LakeMap — Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

LakeMap is developed and operated by:

dataWorks GmbH
Seestrasse 59
8702 Zollikon
Switzerland
Email: support@data-works.ch

We are the data controller for the processing described in this policy. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer, as we are not required to under Swiss or EU law.

2. The Short Version

• LakeMap has no user accounts. We cannot identify you personally.
• Your position never leaves your device. The charts are stored inside the app, so the map, your position, the depth under your boat and the shallow-water alerts are all computed offline.
• The app contacts a small number of weather and lake-level services to keep those readings current. They receive your IP address — and, for the forecast, the coordinates of the lake, not of your boat.
• We use no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK, no ads and no tracking. The app contains no advertising or tracking libraries at all.
• There are no in-app purchases.

The rest of this policy explains this in detail.

3. What Data Is Processed

3.1 Location (on-device only)

With your permission, LakeMap uses your device's location to:

• show your boat's position, course and speed on the chart,
• read the depth below you out of the chart data stored on the device,
• select the right lake automatically, and
• project your course ahead and raise the shallow-water alert.

All of this happens on your device. Your coordinates are never transmitted to us, and we operate no server that could receive them.

Background location: while the alarm is armed, LakeMap keeps receiving position updates even when the screen is off or another app is in front — otherwise it could not warn you. Arming the alarm is your choice, it is explained once before the first time, and muting the alarm also ends the background positioning. You can withdraw location access at any time in your device settings; the charts remain usable without it.

3.2 Requests to lake-level, weather and warning services

To keep depths and the weather view current, the app contacts these services directly from your device:

• LINDAS (environment.ld.admin.ch, the Swiss Confederation's Linked Data Service) — the official lake-level measurements of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN/BAFU). The request contains the gauge number of the lake, nothing else.
• Open-Meteo (api.open-meteo.com, OpenMeteo GmbH, Bürglen UR, Switzerland) — wind and gust forecasts from the MeteoSwiss ICON models. The request contains a fixed reference coordinate of the lake, rounded to four decimal places — not your own position.
• MeteoAlarm (feeds.meteoalarm.org, EUMETNET, operated with GeoSphere Austria, EU) — the official severe-weather warning feed for Switzerland. The request contains no parameters about you; the feed is fetched whole and matched to your lake on the device.

As with any internet request, these services technically receive your IP address and the time of the request. We do not control their processing. Open-Meteo states that it deletes request logs after 90 days.

• Legal basis: our legitimate interest in showing you current depths, wind and warnings (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; Art. 31 nDSG)

If you are offline, the app uses the last values it stored and shows how old they are.

3.3 Feedback you send us

If you use the feedback form in the app, we receive the message you write, your e-mail address if you choose to provide one (it is optional and only used to reply), the operating system name, and the app version and build number. Nothing is attached silently: no position, no tracks, no device identifier.

• Legal basis: our legitimate interest in handling support requests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); if you supply an e-mail address, your consent to be contacted (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
• Retention: until the request is settled, at most 24 months

3.4 Data stored on your device

The following stays on your device and is removed when you delete the app:

• your settings (units, safety depth, selected lake, alarm state),
• the last lake level and the last weather forecast, cached so the app works offline,
• the chart packs the app unpacks on first start,
• the tracks you record.

We have no access to any of it. If you export a track as a GPX file, it leaves your device only through the sharing target you pick, and only then.

3.5 Notifications and sounds

Alerts are generated on the device and are shown as local notifications and tones. No push service is involved and no notification data reaches us.

3.6 Rating prompt

The app may ask you to rate it. The rating dialog is provided by Apple or Google inside their store; your review is submitted to them, not to us, and we learn nothing beyond what is publicly visible in the store.

4. What We Don't Do

• We do not require or offer user accounts.
• We do not collect, transmit or store your position.
• We do not use analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or tracking SDKs.
• We do not show ads and do not sell or share personal data.
• We do not profile you or make automated decisions about you.
• We do not operate a user database that could be breached.

5. International Data Transfers

The lake-level and weather services are operated in Switzerland. The MeteoAlarm warning feed is operated within the EU/EEA, for which Switzerland recognises an adequate level of data protection. No data is transferred to the United States by the app itself; the app stores that Apple and Google apply their own terms to the store, the rating dialog and the delivery of the app.

6. Your Rights

Under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (nDSG) and, where applicable, the EU GDPR, you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you,
• have inaccurate data corrected,
• have your data deleted,
• receive your data in a portable format,
• object to processing based on legitimate interest,
• withdraw a consent you have given,
• lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Practical note: unless you have written to us through the feedback form, we hold no data about you at all — there is nothing we could look up, export or delete. Everything the app knows about you stays on your device and disappears when you uninstall it. Location access can be withdrawn at any time in your device settings.

To exercise your rights, contact us at the address in Section 1. We respond within 30 days.

Supervisory authorities:

• Switzerland: Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), Feldeggweg 1, CH-3003 Bern, https://www.edoeb.admin.ch
• EU: your national data protection authority

7. Children

LakeMap is a tool for people navigating a boat and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

8. Security

All network connections use TLS encryption. Because the app holds no account and sends us no position data, there is no user database on our side that could be compromised. Feedback messages are stored on our infrastructure in Switzerland and are accessible only to us.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy when the app's data processing changes. The current version is always available at this address; material changes will be highlighted in the app's release notes.

10. Contact

support@data-works.ch