Privacy policy

Place a Go helps you explore historical places in Istanbul. An account is optional for browsing and is used only to carry your own records between devices. Your profile and records are not shown to other users.

Data controller: Cihan Elibol
Contact: Yeni Mahalle İnönü Caddesi No 10, Küçükçekmece
Operational backup retention (days): 14

support@placeago.app

Account and personal records

When you sign in, the service processes your verified email address, provider identifier, session credentials and, if you choose a password, its salted hash. Visits (place, time and verification basis), private visit notes, favourites, seen cards, interests, language, preferences, display name and avatar can sync to your account. Demo and live records remain separate. The identity token sent to our API when you sign in with Google may also contain your profile photo URL. The app does not use that URL field or download, store or display the profile photo.

Location and photos

Measurements from device location services are requested only when you choose them and while the app is in use. Raw GPS coordinates are not sent to or stored by our account API. However, a synced visit’s place, time and verification basis can reveal that you were near that place and allow precise location to be inferred. Keepsake photos are re-encoded to remove EXIF/GPS metadata and stay on the device; they are not backed up to your account. Device or operating-system backups are managed by your device settings.

Providers and network requests

Google Maps communicates with Google to provide maps; Google may process network information such as IP addresses and map requests under its own privacy policy. The no-GPS-to-our-API promise does not cover the map provider. Apple or Google processes sign-in if you choose it. Hetzner hosts the account service and delivers published content; the configured email provider delivers verification messages. External sources open their own websites. During Google sign-in, Google may request your phone number for two-step verification. Google processes it on its sign-in page; Place a Go's current sign-in flow does not receive it or store it in our account API.

Google Maps data

The Google Maps SDK processes IP addresses, device/operating-system/SDK information, crash and diagnostic data, SDK-specific pseudonymous identifiers and map camera/zoom interactions for map functionality, diagnostics, usage analysis and service improvement. When you use location, the measurement is passed to the map centre and marker; Google may process coordinates under its own policy. The app has no separate opt-out for the map SDK’s automatic diagnostic and usage data. Having no advertising SDK does not mean these provider analytics are absent.

Wikimedia image requests

Historical images load automatically from Wikimedia servers during exploration. Wikimedia receives the IP address, HTTP client information and requested image, and processes them for service delivery, security and usage analysis. Country, region and city-level approximate location can be derived from the IP address. This also occurs if location permission is denied; the app has no separate opt-out for image loading. These requests do not upload keepsake photos. Opening a source link in an external browser at your request is a separate action.

Purpose and access

Personal data is used to provide sign-in, synchronisation, account recovery, deletion and service security. There is no advertising SDK, public profile, social feed or sale of personal records in this app. Service and network providers may receive the information necessary to process requests; their processing locations can differ from your country.

Retention and deletion

Account records stay until you remove them or delete the account. Successful account deletion removes active account data, synchronised records and any legacy server photos, and invalidates sessions. A hash-only deletion receipt supports retries for 24 hours; expired credentials are cleaned hourly while the service runs. Encrypted operational backups follow the retention shown below; deletion is not instant in isolated backups. A restore must reapply completed deletions before service resumes.

Your choices

You can browse without signing in, deny location/camera access, edit your information and request account deletion in the app or on this website. Website deletion cannot remotely erase offline device copies or device-only photos. Remove those in the app or with your device controls. Contact us to ask about access, correction, export or other applicable privacy rights. We verify ownership before sharing or deleting account information.

This website

This website stores your selected language locally. The deletion form keeps its temporary credential only in memory and sends it in an Authorization header over HTTPS; it is not placed in a URL or browser storage. Hosting and email services may process technical connection data needed to deliver the service.

Deletion safeguards

After a deletion request is accepted, an independent journal retains only the account’s random identifier (UUID) and request time so that a backup restore cannot reactivate it. Cleanup retries automatically; access to the account is suspended while cleanup is pending. The journal entry is reviewed for manual removal after at least 31 days, only once cleanup is complete and every backup that could contain the account has expired and been removed. It is not removed automatically on day 31. A retry receipt lasts 24 hours; contact support if a later retry cannot confirm completion.

Google Privacy · Apple Privacy · Hetzner Privacy · Wikimedia Privacy