Privacy

Navigate the Past · last updated 26 August 2026

Short version: the app has no account, no analytics, no advertising and no third party trackers. Your location is used on your phone to draw where you are standing. It is never sent to me, because there is no server of mine for it to be sent to.

What the app uses your location for

• Showing your position on the historical map, and centring the map on you when you turn on Follow.
• Working out which sheets cover you, so the timeline lists the printings of the ground you are actually standing on.
• Recording a track, but only while you have explicitly started one. Recording continues with the screen off so that a long walk comes back as one continuous line; it stops when you pause it.

What stays on your phone

All of it. Your position, any track you record, the maps you save for offline use and your interface preferences are stored in the app's own storage on the device. Deleting the app removes them. A recorded track can be cleared from the field kit at any time, and saved maps can be deleted individually.

What leaves your phone, and to whom

The app draws no maps of its own. It requests map tiles from three providers, and this is worth being precise about, because asking for a map tile tells the provider which piece of ground you are looking at:

• Esri, which hosts the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, receives requests for the historical sheets.
• The USGS National Map receives requests when you pick one of its layers as the modern reference.
• Apple provides the standard and satellite maps through MapKit, under Apple's privacy policy.

If you are following your own position, the tiles you request are the ones around you, so your approximate whereabouts can be inferred by those providers from the requests themselves. No identifier of yours is attached, and no exact coordinate is ever sent. Saving an area for offline use means the tiles are fetched once and read from your phone thereafter.

What I receive

Nothing. There is no account to create, no email to give, no crash reporting and no usage statistics. If you write to me about the app, I have whatever you put in that message and nothing else.

Exporting a track

Exporting a track as GPX hands the file to the iOS share sheet. Where it goes from there is your choice, and is governed by whatever app or service you send it to.

Children

The app is not directed at children and collects nothing that would identify anyone, of any age.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will be noted in the app's release notes.

Getting in touch

Questions about any of this: dev@ryansajdak.com