Privacy Policy

Last updated 16 September 2026

Explorae is made by Nabeel Shehzad (Apptreo), who is responsible for your information under this policy. It covers the Explorae app for Android and iPhone, and the files it downloads.

Where you are

Explorae asks your phone for its location in two situations, and only once you've allowed it:

• When you ask, by tapping I'm here or Use my location.
• When you open the app, if location is already allowed, to offer a one-tap “You're in Lahore. Log a visit?” It asks about a city at most once a day.

In both cases the position is matched to a city on your phone, against map data stored in the app. Your position isn't sent anywhere to do this. Explorae never reads your location in the background or while it's closed.

A visit logged this way keeps the position with it, on your phone. It only leaves your phone if you sign in, as described below.

Your visits

Each visit is a place, a date, how it was logged, and an optional note you write. Explorae also keeps your home city and how often you'd been somewhere before you started logging. All of this is stored in a database on your phone.

If you're signed out, that's where it stays.

Signing in and backup

Signing in is optional. If you sign in with Google:

• Your account. Google shares your name, email address and profile picture with the app, and a user ID is created for you in Firebase Authentication. These identify your account and show who's signed in. They're not used for anything else.
• Your map. Your visits, notes, home city and earlier-visit counts are copied to your own private space in Google Cloud Firestore, hosted in Doha, Qatar, so your map follows you to a new phone. Only your account can read or change it; the database's security rules enforce that.
• Locations are rounded to two decimal places — about a kilometre — before they're uploaded, and the database refuses anything more precise. The exact position stays on your phone.

What the app sends for everyone

These happen whether or not you sign in, and none of them include your visits or your location:

• App settings. Firebase Remote Config fetches a few settings we can change without an app update, such as where country maps are downloaded from. Like all Firebase services, it uses a random installation ID, which isn't linked to your name or account.
• Security checks. Firebase App Check uses Google Play Integrity on Android, and Apple's App Attest on iPhone, to confirm requests come from the genuine app. This protects your backup from misuse.
• Crash reports, unless you turn them off. When the app crashes, Firebase Crashlytics sends the error and where in the code it happened, along with the phone model, operating system and app version. Reports carry no user ID, no app logs and no location: anything in an error message that looks like a coordinate is removed before it's sent. Turn them off in Settings → Send crash reports.

Country maps

If you download a country's city map, the app fetches a map file from our website over an encrypted connection. Nothing about you or your visits is sent with the request. As with any website, the server records standard request details, such as your IP address and the time, which our web host keeps for a short while for security and troubleshooting.

What Explorae doesn't do

• No advertising, and no advertising ID.
• No analytics or tracking SDKs.
• No selling, renting or sharing your information with anyone for their own use.
• No access to your contacts, photos, messages or files, except a backup file you choose to export or restore.

Who processes your information

Firebase and Google Cloud, run by Google, provide sign-in, backup, settings, security checks and crash reports on our behalf, under Google's terms and Firebase's privacy commitments. Our web host serves the country map files. None of them are allowed to use your information for their own purposes.

We'd only disclose information if the law required it.

How long it's kept

• Visits on your phone stay until you delete them, delete all data, or uninstall the app.
• Your backup stays until you delete your account, which removes it straight away.
• Crash reports are kept by Crashlytics for 90 days.

Your choices

• Export everything in Settings → Export backup.
• Delete a visit from its city's page on the map.
• Delete all data on this phone in Settings → Delete all data.
• Delete your account and its backup in Settings → Delete account, or ask us to do it if you no longer have the app.
• Stop crash reports in Settings → Send crash reports.
• Turn off location for Explorae in your phone's settings. The app keeps working; you add visits by searching instead.

Wherever you live, you can ask what we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it, by emailing us. We'll reply within 30 days.

Security

Everything the app sends travels over encrypted connections. Your backup can only be reached by your signed-in account. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep what we collect to the minimum the app needs.

Children

Explorae isn't made for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them. If you think a child has signed in, email us and we'll delete the account.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update it here and change the date at the top. Changes to how your information is used will also be described in the app's release notes.

Contact

Nabeel Shehzad · Apptreo · Daska, Pakistan
nabeelshahzad88@gmail.com