TopAware
In short
- Your location is used on your phone to check for nearby low clearances. We don’t receive it, and we keep no route history on our servers.
- When you add, confirm or report a zone, we store that contribution with a random account ID. We don’t store your name or email address in our database.
- You can use TopAware and get every warning without signing in. Adding, confirming or reporting zones needs you to sign in with email, Apple or Google.
- Apple handles all payments. We never see your card details.
- No ads, no tracking across apps, no analytics or crash-reporting SDK, and we don’t sell data.
- You can delete your account in the app at any time.
Who we are
TopAware is an iPhone app that warns drivers about low clearances for their loaded vehicle. It is made by Adorian Ovidiu (“TopAware”, “we”, “us”), who is responsible for your personal data under this policy. Contact us at hello@topaware.app.
This policy covers the TopAware iOS app, including CarPlay, and this website.
What stays on your phone
Most of what TopAware knows about you never leaves your device:
- Your location. TopAware reads your location while it’s keeping watch, including in the background and on CarPlay if you allow “Always”. It uses it on the phone to find zones ahead and decide whether to warn you. It doesn’t upload your position.
- Your rigs. The names and heights of your vehicle setups.
- Trip history. One entry per Guard drive with the start and end times, the rig, the zones you were warned about and whether GPS dropped out. If you navigated in TopAware, it also stores the destination name and distance driven. It never holds coordinates or the route itself.
- Settings and usage counts. Your preferences, plus how many free zone additions and vehicle lookups you’ve used this month.
- Cached zones. A copy of nearby zones so warnings work offline.
Deleting the app removes this data from your phone.
What we store on our servers
TopAware’s shared zone map runs on Google Firebase. Contributing needs an account, and we refer to you only by its random Firebase user ID (UID). If you don’t sign in, TopAware stores nothing about you on our servers. We don’t put your name or email address in the database.
| Data | What it contains | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Your UID. If you sign in with email, Apple or Google, Firebase Authentication also holds your email address (or Apple’s private relay address) to let you sign in. You only need to sign in to contribute. | Firebase Authentication only, not other drivers |
| Zones you add | Name, structure type, the zone-centre coordinates of the structure, clearance in cm, optional notes, your UID, trust state and counts, and timestamps. | Public, so every driver can be warned |
| Votes | The zone, your UID, whether you confirmed or disputed it, the vote’s weight and timestamps. | Public, so trust can be checked |
| Reports | The zone, your UID, the reason and optional notes (up to 1,000 characters). | You and our moderators |
| Profile and reputation | When your profile was created and updated, and your reputation points and tier. Our server calculates these from how your contributions hold up. | You only |
| Reputation history | The events that changed your reputation, with the points and dates. | You and our moderators |
A zone stores where the structure is, not where you are. If you add a zone while standing next to it, that place becomes the zone’s location and is public, linked to your UID rather than your name.
Zone data is processed to keep the map trustworthy. We count votes, mark zones Verified or Unverified, update reputation and limit how often contributions can be made to prevent abuse.
What we don’t collect
- No continuous location upload and no route or trip history on our servers.
- No analytics SDK and no crash-reporting SDK. The app doesn’t include Firebase Analytics or Crashlytics.
- No advertising, no advertising identifier and no tracking across other companies’ apps or websites.
- No contacts, photos, microphone or health data.
- We don’t sell or rent personal data.
If you’ve chosen to share analytics with app developers in your iPhone’s settings, Apple may share anonymised crash and usage statistics with us. You can turn this off in Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements.
This website has no analytics, cookies or third-party scripts. Our hosting provider, Vercel, processes standard request data such as IP addresses to serve the pages.
Purchases
Pro Monthly, Pro Yearly, Pro Lifetime and tips are bought through Apple’s App Store. Apple processes the payment under its own privacy policy. We never receive your card or bank details. The app checks whether you have Pro using Apple’s StoreKit on your device. Firebase never decides what you can use.
Service providers
- Google Firebase (Authentication, Cloud Firestore and Cloud Functions) stores accounts and zone data. Our Firestore database and functions run in Google Cloud’s europe-west1 region in Belgium. Firebase Authentication is a global Google service and may process data outside the EU.
- Apple provides the App Store and in-app purchases, Sign in with Apple, and Apple Maps for place search and routes you plan in TopAware. When you search or plan a route, Apple receives that request under its privacy policy.
- Google also handles Google sign-in, if you choose it.
- Vercel hosts this website.
If you run Guard mode alongside Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze, those apps work independently of TopAware under their own policies.
Where data is transferred outside the European Economic Area, we rely on the providers’ standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.
Legal bases
If you’re in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, we process personal data on these bases:
- Providing the app you asked for (contract): your account, contributions and purchases.
- Legitimate interests: keeping zone data accurate, calculating reputation and preventing spam and abuse.
- Your permission: location and notifications, which you grant and can withdraw in iOS Settings at any time.
Retention and deleting your account
We keep server data while your account exists. To delete it, open TopAware, go to Settings › Account and tap Delete account. You may be asked to sign in again first. Deleting your account:
- deletes your Firebase account, your profile and your reputation history;
- deletes the zones you added that no one has voted on;
- removes the free-text notes from your reports;
- clears your rigs and trips from the phone.
Some shared safety data stays so the map remains fair and accurate for other drivers:
- Zones others have already voted on stay on the map, marked as withdrawn rather than deleted.
- Votes and reports stay, but hold only the deleted account’s UID and the reason. Without them, the same zone could be voted on or reported twice.
Once the account is deleted, that UID no longer connects to any sign-in, email address or person we know of.
Deleting your account doesn’t cancel an App Store subscription. Cancel it in Settings › [your name] › Subscriptions.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your personal data. You can also object to or ask us to restrict processing. Email hello@topaware.app. Because our database doesn’t hold your name or email address, we may need you to make the request from the app, or help us identify your account.
You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
Children
TopAware is made for drivers and isn’t directed at children. We don’t knowingly collect data from children.
Security
Data travels over encrypted connections. Firestore security rules require you to be signed in to write data, only allow you to change your own contributions, and only let our server set reputation. Writes and votes are rate-limited.
Changes to this policy
We’ll update this page when the app’s data practices change and change the date at the top. For significant changes, we’ll tell you in the app before they take effect.
Questions? Email hello@topaware.app.