Privacy

What is counted

To know which parts of the map are worth building on, we count seven things: that the map was opened, which map layer was switched on, that the search box was used and whether it was given a name or a grid reference, that a waypoint, route or area was drawn, that a link to a place was copied, that the app was installed, and that the map had to be rebuilt after device inactivity. That last one happens when the page has been left in the background for a long time, and we can only fix it if we can see it happening.

That is the whole list. The server refuses anything else, so no future page can quietly start collecting more without this list changing first.

Nothing is recorded about the place itself. Not the coordinates, not what you searched for, not what you called it, and not the web address, which matters here because the address bar holds the part of the map you are looking at.

The counting is done by this site, on this server. There is no analytics company involved and no script from anyone else's domain.

How visits are counted without identifying you

Counting needs some way to tell ten people trying a layer once from one person switching it ten times. Instead of a cookie or a stored identifier, the server derives a short code from your network address and browser, mixed with a secret that is generated at random every day and then thrown away.

The code cannot be turned back into your address, and tomorrow the same visitor produces a completely different code, so no history can be assembled across days. Your address itself is never written down.

When something breaks

Crashes are recorded by Bugsink, error-tracking software running on our servers. A report contains what went wrong and where in the code, not who you are.

No error-reporting company is involved and nothing is sent to one: reports go from your browser to this site, and stay on our servers. Your network address is not passed on with them. The web address is cut back to the page name before it leaves your browser, and cut back again here, because the full address would otherwise contain the part of the map you were looking at.

There is no session recording. Nothing draws a picture of your screen or plays back what you did.

Map imagery comes from other sources

The map itself is drawn from tiles served by OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap, Esri, Spain's IGN, Catalonia's ICGC, France's IGN and others, listed under the map as you use them. Your browser fetches those directly, so those organisations see your network address and which squares of the world you asked for, which tells them roughly where you are looking.

This is unavoidable for any map that does not host its own imagery, and it is the largest single thing about using Mappily that is outside our control. Each provider has its own privacy policy.

Searching for a place happens via our server

Place search is answered by Photon, an OpenStreetMap geocoder. Your browser never contacts it: the request goes through this server, so Photon sees us asking and not you. Answers are cached here, so a search somebody else already made costs no request at all.

What you draw is yours

Waypoints, routes and areas are stored in your own browser, and that copy is the one the map works from.

A copy is kept on our server too, so that a link you share opens on somebody else's device and so that a trip outlives the browser storage it sits in. There are no accounts: an unguessable link is what reaches a trip, and anyone holding one can open it.

Sharing a place makes a link containing its coordinates. Nothing is sent anywhere when you make one: the link is simply put on your clipboard, and only the people you give it to can read it.

The app is covered by a notice of its own

This page is about the website. The app is a different program and its answers are different: today it counts nothing, reports crashes to the same error tracker this site does, uses the camera to read a shared trip's code and your location only when you press the button that shows where you are, and keeps what it holds in its own storage rather than in a browser.

All of that is set out in the app's own notice, linked at the foot of this page.

How long any of this is kept

Counted events are deleted after six months, and error reports after 90 days.

Asking about any of this

Questions about this page, or about anything Mappily records, can go to privacy [at] mappily.com.