Groundmarks privacy policy

The short version

Groundmarks builds your map on your iPhone or iPad. The locations of your photos are read on your device and are never sent to Liftbridge Labs or anyone else. There is no Groundmarks account, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party tracking. Liftbridge Labs runs no server for the app and receives none of your data.

Your photo library

With your permission, Groundmarks reads the location and date stored with the photos in your Apple Photos library to work out which places and landmarks you have visited. It keeps a small index of those places on your device. Photos are shown from your library; the app does not upload them anywhere.

Groundmarks adds to your library only when you ask it to: a photo you choose from Google Photos (below), or a map image you save with Share. If you set a background photo, a reduced copy is kept inside the app on your device.

Google Photos

If you choose Add from Google Photos, you sign in with Google and Groundmarks asks for one permission: to see the photos you select in Google's photo picker (the photospicker.mediaitems.readonly scope of the Google Photos Picker API). Groundmarks cannot browse your Google Photos library; it receives only the items you pick, each time you pick them.

• What is used. The photos you pick. Groundmarks downloads each one and saves a copy to your device's photo library, placed at the place or landmark you added it to, so it appears on your map.
• Where it goes. Directly from Google to your device. The photos and your Google account details are not sent to Liftbridge Labs, are not stored on any server of ours, and are not shared with anyone.
• Sign-in. Google's sign-in tokens are kept in your device's Keychain and are used only to talk to the Google Photos Picker API. Signing out in Groundmarks' settings deletes them; you can also remove Groundmarks' access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
• No other use. Google user data is not used for advertising, not sold, not used to train AI models, and not read by people.

Groundmarks' use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

How Google data is protected

• In transit. Groundmarks talks to Google only over encrypted HTTPS connections (Google sign-in, the Google Photos Picker API and the photo downloads). Sign-in uses the OAuth 2.0 PKCE flow for apps on your device, so there is no client secret in the app that could be extracted.
• On your device. The sign-in tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain, set to this device only: they are not synced to iCloud Keychain, never moved to another device and not readable by other apps. The photos you pick are saved to your own photo library, which iOS protects with your device passcode and encryption. Tokens are never written to logs.
• Not on any server of ours. Liftbridge Labs runs no server for the app, so Google data is never held, copied or sent anywhere else. No one at Liftbridge Labs can access it, so there is no employee access to control.
• Least access. Groundmarks asks for a single read-only permission, limited to the photos you pick, and cannot see the rest of your Google Photos or any other part of your Google account.
• You are in control. Signing out in Groundmarks deletes the tokens from your Keychain and asks Google to revoke the access. You can also revoke it at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

iCloud sync and backup

If iCloud sync is on (it is by default, and can be turned off in Settings › iCloud), Groundmarks keeps your choices in your own private iCloud database, provided by Apple: which photo you picked for each place or landmark and how it is framed, photos you hid or removed from the map, photos you placed by hand, favorite maps, and settings. Photos are referred to by Apple's identifier for them, not copied. This lets your devices show the same map and restores it on a new device. The data is stored in your iCloud account under Apple's privacy policy; Liftbridge Labs cannot see it. You can delete it in your device's iCloud settings under Manage Storage.

Look Around

On a landmark's page, Groundmarks can show Apple's Look Around street imagery. To do that it sends the landmark's public location — not yours, and not your photos' — to Apple Maps.

Deleting your data

Everything Groundmarks keeps inside the app on your device is removed when you delete the app. Photos it saved to your photo library at your request (from Google Photos, or a map image you saved) stay in your library like any other photo; delete them in Photos if you no longer want them. Your iCloud copy, if any, can be deleted as described above, and Google access can be removed in Groundmarks or in your Google account.

Support

If you email support@liftbridgelabs.app, we see what you send us — your address and the contents of your message — and use it only to answer you.

Children

Groundmarks is not directed at children under 13 and collects nothing from anyone.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date above changes with it.