What the app processes on your phone
- Vehicle data from the OBD adapter over Bluetooth: rpm, speed, temperatures, pressures, hybrid state, VIN. It powers the gauges, the drive history and the power calibration of your car.
- Location: the drive route, road-camera and zone alerts, the speed check and lap timing. GPS runs only during a drive with CarPlay, and until the car stops if CarPlay drops on the move; once the car has stood parked for 10 to 30 minutes, it stops even with CarPlay connected. With “While Using”, it can start only while Tachwire is on the car’s or the phone’s screen, and then runs to the end of the drive with the location indicator on; “Always”, asked for only if you choose the whole drive, also lets it start while the app is out of sight. Outside a drive, location is used on two screens only, and only while they are open: the track list sorts tracks by the last position iOS already has, and the start/finish line editor shows on its map where you are. Camera alerts are matched on the phone, so your position isn’t sent to find them; but camera data is downloaded by country, and in Automatic mode the countries asked for — the one in your region setting or those you have driven in, and their neighbours — hint at where you are.
- Motion (accelerometer and gyroscope): cornering g-forces and acceleration runs.
- Bluetooth: the link to the OBD adapter and, if you have one, to a Dragy GNSS receiver.
- Speech: spoken warnings come from a voice model that runs on the phone. Nothing is sent anywhere to be spoken.
Where it is stored
Everything is written to the app’s Documents/Logs folder on your iPhone and is visible in the Files app. Older raw recordings are removed automatically once they exceed one gigabyte; summaries stay. Deleting the app deletes everything on the phone; the copy in your iCloud, described below, stays until you delete it.
With the Support Tachwire subscription and More → Data and privacy → iCloud → Keep in iCloud, on by default for subscribers, a copy goes to your own iCloud so it comes back after reinstalling the app or on a new iPhone: your cars and what the app learnt about them (model, thresholds, what their control units answer), the car screens and the trip card, drive summaries, acceleration runs and records, laps and tracks, and the app’s settings. It is kept in your Apple Account’s private iCloud database and key-value storage under Apple’s iCloud terms; we have no access to it and never receive it. The VIN, routes, places and the summaries themselves are end-to-end encrypted with keys only your devices hold; the small settings (units, sounds, look) are kept in iCloud’s key-value storage, encrypted by Apple. The raw drive logs (the samples and the event log, the route included) go there only with their own switch, Drive logs in iCloud, off by default: in chunks, end-to-end encrypted as well, over Wi-Fi only; a drive you delete is deleted with its log in iCloud and on your other devices too. Turning the switch off stops sending; to delete the copy, go to Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Storage → Tachwire. Without the subscription nothing is sent to iCloud or read from it, and everything stays on the phone; when the subscription ends nothing more is sent, what is already in iCloud stays there until you delete it, and syncing goes on if you subscribe again. With no iCloud account, everything stays on the phone.
Drive logs
A drive leaves the phone only if you choose to send it. Under More → Help the project there are three modes: Off, where no drive is sent and a new install starts; By hand, where a finished drive offers a button and goes only if you press it; and Automatically, where each finished drive is sent by itself, over Wi-Fi unless you allow cellular. Automatically also sends the short recording a Dragy makes while its screen in the app is open.
A drive log holds the car’s answers and its VIN, the adapter’s name and events, the app build and iOS version, your CarPlay screen size and layout, the app’s settings — warning limits and your camera, location and sending choices — lap times, and the time of each event. The route is cut out before sending: latitude, longitude and heading are removed on the phone, and a Dragy recording goes with its positions blanked; speed, g-forces and how accurate each GPS fix was stay in. One exception: when laps were timed on a track during the drive, the log keeps your positions on that track while those laps ran, from half a minute before each lap to half a minute after — so lap timing can be checked and improved — and names the track. Only counted laps and start-to-finish runs of up to 10 minutes do this: laps on a track from the app’s list or after two such laps of one track, runs only on a track from the list. The positions kept lie within the track’s outline plus 300 m, or at most 2 km from its line; your route to and from the track, and everything outside that area, is still removed. Road-camera alerts go with their country, type and distance, but not which camera, zone or city.
The upload is encrypted on your phone with a key only the developer holds, so the storage provider cannot read it. With each log the server keeps the app build and the car model — from older versions of the app also the adapter’s name — but not the country it came from, and not your IP address. Logs are kept for 30 days. On the server a log waits at most 30 days and is deleted as soon as the developer has downloaded it; the copy downloaded to the developer’s own computer is deleted 30 days after the log was sent. Anonymised excerpts — with no VIN, no coordinates and nothing else that identifies you or the car — may be kept longer, to test the app. Write to us with a log’s code to have it deleted sooner. If you share the log files yourself, through Mail or the share sheet, they go exactly as they are, route included.
When a log arrives, the server emails the developer a short notice: the log’s code, the app build, the car model, the log’s size and whether a note is attached — from older versions of the app also the adapter’s name and the note itself. Nothing from inside the log goes with it: no VIN, no readings, no positions. Cloudflare sends it to the developer’s own mailbox, and it is deleted on the same 30-day term.
Crash reports
On from the first launch; More → Data and privacy → Crash reports and usage → Send crash reports turns them off. When the app crashes or freezes, a report goes to Sentry, a crash-reporting service, on its servers in the EU: where in the code it happened, the iPhone model, the iOS and app versions, the phone’s language and region setting, and whether the copy came from TestFlight or the App Store. With it comes the technical state Sentry’s software adds by default — memory, battery level and orientation — and a short trail of what happened just before: the app going to the background and back, screen changes and taps, Wi-Fi or cellular.
A report carries nothing about the car, the drive or where you are: no VIN — anything shaped like one is cut out, error messages included — no route, no readings, no view hierarchy, no screenshots of your phone other than the pictures described below, no network requests, no sessions, no user or install ID and no device name. Sentry is set not to store your IP address.
They are on by default on the basis of legitimate interests: a report carries no identifiers and no text from your screen, and it is how crashes get found and fixed. How you use the app is different — it is sent only with your consent.
Test builds from TestFlight also send, with crash reports and under the same switch, at most two pictures a drive. One is of Tachwire’s own screen in the car: about three minutes after the car’s data first comes in, and only if Tachwire’s screen is the one shown on the car’s display, not Maps or music. It is Tachwire’s own window on the car’s screen as it was shown at that moment — its tiles with their readings and your page names — and nothing from other apps; that screen never shows a VIN or your location. The other is of the Car tab on the phone during a drive, from the third minute on and only while Tachwire is open on that tab, with nothing over it and nothing being typed: what it shows — the car’s model, its state and readings, the last drive’s figures — with every map, route and place, the parking address included, painted over with a plain block on the phone before the picture is made. Neither picture carries a VIN or your location. With them go the screen’s size, its layout (the car screen’s grid and page, the phone’s text size and appearance), the minute of the drive and the app build. This is how we see tiles cut off or laid out wrong in cars and on phones we never get to see. The App Store version sends these pictures only if you agree to share how you use the app (see below).
How you use the app
Only if you agree. The app asks once, with a card on the Car tab — Share or No, thanks — and More → Data and privacy → Crash reports and usage → Share how you use the app changes the answer at any time. Until you say yes, none of this is sent.
What goes: which screens you open and how long each stays open; rage taps — three or more taps within a second on one spot — with the screen, whether the spot was a control, and the control’s label if it is one of the app’s own interface words, sent in English, while any other text goes as a placeholder, never as itself; your text size and the app’s language; the “Tone when over the limit” setting when you change it; and with them the iPhone model and the iOS and app versions. Events are tied together by a random number that lives for one launch of the app; there is no lasting ID. Apart from the two pictures below, no text from your screens and no car data; no location, ever. It goes to Sentry in the EU, like crash reports.
With your yes, the App Store version also sends the two screen pictures described under Crash reports: at most one of Tachwire’s screen in the car and one of the Car tab on the phone a drive, with every map, route and place painted over before the picture is made, and no VIN or location. No, thanks or the switch turned off stops them; without a yes they are never sent.
The steps to a first drive have a yes of their own, apart from everything above: a switch on the intro’s last page, and More → Data and privacy → Crash reports and usage → Share which steps are done. Off until you turn it on. What goes, from a new install only: which steps it has reached — the intro finished, the adapter found and connected, the first drive, the support page opened — each as whole days since the first launch, never a time of day; how the intro was answered and whether the adapter reminder was set; and how a connection to the adapter went, in the app’s own words such as “found”, “connected” or “no answer”, with roughly how long it took. Each step goes once. No VIN, no car make or model, no adapter name, no location, no email, no install or user ID. It goes to Sentry in the EU, like crash reports, and is not linked to you.
Notifications
Only if you ask for them. The app offers them with a card on the Car tab, and a switch under More → Help the project turns them on or off at any time. They come in two kinds: news — a new build, a request for drive logs, an important change — and replies about the drive logs you sent, such as a fault found in your log and the build that fixes it.
To send them we keep, with Cloudflare, the storage provider: the notification token Apple issues for this app on your phone, the app’s language and build, which kinds of notification you chose, and the codes of the last 30 drive logs this phone sent (only when answers about your logs are on) — so a reply about a log reaches the phone it came from. No VIN, no car details, no location, no country and no IP address. Notifications are sent from the developer’s computer through Apple’s push notification service. Turning them off deletes this record at once; if the app is not opened for four months, it is deleted automatically.
Route videos, route pictures and map tiles
A route video or a route picture is made on your phone from a drive you choose, for the stretch you choose. It is saved only where you save or share it; Tachwire does not receive it. Its map is drawn on the phone from OpenStreetMap data and carries “© OpenStreetMap © OpenMapTiles” on the picture and on every frame; to draw it, the app downloads map tiles from OpenFreeMap (Hyperknot Software Kft., EU). The tiles requested cover the area around the part of the route you chose, so OpenFreeMap can see which area was asked for, and your IP address, as any website can; it states that its logs are anonymised, hold no IP addresses by default and are deleted after 7 days (https://openfreemap.org/privacy/). No route line, VIN or account goes with the request. Downloaded tiles are kept in the app’s cache on your phone. The maps inside the app — on a drive’s page and its route screen — come from Apple Maps and never leave the app.
Photos
To save a route video, Tachwire asks for add-only access to Photos: it can add the video to your library and cannot see, read or change anything in it. You can change this in Settings → Apps → Tachwire → Photos.
Car pictures
The picture of your car is chosen by its make, generation and paint code only — for example “G05, paint 475”. If the app does not have that picture yet, it asks this website for it with those details and nothing else; the website keeps no record of who asked, and if the picture has to be drawn, it passes the same details to its rendering service, carimage.dev. No VIN or other detail of your car is sent.
The App Store privacy label
The label says data of these kinds is “linked to you”: drive logs, because they carry the car’s VIN, and with them the location they may hold — precise for laps on a track, the country for road-camera alerts; and the notification token, because Apple issues it for this phone. All of them go only if you turn them on. Crash, performance and usage data — the screen pictures included — are not linked: they carry no lasting ID. When you make a route video or a route picture, OpenFreeMap also sees which area of the map was asked for, as described above.
App Store and TestFlight
Apple handles downloads, and during testing crash reports and feedback under the TestFlight terms; that is governed by Apple’s privacy policy, not ours.
Maps, and the address of the place where you parked, come from Apple Maps, and those requests are covered by Apple’s privacy policy too.
This website
The website itself collects nothing and sets no tracking cookies. Cloudflare, which serves it, counts page views in total with its Web Analytics — without cookies and without following anyone — and those counts hold no personal data, for Cloudflare or for us. The language you pick in the menu is remembered in your own browser, with one cookie, tachwire_lang, which tells this site which language to serve and holds nothing else.
Who is responsible
Maxim Pogozhiy, the app’s developer, is responsible for the data described here. Contact: support@tachwire.app. A postal address for formal requests is provided on request.
Write to that address to ask what we hold about you, or to have a drive log or a notification record deleted; give the log’s code if you have it.
Contact
Questions about data: support@tachwire.app.