Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 October 2026

TopoKit is developed by Nikolay Senilov. This policy says what TopoKit does with your information. The short version: your data is yours, it stays on your device, and I have no interest in changing that.

No account, no tracking

TopoKit has no account, no sign-in, no analytics or tracking, no advertising, and no server that receives your data. No request it makes carries a project.

Everything you make in TopoKit, including features, imported maps, recorded tracks, photos and settings, is stored on your device. Downloaded map tiles, downloaded elevation data and the basemaps TopoKit builds are stored on the device that fetched them.

iCloud sync

A project you keep in iCloud syncs between your iPhone and Mac through iCloud Drive under your own Apple Account, which is the system's traffic, not TopoKit's. A local project stays on the device that made it. iCloud Drive is Apple's and is covered by Apple's Privacy Policy. TopoKit does not have access to your iCloud data at any time.

Location

TopoKit asks for your location while it is in use, to show where you are on the map, to place a point where you stand and, on iPhone, to record tracks. While a track is recording, TopoKit keeps reading your location in the background. TopoKit does not collect your location. You can turn location access off at any time in your device's Settings.

Camera and photos

TopoKit asks for the camera to take photos and attach them to features, and for your photo library to attach photos you already have or, on iPhone, to save a photo from a feature to it. Photos are stored in the project on your device and sync with an iCloud project; TopoKit sends them nowhere. You can turn camera and photo library access off at any time in your device's Settings.

What TopoKit sends, and where

These are the only requests TopoKit makes.

• Apple Maps: the map imagery for the area on screen; every search, as you type it, with the area the map is showing, including text that matches your layers or reads as a coordinate; the coordinate of a spot you hold, to name the nearest place and its time zone; and for a route, each leg's two ends and the travel mode, and each stop's coordinate to name it. These requests are covered by Apple's Privacy Policy.
• The App Store: a check of what you own and the current prices, at launch, each time TopoKit returns to the foreground, and when you buy, restore or redeem a code.
• Elevation data: one file for each one-degree square, named by the square and carrying nothing else, whenever TopoKit downloads elevation. The data is Copernicus GLO-30, read from a public copy on Amazon Web Services.
• Map data for basemaps (Overture Maps): a listing to find the newest release, then only the parts of the data that cover the area you picked, sent with the app's name, version and platform. The same requests measure the download size before a build, and opening a built basemap's editor checks once for newer data. A basemap whose data is already on the device builds without them. The data is read from Overture's public copy on Amazon Web Services.
• topokit.ca: before any map-data request, TopoKit reads one small file that can point it to another copy of the map data or pause map-data downloads. The request carries a timestamp and the app's name, version and platform. If topokit.ca does not answer, TopoKit goes straight to the map data. This site is hosted on GitHub Pages, so that request reaches GitHub's servers.
• Tile and WMS servers you add: the tiles for the area on screen, a WMS service's capabilities when you connect to it, and for an offline download every tile in the area you chose, sent with the app's name, version and platform. You choose those servers, and what they do with the requests is theirs to say.
• Routes you hand off: Apple Maps receives the start, the end and the travel mode; another maps app also receives up to nine stops between them.
• Email you send: Send Feedback and Send Logs to Developer in Settings → Help & Feedback, and a crash report, each open a draft to support@topokit.ca in your own mail, and nothing goes until you send it. The diagnostic log can include project names, file paths and coordinates, and TopoKit says so before it attaches it; a crash report holds the app and system versions and where the crash happened, not your projects, your locations or the log.

TopoKit uses no analytics, no crash-reporting service and no advertising network. Crash reports come from the system and stay on the device until you answer. The diagnostic log stays on the device: it starts a new file at about 1 MB and keeps one earlier file, and Clear in View Logs deletes both.

Third-party libraries

TopoKit's coordinate systems come from the open-source NGA Projections and NGA Coordinate Reference Systems libraries and from PROJ. They run on the device and make no requests. Settings → About TopoKit → Licenses credits them, and the elevation and map data.

Children's privacy

TopoKit does not collect personal information from anyone, including children under the age of 13. TopoKit contains no age-restricted content.

Changes to this policy

If this privacy policy is updated, the revised version will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. Material changes will be noted in TopoKit's release notes on the App Store.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, contact me at support@topokit.ca.