Bench Spotter — Privacy Policy
Updated September 24, 2026 · applies to Bench Spotter for iOS
On your phone and in the cloud
Your saved places, check-ins and the people you follow are stored on your phone — and, once you sign in, with your account on our server, so they follow you to a new phone. No one else using the app can see them. Settings and profile details (birthday, social handles, profile photo) are stored on your phone only. The benches, reviews and photos you publish are stored on our server, hosted by Supabase in the European Union, so that other people can see them on the map — together with your name and your account identifier. Nothing you add is published until you sign in. When you do, the benches and reviews you added on this phone — including those from before you signed in — are published under your name, with their photos, and from then on each new bench or review is published when you save it. Saved places, check-ins and follows stay private.
What leaves the phone, and to whom
- Map tiles — the map area you look at is requested from OpenFreeMap (© OpenMapTiles, © OpenStreetMap contributors); like any web request, it carries your IP address.
- Cloud forecast — your location, rounded to about one kilometer, is sent to Open-Meteo.
- Place search, place names, Look Around and the small maps — Apple Maps (MapKit), under Apple's privacy policy.
- Directions — when you ask for them, the bench's coordinates are handed to the maps app you chose (Apple Maps, Google Maps or Yandex Maps).
- Sharing — a link or a postcard leaves the phone only when you share it, and only to where you send it.
Supabase (our server), Google (Sign in with Google and its SDK), Apple (Sign in with Apple and Apple Maps), OpenFreeMap and Open-Meteo each get only what this policy lists, only to do their part, and handle it under their own privacy policies, which protect it at least as well as this one. Directions and sharing hand things to an app you pick; from there, that app's own policy applies.
Signing in
Signing in is optional; without it you can look around, save benches and check in, but not publish. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive your name, email address and an account identifier. Your name — the one from your account, or the one you set in the app — is public: other people see it on your profile and next to the benches and reviews you publish. The identifier ties what you publish to your account; the email address stays with your account and is never shown to other people — only we see it, in our moderation tools, to answer your requests or deal with reports. Sign in with Google is handled by Google's SDK under Google's privacy policy.
Location
Location is used only while the app is open: to show benches near you, the sun for your sky and the spot for a new bench. It is kept only in the benches you place and in your check-ins — which bench and when; you can check in only at the bench itself, so a check-in says where you were. Where those are stored is described above.
Camera and photos
The camera and photo library are used only when you add a photo — and, when you choose Save Image for a postcard or a story, to save it to Photos (add-only access). Before a photo is published it is checked on the phone itself: Apple's image analysis turns down portraits, beds and bathrooms, swimwear, screenshots, documents, QR codes and pictures that are mostly text, and the system's sensitive-content analyzer looks for nudity when Sensitive Content Warning is turned on in iOS Settings. A published photo is public: anyone using the app can see it with the bench or review it belongs to.
Reports and blocks
The words you publish are checked on the phone, and again on our server, against the same list of slurs and insults. When you report a bench, a review or a person while signed in, the report, the reason you give and your account identifier go to our moderation queue, and a person reads every report within a day; the author is not told who reported them. A bench or a review reported by five different people is hidden for everyone until a moderator looks at it. Without an account, a report is an email you send to support@benchspotter.app from your mail app. When you block someone, their benches and reviews disappear for you; the block is kept on your phone and, if you're signed in, also recorded with your account as a signal for our moderators.
Nothing else
No analytics of our own, no advertising, no tracking, no selling of anything. Signing in with Google uses Google's SDK, which may collect device identifiers and usage data for Google's own analytics under Google's privacy policy. Notifications are scheduled on the phone itself. We do not knowingly collect anything from children.
Deleting and your rights
Delete a bench or a review from the app at any time; it disappears for everyone, and other phones drop it on their next sync. Our server erases its text and the link to its photo, and the app removes the photo file from our storage; a record that it existed and was deleted stays, so that other phones know to drop it. If a photo file is left behind — for example, when you deleted something without a connection, or the photos of your reviews after you close your account — write to us and we'll erase it. Deleting your account (Settings → Delete account) closes your account on our server and deletes your reviews, saved places, check-ins, follows and blocks; reports you filed no longer carry your identifier; the benches you added stay on the map without your name, like an anonymous edit to a shared map. The phone forgets your name, photo and account. Deleting the app deletes what it kept on the phone; only the sign-in, which iOS keeps in its Keychain, stays until you install the app again (it is cleared then) — sign out first to remove it at once.
How long we keep things: what you publish, for as long as it is on the map; your account and what is kept with it, until you delete the account; reports and moderation decisions, for as long as they are needed to keep the map safe. Supabase, which runs our server, keeps logs of requests, which include IP addresses, for a short time, and a security log of sign-ins (time, IP address and email address), which can outlast a closed account; ask us and we'll erase yours.
Bench Spotter is made by Alexandr Malyanov, an independent developer — the “we” in this policy. For questions, requests (including a copy or the removal of your data) or to report content, write to support@benchspotter.app. When this policy changes, the date above changes with it.