ZwerfZwerfHow Zwerf handles your data. Last updated 4 September 2026.
Zwerf holds a private record of where you have parked and slept. Over years, that becomes an unusually personal thing to hold — so the short version is this: it is yours, it is not shared with anyone, it is never sold, and nothing about how you use the app is measured or reported anywhere.
This page says exactly what that means, including the parts that are still imperfect.
The controller of your data is Ajaya Essentials BV, Eksterlaar 56 bus 101, 2100 Antwerpen, Belgium — registered in the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises under enterprise number 0676.545.108.
For anything on this page — a question, a request, a complaint — write to info@zwerf.app. A person reads it.
Everything you record lives on your phone first, and the app works with no signal at all. The phone holds your places — their names, descriptions, exact coordinates, type, your rating, your answers about what is true there, the dates you stayed and any notes about those stays — the lists you sort them into, and your photographs.
The same information is copied to a server so that it survives, and so that it can reach a second phone if you ever sign in. Alongside it, the server holds an anonymous account: an identifier for you, an identifier for your phone, a hashed token that phone uses to prove it is itself, and the date it was last seen.
There is no name, no email address and no phone number, because the app never asks for any. It has no signup screen. If Google sign-in is ever offered and you choose to use it, the server will additionally hold the account identifier Google issues and your email address — the email for display only, never as a way of matching you to anything.
Photographs are stored as files in object storage in the Netherlands. If a photograph carries location information of its own, that is stored with it; the app does not add any.
The server keeps an access log recording the IP address, time and outcome of requests reaching it. This is how a fault or an attack is diagnosed, and it is the only log of its kind.
| What | Why it is lawful |
|---|---|
| Your places, lists, stays and photographs; your anonymous account | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Storing and returning what you record is the service you installed the app for. |
| Access logs | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — keeping the service running and secure. They are read only when something has gone wrong, and used for nothing else ever. How long they are kept is in §6, including the part that is not yet right. |
| Google sign-in, if you use it | Performance of a contract, at your request. It is always optional and never a condition of using anything. |
None of this relies on consent, because none of it is optional extras bolted onto the product — which is also why the app shows you no consent banner. There is nothing to consent to.
Zwerf does not seek out sensitive information about you. You can of course type anything into a place's name or description; whatever you write there is stored as you wrote it and read by nobody.
Three services are involved in running the app. None of them is sent your atlas.
| Service | What reaches it | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Scaleway — hosting and storage | Everything described in §2, held on Zwerf's behalf and under contract. Scaleway does not use it for anything of its own. | France and the Netherlands |
| OpenFreeMap — map images | Your IP address and which parts of the map you are looking at, because the map is drawn from images fetched as you pan. Your places are never sent — they are drawn on your phone, on top. | European Union |
| Photon, operated by komoot GmbH — place search | Only what you type into the position search, and your IP address. Nothing identifying you is attached: the app deliberately strips its own credentials from these requests. | Germany |
Your data is stored in the European Union and is not transferred outside it.
If Google sign-in is offered in a future version and you choose it, Google receives the sign-in itself, under its own privacy policy.
Beyond this, data is disclosed only where the law requires it.
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your places, lists, stays and photographs | For as long as you keep them. Deleting one is described in the next row. |
| A place or photograph you delete | Gone from your phone straight away. On the server it is marked deleted and stops being sent to you — but the record itself is currently still held, and a deleted photograph currently stays in storage. See below. |
| An account nobody is using | Currently kept indefinitely. See below. |
| Access logs | Currently limited by size rather than by time — old entries are dropped as new ones arrive, so how far back they reach depends on how busy the server has been. See below. |
Most privacy policies describe an intention. This one describes what the software actually does today, which means saying plainly where it falls short. All three are being fixed, and this page will be updated as each one lands.
None of this is data anyone looks at, sells or shares — §3 and §5 hold without qualification. It is data that is being kept longer than it should be, which is a different fault and one worth naming rather than glossing.
Under the GDPR you have the right to access your data, to correct it, to have it erased, to restrict or object to how it is used, and to receive it in a portable form. Most of this you can do in the app itself, without asking anybody: everything you record is visible, editable and deletable on the phone.
For anything else, write to info@zwerf.app and you will have an answer within one month.
Because Zwerf never asks who you are, it usually cannot tell which data is yours. An account is proved by a credential held inside your phone — not by a name or an email — so a request sent by email has nothing to match against. This is the price of an app with no signup, and it is a deliberate one, but it has a real consequence:
Deleting inside the app, before you uninstall, is the closest thing to a reliable route — and being straight with you, today it is not yet a complete one, because of the first point in §6: the server keeps the record even once you have removed it everywhere you can see. When that is fixed, deleting in the app will be the whole answer. It is worth knowing in advance rather than afterwards.
If you signed in with Google, none of this applies: that account can be identified, and a request about it can be answered in the ordinary way.
If you are unhappy with how your data has been handled, you can complain to a supervisory authority — in Belgium, the Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit / Autorité de protection des données, and otherwise the authority in the country you live in.
Zwerf is not designed for or directed at children, and it is not knowingly used to collect data about them.
If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the date at the top changes and the app will say so. Previous versions are recorded in the app's public source history.