BeeMyGuide Privacy Policy
BeeMyGuide is a location-based audio tour app: as you walk or drive, it finds places of interest near you and plays short, AI-narrated audio about your surroundings, and it lets you build and share guided tours. This policy explains what we collect, why, and how it is handled, in plain English. BeeMyGuide is operated by an individual developer ("we", "us"). Questions: val@beemyguide.travel.
Information we collect
- Account. To use BeeMyGuide you sign in. You can use an email and password, Sign in with Google, or Sign in with Apple. In each case we receive your email address (and, from Google/Apple, your basic name if provided). Authentication and the account database are handled by our provider, Supabase. You may also provide a display name.
- Precise location. With your permission, the app uses your
device's precise location while you are using it to find places
near you and to power the tour. Your location is sent to our server in real time
to build your queue of nearby places. This is operational, used in the moment,
and not stored as a history or linked to your identity. The only
location we retain is a single, coarse coverage signal: when you are somewhere we
have no content yet, we log that empty spot's coordinate (event
no_pois_nearby) to improve coverage. That record is tied to the place, not to you. It is never linked to your account, so no movement trail is ever built. - Usage analytics. We keep first-party, app-interaction events
(our own
eventsstore), such as opening the app or starting and finishing a narration, to understand how BeeMyGuide is used and improve it. These events carry no location, with the singleno_pois_nearbyexception described above. Analytics are first-party only; your identity on an event is derived on our server from your signed-in session, not from any third-party tracker. - Diagnostics & feedback. If you use the in-app "Log an issue" feature, your report (subject, description, your account email, and a technical debug log) is emailed to our support address so we can troubleshoot.
- Terms acceptance. When you accept the Terms of Use, we record which version you accepted and when.
How we use your information
- To provide the core service: find nearby places, generate and play narration, and build and run tours.
- To create and secure your account and sign you in.
- To respond to issues you report and fix bugs.
- To understand usage and improve the app's quality, coverage, and performance.
How narration is generated
Narration is created from publicly available source text (from Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects), which is translated, summarized, and converted to speech by AI services. We do not send your personal information to those services as part of generating narration.
Third parties
We do not sell your personal information, and BeeMyGuide is ad-free. We do not show third-party ads or use third-party advertising trackers. We rely on these service providers only to operate the app:
- Supabase: account authentication and database.
- Render: hosting for our server and websites.
- Google Maps Platform: Places and Routes/Directions, to find places and build tour routes; and Text-to-Speech, to produce narration audio.
- Google and Apple: if you choose their sign-in.
- Anthropic (Claude): turning public source text into narration.
- Wikimedia and Openverse: public source text and images about places.
Enhancement requests
The What's next page lists enhancement requests. Reading it needs no account and we collect nothing from you for it. Posting a request or upvoting one happens in the app, where you are signed in.
- When you post a request we store what you typed, the display name you chose for that submission, and a link to your account (including its email address).
- Your request and your chosen display name may be published, but only after a person has reviewed it. Nothing is published automatically.
- Your email address is never published. It is visible only to us, and only so we can reply to you about the request.
- When you upvote, we record that your account voted for that request. This is how one person is stopped from voting many times. Who voted for what is never shown publicly; only the total is.
- Delete your account and your votes go with it, and your requests are unlinked from you. To have a submission removed entirely, email val@beemyguide.travel and we will delete it.
Data retention and your choices
- You can request deletion of your account and associated personal information by emailing val@beemyguide.travel; we remove it within a reasonable period, except anything we must keep by law.
- We keep account data while your account is active, and analytics events for as long as needed to understand and improve the app.
- You can revoke the app's location permission any time in your device settings; BeeMyGuide then falls back to a basic search and some features may not work.
Security
We use reasonable measures to protect your information, including encrypted connections and authentication tokens managed by our provider. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Children
BeeMyGuide is intended for adults and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the app evolves. We will revise the "Last updated" date above, and for significant changes provide a more prominent notice.
Contact
Questions or requests: val@beemyguide.travel.
This page is the single source of truth for the BeeMyGuide privacy policy, published at beemyguide.travel/privacy.html.