Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 31, 2026

SPOT is a planning app that builds personalized itineraries, “I know a SPOT.” This policy explains what information SPOT uses and how it is handled. SPOT is built privacy-first: what you save stays on your device, and planning requests never carry your identity.

The short version

• Everything you save in SPOT lives on your iPhone, and is backed up to your own iCloud so it follows you between your devices.
• There is no SPOT account server today. We cannot read your iCloud, and neither can anyone else.
• Building a plan may send your planning request (never your name, email, or account) to our AI provider, see “How plans are built” below.
• SPOT does not sell or rent your data, show ads, use third-party analytics or tracking, or track you across other apps and websites.

Information SPOT uses

SPOT only uses what it needs to plan, and only with your permission:

• Location (if you allow it): to find places near you, center the map, and understand where a plan is happening. Location is used to query maps in the moment; it is not stored on any SPOT server.
• Calendar (if you allow it): SPOT can read your events for a day you choose so it can plan around what you have already booked, and can add planned stops to your calendar. This stays on your device.
• Photos (if you choose a profile photo): the photo you pick is stored locally on your device.
• Sign in with Apple (optional): if you sign in to save your SPOTs, your name and email are stored on your device and backed up to your own iCloud (see iCloud backup below). Because SPOT has no account server, this information is never uploaded to us.
• Your preferences and plans: your home city, neighborhood, tastes, the places you mark as must-sees or want to repeat, any occasions you add (such as a birthday or a friend visiting, with their dates), and the itineraries you create are stored on your device and backed up to your own iCloud (see iCloud backup below).

iCloud backup

So your SPOTs follow you between your own devices and survive reinstalling the app, SPOT backs the following up to your own iCloud, using Apple’s key-value storage:

• your account details (name, email, home city, neighborhood)
• your saved itineraries
• the places you have saved
• your taste preferences, pace, and dietary needs
• the occasions you add, with their dates
• a record of what you planned and saved in the app, which is what SPOT learns your taste from

This is your iCloud account, not ours. Gastronaut Labs cannot read it, and it is covered by Apple’s privacy terms. Your profile photo is kept as a file on your device and is included only in your normal encrypted iPhone backup. If you would rather SPOT did not use iCloud at all, turn it off for SPOT in iOS Settings under your Apple Account; the app keeps working entirely on the device.

How plans are built

SPOT uses a hybrid engine. Many plans are generated entirely on your iPhone using Apple’s on-device intelligence, nothing leaves the device. Some plans, longer multi-day trips, a limited number of plans each day, and plans on iPhones without Apple Intelligence, are built by one of our AI providers (OpenAI’s GPT by default, or Anthropic’s Claude for larger plans), reached through SPOT’s own relay server.

When a plan is built in the cloud, the request contains only what is needed to plan: your brief, the kind of outing, your picks (budget, who’s going, dietary needs), must-see place names, your taste preferences, a weather note, and the destination city. It is never linked to your name, email, account, or any device identifier. SPOT’s relay server stores nothing; the request is processed to generate your plan under the provider’s commercial API terms and is not used to train AI models.

Information shared with third parties

To function, SPOT sends limited, non-identifying requests to:

• Apple Maps / MapKit, for place search, address lookup, directions, and to confirm a suggested place is a real, existing venue. Governed by Apple’s privacy policy.
• Open-Meteo, the coordinates of the area you are planning, to fetch a weather forecast and local daylight for your trip date.
• Foursquare, the coordinates of the area you are planning, to look up real venue details such as names, categories, and hours.
• OpenStreetMap, the coordinates of the area you are planning, to fetch published opening hours for nearby venues. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
• Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, the coordinates of the area you are planning and a city name, to work out how big a place is, which real cities are near it, and which photograph should stand in for it. Wikidata is public domain (CC0). Each photograph is credited to its photographer, with its licence, on the photo itself.
• Nager.Date, your destination’s country and the year, to check public holidays that may affect what is open.
• Unsplash and Pexels, city and place names, to fetch destination and background photos.
• OpenAI, the planning request described in “How plans are built” above, for cloud-built plans only. OpenAI is the default cloud model. Sent via SPOT’s relay server, with no personal identifiers.
• Anthropic (Claude), the planning request described in “How plans are built” above, used when a plan needs the larger model. Sent via SPOT’s relay server, with no personal identifiers.

These requests include only what is needed to return a result (for example, a place name or a city) , not your name, your account, or other personal identifiers.

Data retention and your choices

• Your data lives on your device and in your own iCloud. Deleting the app removes the copy on your device, but it does not clear the iCloud copy, so reinstalling SPOT restores it. To remove the iCloud copy, turn off iCloud for SPOT in iOS Settings under your Apple Account, or delete SPOT’s iCloud data there.
• You can sign out at any time, which removes saved account information from the device.
• You can revoke Location, Calendar, or Photos access at any time in iOS Settings.
• Reminders are local notifications scheduled on your device; you can turn them off in the app or in iOS Settings.

Children

SPOT is not directed to children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as SPOT evolves. We will revise the effective date above and reflect any material changes here.

Contact

Questions about your privacy or this policy? Email admin@gastronautlabs.com.