Privacy Policy
Your app data stays on your device and in your own iCloud backup. Here is what happens when you use maps, suggest a place, make a purchase or contact us.
The Short Version
In short:
- Almost nothing collected: we never collect your trips or saved places, and we run no analytics or advertising trackers. The one thing the app sends us is a place you choose to suggest, and it is not linked to you.
- Your data stays yours: what you create in the app stays on your iPhone and, if iCloud backup is enabled, in your private iCloud storage, which we cannot read.
- The details: maps, suggested places, purchases, website hosting and support emails are explained below.
Who We Are
The Shortlist Atlas is published by The Shortlist Atlas LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company in the United States. Contact: support@theshortlistatlas.com.
The iOS App
- Your trips, saved towns, notes, ratings, tour progress, saved starting addresses and stay history are stored on your device. They are not sent to us.
- iCloud backup (on by default, switchable in You) saves a copy in your private iCloud database through Apple’s CloudKit. Only your Apple Account can read it. This is a saved backup, not live synchronization between devices. Use Restore from iCloud on a new phone. Delete My Atlas Data in You removes it from the device and from iCloud.
- Location is used only if you turn on day logging for the Stay Counter. The app keeps just the date and the country. Your position is looked up by Apple’s geocoding service and is not stored or sent to us.
- Maps and directions can open Apple Maps or Google Maps. Opening a route sends its destination and your selected starting address to that provider under its privacy policy. A hotel/address saved in the Atlas stays in your local data and enabled backups until you remove it.
- Notifications are scheduled on your device. No push server is involved. To check for new Atlas Watch alerts, the app downloads a public file from this website. That request carries no account or device identifier, though our web host sees standard connection details such as your IP address.
- Purchases are made through Apple. We receive no card details, name or email address; the app only learns whether a purchase is active.
- Traveling Together links and exports are files that you choose to send. They go wherever you send them and never pass through us.
- Links to websites (attractions, tourism offices, municipal pages) open those services, which have their own privacy policies.
- Suggest a Place sends us only what you type: the place’s name, town and country, and, if you add them, its website and a note. No name, email address, account, location or device identifier goes with it, and it is not linked to you. Each suggestion is signed with an Apple App Attest key that the app makes for itself; it proves the suggestion came from a genuine copy of the app and does not identify you. Suggestions are kept on our server (hosted by Render in the United States). To check a place, we send its details, and your note with any email address, phone number or link removed, to Anthropic’s Claude for web research, and the place’s name to Wikidata. If the place is verified, it is added to the app in a later update; only the place is published, never your note. Your note is deleted 30 days after a final decision. Please do not include personal details.
The app contains no third-party SDKs, advertising identifiers or analytics. Its App Store privacy label lists one item, the places you suggest (“Other User Content”), which is not linked to you and never used for tracking.
This Website
We do not run website analytics or use advertising cookies. Place searches filter the catalog in your browser. Search terms can also appear in the page URL, which may be included in hosting logs. Your background-motion preference is saved locally in this browser; it is not sent to us. Fonts and images are served from the site itself. Town pages can display an OpenStreetMap map; loading it contacts OpenStreetMap, which receives standard connection information such as your IP address under its own policy. The hosting service may keep standard connection and security logs.
If You Email Us
We use your message and address only to reply and to fix what you report. We never sell or rent them or share them for marketing. Our email provider, Google Workspace, stores them for us, and we delete correspondence we no longer need.
Our Shop
PDF Atlases are sold through our Fourthwall shop, where checkout, payment and order emails are handled by Fourthwall under its own privacy policy, linked at the foot of every shop page.
Children
The Atlas is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Your Choices
You can delete the app’s saved data through You → Delete My Atlas Data. This also removes its enabled iCloud backup. Deleting the app alone removes its local copy. Delete My Atlas Data also removes your list of suggestions from the phone; a suggestion already sent is not linked to you, so to withdraw one, write to us with the place’s name. To ask about a support email you sent us, including access or deletion, contact: support@theshortlistatlas.com.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Last updated 19 October 2026.