Privacy Policy
Last updated: 1 November 2026
Atlas ("the app") finds the countries you've been to in the photos on your iPhone. This policy explains, in plain language, what the app does and does not do with your information.
The short version
Atlas does not collect, store, transmit, or share any personal data. There are no accounts, no servers, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking. The app reads your photo library on your iPhone, and everything it works out stays on your iPhone. The app's only connection is Apple's App Store, for the optional tips (see "Tips" below).
Your photo library
With your permission, the app reads the date and location saved with each photo and video in your library, to work out which countries and which towns or cities they were taken in. It matches each location against country borders and a list of towns and cities built into the app, on your iPhone. You can give access to all your photos or only to the ones you select.
When you open a trip, the app shows that trip's photos from your library, at the size they are drawn. It never copies your pictures or changes your library. When you look at a photo kept only in iCloud ("Optimise iPhone Storage"), Photos downloads it from your own iCloud library, as it does in the Photos app.
You can change or turn off photo access at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security › Photos.
What the app saves
The app keeps four small files in its own storage on your iPhone:
- the countries and visits it found;
- your own changes (countries you added or removed, edited visit counts, trips you merged, and the photos you hid);
- for each photo it counted, the photo's library ID, its date, its country and its town or city, so a trip or a city can show its photos (no coordinates and no image data);
- your Photo sources settings.
It also remembers the list order, a few settings of the last scan, and how often the app has just been useful to you (a scan that found countries, a shared picture), which decides when it asks for a rating. None of this is sent anywhere or accessible to the developer.
Sharing and copying
When you share your map, one country, or a video of your globe, the app draws it on your iPhone and hands it to iOS. It goes only where you send it. Copy flags puts only the flag emoji on the clipboard. The optional Instagram Story button puts the story picture on the clipboard for five minutes, for Instagram to pick up, and then opens Instagram.
Ratings and email
Now and then the app may ask you to rate it, using Apple's standard rating prompt; Apple handles any rating you give. Rate Atlas opens the App Store, and Email the developer opens a new message in your mail app with the app and iOS version filled in. The app itself sends nothing: an email reaches the developer only if you send it.
Tips
Atlas is free. It offers three optional tips, which are in-app purchases. A tip unlocks nothing. To show their prices and to take a payment, the app uses Apple's App Store. Apple processes the payment; the developer never receives your name, payment details or Apple Account. The app keeps no record of your tips. Apple's privacy policy covers the purchase itself.
Analytics, advertising, and tracking
The app contains no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. It does not use the Advertising Identifier (IDFA), does not include any analytics or advertising SDKs, and does not follow you across other apps or websites.
Data retention and deletion
Because all data stays on your device, you are always in control of it:
- Hide a photo or a trip in the app to stop counting it; Photo sources › Show all again brings it back.
- Reset manual changes from the app's menu.
- Deleting the app from your iPhone permanently removes everything it saved. Your photos stay in your library.
The developer holds no copy of your data and so cannot access, restore, or delete it for you.
Children's privacy
Atlas does not collect any personal information from anyone, including children.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this same address with a revised date.
Contact
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact: