Privacy Policy

Effective October 26, 2026

1. Who we are
2. On your iPhone
3. Planning a route
4. Street names for the voice
5. Roads and junctions to avoid
6. Reports and ratings
7. Push notifications
8. Apple's services
9. What we never do
10. Where data is processed
11. Your choices and rights
12. This website
13. Changes and contact

Who we are

drivelamp is made by Steixner Digital LLC, 16192 Coastal Hwy, Lewes, DE 19958, United States (“we”, “us”). We are responsible for the data described here. You can reach us at hello@drivelamp.com about anything in this policy.

What stays on your iPhone

Most of what drivelamp knows about you never leaves your phone. It keeps, on the iPhone only:

• The roads you allow on your routes, the junctions and stretches of road you avoid, and your voice and display settings.
• Home, up to 8 recent places, and your saved routes. Home and three recent places are shared with drivelamp's own widget on the same phone.
• Your drive journal (the date, destination, length and tricky moments of up to 400 drives), your practice progress and goal.
• The roads you know: a record of the roads you have driven, stored as 30-metre squares, used to prefer familiar roads. It is left out of iPhone backups, and Forget them under Quiet roads deletes it.
• People to call: up to two names and phone numbers you choose, typed in or picked from Contacts. drivelamp reads only the contacts you pick.

Location. drivelamp asks for your location while you use it, to plan from where you are and to guide you. During a drive it keeps working in the background so the guidance doesn't stop when the screen locks; when the drive ends, it stops. It may ask for precise location for a drive or to set Home. You can plan without location by searching for a start.

Your iPhone's own backups (to iCloud or a computer) include drivelamp's data, except the roads you know, as they do for any app. Deleting drivelamp deletes everything it kept on the phone.

Planning a route

Routes are worked out on our own server, from OpenStreetMap data. Each time drivelamp plans a route, it sends:

• where the route starts (where you are, or a start you chose), up to three stops, and the destination, as exact map coordinates;
• which of highways, merges and ramps, roundabouts and lefts without a light you allow, and that the route should stay near places to stop;
• the junctions and stretches of road you avoid, the direction you're heading if you're moving, and the app's language.

It does not send the names of places, your name, or any identifier for you or your iPhone.

Besides the plans you ask for, drivelamp plans by itself during a drive: when you leave the route, it plans a new one from where you are. It also plans when you tap Stop, Take me home or Get me off the highway, and when it prepares a practice route.

The server works out the route, sends it back with the places to stop along it, and keeps no copy of the request or the route. Like most servers it writes a short technical log line for each request: the time, the address it came from (your IP address), the kind of request without its contents, and the app version. Those logs are limited in size and are overwritten as new lines arrive. We use them only to keep the service running and to stop abuse.

Street names for the voice

When the app is in English and you use one of drivelamp's voices, it sends the words of the coming instructions that name a street, like “Turn left onto Gallatin Pike”, to our server. A voice model running on our server turns them into speech. No location travels with them. The audio is kept on the server by its text, so the same sentence can be reused for anyone; nothing links it to you, and the text is not logged.

Roads and junctions to avoid

When you press and hold the map to avoid a junction or a stretch of road, the app sends that point, or the two ends you drag, to our server so it can tell which roads are there. Nothing is kept.

Route reports and star ratings

These are the only things drivelamp sends that our server keeps, and only when you choose to.

• Reporting a route (the flag during a drive, also offered after a low rating) sends the trip as it was planned, without trimming: the start, stops and destination, the roads you allowed and avoided, the route you were shown, the comment you write if any, and the app version. We keep reports to replay the route and fix what went wrong. Please don't put personal information in a comment.
• Rating a drive with stars, which drivelamp asks for after drives of ten minutes or more, sends your stars and the route with its first and last 300 metres cut off on your phone first, so where you set off from and where you arrived are not uploaded. Routes too short to trim that way are not sent. Tapping Not now sends nothing.

Neither carries an account, a name or an identifier for your phone, so we can't tell who sent one. We keep them for as long as they help us improve routes, on our server and on a backup copy we control. If you'd like one deleted, tell us roughly when and where the drive was and we'll find it and delete it.

Push notifications

Push notifications are off unless you turn them on in Settings. While they are on, our server keeps your iPhone's push token (an address Apple gives the app for sending it notifications), which app it is, the app version, its language and time zone, whether drivelamp+ is on, when you last opened the app and when we last sent you something. We use these only to send occasional news and tips in your language, during the day, never more than one in 20 hours, and sometimes a reminder after a while away. Apple's push service delivers them, so Apple receives the token and the message.

Turning push notifications off deletes your token and everything kept with it, and removes the token from our record of past notifications.

The CarPlay reminder in Settings is a notification your iPhone makes by itself when it connects to your car. It sends nothing.

Apple's services

drivelamp uses these Apple services on your iPhone. What they receive is handled under Apple's privacy policy, and Apple doesn't pass any of it to us:

• Apple Maps draws the map, finds the places you search for (what you type and the area you're in go to Apple), names a point you press on the map, and finds nearby places to stop when you tap Stop and there's none on the route.
• Look Around, with drivelamp+, shows the trickiest moments of a route at street level; the app asks Apple for the imagery at those points.
• Apple Weather provides the weather notes on a route. The app asks for two to four points along the route, each rounded to about 5 km.
• Siri runs the Calm route home shortcut if you use it.
• The App Store handles drivelamp+. We never receive your name, Apple Account or payment details. The app checks on your phone whether drivelamp+ is on.

Sharing your drive journal (drivelamp+) uses your iPhone's share sheet: it goes only where you send it, and never to us.

What we never do

• We don't have accounts, and we don't build a profile of you, your drives or your fears.
• We don't show ads, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.
• We don't sell or share personal information, and we don't give it to data brokers or advertisers.
• We don't use what drivelamp sends to train AI models.
• The roads you choose to avoid are routing preferences. They travel with a route request, unlinked to you, and are not kept unless you send a report or a rating.

Where data is processed

Our server is hosted by Hetzner Online GmbH in Germany, which runs the machine for us and has no access to its contents for its own use. Everything between the app and the server is encrypted with HTTPS. When you use drivelamp in the United States or Canada, the requests described above travel to Germany and are answered there.

Your choices and rights

• Leave location off and plan by searching for a start. Turn push notifications off at any time. Don't send reports or ratings if you'd rather not.
• Delete what's on your phone by deleting the app, or the roads you know with Forget them.
• Depending on where you live, including California and other US states, and Canada, you have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to get a copy, to have it corrected or deleted, and to opt out of its sale or sharing, which we don't do. We won't treat you differently for asking.

Because drivelamp has no accounts, we hold almost nothing that points to you. To make a request, write to hello@drivelamp.com. We'll answer within 30 days, and we may ask for details that let us find what you're asking about. Someone you authorize can make a request for you. If you're in Canada and not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or in Quebec the Commission d'accès à l'information.

drivelamp is meant for licensed drivers and isn't directed at children. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16.

This website

drivelamp.com sets no cookies and runs no analytics or third-party scripts. Its fonts are served from drivelamp.com itself, so visiting it doesn't contact Google or anyone else. If you email us, we keep your message and address to answer you, and delete them when they're no longer needed.

Changes and contact

If drivelamp starts handling data in a new way, this page will say so before the app does, with a new effective date. An important change will also be pointed out in the app.

Questions: hello@drivelamp.com, or Steixner Digital LLC, 16192 Coastal Hwy, Lewes, DE 19958, United States.