you both know.

Friends and notifications

• Friend invitations, including the email address an invitation was sent to, and whether it was accepted.
• The tags you give your friends. These are yours, and your friends cannot see how you have tagged them.
• Device tokens for push notifications, if you turn notifications on.
• Blocks and reports you make, and reports made about you.

Usage and device information

• Which screens you open and when, through Google Firebase Analytics, linked to your account ID.
• Basic technical information Firebase collects to deliver and secure the service, such as device type, operating system version, app version and IP address.
• Anything you send us through the in-app feedback form.

What we never collect

Pin My Map has no GPS tracking and no background location. We do not request your device’s location, we do not log where you are, and we cannot tell your friends where you are right now. Every place on your map is there because you typed it in.

Why we use it, and our legal basis

• To run your account and show your map to the friends you have chosen. Necessary to perform our contract with you.
• To send notifications you have asked for, such as a friend being in your city. Necessary for the contract, and with your consent for push notifications on your device.
• To keep the service safe, handle reports and prevent abuse. Our legitimate interest in protecting our users.
• To understand which parts of the app get used, so we can improve it. Our legitimate interest, and consent where the law requires it.
• To meet legal obligations and to defend legal claims.

Who else sees your data

The people you choose, and nobody else. Your pins go only to friends you have accepted, and only according to the tag rules you set. Hiding is enforced on our servers, so a friend you hide a pin from is never sent it.

We use Google Firebase (authentication, database, file storage, push messaging, analytics and hosting) to run the service. Google processes data on our instructions as our service provider. Our servers run in Google’s europe-west1 region, in Belgium, and Google may process some data outside the EEA under the safeguards described in its own terms.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers. We may disclose data if the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect someone’s safety.

How long we keep it

• Your account and pins are kept while your account exists.
• Delete your account and your profile, pins, friend requests, notifications, feedback and photos are removed straight away.
• Two things outlive the account, for one year. Blocks and reports, so that a safety decision still stands if the person who prompted it leaves. And a small record of the year of birth you gave us and the date you accepted these terms, with your email address stored only as an unreadable fingerprint, so that we can answer a legal claim about whether you told us you were old enough.
• We keep those two because the law lets us hold on to what we need to defend a legal claim. Nothing else survives, and after a year they go too.
• Backups roll off on their own cycle, so a deleted item can persist in a backup for a short period.

Your rights

If you are in the UK or the EEA, you can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or hand it to another service. You can withdraw consent at any time where we rely on it, by turning off push notifications for example.

Email pinmymap.link@gmail.com and we will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with our answer you can complain to your data protection authority. In Portugal that is the CNPD.

Children

Pin My Map is not for children under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger. If you believe a child has an account, tell us at pinmymap.link@gmail.com and we will remove it.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit, access to it is restricted, and rules on our servers control who can read what. No service can promise perfect security, but if a breach ever affects you we will tell you and the regulator as the law requires.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of the page, and tell you in the app when the change is significant.

Contact

Questions, or a request about your data? Email pinmymap.link@gmail.com.