MyCommute – Privacy Policy

Your privacy matters. This Privacy Policy explains how MyCommute (“the App”), provided by Robin Kanatzar (“we,” “our,” or “us”), collects, uses, and shares information. It covers the MyCommute app for iPhone and iPad, its widgets and Live Activities, and the website mycommute.app.

In short: MyCommute watches traffic on the routes you set up and tells you when to leave. We collect only what that requires. We do not sell your data, show ads, or track you across other companies’ apps and websites.

Privacy Policy

1) Information We Collect

The App creates an account for you automatically the first time you open it. You don’t need to give us your name or email to use MyCommute. We collect:

• Account ID: a random user ID created at first launch. If you choose to link Sign in with Apple, we also receive the name and email address Apple shares with us. You can hide your email; Apple then gives us a private relay address instead.
• Routes: start and end addresses, their names and map coordinates, arrival time, time zone, days of the week, traffic tolerances, custom alert text, vacation dates, and whether a route is on or paused.
• Saved places: names, addresses, and coordinates of places you save for reuse.
• Commute results: drive-time estimates, departure times, and traffic status we calculate for your routes.
• Current location (optional): your device’s location, read once when you tap the location button to fill in an address. We never collect location in the background.
• Device push tokens: tokens that let us send notifications and update Live Activities on your device, if you allow it.
• Subscription status: whether you have Premium and which plan, provided by Apple through RevenueCat. We never see your payment card or Apple Account details.
• Preferences and app info: 12- or 24-hour time setting, app version, and when you last opened the App.
• Usage analytics: anonymous events such as “route created” or “paywall shown,” with a hashed device identifier, collected through TelemetryDeck. These never include names, emails, addresses, or coordinates.
• Crash reports: crash logs with device model, iOS version, app version, and a crash-reporting install ID, collected through Firebase Crashlytics.
• Support messages: anything you send us by email, plus the app version and user ID that the App adds to problem reports.

When you answer “Did we get you there on time?”, the App only adds to an anonymous count of on-time and late answers. Your answer is not stored with your account.

2) How We Use Information

• Monitor your commute: before your arrival time on the days you choose, our servers check live drive times for your routes and work out when you should leave.
• Alert you: we send push notifications and update your Live Activity and widgets with your departure time and traffic status.
• Keep your account: we save your routes, places, and settings so they stay in sync and come back if you sign in with Apple on a new device.
• Provide Premium: we check your subscription status to unlock Premium features and apply the free plan’s limits.
• Fix and improve the App: we use anonymous usage analytics and crash reports to find bugs and see which features are used.
• Support you: we use what you send us to answer questions and fix problems.
• Keep things safe and legal: we may use information to prevent abuse and to meet legal obligations.

We don’t use your data for advertising, and we don’t build profiles about you. We never sell or rent personal information, and we don’t “share” it for cross-context behavioral advertising as California law defines that term.

3) Third-Party Services

We share personal information only with the service providers below, and only what each needs to do its job for us. Each one processes data under its own terms and privacy policy, and we rely on them to protect it at least as well as this policy does. None of them may use your data for their own advertising.

• Google Firebase (Google Cloud): account login, database, server functions, push delivery, and crash reporting. Receives your account ID, Sign in with Apple name and email, routes, saved places, commute results, push tokens, preferences, and crash reports.
• Google Maps Platform (Routes and Directions APIs): drive-time and traffic estimates. Receives route start and end coordinates and the time of travel only. No name, email, or account ID.
• Apple: address search and map lookups (MapKit), drive-time estimates (Apple Maps Server API), push notifications and Live Activities (APNs), Sign in with Apple, and payments. Receives address search text, route coordinates, your current location when you use the location button, and push tokens. Apple handles your payment; we never see it.
• RevenueCat: manages subscriptions and purchases. Receives your account ID and your purchase and subscription history from Apple.
• TelemetryDeck: privacy-focused, anonymous usage analytics. Receives anonymous app events, app and iOS version, and a hashed device identifier.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people’s safety or our rights, or as part of a sale or transfer of the App. If the App is transferred, this policy would continue to apply to your data.

4) Location Data

• The App asks for “While Using the App” location permission only when you tap the location button in an address field.
• It reads your position once, turns it into an address, and fills in the field. If you save that address in a route or place, we store it like any address you type.
• We never track your location in the background. You can always type an address instead.
• You can turn location access off at any time in iOS Settings > MyCommute > Location.

5) Notifications, Live Activities, and Widgets

• If you allow notifications, we use your device’s push token to send traffic alerts for your routes and an occasional “Did we get you there on time?” check. We don’t send marketing notifications.
• We store Live Activity push tokens so your Lock Screen commute status can update.
• Widgets read a small summary that the App saves on your device.
• The App works without notifications. Turn them off in iOS Settings > MyCommute > Notifications, or switch alerts off for a route in the App.

6) Data Retention and Deletion

We keep your account data for as long as your account exists. You can delete your account at any time in the App under Settings > Delete account.

Deleting your account immediately removes your routes, saved places, settings, push tokens, and login from our database. If you used Sign in with Apple, the App also revokes MyCommute’s access to your Apple ID. Some copies are kept for a limited time:

• Crash reports: Firebase Crashlytics deletes them after 90 days.
• Purchase records: Apple and RevenueCat keep these as their own policies and tax laws require. Deleting your MyCommute account does not cancel a subscription; cancel it in your Apple Account subscription settings.
• Anonymous analytics: TelemetryDeck data can’t be linked back to you, so it isn’t part of a deletion.
• Support emails: we keep these as long as we need them to help you, then delete them.

We may delete accounts that are more than six months old and have no routes. Removing the App from your phone does not delete your account; delete it in Settings first, or email us and we will do it for you.

7) Your Rights and Choices

Wherever you live, you can ask us to give you a copy of the personal information we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or stop using it for a particular purpose such as analytics. You can view, edit, and delete your routes and places in the App at any time.

To make any other request, email [email protected] and include the user ID shown in Settings > Account so we can find your data. We answer within 30 days, and we won’t treat you differently for using these rights.

• EU, UK, and similar laws: we process your data to provide the service you asked for (routes, alerts, Premium); for our legitimate interest in keeping the App reliable and secure (crash reports, anonymous analytics); and with your consent (location and notifications, which you can withdraw in iOS Settings). You may also complain to your local data protection authority.
• California and other US states: in the past 12 months we collected the categories in section 1 for the purposes in section 2, and disclosed them only to the service providers in section 3. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we don’t use sensitive personal information to infer things about you. You or an authorized agent can make the requests above by email.

8) Children’s Privacy

• MyCommute is for drivers and is not directed at children.
• We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, or under 16 where local law sets that age.
• If you think a child has given us data, email us and we will delete it.

9) Security

Data travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS) and is stored with Google Firebase, which encrypts it at rest. Access is limited to signed-in accounts and our own servers. No system is perfectly secure; we will notify you and the authorities of a breach where the law requires it.

10) International Transfers

We are based in the United States, and our providers may process data in the US and other countries. When we transfer data from the EU, UK, or Switzerland, we rely on our providers’ Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent safeguards.

11) Changes to This Policy

When we change this policy, we update the effective date at the top. For significant changes, such as a new kind of data or a new provider, we will also tell you in the App before the change takes effect.

12) Contact

Questions about privacy? Email [email protected].