LOW PASSPrivacy Policy
Low Pass does not require a Low Pass account. Trips and Explorer Passport are stored on your device; available trip sync uses your private iCloud database. Optional Game Center sharing uses your Apple profile and sends achievement progress, lifetime scores and per-journey climb, altitude and grade scores to Apple. Low Pass does not receive your recorded routes or Passport. The one exception is a journey you choose to send as a link while you have a signal, which is stored on lowpass.fyi for 30 days; see Sending and receiving a journey.
This policy describes the app as designed for its first release. If anything changes, this page will be updated with a new effective date.
What the app uses on your device
Low Pass asks for your location "When In Use" so it can anchor altitude, and calculate speed, heading, grade, and trip recording while you have the app or CarPlay open. Location processing happens entirely on your device.
After you finish your first trip, Settings offers an optional toggle called "Detect drives automatically." Turning it on lets the app use your location in the background so a trip can start recording without you tapping anything.
With "Continue journeys" on (on by default), Low Pass also keeps your location running for up to 30 minutes after you stop a recording, whatever the "Detect drives automatically" setting is. If you drive off from where you stopped during that time, it can start a recording on its own and join it to your earlier journey. While it is watching, the cockpit says so and the location arrow stays in the status bar, and it uses a lower location accuracy to save battery. You can tap Stop watching or turn Continue journeys off in Settings. A recording you started yourself keeps using location in the background while it is paused because you parked, and picks up again when you drive. With automatic detection and Continue journeys off, Low Pass uses location only while you have it open, Live Instruments is on, CarPlay is connected, you ask for it through Siri or Shortcuts, or a recording is running or paused.
The notification Low Pass sends when it starts a recording this way says only that a recording started near where your last journey ended. It carries no journey title or place name.
Low Pass reads your iPhone's barometer (air pressure and absolute altitude) as its primary altitude source. To help detect the start of a drive, it also checks whether your phone is connected to CarPlay or playing audio through a car. Low Pass also reads your phone's motion activity, which iOS reports as walking, cycling or in a vehicle, to detect the start of a drive and to label how you are moving (WALK, HIKE, BIKE, DRIVE or FLIGHT). A flight is recognized from your speed and altitude alone, and the label changes nothing you can record. This sensor data is processed on-device and never leaves your phone. Low Pass does not use Apple Health, and it records no workouts, steps or heart rate.
Where your trips are stored
The raw, once-per-second altitude and location samples recorded during a trip stay on your device only. They are never uploaded anywhere.
If iCloud sync is on, a trip's summary (start and end, duration, distance, highest and lowest altitude, elevation gain, passes crossed, recorded journey type and any type correction) and a simplified version of its track sync to your own private iCloud database, so they follow you to your other devices. That data is hosted by Apple under your Apple ID, in a private database the developer cannot read or access.
If iCloud is unavailable, Low Pass keeps your trips on your device only and tells you so in Settings.
Deleting a recording removes its route, raw samples, pass crossings and place names from this device and, through available iCloud sync, from your other devices. Low Pass keeps a small summary record in your private iCloud so your other devices can tell the journey was deleted: its date, distance, climbing, altitude readings, the name you gave it, its journey type and the name of the highest pass it crossed. That summary stays in your iCloud until you remove Low Pass's iCloud data in iOS Settings. Another device rebuilds the summary but not the stamps or climate zones. Deleting does not remove Passport entries already saved on this device or progress already shared with Game Center.
Combining journeys joins them in your own data: nothing is copied, and splitting them again restores them as they were.
Explorer Passport
Passport imports completed recorded trips into a separate local file containing compact journey summaries, pass discoveries and crossing dates, climate discoveries, and earned badges. It does not copy raw tracks or coordinates into that file.
Entries already imported on this device remain when you delete the source trip. Passport does not independently sync through iCloud, and Game Center does not back it up. Another device can rebuild discoveries only from completed trips available there, and for a deleted recording only its summary. Low Pass currently has no separate Passport reset or export control.
Sending and receiving a journey
You can send a journey to someone riding with you. When you tap Send to a passenger, Low Pass builds the journey on your device and opens the iOS share sheet. The journey contains the name you type (optional), its title, its route, the passes it crossed and its summary readings: distance, climbing, time and altitude. By default the whole route is included, so your exact start and end, which may be your home, are in what you send, and the sheet says so. Turn on Trim the start and end to leave out up to 500 meters at each end of every part, so your start and end addresses are usually not included (on a part shorter than 2.5 kilometers the cut is a fifth of its length at each end, and a part under 200 meters sends no route). The title starts as your journey's own name, which can include your start and end towns, and you can edit or clear it before you send, so a town can appear in the title and, with it, on the preview picture and the web page. Apart from a town you leave in the title, the journey carries no place names. It never contains the raw once-per-second samples, your Passport, or anything about you beyond the name you type.
A note you add. The send sheet has an optional note of up to 280 characters. It travels only in your own message, beside the link or file you send through the share sheet, to whoever you choose. It is not in the journey, the file, the upload or the preview picture, and it is never sent to lowpass.fyi, so we never see it. On a device with Apple Intelligence, the sheet can draft a note for you to edit, under the rules in the Apple Intelligence section; nothing is sent until you tap Send. Low Pass counts only whether you added a note and whether you typed it or edited a draft, never its words.
With a signal, the journey is stored on lowpass.fyi. Low Pass uploads the journey (the same contents as a journey file), a preview picture of the route drawn on your phone from the same route, the title and name you chose, and the upload and expiry times. It is held on Cloudflare, which hosts lowpass.fyi, and you get a short link, lowpass.fyi/j/ followed by a long random number. Low Pass adds no encryption of its own beyond what Cloudflare provides, so do not send what you would not hand a stranger.
Who can open it. Anyone with the link. The long random number means a link cannot be guessed or listed, and the pages ask search engines not to index them. Anyone you send it to can forward it, and a messaging service may open it to make a preview.
How long it stays, and how to delete it. A hosted journey is deleted about 30 days after you send it (about, because deletion can lag a day), and the link stops working. Stop sharing on the Journey screen deletes it sooner, and so does deleting the recording from inside Low Pass. Both take the copy down when your phone has a signal; with none, Low Pass keeps trying each time you open it, and the copy stays up until then or until it expires. You can also email support@lowpass.fyi with the link and we will delete it. Deleting cannot recall a preview that Messages or another service has already cached.
What else the service sees. Your IP address, as any web service does, used to limit abuse and not stored with the journey. To confirm uploads come from the real Low Pass app, Low Pass makes a random key on your phone (Apple App Attest) and registers it with the service the first time you open Send to a passenger with a signal, even if you then send a file or nothing at all. The service keeps that key and a hash of it, with a daily upload count, for as long as the service runs. They are not deleted when a journey expires. The key has no name, Apple ID, contact or recipient attached, and it is not joined to any journey.
With no signal, Low Pass sends a journey file instead, and tells you so before you send. The file itself never touches our service. Older links that hold the journey after the # mark still open in Low Pass, but Low Pass no longer sends them. Either way, a link or file goes only where you choose (Messages, AirDrop, Files or another app), and Low Pass does not check who that is.
Apple features. Messages shows a preview of a hosted link from the title and picture stored with it. If you open a hosted link on an iPhone without Low Pass, the Low Pass App Clip can read that journey from lowpass.fyi by its id; it keeps only the link, so the full app can offer it to you, and it sends no analytics. If a contact sends you a link in Messages, Shared with You can list it at the top of Journeys. Low Pass sees only the link, never who sent it, and while Journeys is open it can fetch up to ten such hosted journeys you did not tap, so lowpass.fyi sees your IP address and those ids. Nothing is added to your journeys until you confirm.
When you open a journey link or file someone sent you, Low Pass checks it on your device and shows what it contains before it adds anything. It is then saved like your own journey: the route it carries syncs to your private iCloud, and the start and end of that route are sent to Apple Maps once to look up place names. A journey you receive counts in your Explorer Passport like one you recorded, so your lifetime Passport totals can include journeys other people recorded. If you recorded the same drive yourself, Low Pass counts only your own recording and lists both. A journey you already have, or one you deleted, is not added again. Game Center sharing stays optional: nothing is published until you choose Share and enable updates. That first successful share enables future progress updates for the same player, which you can turn off in Passport → Game Center.
Apple Intelligence
On an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence, Low Pass uses Apple's on-device model to retell a journey's story in a style you choose, suggest titles, turn a typed question into a search of your journeys, write season recaps, draft the optional note for Send to a passenger and caption photos you add. On iOS 26, or when you turn Private Cloud Compute off, this runs on your device, and the text and photos it works on, and what it writes, are not sent to Low Pass or anyone else. On iOS 27, Private Cloud Compute can handle some requests, as described next. A model only arranges words around the numbers and place names Low Pass gives it, and Low Pass keeps the original if what it writes does not match. None of it is offered while CarPlay is connected. You can turn Apple Intelligence off in Settings.
Siri and Spotlight. Low Pass lists your saved journeys and passes in Spotlight on this device so you can search for them and ask Siri about them. What it lists is each journey's title, date, place and pass names and summary readings, and your pass stamps. It never lists a route or the raw samples, and it removes them if you delete a recording.
Journey photos. A photo you add to a journey is copied on your device, shrunk and saved again without its location or any other information in the file, and kept on this phone only. It does not sync to your other devices and is not sent to Low Pass. It is included in this phone's own backup, and deleting the recording deletes its photos. A photo you choose can appear on the journey card image you share yourself. Photos are never in a journey file or on a hosted journey.
Private Cloud Compute. On iOS 27, with Apple Intelligence on and "Use Private Cloud Compute" on (it starts on), Low Pass sends story retelling, title suggestions, season recaps and the optional send note to Apple's Private Cloud Compute model first, and uses the on-device model if that is not available. A request holds the journey's facts as text (place and pass names, distances, heights and dates). Your typed question for journey search stays on your device unless the on-device model cannot handle it. A photo you add is captioned on your device when the on-device model can read images; only when it cannot is a shrunk copy of the photo (no location or other information in the file) sent to Private Cloud Compute. It goes to Apple, not to Low Pass: Low Pass never receives the request, the photo or the reply. Apple says: "Private Cloud Compute is designed with end-to-end privacy in mind, ensuring that user data is never stored. The data is only used for requests. And all of this has been independently verified by researchers." Each person has a daily limit tied to their iCloud account (iCloud+ raises it); when it is reached, Low Pass uses the on-device model. None of it is used while CarPlay is connected. To stop it, turn off Settings > Apple Intelligence > Use Private Cloud Compute.
Optional Game Center
Connecting Game Center uses your Apple profile but does not publish your Passport. After you choose Share and enable updates, Low Pass sends achievement progress, lifetime totals for unique named passes, climate types and recorded distance, and the biggest climb, highest altitude and steepest sustained grade of each of your own, uncombined journeys finished in the last 72 hours to Apple. Game Center challenges with friends compare those per-journey values. These may appear with your Game Center profile in global rankings as well as among friends. Low Pass does not submit routes, coordinates or trip names to Game Center. Lifetime totals can include journeys other people recorded and sent you.
The first sharing attempt stores the linked Game Center player identifier on this device to prevent publishing the same local Passport under another player. After the first successful share, later progress updates automatically for that same authenticated player while Low Pass is running. Turn Automatic progress updates off in Passport → Game Center to stop future automatic submissions; Update shared progress remains available and does not turn the switch back on. Existing players who shared in an older version stay on manual sharing until they explicitly choose Share and enable updates. Signing out or switching to a different player stops automatic publication; Low Pass does not start Game Center authentication automatically. If a submission partly succeeds before a connection fails, already-submitted progress may remain with Apple. Deleting a trip or the app does not withdraw previously published progress. Manage your Game Center profile and privacy through Apple’s Game Center settings.
Product analytics
When "Share usage analytics" is on in Settings, Low Pass may use your app activity to help improve the product. It's on by default, and you can turn it off any time; once it's off, nothing more is sent.
App activity means which features you use, crash and error reports, short diagnostic logs, and your device model, iOS version, language and app version. It's collected through PostHog, our analytics provider, and linked to a random ID, or to your Game Center player ID if you're signed in, never to your name. It never includes your location, routes or trip names, and it is never sold or used for advertising. PostHog keeps this data for up to a year. To have your analytics data deleted, email support@lowpass.fyi.
What leaves your device, and to whom
| Data | Goes to | Why | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trip summaries and a downsampled track, including journeys you receive and the summary left when you delete a recording | Apple iCloud (your own private database) | Sync across your devices | Only if you turn on iCloud sync |
| A trip's start and end coordinates, and up to four points along a route of 5 kilometers or more, or the same for a journey someone sent you | Apple Maps | Look up place names for the trip | Once, at the end of each trip, and once when you add a journey someone sent you (again at launch if that lookup did not finish) |
| A hosted journey: the name you chose, a title, the route (whole by default, or with its start and end trimmed if you turn that on), passes crossed, summary readings, a preview picture, and upload and expiry times; also your IP address | lowpass.fyi, hosted on Cloudflare | Give a passenger a short link that works with or without the app | Only when you tap Send to a passenger with a signal. Deleted about 30 days later, or sooner when you stop sharing |
| A random App Attest key made on your phone, a hash of it and a daily upload count | lowpass.fyi, hosted on Cloudflare | Confirm uploads come from the real app and limit abuse | The first time you open Send to a passenger with a signal, even if you then send a file. Kept for as long as the service runs, not tied to any journey and not deleted when a journey expires |
| A journey file, or an older fragment link you received: the same journey without the preview picture | Whoever you choose in the share sheet (Messages, AirDrop, Files or another app); the file itself never touches lowpass.fyi, and the part of an older link after the # mark is not sent to lowpass.fyi | Hand a journey to a passenger with no signal, or as a file | Only when you tap Send to a passenger without a signal, or Send as a file |
| Hosted journeys read by id, and your IP address | lowpass.fyi, hosted on Cloudflare | Open a link in the App Clip, show it in Shared with You, or add it in Low Pass | When you open a hosted link, when Low Pass first opens after an App Clip saved one, and while Journeys is open for up to ten links Shared with You lists |
| The map area on screen | Apple Maps | Draw map imagery for the iPad cockpit map and a journey share card's route map | While the iPad cockpit map is showing; when you create a share card |
| Your device's IP address and the file requested (a region pack, or a state's base road pack, whose file name names the state) | The region-pack content delivery network | Download offline terrain, road and pass data for a region, or road data for a state | When you download a region pack, and when an available state's base road pack downloads: automatically after a good location fix there, if it is under 25 MB and Low Data Mode is off, over cellular if needed |
| Your device's IP address and which state hazard files it requests (for example, Colorado, and Wyoming if you are near the border) | The region-pack content delivery network | Download official National Weather Service warnings for the state you're in and any state within about 30 miles | At most every few minutes while Low Pass is running in the United States |
| On iOS 27: a journey's facts as text (place and pass names, distances, heights, dates) to retell a story, suggest a title, write a season recap or draft a send note; your search question and a shrunk photo only when the on-device model cannot handle them | Apple Private Cloud Compute (not Low Pass) | Write the text with Apple's larger model | Only while "Use Private Cloud Compute" is on and Apple Intelligence is on, never while CarPlay is connected; not used once your daily limit is reached |
| Game Center profile authentication; achievement progress, lifetime scores and per-journey climb, altitude and grade scores when shared | Apple Game Center | Connect your profile and compare progress with other players | Authentication when you choose Connect; first publication when you choose Share and enable updates; later automatic updates for that player until switched off, or manual Update shared progress |
| Crash reports and usage statistics | Apple, then optionally the developer | Fix bugs | Only if you opted in to "Share with App Developers" in iOS Settings |
| App activity: features used, crash and error reports, short diagnostic logs, device model, iOS version, language and app version | PostHog, our analytics provider (United States) | Help improve the product and fix bugs | On by default; turn off with Settings' "Share usage analytics" switch |
Place-name lookups send only the coordinates Apple needs to identify a place, under Apple's own privacy policy. Maps are drawn by Apple Maps: your device requests map imagery for the area being shown, under the same Apple policy. Your recorded track is drawn on your device and is not sent with those requests. Hazard alerts never send your position: Low Pass works out which state you are in on your device, from a map of state borders that ships inside the app, then downloads one file for that state and one for any state within about 30 miles (50 km). The request reveals only those state names, never a coordinate, and your device decides which alerts apply to where you are. The files are assembled by Low Pass from the National Weather Service's public warnings; your device never contacts that agency. Region-pack downloads are ordinary file downloads: the content delivery network sees your device's IP address and which file you requested, the same as any download, and may keep standard server logs for a limited time. A state's base road pack is requested the same way, so the request names that state (in the file name) and nothing more: Low Pass works out which state you are in on your device, and a coordinate is never part of the request. No identifier is attached to the request. Once a pack is installed, terrain lookups happen entirely on your device, including offline. Crash and usage data is only ever the aggregated or anonymized data Apple shares with developers when you've opted in, in iOS Settings, to "Share with App Developers." That's separate from the PostHog analytics described above, which the app sends directly.
What we never do
- No advertising or cross-app tracking SDKs of any kind. PostHog, described on this page, is the only analytics service, in the app and on this website.
- No selling or sharing your data for advertising.
- No tracking you across other apps or websites.
- No Low Pass account required. Optional Game Center progress is associated with your Apple Game Center profile.
This website
This website, lowpass.fyi, uses PostHog, a web analytics service, to count visits and see which pages and links people use, so we can tell which announcements bring people here. When you visit, your browser sends PostHog the page address, the site that linked you here, your browser and device type, and the links and buttons you click. PostHog receives your IP address, as any web request does, and uses it to estimate an approximate location; the address itself is not stored. It stores a random identifier in a cookie and in your browser's local storage so a return visit is not counted as a new visitor. We do not ask for your name or email on this site, and we do not use this data for advertising. This section covers the website only. The exceptions are lowpass.fyi/open and lowpass.fyi/j, the pages a journey link opens: they load no analytics and no script at all. On an older fragment link, the journey sits after the # mark, which your browser does not send to us.
Exports you make
GPX files, journey files (.lowpassjourney), trip share-card images and Passport stamp text are created only when you tap export, send or share, and go only wherever you choose to send them. A journey link is created the same way; with a signal it also stores the journey on lowpass.fyi as described above. Low Pass does not check who a link or file goes to.
Children
Low Pass is not directed at children under 13. Optional Apple services, including Game Center, are subject to Apple’s account and privacy controls.
Your choices
- Revoke location access any time in iOS Settings for Low Pass.
- Turn off "Share usage analytics" in Low Pass Settings any time. Once it's off, nothing is sent to PostHog.
- Turn iCloud sync for Low Pass off in your iCloud settings.
- Delete any recording from inside the app. Its route, samples and place names are removed; a small summary stays in your iCloud. Passport entries already imported here and Game Center progress remain separate.
- Choose Send as a file, or send with no signal, to share a journey without storing it on lowpass.fyi. Opening the send sheet with a signal still registers Low Pass's random App Attest key there, as described above. Use Stop sharing on the Journey screen, or email support@lowpass.fyi with the link, to delete a hosted journey before its 30 days are up.
- Turn off Continue journeys in Settings to stop the 30-minute watch and the offers to continue a journey.
- Turn off Apple Intelligence in Settings to stop retelling, suggestions, question search and photo captions, or turn off just Use Private Cloud Compute to keep them on your device. A deleted recording removes the journey from Spotlight. Delete a recording to delete its photos.
- Delete the app to remove its local Passport and trip files. This does not withdraw data already synced to iCloud or progress shared with Game Center, and it does not remove a journey already stored on lowpass.fyi: use Stop sharing first, or email support@lowpass.fyi with the link.
- Use Passport without connecting Game Center, or turn Automatic progress updates off in Passport → Game Center. Manage your Apple Game Center profile in system settings.
- Email support@lowpass.fyi with any privacy question.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, this page will show a new effective date at the top.
Contact
Low Pass is made by MyCo Labs LLC. Questions about this policy: support@lowpass.fyi.