Gara / Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Gara is operated by Daniel Roci, Sweden, responsible for the personal information described here. Contact gara.support@gmail.com for privacy questions and requests.

Operator contact address: Sjöfrökens väg 24, 145 54 Norsborg, Sweden.

Current testing supports verified email-code sign-in and email/password sign-in after a password is set, plus Apple and Google when available in the installed app. Older builds may not include every method. Public registration remains closed. Chat and performance screens are temporarily hidden, although existing records can remain.

1. Information and its uses

• Account: email, verified authentication identity, account identifiers and sign-in/session information are used to authenticate you and associate records with your account. A Gara password, when set or used, is sent to Supabase Auth for authentication; Gara does not save it in profile or social records or intentionally log it. Password setup requires a fresh email verification code. Email-code sign-in remains available for recovery. Apple or Google sign-in, when offered and chosen, supplies provider identity information and an email address; Apple may supply a private relay address. Gara does not ask for your Apple, Google or Gmail password.
• Profile and garage: display name, username, chosen profile photo, vehicle details and images, and preferences such as language, measurement units and map style support your profile and app experience.
• Social information: posts, captions, photos, comments, likes, follows, friendship requests and relationships support the social feed. Existing messaging records include participants, message text and read status. Notifications include activity references and read status. Hidden screens are not a claim that their existing records have been erased.
• Routes and drives: route names, descriptions, surface, location, coordinates, distance, creator and audience support route discovery and navigation. Saved drives contain the route reference, date, duration, calculated speed statistics and GPS samples. These support personal history and the driving map, not public-road speed competition.
• Support and safety: support emails, report reasons, content references and copies of reported text/photos/profile or message information support requests and abuse investigation. Blocking records support contact and visibility restrictions.

Session information, preferences and some saved items or cached data also remain on your device. This is not a promise that all local data is encrypted or stored in Keychain. Photo selection is initiated by a user action; only share images you have the right to use.

2. GPS and your profile driving map

With device location permission, Gara uses foreground location for the map, nearby discovery and navigation. Route runs record only after you deliberately start one. During private testing, you can separately enable “Map drives automatically” in Settings. This requests Always location permission and uses background GPS and iPhone motion classification to detect drives, including when Gara is not open. Samples may include precise latitude/longitude, timestamp, accuracy, speed and heading. Confirmed automatic tracks are saved locally on your iPhone for your private profile Driving Map, not for rankings or public-road speed competition. This setting is off by default. It may miss trips when iOS limits background activity, after force-quitting the app, or where GPS or motion data is insufficient; it is not a guaranteed journey log.

The owner’s driving map combines saved route-run traces with local automatic-drive tracks when enabled. Another driver’s profile does not receive your raw automatic GPS trace or this private driving history. Automatic tracks currently do not sync to Gara’s server or to another device. Display limits and date filters do not delete the underlying saved drives.

You can turn automatic mapping off and erase its locally saved tracks in Gara Settings. You can also change location or photo permissions in iPhone Settings. Denying location limits location-dependent features. Revoking permission stops future permission-dependent access; it does not itself delete saved records. Uninstalling Gara removes locally stored automatic tracks but not account records held by Gara. Shared routes, route images and photos can still reveal places you visit, even when your raw trace is private.

3. Who can see information

Signed-in, non-blocked users can view profile and garage information under the current access rules. Social posts and routes have audience rules: public means visible to other authorized signed-in users, friends means accepted Gara friendships, and private routes are creator-only. Following is directional and does not grant friendship access. Newly saved routes currently default to friends; do not assume every supported audience can be selected in every screen.

Raw recorded drive GPS is owner-only under ordinary app access. Messages are restricted to their participants, subject to blocking. Reported content may be copied into the restricted operator report queue for review, including a message selected for reporting. Operational access needed to manage the service is separate from ordinary user visibility.

Blocking restricts contact and affected visibility in both directions and removes follow/friend relationships. Unblocking does not restore those relationships automatically. Gara cannot erase screenshots or copies another person has made outside the service.

4. Services receiving information

• Supabase: account authentication and the database holding profile, social, route, saved-drive and reporting records, including uploaded photos currently stored with database records. The current project’s primary database is in West EU (Ireland). This does not mean every service log, subprocessor or other copy stays in the EU.
• Resend: delivery of account verification emails, including recipient email and delivery-related information. Resend states that email content and delivery records are stored in the United States; selecting a European sending region does not move that storage to the EU. Gara’s account currently uses its Free transactional plan. Resend documents 30-day email/log retention while this plan is active and seven-day backups; these provider windows are separate from Gara’s support-mail and report-evidence retention. Its processing agreement is incorporated on signup, and its published terms describe transfer safeguards. Gara’s transfer assessment still requires confirmation. See Resend’s data-processing information.
• Mapbox: map rendering, road directions, route images, terrain and traffic lookups. Requests disclose requested map areas and/or route coordinates, along with technical connection information. Owner-only GPS rules do not mean map requests stay inside Gara’s database.
• Apple and Google: their sign-in services when selected. iPhone location and reverse-geocoding services are also used for device positioning and location names.
• Vercel: website hosting, receiving web requests and technical information such as IP address. The marketing homepage loads Google Fonts, which creates requests to Google; these document pages use local styles and system-font fallbacks.
• Google Gmail: the support mailbox, processing information you choose to email.

Planned automatic content checks — not yet active: Gara has prepared Microsoft Azure AI Content Safety in Sweden Central to assess new or changed profile text/photos, posts, comments, garage content and route descriptions for selected harmful-content categories. This service is currently disabled; Gara has not sent user content to it. Before activation, Gara will update this notice and the app. The planned checks send only the text or still photo being assessed, not account emails, sign-in credentials, GPS traces or private messages. Photo metadata will be stripped first, but visible faces, number plates and other information in the picture can still be personal data. Microsoft states that inputs to its direct Content Safety detection APIs are not stored or used to train models; this is not a promise about every Gara record, support report or provider log. Automated checks can make mistakes and do not replace reports, blocking or operator review. Contact gara.support@gmail.com to question a content decision. Applicable processing terms, transfer arrangements and the operating review process must be checked before this feature is enabled.

Requests and SDKs can involve provider logs and device/network information. Gara does not promise EU-only storage or that disabling optional telemetry stops map, direction, email or website requests. Resend stores account-email information in the United States; other suppliers may process information outside the EEA. The applicable provider roles, transfer arrangements and safeguards are being checked before public registration opens. Contact Gara for information about a particular transfer.

Mapbox telemetry: Mapbox documents default collection of de-identified location and usage data by its mobile SDK. Gara’s updated map setup requests that optional SDK telemetry be disabled before its map views mount and keeps provider attribution enabled. The installed development app loaded the map with attribution visible, and its native telemetry preference read disabled. Signed-release and network-level checks remain pending; this does not mean all provider collection stops. Map, directions and route-image requests still disclose information needed for those services. See Mapbox’s mobile SDK guidance.

5. Why Gara uses information

These purposes have different legal grounds under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A device permission or agreement to the Terms is not blanket privacy consent.

• Providing requested account features — contract, Article 6(1)(b): authenticating an account and providing the route, navigation, saved-history and social functions you choose, only to the extent the information is necessary for that particular function. Optional profile photos, vehicle details, uploads and sharing are not conditions for every function. Precise location is needed for location-dependent navigation and recorded drive traces, not for reading this website or contacting Support.
• Protecting users and the service — legitimate interests, Article 6(1)(f): proportionate website and account security, abuse reports and blocking. The interests are preventing unauthorized access and harmful contact, investigating the specific content reported, and allowing review of a decision. This does not justify monitoring every private message, collecting unrelated GPS history for a report or keeping allegations indefinitely. Report-evidence minimization and retention safeguards must be reviewed before public registration.
• Responding to statutory privacy requests — legal obligation, Article 6(1)(c): necessary processing to comply with applicable GDPR duties, including facilitating and responding to requests under Articles 12–22. This does not authorize unnecessary identity documents or indefinite retention of a request.

Not providing account-verification information prevents account sign-in. Not providing an optional upload or vehicle detail means that item will not appear. Denying location limits positioning, nearby discovery, navigation and drive recording; it does not erase older records.

Gara requests that optional Mapbox SDK telemetry be disabled; it does not use optional telemetry as a condition of access. Required map, email, hosting and sign-in requests still occur when their respective features are used. The homepage’s Google Fonts request is separate from account features. Provider roles, transfers and minimization are under review before public registration.

6. Deletion and retention

In a supported beta build, use Settings → Account → Delete account. The implemented flow requests recent reauthentication and calls a server deletion process for the authenticated account and linked profile-owned database records. For an Apple-linked account, the flow also requests Apple confirmation and requires successful server-side Apple authorization revocation before deleting the account. If confirmation or deletion fails, Gara must not report success; retry or contact Support. Signed-device end-to-end deletion verification is still pending.

Sign-out clears the active local session, but is not account deletion. Turning automatic mapping off stops future recording through that feature; use its separate erase control to remove locally saved automatic tracks. Uninstalling the app is not deletion of records held by Gara or its providers.

While public sign-in is closed, or if you cannot access your account, contact gara.support@gmail.com to request deletion. Requests concerning older prototype records also require enough information to locate and verify the relevant record; new accounts cannot claim those records.

Account, profile, social, route and saved-drive records are kept while needed for the account and requested features, unless removed sooner or an applicable deletion request is fulfilled. There is no established automatic inactivity deadline or individual-drive deletion control. A verified account-deletion request removes linked profile-owned database records through the implemented server process, subject to separately justified records and provider copies. This process still needs full signed-device testing before public registration.

The restricted report queue can retain copies of selected content and target references after account deletion; removing the reporter link does not necessarily anonymize the evidence. For ordinary cases, a database closure now sets an expiry date 90 days later. No case is automatically closed or deleted: an operator must review and run cleanup. Older cases may not yet have closure dates. A longer hold needs a specific reason and finite review date. Earlier valid erasure requests are considered separately; they are not automatically delayed for 90 days.

Daniel intends to review ordinary support email and report evidence for deletion 90 days after the case closes. That mailbox routine is not automated or yet verified. Provider logs, backups and device caches have separate retention rules; Resend’s stated Free-plan email/log and backup windows are listed above, but they are not a deadline for every Gara copy. Contact gara.support@gmail.com about a specific record or deletion request.

7. Your privacy rights

Under applicable data-protection law, you may request information and access, correction, erasure, restriction, portability where applicable, and object to qualifying processing. If processing relies on consent, you may withdraw it without affecting earlier lawful processing. Rights have conditions and exceptions; they are not all available for every record or purpose.

Email gara.support@gmail.com. Include enough information to identify your account and request; ownership may need verification. Never send a sign-in code or password. Do not send identity documents unless a suitable secure process is specifically arranged. Gara will respond without undue delay and normally within one month of receiving a privacy-rights request. Where the law permits an extension for a complex request or multiple requests, Gara will explain the extension and its reason within the first month.

You can complain to Sweden’s Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten (IMY) or another competent supervisory authority.

8. Age, launch and changes

Gara’s minimum account age is 18; the service is not intended for people under 18. If you believe an underage person has an account, contact gara.support@gmail.com. A self-declaration is not age verification, and underage-account handling remains part of launch work.

Gara intends to launch worldwide, but public registration is not open and local requirements are still being reviewed. Material changes to this notice will be posted here with a new effective date; where required, Gara will notify affected account holders or seek a new choice before the changed processing begins. This public notice does not mean the app is ready for store submission.