How RouteMate handles your information

Who is responsible and how to contact us

RouteMate is operated as a closed beta. The operator's public legal and business details will be added before a broader public launch. For privacy questions, access or correction requests, deletion requests or complaints, privacy@route-mate.app.

Information RouteMate collects

• Account details: email address, authentication records, optional display name and route preferences.
• Location and route information: a location you enter or choose to share, generated route geometry, private saved routes and temporary exact route transfers.
• Optional voice input: on supported browsers, you can ask your browser's speech service to convert a spoken location or route request into editable text. RouteMate does not record, upload or store the microphone audio.
• Personal progress: completed activity date and type, optional planned or actual distance and time, broad route label, effort, enjoyment and private notes. RouteMate does not start live GPS or background tracking.
• Feedback and support: route feedback, ratings, comments and information you choose to provide when requesting help.
• Invited beta testing: a pseudonymous tester label and cohort, nominated reviewed-city focus, activation and last-use times, broad mobile/tablet/desktop and browser category, and a private link between an activated test session, its route searches and any post-outing feedback. RouteMate stores one-way hashes instead of the invitation and session tokens and does not store the full browser user-agent for this purpose.
• Technical and usage information: limited product events, service errors, capacity use, browser or device request information, security logs, and privacy-focused public-page visits, country and performance measurements needed to operate, protect and improve the service.

How and why information is used

Information is used to authenticate users, generate and rank route suggestions, display private saved routes and progress, respond to support and privacy requests, prevent abuse, manage provider capacity, investigate faults and improve route quality and usability. RouteMate does not sell personal information or use activity history for public rankings.

Current location is requested only after you choose that option. You can enter a place instead. The entered location is sent to a geocoding provider to resolve it, but RouteMate does not retain the typed text in its route-search history. Persisted search coordinates are reduced to an approximate three-decimal area.

Voice input starts only when you press its microphone control. Depending on your browser and device, speech recognition may be performed on the device or by a remote service operated by the browser provider, whose privacy terms also apply. RouteMate receives only the editable transcript placed in the form. It is not confirmed, interpreted or submitted until you choose the normal next action.

When a support inquiry is written in another language, an authorised RouteMate administrator may submit only the inquiry and draft reply text to a contracted translation service. Translation is started manually, used to understand the inquiry and prepare a response in the source language, and reviewed before sending. RouteMate does not store the translation workspace or translated text.

If you activate a private beta invitation, RouteMate uses a secure browser cookie to distinguish your invited testing from ordinary route history. This helps the operator assess whether searches produced routes, whether an outing received feedback, and whether a reported route issue needs review. It does not turn ordinary customer history into independent test evidence, add live tracking or expose the tester roster publicly.

Public website analytics

RouteMate uses a privacy-focused website analytics service on a small allowlist of public information and route-discovery pages to understand overall visits, page views, visitor country, referring site, device and browser category, and page performance. Automatic single-page route tracking is disabled, and the analytics service does not load on login, account, activity, saved-route, route-transfer, admin, API or other private pages.

RouteMate does not send account email addresses, entered locations, spoken or typed route requests, precise coordinates, route geometry, saved-route identifiers, transfer tokens, activity notes, feedback text, support-form content, photos, videos or personal captions to this public website analytics service.

Service providers and overseas processing

RouteMate relies on contracted service providers for application hosting and content delivery, account authentication and database storage, map display and place lookup, pedestrian route calculation, weather and air-quality context, privacy-focused public website analytics, support translation, and business email delivery. RouteMate publishes these functional categories rather than a technical provider inventory because providers can change while the purpose and privacy boundary remain the same.

RouteMate shares only the information reasonably needed for each function. It does not sell personal information and does not intentionally send private activity notes, account email addresses or route geometry to product analytics events. Some providers may process relevant request data overseas. Likely processing locations currently include Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and other European countries; global content-delivery and security services may also process limited request data in a location near the user. RouteMate will update this policy if a material change affects the kinds of information shared, its purpose or the likely overseas locations.

Storage, retention and security

Account, saved-route, weekly-goal and activity-history data is kept in the private account database until you delete it or request account-data deletion. Route-search logs, including invited-beta provenance attached to those searches, are removed after 90 days by default. Exact transfer links and beta sessions expire. The pseudonymous tester registry and other operational or security records are kept only as long as reasonably needed for the beta, legal obligations, security and fault investigation.

Private account tables use per-user access controls. Authentication uses secure session cookies. No internet service can guarantee absolute security, so use a unique password and report suspected account access promptly.

Photos, videos, device storage and cookies

A photo, selfie or video selected for a branded share post, the generated RouteMate card and an optional personal caption remain in your browser; RouteMate does not upload or retain them. Videos are limited to 20 seconds using duration information reported by your browser. Your device and chosen social app control the final share.

Photo posts are redrawn into a RouteMate image. A video is shared as its original file and may contain audio, faces, surroundings, visible location clues or embedded metadata that RouteMate cannot remove. Review the clip and your device privacy settings before sharing. RouteMate hides the exact start and geometry from its card and caption, but cannot guarantee that your own media does not reveal where you are.

The service uses authentication cookies and limited browser storage required for sign-in, app preferences, invited-beta recognition, offline public-page support and reliable operation. The invited-beta cookie is HttpOnly, expires automatically and is not available to page scripts. Private pages and API responses are excluded from the offline navigation cache.

Access, correction, deletion and complaints

You can update account preferences, delete saved routes and remove individual activity records in the app. To request access to, correction of or deletion of other personal information, or to make a privacy complaint, privacy@route-mate.app. Include enough information to identify the account and request, but do not send a password. RouteMate will acknowledge and respond within a reasonable period.

Changes to this policy

This policy may change as the beta and provider set develop. Material changes will be dated here and, where practical, brought to account holders' attention. The public operator identity and contact details must be completed before broader launch.