Elsemap Privacy Policy

Who we are and what this covers

Elsemap is an independent iOS app, made by Alireza, that opens a shared Google Maps link, or a plain street address, in Apple Maps. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Apple or Google. In this policy, “we” and “us” mean the developer.

This policy covers the Elsemap app, its “Open in Maps” share and action extensions, its Shortcuts action and bundled Shortcut, this website (alireza.app), and email you send us.

We do not collect your data

Elsemap has no account, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising, no crash-reporting service of its own, and no server operated by its developer. There is nowhere for your places to be sent to us, because there is no service of ours for them to be sent to. Elsemap sends no usage information to its developer.

Elsemap does not track you. It does not read any advertising or device identifier, does not link what you do in it with data from other companies’ apps or websites, and shares nothing with data brokers. It does not show the App Tracking Transparency prompt because it has nothing to ask about.

If you have chosen to share crash reports with developers in your iPhone’s settings, Apple may pass crash reports to us under Apple’s own terms. That is an iOS feature you control, not something Elsemap adds.

Permissions: none

Elsemap does not request any system permission. In particular, it never asks for your location. When it looks for a place, it searches around the place in the link you gave it, not around you. It does not access your contacts, photos, camera, microphone or notifications.

What Elsemap contacts, and when

Elsemap does not contact us. To do its job it may contact Google and Apple, as described here. Neither is a partner of ours, and Elsemap contains no Google or third-party SDK.

Google

A shortened link such as maps.app.goo.gl/… does not say where it goes. To reveal it, Elsemap has to ask Google to follow it. Whether that happens depends on your “Resolve short links” setting, which you choose the first time you use Elsemap and can change at any time:

• Ask me each time (the default): before the first request, Elsemap shows “Contact Google?” and waits for you to choose Allow Once, Always Allow, or Cancel. If a second request is needed, it asks again (“Read the linked page?”).
• Always allow: Elsemap contacts Google whenever a short link needs it.
• Never: Elsemap makes no request to Google under any circumstances, even if everything else has failed. Short links will not open.

Elsemap sends at most two requests to Google for any one link. Requests use HTTPS and go only to Google hosts; a link that redirects anywhere else, or more than five times, is stopped. Elsemap accepts and sends no cookies, keeps no cached responses, and uses a fixed User-Agent string that does not report your device’s iOS version. Google handles what it receives under Google’s privacy policy, not ours.

If a full Google Maps link carries only a place name and Google’s own place identifier, without coordinates, it is treated like the search above: it needs your permission, and with “Never” it opens as a search for the name in Apple Maps instead.

Apple’s map services

If you turn on “Match places in Apple Maps” (Elsemap asks you the first time, with no answer pre-selected), Elsemap sends the place name, coordinate and address from the link to Apple’s map services through Apple’s MapKit framework, to look for the matching place card. With matching on, the “Recently opened” list may also show a small map, which loads map images from Apple for the area around your remembered places.

With matching off, Elsemap makes no such lookup and opens the coordinate or address the link itself carried.

Apple Maps

When you tap “Open in Apple Maps” (or run the “Open in Maps” Shortcut), Elsemap hands the destination to Apple Maps. Apple Maps receives that destination every time — that is the purpose of the app. From that moment, Apple Maps handles it under Apple’s terms, and Elsemap’s handling ends.

Apple’s handling of map searches and Apple Maps is described in Apple’s privacy policy.

What stays on your device

Remembered places (off by default)

“Remember places on this device” is off when you install Elsemap; it asks you rather than choosing for you. If you turn it on, Elsemap keeps a “Recently opened” list and reuses what it has already worked out, so the same link doesn’t need to be looked up again.

Each remembered record can include the place name, street address, category and coordinate from the link, the link’s language and region hints, Google’s place identifier from the link, and the time it was opened. If matching is on, it can also include the matching Apple Maps place (its identifier, name, address and coordinate) and why Elsemap accepted the match.

These records are stored in a single file shared only between the Elsemap app and its own extensions. That file is designed to be excluded from iCloud and computer backups and protected by iOS data protection while your device is locked. They are never sent anywhere.

How long they are kept

• You choose a window of 7 days or 30 days. Records older than your window stop being readable immediately, even while Elsemap is closed, and are deleted the next time Elsemap, one of its extensions, or its Shortcut runs.
• The list is also capped in size (the oldest records are removed first).
• Turning “Remember places” off, or tapping Delete Remembered Places, erases the list and everything Elsemap had reused, at once. A request that was already in progress cannot write anything back afterwards.

Your settings are in your backups

Your settings — your three choices, plus a few small markers Elsemap uses to keep track of setup — are stored separately and are included in your device backups. They contain no places. Keeping your settings is compatible with Elsemap remembering no places at all.

The clipboard

Elsemap reads the clipboard only when you tap the Paste button. It does not look at the clipboard when it launches, when it returns to the foreground, or at any other time.

Diagnostics

Released versions of Elsemap contain no logging of destinations; that code is not compiled into the app. If you used an earlier test version, anything it recorded is deleted the first time this version runs.

Children

Elsemap is rated 4+. It collects no data from anyone, including children, and has no content feed, no messaging, no web browsing and no purchases.

This website

alireza.app is a static website. It uses no cookies, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking scripts, no embedded third-party content and no forms.

The site is hosted on Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes the technical information your browser sends (such as your IP address and the page requested) to deliver the site and protect it from abuse, and keeps its own standard server logs under Cloudflare’s privacy policy. We do not use that information to track or identify visitors.

If you email us

Elsemap has no in-app support form and attaches nothing to anything automatically. If you write to support@alireza.app, we receive what you chose to write, including your email address, through an ordinary email provider that keeps its own records. We use it only to reply to you and to fix the problem you reported, and we don’t share it or add you to any list.

When reporting a link that didn’t work, please send a link to a public place — a shop, a landmark, a station — and not to your home or anyone else’s.

Your choices and rights

Because we don’t collect data through the app, we hold nothing from the app about you to access, correct, export or delete. Everything Elsemap keeps is on your device and under your control:

• To delete remembered places, open Elsemap’s Privacy tab and tap Delete Remembered Places, or turn “Remember places” off.
• To change what Elsemap may contact, change “Resolve short links” or “Match places in Apple Maps” on the same tab.
• To remove everything, including your settings, delete the app.

If you’ve emailed us and want that correspondence deleted, ask us at the address below and we will delete it, unless we have to keep it by law. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

For data held by Google or Apple, use their own privacy tools and policies.

Changes to this policy

If Elsemap’s handling of data changes, this page will be updated no later than when the change ships, and the “Last updated” date above will change. Previous versions are available on request.

Contact

Alireza, developer of Elsemap
Email: support@alireza.app

See also the Terms of Use and Support.