Privacy Policy
CarPilot is a driving dashboard application designed to present driving-related information using data available from your device. This Privacy Policy explains what information CarPilot may process, why it is processed, and the choices available to you.
Information CarPilot processes
Depending on the features you use and the permissions you grant, CarPilot may process:
- Location data, such as current location, speed, heading, altitude, route, and trip distance, to provide driving information and trip summaries.
- Motion and sensor data, such as acceleration, device attitude, pitch, roll, and related motion measurements, to provide smoothness, G-force, inclinometer, and other driving metrics.
- Trip information, such as trip duration, distance, speed statistics, elevation changes, smoothness metrics, and related summaries generated from device sensor data.
- Technical information that may be generated by the operating system or service providers when needed to operate, secure, diagnose, or improve the app.
How information is used
CarPilot uses information only as reasonably necessary to provide and improve app functionality, including displaying live driving metrics, generating trip summaries, providing safety-related or road-related alerts, diagnosing technical problems, and maintaining app reliability.
Permissions
CarPilot requests access to device capabilities only when they are needed for a feature. You can review or revoke permissions such as Location or Motion & Fitness at any time in your phone’s settings (iOS Settings, or Android Settings → Apps → CarPilot → Permissions). Some CarPilot features may not work when the related permission is disabled.
Data storage and retention
CarPilot may store app settings and trip-related information on your device. If a CarPilot feature uses cloud services, information required for that feature may be transmitted to and processed by the relevant service provider. Information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it is processed, unless a longer period is required by law.
iCloud backup of your trips
If your iPhone is signed in to iCloud with iCloud Drive turned on, CarPilot keeps a copy of each finished trip — its summary and its route — in your own iCloud account, so the trips come back on a new phone or after reinstalling the app. This copy is stored by Apple under your Apple Account in a space only CarPilot on your devices can use; it is not sent to us and we cannot read it. You can turn it off in Settings → Trips; trips you delete on a phone are also removed from iCloud. On Android, the same trip files are included in Android’s own backup to your Google account (only the trips, nothing else from the app); it follows your phone’s backup setting, and we cannot read it either.
Live location sharing
If you tap the share key during a trip, CarPilot creates a temporary web link and, while the share is active, sends your precise current position, speed and heading — together with the last two to three minutes of your track — to our Firebase (Google Cloud) project every few seconds. Anyone who has the link can open it in a browser and see where you are and, if they allow their own browser to use their location, how far away you are; their location is computed on their device and is never sent to us or to you. Sharing is off by default, only starts when you tap the key, is shown on the dashboard the whole time it is on, and stops when you tap stop, when the trip ends, or after twelve hours at the latest. When it stops the position is removed and the link no longer shows anything; the record itself is deleted automatically shortly after. The share is not linked to your name or any account — the writer is an anonymous identifier that maps to nothing else.
Enforcement point warnings
In Taiwan, CarPilot warns you before you reach a published traffic-enforcement point. This works entirely on your device. The list of positions is built into the app, and your location is compared with it locally — no request is sent to us or to anyone else to look a point up, and your position is not transmitted in order to warn you.
Reporting an enforcement point
If you tap the report key on the dashboard, CarPilot sends the current coordinate and the kind of point you are reporting to our Firebase (Google Cloud) project, so that a missing or wrongly placed point can be corrected in a later release. Nothing else goes with it: no route, no trip, no name, no account, and the writer is an anonymous identifier that maps to nothing else. It happens only when you tap the key — each report is a separate, deliberate action, and reports are never sent automatically or in the background.
Uploading a trip for review
On a finished trip's report you can tap upload. That sends the route of that trip and the list of warnings the app spoke during it to the same project, so we can check the warnings against the road and fix ones that were wrong. The route is trimmed at both ends — so it does not begin or end at your door — and thinned before it is sent, and it carries no name or account.
This is per trip and off by default: a trip is uploaded only when you tap upload for that trip, unless you turn on “Help improve CarPilot” (below). If the upload fails, nothing is queued or retried in the background; the material needed to retry stays on your device and you can upload it again from the trip history for up to seven days, after which it is deleted and the trip can no longer be uploaded.
Help improve CarPilot (automatic trip sharing)
CarPilot asks once — on the last page of the introduction, or after a trip for people who installed an earlier version — whether you want to help improve the app. It is off unless you say yes, and you can turn it off at any time in Settings under “Help improve CarPilot”.
While it is on, every trip you finish is uploaded the same way as a trip you upload by hand (above): the route, trimmed at both ends and thinned, the speeds along it and the warnings the app spoke, the trip's length and the app version. It carries no name, account or device identifier, so two trips cannot be linked to each other or to you. We use these trips to make warnings more accurate, and we combine them with other drivers' trips into an aggregated traffic heat map that anyone can see; a road segment appears on that map only when several different trips cover it, and the beginnings and ends of trips are never drawn. Because an uploaded trip carries nothing that identifies you, we cannot find or delete the trips that came from you; turning the setting off stops all future uploads.
Satisfaction survey
After a trip of ten minutes or more, CarPilot may ask how the drive went, at most once every thirty days. If you answer, it sends your score (1 to 5), the options you ticked, the optional text you typed, the app version and platform, the trip's length in minutes and the dashboard layout. It sends no location and no identifier. You can skip it, and nothing is sent when you do. Please do not type personal details into the text box.
Usage and crash reports
CarPilot uses Google Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics. Analytics receives counts of how the app is used — for example that a trip started or ended, its duration and distance, which layout was used, which settings were changed, and whether a share card was opened — together with an app-instance identifier generated by Firebase. Crashlytics receives a report when the app crashes: the stack trace, the app version, the device model and system version. Neither receives your location, your route or your trips, and neither is used for advertising or for tracking you across other companies’ apps.
Third-party services
CarPilot may rely on Apple and Google platform services (on Android, including the Google Maps SDK to draw the map) and other infrastructure providers to operate certain features. This website and, on iOS from version 1.2, the uploads described on this page (live location sharing, enforcement reports, trip uploads and survey answers) pass through our own server at api.carpilot.cc, which runs on Cloudflare and stores them in our Firebase (Google Cloud) project; Cloudflare processes the request, including the network address it comes from, only to deliver it. These providers may process limited technical or service data under their own privacy terms. CarPilot does not sell your personal information and does not use your precise location for third-party advertising.
Weather and external data
To show current conditions, CarPilot sends an approximate position — rounded to about one kilometre, with no identifier attached — to the Open-Meteo weather service. Nothing else about you or your trips leaves the device. Requests to that service may involve network information normally transmitted as part of an internet connection.
Your choices and deletion requests
You can stop future collection of permission-based data by changing CarPilot's permissions in your phone’s settings. You may also remove locally stored app data by deleting the app, subject to your phone’s normal behavior (including any backup you have turned on, described above). For questions about data associated with CarPilot, or to request access, correction, or deletion where applicable, please use the contact method listed on the Support page.
Children
CarPilot is not directed to children and is intended for users who can lawfully and safely use a driving-related application.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as CarPilot changes. The effective date at the top of this page will be updated when material revisions are made.
Contact
For privacy questions or requests, please visit the CarPilot Support page.