Privacy Policy
The gist: Your photos, your location history, and your workout routes never leave your devices and your own iCloud account. We can’t see them. The only thing the app sends us is a small amount of anonymous usage data so we know what’s working, and there is no way for us to tie it to you. We don’t sell anything to anyone, and there are no ads or third-party trackers.
CrumbDB is made by one person, Dan Ryan. This policy covers the CrumbDB app on iPhone and Mac and this website. It’s adapted from the Prideraiser privacy policy, itself based on Automattic’s, and shared under a Creative Commons ShareAlike license. Reuse it if it helps, but make it say what you actually do.
What the app can access on your device
CrumbDB asks for four permissions, and you can decline any of them. The app is less useful without some, but it never needs all of them to run.
- Photos. To find photos that have no location, and to write a location into the ones you choose. You can grant access to your whole library or only to selected photos.
- Location. To record where your iPhone has been, so those places can be matched to photos taken at the same time. The app asks for “Always” access so it can keep recording when it isn’t on screen.
- Health. To read the routes of workouts like hikes and rides. CrumbDB never writes anything to Health.
- Notifications. To tell you when a background check has found new matches. Off by default.
Where that data goes
Nowhere we can reach. Location records, imported workout routes, and the app’s match results are stored on your device and synced between your devices through your private iCloud database, using Apple’s CloudKit. That database belongs to your Apple ID; we have no access to it and no way to get any. Photos stay in your photo library. Health data is read on the device and never stored anywhere else.
If you delete the app’s location records from Settings, they are deleted from iCloud too. Deleting the app removes what is on that device; your iCloud data can be removed through iCloud settings under Manage Storage.
What we do collect
The app sends anonymous usage events to a server we run, so we can tell which features get used and whether anything is failing. Each event is something like “a recording session started,” “a photo match finished and took this long,” or “an error of this kind happened.” Along with the events, the app sends:
- an install identifier. This is the “vendor identifier” Apple gives each developer for your device, which is not connected to your Apple ID or your name and resets if you delete all of our apps. If the system can’t provide one, the app makes up a random one instead;
- the device model and operating system version.
It does not send locations, photos, workout data, file names, or any identifier we could use to work out who you are. Events are batched and sent occasionally, and the app keeps working if the server can’t be reached.
To stop bots from flooding that server, the app uses Apple’s App Attest service to prove a request came from a genuine copy of CrumbDB. App Attest shares nothing about you with us.
Our server sees your IP address when it receives a batch, as every server does. We don’t use it for anything and we don’t keep it beyond routine short-lived logs.
How long we keep it
Usage events are kept for up to twelve months and then deleted. They contain nothing that identifies you, so there is nothing of yours to look up or remove. Privacy Choices covers how to turn them off.
Purchases
CrumbDB Pro is bought through the App Store. Apple handles payment, and we never see your card, billing address, or Apple ID. Apple gives the app a signed receipt that says whether Pro is active, and that receipt is checked on your device.
This website
This site is a few static pages. It sets no cookies, loads no analytics script, and embeds nothing from third parties. Our hosting provider keeps the ordinary short-lived request logs any host does.
Children
CrumbDB isn’t directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13. There is nothing in the app to collect it with.
Your choices
Every permission can be revoked, location records can be deleted from inside the app, usage data can be switched off, and Pro can be cancelled. Privacy Choices walks through each one.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you and ask us to delete it. Because the only thing we hold is anonymous usage data, the honest answer is usually “nothing we could connect to you,” but ask anyway and we’ll show you. If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you also have the right to complain to your data protection authority.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we’ll note it in the changelog below and on this site before the change takes effect. Small clarifications may happen without notice.
Contact
Questions go to crumbdb@dryan.com.
Changelog
- September 11, 2026: First version.