Glide Drive Privacy Policy
Effective date: October 30, 2026
App: Glide Drive for iPhone and Android (ca.glidedrive.app)
Made by: Colin McCubbin, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada ("Glide Drive", "we", "us")
The short version
- Your trips stay on your phone. Glide Drive has no accounts and no servers of ours that receive your trips. We can't see where you drove, how you drove, or anything else you record.
- No ads, no analytics, no tracking. The app contains no advertising, analytics, crash-reporting or tracking tools of its own, and we never sell or share your information with anyone. That includes insurers, employers and data brokers. (On Android, Google's map component sends Google some technical data; see "Maps".)
- The only thing the app downloads is map pictures. To draw the map behind your trip summary, the app asks the phone's map service for map images of that area: Apple Maps on iPhone and Google Maps on Android (see "Maps" below). Your route and trip details are drawn on your phone and are never sent.
- You're in control. Detailed GPS and sensor data auto-deletes after 90 days by default, and you can change that. Settings → Privacy → Delete all my data erases everything the app stored, right away. Deleting the app does the same.
What the app records, and why
Glide Drive records trips so it can show you your glides, fuel or energy use, braking and brake wear, a Green score and a post-trip summary with a map. All of the following is stored only in the app's private storage on your phone.
| What | Examples | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Location while recording | GPS position, speed, heading, altitude and accuracy, about once a second while a trip is recording | To measure your trip, spot glides and show your route |
| Motion sensors while recording | Accelerometer and gyroscope readings | To measure acceleration, braking and cornering |
| Trip summaries | Start and end time and place, distance, fuel or energy estimates, CO₂ estimates, Green score, peak moments (with where they happened), and a simplified route line for the map | Trip history, your Top 5 glides, lifetime stats and weekly reports |
| Glides and rewards | Each glide's time, distance, start and end points, and estimated savings, plus the gliders you've unlocked | Celebrations, the Top 5 board and your Collection |
| Your vehicle | Make, model, year, trim, weight, powertrain and fuel type, rated economy or battery size. In Detailed setup, optionally your tire date and speed rating and when brakes or rotors were last changed | To make the estimates fit your car |
| Settings | Units, sound and celebration choices, Quiet mode, auto-delete period and similar | To remember your preferences |
We don't collect your name, email, phone number, contacts, photos or advertising ID, and we don't ask you to sign in.
Fuel, energy, CO₂ and brake-wear figures are estimates made on your phone. They aren't measurements from your car.
When the app records
- A trip records only after you open Glide Drive. The app doesn't start recording by itself, after your phone restarts, or from the background.
- While the app is open and waiting for you to pull away, it watches location and motion to notice when a trip begins. Nothing is saved until a trip starts, apart from the last few seconds before it, which are kept so the trip begins at the right spot.
- Once a trip is recording, it keeps going if you switch apps or swipe Glide Drive away. That way a trip isn't cut off when you put the phone down. It stops when the trip ends or when you tap Stop recording.
- While a trip records in the background, your phone shows it. On iPhone that's the location indicator. On Android it's an ongoing "recording your trip" notification.
Permissions
| Permission | Why we ask | If you say no |
|---|---|---|
| Location ("While Using the App") | To record speed, distance, glides and your route during a trip. On iPhone, background location keeps a trip you started recording when the screen is off. On Android, a foreground service does the same job. We don't ask for Android's "all the time" background location. | Trips can't be recorded |
| Motion sensors (accelerometer and gyroscope) | To measure acceleration, braking and cornering. Phones usually don't ask about these, but iPhone may show a "Motion & Fitness" prompt. | Some measurements are less detailed |
| Notifications (Android 13+) | To show the ongoing "recording your trip" notification that Android requires | Recording works, but the notification may be hidden |
You can change any permission at any time in your phone's Settings.
Maps
The trip summary map shows map images supplied by your phone's map service:
- On iPhone: Apple Maps (Apple's MapKit, built into iOS).
- On Android: Google Maps (the Google Maps SDK for Android).
When you open a trip summary, the map service is asked only for the map area shown on screen for that trip. Like any website, the map provider receives:
- your device's IP address,
- which map area was requested, which reveals the general area you're looking at and the zoom level,
- standard technical details such as the app identifier
(
ca.glidedrive.app), device type and the time of the request.
On Android only, Google's Maps SDK also automatically sends Google some technical data so Google can run and improve its map service: device and operating-system details (such as model and OS version), crash reports from the map component itself, and a pseudonymous Maps SDK identifier that isn't tied to your name. Apple Maps on iPhone is part of iOS and works under Apple's own privacy settings.
Your route, glides, speeds and other trip details are not sent. They're drawn on top of the map on your phone, and your trip data never leaves the phone. The map providers handle map requests under their own privacy policies:
- Apple — https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/
- Google — https://policies.google.com/privacy
Your phone's own services
Glide Drive uses your phone's built-in location services, which are Apple Location Services on iPhone and Android or Google Play location services on Android. Those services are run by Apple or Google under their own privacy policies and settings.
Live Activities: when a drive starts, a short "Glide Drive is on" note shows on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island for a few seconds (iOS may also show it on your car's screen). It's created on your phone by iOS. Glide Drive doesn't send it through any server.
Car connection: Glide Drive only checks whether your phone is connected to the car, so it can manage trips. You can turn this off in Settings. It doesn't read data from your car.
Device backups:
- On Android, Glide Drive's stored data is not included in Android device backups or in transfers to a new phone. A new Android phone starts with an empty trip history.
- On iPhone, if you've turned on iCloud Backup, your phone may still include Glide Drive's stored data in that backup. Those backups are managed by Apple under your account settings, not by us.
Test-drive log (off by default)
Glide Drive has a hidden developer setting called Test-drive logging, which we use when testing the app on real drives. It is off unless you turn it on. While it's on, each trip also saves an extra log file on your phone with:
- speed and acceleration about once a second,
- when each glide started and ended, and why, and
- the trip's fuel or energy estimates and brake-wear estimates.
The log contains no locations (no GPS coordinates). It is never sent anywhere by the app. It leaves your phone only if you tap Export test-drive logs and choose where to send it in the share sheet. Logs are deleted on the same schedule as detailed GPS and sensor data (see below), and you can delete them at any time with Delete test-drive logs.
Sharing
We don't share, sell or rent your information, because we don't receive it. The only time data leaves your phone is:
- the map image requests described above, and
- when you choose to share something, for example exporting a test-drive log with the share sheet. It then goes only to the app or person you pick.
How long data is kept, and how to delete it
- Detailed GPS and sensor data for each trip is automatically deleted a set time after the trip ends. The default is 90 days. You can choose 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 1 year, or Never auto-delete under Settings → "Auto-delete raw trip data". The cleanup runs whenever the app starts.
- Test-drive logs (only if you turned that setting on) are deleted on the same schedule as detailed GPS and sensor data, or right away with "Delete test-drive logs".
- Trip summaries, Top 5 glides, rewards and the simplified route line are kept so your history and lifetime stats keep working, until you delete them with "Delete all my data" or delete the app.
- To delete everything, go to Settings → Privacy → Delete all my data. After you confirm twice, it permanently erases all your trips, GPS routes and sensor data, Green scores, records, your collection, car details and settings from the phone, plus the app's saved files and caches, and the app starts over as if newly installed. This can't be undone, and because we hold no copy, nothing can be recovered. Deleting the Glide Drive app also removes all of its data. On iPhone, any copy that was already in an iCloud Backup stays until that backup is replaced or deleted. Android backups never held a copy.
Security
Your data is stored in Glide Drive's private app storage, which other apps can't read, and it's protected by your phone's passcode and built-in encryption. The app doesn't add its own separate encryption. Keep your phone locked with a passcode to protect your trips. We hold no copy of your data, so there's nothing of yours on our side to be breached.
Children
Glide Drive is made for licensed drivers. It isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from children. Since the app doesn't send trip data to us, we hold no such information.
Your rights (Canada and elsewhere)
We follow Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and, where it applies, British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). You have the right to access and correct personal information an organization holds about you, and to withdraw consent. Because Glide Drive keeps your information on your device and not with us, you can see, change or delete it directly in the app (including Delete all my data in Settings), in your phone's settings, or by deleting the app. If you have a question or a complaint, contact us below. You can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (oipc.bc.ca).
If you live outside Canada, you may have similar rights under your local laws. The same answer applies: your data is on your phone, under your control.
Changes to this policy
If the app starts handling information differently, we'll update this policy, change the effective date above, and explain significant changes in the app or the store release notes before they take effect. We won't start collecting trip data on our side without asking you first.
Contact
Questions about privacy: glidedrive.official@gmail.com Colin McCubbin (Glide Drive), Whistler, British Columbia, Canada