Privacy policy

1. Who we are

BlitzBuddy is made by SN Web, a sole proprietorship in the Netherlands. SN Web is the controller of your personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Address: Tolgaarderwaard 39 A, 6846 EW Arnhem.

Questions and requests: [email protected].

2. In short

• BlitzBuddy is free. There are no ads in the app.
• We do not sell your data.
• The app contains no analytics, advertising or tracking software.
• Your driven route stays on your phone.
• You can delete your trips and your account yourself in the app.

3. Your account

When you first use the app, it creates an account for you automatically. This account has a random user ID and no name or email address. You can use the app without signing in.

You can sign in with Apple (on iPhone), with Google or with a link by email. We then receive your email address. Apple or Google may also share your name and profile photo. Your name then shows in your profile. You cannot set a name, town or profile photo in the app itself.

We use this data to run your account and to keep your trips, reports and karma together.

Legal basis: performance of our agreement with you (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).

4. Your location

The app uses the precise location, speed and direction of your phone. It needs them to warn you about speed cameras, average speed checks, jams and hazards ahead.

The app uses your location while it is open. If you allow location access "Always" (iPhone) or "Allow all the time" (Android), it also warns you when the screen is off or another app is open. It can then also start by itself when you start driving. You choose this in the settings of your phone, and you can change it at any time.

What leaves your phone:

• To show reports ahead of you, the app sends your position and direction to our server. The server uses them to find reports and does not store them.
• When you plan a route or look at reports on your route, our servers receive the start, the destination and the route. We use them only for that and do not store them.
• When you make a report, we store its location (see section 5).
• When you search for an address, your position is sent along, so that places near you come first (see section 8).
• Some warning data, such as speed limits, is downloaded per area around your position (see section 8).

Your driven route, the line on your map, stays on your phone. We do not store it on our server.

Legal basis: performance of our agreement (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).

5. Reports and confirmations

You can report speed cameras, police, accidents, jams, objects on the road and broken-down vehicles. You can also confirm someone else's report, or say that it is gone.

With a report we store: the type, the exact location, the road, your direction and lane, your speed, the time, the place name and your user ID. With a confirmation we store: the report, your answer, the time and your user ID.

Other drivers see the report, the place, the time and how often it was confirmed. They never see who made or confirmed a report. Our server does not send your name, profile photo, user ID or karma to other users. Our server also puts the visible reports in a file per country that anyone can read. It holds the same data other drivers see, so nothing about the reporter.

Our server checks every report automatically: is it on a road, is it plausible, does it already exist, and is it allowed in that country? The server refuses a report that fails this check. A report from a new member sometimes needs a confirmation from another driver before others see it.

A report disappears from the map when it expires. We delete reports and confirmations automatically 30 days after they were made, usually within a day after that.

Sometimes the app asks whether official information, such as a fixed camera or roadworks, is still correct. We store your answer with your user ID to improve the data. If you say whether an official report, such as a breakdown or an accident, is still there, we keep your answer with your user ID until a day after the last vote on that report, at most two days. After that, only the count remains.

Legal basis: performance of our agreement (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) and our legitimate interest in reliable warnings without abuse (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

6. Trips and driving score

If "Keep trip history" is on, the app sends a summary of each drive to our server when you arrive. You find this switch under Profile, Privacy. It is on by default. If you switch it off, the app keeps no trips and sends no trips to us.

A trip summary contains:

• the start and end time, and your time zone;
• the town where you left and where you arrived;
• the distance, duration and average speed;
• how long you drove above the speed limit;
• your speed at the speed cameras you passed, and your average speed in average speed checks;
• the jams you drove through, and your driving score.

A trip summary contains no route and no GPS coordinates. In countries where camera warnings are off, the summary contains no cameras and no average speed checks.

We keep your trips until you delete them. We do not give your trips or speeds to the police, insurers or anyone else, unless the law obliges us to.

The driven route of a trip, the line on the map, is kept on your phone only.

Detailed trip log. In your profile you can switch on a detailed trip log, for example to show us a bug. It is off by default. When it is on, the app writes your positions with the time, the speed limits and the warnings of each drive to a file on your phone. The app keeps at most the last ten drives. The log goes nowhere unless you share it yourself. If you send it to us, we use it only to find the bug and delete it afterwards.

Legal basis: performance of our agreement (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR). You decide whether you use this feature.

7. Karma

Karma is an internal score for how reliable your reports and confirmations are. You earn karma points, for example for reports that others confirm, for confirmations and for trips. Our server calculates your karma. Karma decides how much weight your reports get: whether they show at once or first need a confirmation, and in which order they appear. We store your karma history and the counts and milestones the server uses to calculate your karma, such as your number of reports, confirmations and trips.

Other users never see your karma. The app does not show your karma to you either at the moment; you can ask us for it.

Karma has no money value.

Legal basis: performance of our agreement (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) and our legitimate interest in reliable reports (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

8. Search, map and route

• Search. The app sends your search text and your position to our server. Our server looks up the search text at PDOK (the address service of the Dutch government) and Nominatim (OpenStreetMap). Nominatim also receives a wide area of about 200 km around a rounded position, so that places near you come first. They do not learn who you are. We do not store your search text or your position.
• Favourites. Home, Work and your recent destinations are stored on your phone. On Android, Search shows the travel time to Home and Work. For that, while Search is open, the app sends your current position and those two places to our route server, as when you plan a route. On iPhone this does not happen.
• Map. The app loads the map from our own map server, through Cloudflare. Cloudflare and our server see your IP address and the part of the map your phone loads.
• Route. Our own route server calculates your route. It receives the route points from our server, not your IP address or user ID. For the name of a town along the way, our server asks PDOK for the place name at a point of the route.
• Street and place names. To show the street or town where you are, to name the places of your trip and to find parking near your destination, the app uses the map service of your phone: Apple on iPhone, Google on Android. Apple and Google do this under their own privacy terms.
• Warning data. The app downloads speed camera, speed limit and traffic data from Google Cloud. Some of it, such as speed limits, is downloaded per area of about 40 by 20 km around your position. Google sees your IP address and which area the app downloads.

9. Voice, notifications and your car

• Tap and speak. When you tap the microphone, the app listens for a few seconds and recognises the type of report. Where possible, this happens on your phone. Otherwise the speech service of Apple or Google processes your words. We do not receive or store any audio.
• Spoken warnings are made by your phone itself.
• Notifications are made by your phone itself. We do not send push notifications.
• Starting by itself. To notice that you start driving, the app can use motion data from your phone, and the connection with a car you choose yourself (Bluetooth or CarPlay). The names of those devices stay on your phone.
• Widget and Live Activity. The next warning can show on your home screen or lock screen. This stays on your phone.
• CarPlay and Android Auto. The app shows its screens on the display of your car. We receive no data from your car.

10. Crash reports

If the app crashes, it sends a crash report to Firebase Crashlytics, a service of Google. A crash report contains technical data: the device model, the operating system, the app version, a random installation ID and the place in the app where it went wrong. It does not contain your name, email address or user ID. Google keeps crash reports for 90 days.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in an app that works (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

11. Security and abuse

• We limit how often an account can do certain things, such as making reports. For this we store the times of recent actions. They delete themselves, usually within two days.
• We note the day on which your account was last active. We use this only to count active users per day.
• We can hide reports and block accounts that misuse the service.
• To prevent abuse, Apple (DeviceCheck) and Google (Play Integrity and reCAPTCHA) can check that a request comes from the real app.
• When your app talks to our servers, Google receives technical data such as your IP address. Our server logs contain technical events, sometimes with your user ID. They do not contain your position or search text.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a safe service that works (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

12. Payments

Everything in BlitzBuddy is free at the moment. You cannot buy anything in the app. If we add paid features, we will update this policy first.

13. Who receives your data

These companies process data on our behalf:

• Google (Firebase and Google Cloud): account and sign-in, including the email with your sign-in link, database, server, file storage and crash reports. Our database and server are in Belgium (region europe-west1). Sign-in (Firebase Authentication) runs in the United States.
• Cloudflare: the network in front of our map server, and sending emails with a sign-in link.
• Leaseweb: hosting of our map and route server in Canada.

These parties are responsible themselves, under their own privacy terms:

• Apple and Google, when you sign in with them, and for the location, map and speech services of your phone.
• PDOK and the OpenStreetMap Foundation (Nominatim) receive search text only.

We do not give your data to anyone else, unless the law obliges us to.

14. Data outside the EU

Some data goes to the United States: sign-in and crash reports at Google, and the network and email at Cloudflare. Google and Cloudflare are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. According to the European Commission, this framework protects your data adequately.

Our map and route server is in Canada. According to the European Commission, Canada offers an adequate level of protection.

15. How long we keep data

• Account, profile and email address: until you delete your account.
• Trips: until you delete them, or your account.
• Reports and confirmations: 30 days after the report or confirmation, then usually erased within a day.
• Answers about official information: until you delete your account.
• Whether an official report is still there: at most two days with your user ID.
• Karma and its history: until you delete your account.
• Crash reports: 90 days.
• Driven route and detailed trip log: on your phone only, until you delete the trip or the app.
• Times of recent actions: usually gone within two days.

16. Deleting data in the app

• One trip: open the trip under Trips and choose "Delete trip".
• All trips: Profile, Privacy, "Delete all trips".
• Stop keeping trips: Profile, Privacy, switch off "Keep trip history".
• Your account: Profile, "Delete account". We delete your profile, profile photo, karma, trips and sign-in account at once. Your reports and confirmations lose everything that points to you at once, such as your user ID and your speed. After that they still count for other drivers, without being linked to you, and they are erased automatically 30 days after the report or confirmation. Your answers on whether an official report is still there also lose your user ID at once.

Not signed in? Sign in first and then choose "Delete account", or email us. Removing the app from your phone does not delete your account on our server.

17. Your rights

You have the right to:

• see your data (access);
• have your data corrected;
• have your data deleted;
• have the processing restricted, or object to it, in particular where we rely on our legitimate interest;
• receive your data in a common format (portability);
• withdraw permissions such as location, microphone or notifications in the settings of your phone.

Email [email protected]. We answer within one month. We may ask you to show that the account is yours.

You can complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) or to the authority in your own country. If you live outside the EU, for example in Türkiye, you can also use these rights with us.

18. Children

BlitzBuddy is made for drivers. It is not intended for children under 16. If we find out that a child under 16 gave us data, we delete it.

19. Automated decisions

Our server decides automatically about reports and karma (see sections 5 and 7). These decisions have no legal effect for you and do not affect you in a similarly significant way.

20. Safety

BlitzBuddy is an aid. You remain responsible for how you drive. Follow the traffic signs and the traffic rules.

We offer speed camera warnings only in some countries. In Germany, § 23 (1c) StVO forbids drivers to use speed camera warnings. In Türkiye, the law on this is unclear. You are responsible for using the app lawfully. See our terms of use.

21. Changes

We may change this policy. The date and version at the top show the latest version. We will tell you clearly about important changes before they apply, for example in the app.

22. Law

Dutch law applies to this policy.