Privacy Policy
Wayback: Places Timeline keeps your location history on your iPhone. This policy explains exactly what stays there, the little that leaves it, and what this website collects.
This policy is being reviewed and may be refined before Wayback launches. Any change will be dated here.
The short version
- Your places, visits, journeys, notes and imports never leave your iPhone. We can’t see them.
- There is no Wayback account and no Wayback server holding your history.
- Three services receive a little: Apple Maps (to name places), RevenueCat (purchases) and PostHog in the EU (anonymous usage and crash reports, never locations).
- No ads, no tracking across apps or websites, no selling or sharing of personal data.
- This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
What stays on your iPhone
Everything Wayback records: location fixes, places, visits and journeys, the way you moved between them, your notes and corrections, and anything you import from a Google Timeline export. It is stored in Wayback’s own storage on your iPhone and included in your encrypted iPhone or computer backup, which Apple or your computer holds, not us.
Photos and calendar events are read from your Photos library and Calendar, if you allow it, only to show them next to the visits they belong to. They are never copied, stored or uploaded.
Motion activity (walking, cycling, driving) is read on your iPhone to tell journeys apart, and never leaves it.
A Google Timeline file you import is read on your iPhone. Wayback shows what it found before anything is saved, and the file is never uploaded anywhere.
When you export your data, Wayback creates a file and hands it to the share sheet. Where it goes from there is your choice.
What leaves your iPhone
Place names, from Apple Maps. To name the places you visit, Wayback asks Apple Maps for points of interest near a visit, as any app using Apple Maps does. Apple handles these requests under its own privacy policy.
Purchases, through RevenueCat. If you subscribe to Wayback Plus, Apple processes the payment and RevenueCat validates it. RevenueCat receives the purchase record and a random anonymous ID for this app install, and uses them only to unlock what you paid for and restore it. We never see your name, Apple Account or card. See RevenueCat’s privacy policy.
Usage and crash reports, through PostHog (EU). Wayback sends anonymous events about how the app is used (for example, that a day was viewed or an export finished) and crash reports, with a random ID for this install and the basics any app report carries: device model, iOS version, app version and language. These events never include your locations, times of visits, place names, photos or calendar details. Like any internet request, they carry your IP address; Wayback turns off PostHog’s location lookup from it and creates no person profiles. They are used only to fix and improve the app, and PostHog stores them in the European Union. See PostHog’s privacy policy.
That is the complete list. Wayback does not track you across apps or websites (so it never asks for tracking permission), shows no ads, and sells or shares no personal data with anyone, including data brokers.
Permissions Wayback asks for
- Location, Always and Precise: to notice when you arrive and leave, in the background. Without it, Wayback can’t record.
- Motion & Fitness: to tell walking, cycling and driving apart.
- Photos and Calendar (optional): to show your photos and events beside the visits they belong to.
- Notifications (optional): for the evening summary. These are created on your iPhone; no push service is involved.
You can change any of these in your iPhone’s Settings at any time.
This website
This website is static: it has no accounts, sets no cookies, runs no analytics or advertising, and loads its fonts from its own server. It is hosted by Vercel, which, like any web host, processes your IP address and browser details to deliver pages and keeps short-lived server logs to keep the service secure. The site itself stores nothing about you, not even in your own browser.
The support form
When you write to us through the support form, we receive your name, your email address, the topic you pick and your message. They arrive as one email in our support inbox, which is the only copy; the form keeps no database and its request logs are off. We use them only to answer you and to fix what you tell us about.
To keep out spam, the form uses Cloudflare Turnstile, which looks at your IP address and browser signals to check you’re a person, without cookies for tracking or advertising. Cloudflare also uses your IP address, briefly and only in memory, to limit how many messages one address can send a minute. The email is delivered through Cloudflare Email Routing.
If you email us directly instead, we receive what you send, handled the same way.
Why we may use it
Where laws such as the GDPR ask for a legal basis, ours are:
- To provide what you asked for (performing our contract with you): validating and restoring purchases, and answering your messages.
- Legitimate interests: anonymous usage and crash reports to keep Wayback working, and spam and abuse protection for the form and the website. These use as little as possible and nothing that identifies you to us.
- Your permission: location, motion, photos, calendar and notifications, which you grant and can withdraw in Settings.
How long it’s kept
- Your history: on your iPhone until you delete it, delete the app, or restore a backup without it. The raw location readings behind it are cleared after 180 days; the places, visits and journeys made from them stay. We never hold a copy.
- Purchase records: as long as RevenueCat needs them to restore and account for your purchase, and as tax and accounting law requires.
- Usage and crash reports: up to 12 months, then deleted.
- Support messages: as long as we need to help you, and no more than two years after the conversation ends, unless the law requires longer.
- Website and form logs: kept briefly by Vercel and Cloudflare for security, under their own policies.
Your rights and choices
Your history is already in your hands: in Wayback’s Settings you can export all of it, or delete all of it permanently in one step. You can switch off any permission in your iPhone’s Settings.
For anything we or our providers hold, the purchase record, the anonymous reports or your support messages, you can ask us to access, correct, delete or export it, or object to or restrict its use. Because those records are anonymous, tell us roughly when you used the app or wrote to us so we can find them. We answer within one month. If you’re in the EU, the UK or another place with data-protection law, you can also complain to your local authority. Residents of California and other US states have the right to know, delete and correct; we don’t sell or share personal information, and never treat anyone differently for using their rights.
Where data is processed
Usage and crash reports stay in the European Union. Purchase records (RevenueCat), the website (Vercel) and the support form (Cloudflare) may be processed in the United States and other countries. Where data leaves the EU or the UK, these providers rely on the safeguards the law provides, such as the EU’s Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
We protect what reaches us with encryption in transit and access limited to the people who answer support. Your history needs no such protection from us, because it never reaches us.
Children
Wayback is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect anything from them. If you believe a child has written to us, ask us and we’ll delete it.
Changes and contact
If what Wayback collects ever changes, this policy changes first, with a new date at the top, and we’ll say so in the app when the change matters to you.
Questions about privacy, or a request about your data: use the support form and pick “Privacy and my data”, or email support@matterdevelopment.com. See also our terms of use.