How Safety App UK uses your information

1. Who we are

Safety App UK (the “app”) is provided by GGSHOP LIMITED, a company incorporated in Hong Kong (“we”, “us”). We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

Contact: ggshop@safety-app.uk or our contact form.

2. What we collect and why

Account information

You sign in with your Google account. We receive your Google account email and ID; we never see your Google password. Optionally a nickname and a profile photo. We use this to create and secure your account and to show your name to your Trusted Circle.

Precise location

We collect your precise (GPS) location while the app is open. If you allow Background Location (the app asks once when Premium starts; you can change it at any time in Settings › Background Location) and choose “Allow all the time”, we also collect it while the screen is off or the app is in your recent apps. A notification is shown while this is running. We use your location to:

• show your position on the map and warn you when you are near a danger zone;
• start Auto-SOS when you enter a danger zone (if Auto-SOS is on);
• tell your Trusted Circle when you arrive at or leave one of your Safe Zones (if you enable these alerts);
• share your live location with the Trusted Circle contacts you have accepted and allowed to see it;
• send your location to your Trusted Circle during an SOS;
• check that you are near a community report when you confirm that it is no longer dangerous or flag it as wrong (see “Community reports”).

Our server keeps only your latest position and its time, which is overwritten with each update. When you swipe the app away from your recent apps or use Close App, background location stops. When you plan a route, the start and destination points are sent to our routing provider (see section 4).

Camera and microphone

The camera and microphone are used only during an SOS. An SOS starts when you press the SOS button, shake your phone, or when Auto-SOS starts because you entered a danger zone at or above the level you chose. Auto-SOS is on by default. You can turn it off, choose which zones trigger it, and choose whether you get a 10-second countdown to cancel it (“Ask before starting”) in Settings.

During an SOS the app streams live video and audio to your Trusted Circle and records short video clips. The clips are uploaded to our server and shared with your Trusted Circle. SOS clips are not saved to your phone’s gallery. The camera is also used when you choose to take a photo for an incident report. Photos you pick from your gallery are selected with the Android photo picker, so the app never gets access to your whole gallery.

Trusted Circle, messages and Safe Zones

The contacts you add (their account, or their email address if you invite someone who has not joined yet), the names you give them and your sharing settings. A contact always has to accept an invitation, and you can remove someone from your Trusted Circle at any time. The messages you exchange in the app, including links to SOS clips. The Safe Zones you create (location and radius).

Community reports

When you report an incident we store its type, location, time and, if you add them, a description and photo. Reports are shown to other users on the map without your name. Please do not include faces, number plates or other details that identify people. You can remove your own report at any time.

Other users can flag a report as false or inappropriate, or confirm that a place is no longer dangerous. We store who flagged or confirmed which report, and check that they were within 200 metres of it. When two different people nearby flag a report, it is hidden; when two different people nearby confirm it is no longer dangerous, it is removed from the map. One person alone cannot remove someone else’s report.

Device and technical data

A push notification token so we can send you alerts. Your battery level when it drops below 10%, so we can send a low-battery alert to your Trusted Circle. Your IP address and basic request information in our server logs, used for security and to fix problems.

App analytics (only with your consent)

With your consent, our Android app uses Google Analytics for Firebase, a service provided by Google, to understand how the app is used and to measure whether our advertising works; it collects a pseudonymous app-instance ID, your device’s advertising ID, approximate location derived from your IP address, the screens you open, in-app purchases and a few general events (such as “a Trusted Circle invite was sent” or “a Safe Walk started”), but never your precise location, routes, contacts, messages or SOS recordings. Analytics is switched off until you tap “Accept”, nothing is sent if you decline, and you can change your choice at any time under Settings › Privacy choices. We do not use this data for personalised advertising or remarketing; see Google’s privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Subscription

Safety App Premium costs £2.99 per month or £29.99 per year, with a 7-day free trial for eligible accounts. Subscriptions are sold through Google Play (or the Apple App Store). We never see your card details. Google Play and RevenueCat tell us whether your subscription is active and which plan you have. RevenueCat receives your in-app user ID and your purchase details for this purpose.

Stored only on your phone

Your app settings (Auto-SOS, danger zone radius, theme and similar) and cached map data stay on your device.

3. Our legal bases (UK GDPR)

Purpose	Legal basis
Providing the app: account, map, danger zones, Trusted Circle, messages, Safe Zones, reports, subscription	Contract
Background location, camera and microphone	Your consent, given through the in-app notice and Android permissions. You can withdraw it at any time in the app or your phone settings.
App analytics and measuring our advertising (Google Analytics for Firebase)	Your consent, given by tapping “Accept” in the app. You can withdraw it at any time in Settings › Privacy choices.
Sharing your location and SOS clips with your Trusted Circle during an emergency	Vital interests and contract
Security, fraud and abuse prevention, moderation of community reports, server logs	Legitimate interests
Keeping records we are required to keep	Legal obligation

4. Who can see your data

People you choose

• Your Trusted Circle sees your live location (if you allow it for that contact), your SOS alerts, live video and clips, Safe Zone arrival and departure alerts (if enabled), low-battery alerts and your messages to them.
• Other users see community reports without the reporter’s name.

Service providers who process data for us

• OVHcloud: hosting of our servers, database, SOS clips and our own map server (map data © OpenStreetMap contributors).
• Google: Google Sign-In, Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications, Google Play billing and, only with your consent, Google Analytics for Firebase (app analytics and measuring our advertising).
• Expo: delivery of push notifications.
• RevenueCat: subscription status.
• LiveKit: real-time video and audio during an SOS.
• FOSSGIS e.V. (OpenStreetMap Valhalla): route planning. It receives the start and destination of routes you plan.

We do not sell or rent personal data and do not share it with advertisers. We do not share your data with the police or other authorities unless the law requires it or you choose to. Crime data on our map comes from public police data (data.police.uk); we never send your data there.

5. International transfers

Some providers above process data outside the UK, for example in the European Union and the United States. Where this happens we rely on UK adequacy regulations or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

6. How long we keep data

Data	How long
Account and profile	Until you delete your account
Location	Only your latest position, overwritten with each update and deleted with your account
SOS clips on our server	5 days, then deleted automatically. Save a copy if you need it for longer.
SOS clips on your phone	Removed 24 hours after upload (or after 7 days if they could not be uploaded)
Messages	Until you delete the conversation (this removes it for both people) or your account
Community reports and photos	Deleted automatically 7 days after the latest report at that spot, or earlier if you remove your report or delete your account. Reports hidden or removed by other users are deleted 7 days later.
Flags and “no longer dangerous” confirmations	Deleted together with the report, or when you delete your account
Trusted Circle and Safe Zones	Until you remove them or delete your account
Push token	Until you sign out or delete your account
Server logs	A short period, for security and troubleshooting
App analytics (Google Analytics for Firebase)	14 months, then deleted automatically by Google

When you delete your account we also ask RevenueCat to delete your customer record. Google Play keeps its own purchase records under Google’s privacy policy.

7. Security

All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted (HTTPS). Sign-in is handled by Google, so we never store a password. SOS clips are kept in a private storage area and can only be opened through short-lived signed links, available to you and the contacts the clip was sent to.

8. Your choices and rights

• Turn off Background Location, Auto-SOS, push notifications or location sharing with a contact at any time in Settings, or remove permissions in your phone settings.
• Turn app analytics on or off at any time in Settings › Privacy choices.
• Delete your account and data in the app: Settings › Account › Delete Account, or follow our Account & Data Deletion page.
• Under UK GDPR you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the use of your data, to data portability and to withdraw consent. Email ggshop@safety-app.uk. We reply within one month.
• You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) or your local data protection authority.

9. How we mark areas as risky

Danger zones come from two sources. Police data: official street-level crime data from data.police.uk for the last three months, updated every week. Only crimes that put a person on the street at risk count (violence and sexual offences, robbery, weapons, theft from the person, drugs, public order, and stalking and harassment). A place becomes an orange or red danger zone only when such crimes keep happening there month after month; one-off crimes and property crime (burglary, vehicle crime, criminal damage) are shown for information only and never trigger alerts. Police data gives approximate locations, so a zone marks an area, not an exact address. Police data covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Police Scotland does not publish street-level data, so in Scotland the map shows community reports only. Community reports: incidents reported by users, which stay active for a limited time. A report is hidden when two different people nearby flag it as false or inappropriate, and removed when two different people nearby confirm it is no longer dangerous.

We never mark areas based on race, nationality, immigration status or any other characteristic of the people who live or spend time there. Reports describe actions such as theft, harassment or assault, not people.

10. Children

The app is not intended for children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We will update this page and the “Last updated” date when this policy changes. For important changes we will also tell you in the app.