Privacy policy

The short version: Routes works fully without an account, shows no ads, and never tracks you across other apps or sells your data. You can browse, save, and log roads with no sign-in at all. If you choose to create a Routes account, your own data syncs to it so it shows here on the website and on your other devices, and you can delete all of it any time. Here’s the detail.

Using Routes without an account

You can browse, save, and log roads with no account and no sign-in. The roads you save and the drives you log (your Passport) are stored on your device, and if you’re signed in to iCloud they sync privately across your Apple devices through Apple’s CloudKit, in your own private iCloud account. That data lives in your iCloud; I cannot see it.

The optional Routes account

If you create a Routes account (by signing in with Apple, Google, or an emailed code), your content also syncs to my backend so it appears here on the website and on your other devices. In that case I store, linked to your account and only ever accessible to you: your email address and name from the sign-in provider; your saved and driven roads, your notes and ratings, and your Garage car names; and, for a recorded drive, the route line you drove (its GPS path) so the drive can show on a map. This is your own data and is never used for advertising. It stays private to you unless you choose to turn on a public profile, described next. You can delete your account and all of this data at any time from Account, then Delete Account, which removes it from my backend, your device, and your iCloud.

Public profiles

You can turn on a public profile at bestdrivingroads.com/@yourusername. It is off by default and entirely optional. When you turn it on, anyone who opens your profile can see the display name, username, and avatar you chose, which roads from the catalogue you have saved and driven, the road trips you have built, and your totals. Nothing else is ever shown: your email, your notes and ratings, your Garage car names, and the GPS routes of any drives you have recorded all stay private. You can switch your profile back to private, or delete it, at any time from Account, and it stops being shown straight away. One detail worth knowing about the avatar: the image file itself is served from a public web address, the way most sites serve profile pictures. The address contains a random id that nobody can guess, and it is deleted when you delete your account or remove the photo, but if you have shared that address with someone it stays reachable even after you switch your profile back off. Remove the photo if that matters to you.

The newsletter

The newsletter is separate from your account and entirely optional. If you ask for it, on the website or by ticking the box when you create an account, your email address goes to Buttondown, the service that sends it, along with the page you signed up on and your IP address, which Buttondown uses to spot spam sign-ups. Buttondown emails you once to confirm, and nothing else arrives until you do. After that it is the occasional email about what’s new on the Routes website and app, nothing more. Every email has an unsubscribe link that takes you off the list straight away. Deleting your Routes account doesn’t unsubscribe you by itself, so unsubscribe first, or email me and I’ll take you off.

Location

Routes uses your location on your device to show where you are on the map, sort roads by distance, and power Drive Mode. Your location stays on your device, with one exception: if you record a drive while signed in to a Routes account, that drive’s route line (above) is saved to your account so it can show on the web. The app only ever asks for location while you’re using it.

Weather and maps

In the app, weather and the best-days-to-drive forecast come from MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute), used under their open data licence. Maps are Apple MapKit.

Purchases

Routes Pro is sold through Apple’s App Store, as an annual subscription or a one-off lifetime purchase. Apple handles the payment and your subscription status. I never see your card number or payment details. On the web, Routes Pro is sold through Stripe. Your card details go straight to Stripe and never touch my servers. To take the payment Stripe also receives your email address and the billing address you enter at checkout, and it keeps a record of the transaction for as long as tax and accounting law requires, which is why deleting your Routes account cannot erase your payment history at Stripe. You can cancel any time from your account.

Anonymous analytics

To understand which features people use and where the app can be better, Routes collects anonymous usage statistics, for example which screens are opened, through TelemetryDeck, a privacy-focused analytics service. It records no personal data, no advertising identifier, and nothing that can identify you or your device, and it is never used for advertising or to track you across other apps. You can turn it off completely in the app under Account.

What Routes never does

No advertising. No ad trackers. No selling or sharing your data with anyone. The only data linked to you is what you put in your own Routes account (above), which is yours to delete, plus the anonymous analytics you can switch off.

Children

Routes is suitable for all ages. As always, drive responsibly and never use the app while driving.

This website

bestdrivingroads.com shows no ads and never sells your data. Maps come from Apple MapKit, and road pages fetch live weather from Open-Meteo using the road’s coordinates, never yours. To put the roads, collections and tours nearest you first, pages ask the site’s own server roughly where your connection is: the country and town your internet address points to, which the site’s host, Vercel, works out on every visit anyway. That answer is used on the page (the country also decides whether the monthly count below applies) and then forgotten. It is not stored, logged or saved as a cookie, and on a VPN it is simply the VPN’s location. The site uses two privacy-friendly analytics services to understand what gets used: Vercel counts visits, and TelemetryDeck counts anonymous events like map taps and searches. Neither stores your name, email, precise location, or anything that identifies you personally, and search text is never sent. Neither sets a cookie. Each page load makes up a random id in memory that is thrown away when you leave, so events on one page can be grouped together but you cannot be recognised by it on a later visit.

One small thing is stored on your device, and only if you are outside the EU and EEA: the month your browser was last counted (for example 2026-10), in local storage. The first page you open in a new month sends one anonymous count, saying whether this browser was counted last month, earlier or never. That is how I can tell how many people use the site each month, rather than only how many visits it gets. It holds no id and nothing that identifies you, it is used for nothing else, and the count itself goes to TelemetryDeck. UK law allows statistics-only storage like this without asking first, as long as you can turn it off, which you can here. In the EU and EEA nothing is stored, and pages only note that they were opened from there. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, nothing is stored or sent. That is why you won’t see a cookie banner here.

If you sign in on the website, your browser keeps the sign-in, and the site sets two cookies so you stay signed in when your browser clears what websites store (Safari, and every browser on iPhone and iPad, does that after about a week away). One holds the sign-in and only the site’s own server can read it; the other just says there is a sign-in to bring back. Next to the sign-in the page also keeps a short marker, so it only updates the server when the sign-in changes. None of them is used for anything else, and signing out removes them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy ever changes, I’ll update this page and the date at the top. Material changes will be reflected in a new app version where appropriate.

Photos you add

If you add a photo to a drive in your Passport, or a photo of a car in your Garage, it is stored in my Supabase project alongside the rest of your account data. Nobody else can see them unless you turn on a public profile. Deleting your account deletes the image files too, not just the database rows.

Who holds this data, and where

The data controller is Simon Keane, a sole trader at 22 Lower End, Leafield, Witney, OX29 9QJ, United Kingdom. Email simon@keane.studio.

Account data (your saved and driven roads, trips, Garage, profile and any photos) is hosted by Supabase on servers in London, United Kingdom, and is protected by row-level security so one account cannot read another’s. Payments are handled by Stripe. Anonymous product analytics go to TelemetryDeck. The newsletter list is held by Buttondown, which is based in the United States.

Why I’m allowed to hold it

Four lawful bases, and nothing else. Contract: your account and your Pro entitlement, because you cannot have an account without the data that makes it one. Legitimate interests: keeping the service working and understanding roughly which features get used, via analytics that carry no name, email or precise location. Legal obligation: Stripe’s payment and tax records. Consent: the newsletter, which you ask for and can stop any time.

How long I keep it

Account data lives for as long as your account does. Delete your account and it goes immediately, including your photos. Copies can persist briefly in my host’s routine encrypted backups before those rotate out. Anonymous analytics are retained by TelemetryDeck on their schedule and cannot be traced back to you. Stripe keeps payment records for as long as UK tax law requires, currently six years. Your newsletter address stays on the list until you unsubscribe.

Your rights

You can ask me for a copy of your data, ask me to correct it, ask me to delete it, ask me to restrict or object to how it is used, and ask for it in a portable format. Most of that you can do yourself from your account, including a full delete. For anything else email me at simon@keane.studio and I will answer within a month. If you think I have got it wrong, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, though I would rather you told me first so I can fix it.

Contact

Any questions about your privacy or this policy, email me at simon@keane.studio and I’ll come back to you personally.