Farsider privacy policy

Effective date: 4 October 2026

This policy covers the Farsider app for Android and iPhone, and our server at farsider.app. It says what data the app uses, where it goes, how long it is kept, and what you can do about it.

Who we are

Farsider is published by Verano Solutions BV, a company in the Netherlands ("we", "us"). We are the controller of the data described here. Contact: [email protected].

The short version

• No account. You never give us an email address, a password or a phone number.
• Navigation works on your phone. Maps, routing, turn guidance and offline search run on the device. Rides are not recorded or uploaded. Points of a route leave the phone only for weather, the Local guide and group routes.
• Usage statistics are on by default and you can turn them off (Menu → General → "Share anonymous usage"). They include what you search for and a rough area of about 5 km. Never your exact position.
• Some features talk to a server when you use them: weather, rider groups, the Local guide, online search, satellite imagery and map downloads. Each is described below.
• No ads, no selling data, no tracking across other companies' apps or websites.
• You can delete your data in the app (Menu → Groups → Reset identity; usage statistics off), by uninstalling it, or by writing to us. See https://farsider.app/delete-data.

No account

Farsider has no sign-up. If you use rider groups, the app creates an anonymous rider profile on our server (see "Rider groups"). It holds only the display name and avatar you pick.

What stays on your phone

These are stored only on your device. We cannot see them.

• Your settings, saved places and recent searches.
• Trips and GPX files you import. They leave the phone only if you share a trip with a group.
• Downloaded maps, and satellite imagery the map has cached (up to the size you set, 500 MB by default).
• The Local guide's memory: which stories you heard and which topics you like more or less.
• Usage statistics waiting to be sent (at most 5,000 events or 2 MB).
• Your group sign-in secret and your groups' keys, encrypted with a key kept in Android Keystore or the iPhone Keychain.

Your phone's own backup (Google or iCloud) may include some of these files, under your Google or Apple account. The rider-groups files are left out of Android backups, and the group key on the iPhone never leaves the device.

What leaves your phone, feature by feature

Usage statistics (analytics)

On by default. Turn it off in Menu → General → "Share anonymous usage". Turning it off deletes the events waiting to be sent and the app's random install ID, and stops sending at once. Turning it back on starts with a new ID.

What is sent:

• Which screens and features you use: rides started and ended, searches, trips and GPX imports, groups, map downloads, ride-screen layouts, weather and alert notices, settings you change (on/off and choice values only), and failures such as a route that could not be found.
• What you search for: the text you typed, trimmed, lower-cased and cut at 64 characters, once per search, and the rank of the result you picked. A position you paste (coordinates or a map link) is never sent as text.
• A rough area: a map cell of about 5 × 5 km (a 5-character geohash) and the country you are in, taken when the event happens.
• Distances, durations and counts in ranges (for example "200–250 km"), not exact values.
• A random install ID, a random session ID, the app version, the phone model, the operating system and its version, the language setting, units and voice mode.

What is never sent: your coordinates, routes, trip or GPX names, group names, rider names, invite codes, or other text you type besides searches. Map pack names are sent; they are ours ("Italy North").

Where it goes: PostHog, in PostHog's EU cloud. The app sends events in batches, often later (for example when you are back home). Each event tells PostHog not to look up a location from the IP address and not to build a person profile. The PostHog project is set to discard IP addresses. PostHog keeps events for and then deletes them. We use the statistics to learn which features are used and what to improve.

Weather

On by default. Turn it off in Menu → General → Weather; then the app makes no weather requests.

• While you navigate, the app sends our server points along the route ahead of you (one every 2 km for the next 100 km, at most 60 points) with their height, so it can tell you where rain is coming.
• While the app is open without a route, it sends your current position about every 10 minutes (sooner after 3 km), and when you open the weather overview.
• Our server uses the points to answer and does not store or log them. To get forecasts it asks MET Norway for an area rounded to about 1 km. MET Norway sees our server, not you.
• Rain radar pictures come from our server by map tile (zoom level and tile numbers).

Rider groups

Only if you create or join a group.

• Profile: a display name (1–24 characters) and an avatar from the app's built-in set. Our server gives you a random rider ID and a secret; it stores only a hash of the secret.
• Groups: the group's name, its members, each member's colour, and the group's shared route (its stops with their positions and names, the route options, and who made the last change).
• Your position: only while you ride with a group switched on. The app sends your position, heading, speed and GPS accuracy every 5 seconds while moving (30 seconds while still). Only the members of that group receive it. The server keeps only your latest position, no history, and deletes it 60 minutes after it last heard from you. It is deleted at once when you switch the group off or leave it.
• Invites: invite codes are made on your phone and expire (QR codes after 5 minutes, shared links after 24 hours). Anyone who opens a valid invite link in a browser sees the group's name and nothing else.
• Group trips: if you share a trip with a group, its GPX file, its name and your display name are stored on our server for the group's members. A GPX file can contain whatever its author put in it (for example times or a name). Up to 10 trips per group, 8 MB each.

Local guide (stories along the ride)

Off by default. Turn it on with the Local guide switch.

• To find places with stories, the app sends our server your route (at most 2,000 points along it), your language and how much the guide should talk. The server uses it to look up places and does not store or log it.
• To get stories, the app sends the places and topics it wants and a random Local guide install ID (used for daily limits and test access). For a ride's linking script it sends the names of where the ride starts and ends, the local time, the stories planned, up to 10 names from stories you heard before, and up to 5 topics you like. Never positions.
• New stories are written by an AI model from Anthropic (Claude) and checked against facts from Wikidata and Wikipedia. Our server sends Anthropic the place, the topic and, for a ride's script, the outline above. The voice is made on our own server.
• Story audio is downloaded from data.farsider.app (see "Map downloads").
• Your interest profile and the list of stories you heard stay on your phone. Menu → Local guide has "Forget heard stories" and "Forget what I like".

Online search

When you search with a signal, the app also asks Photon, a search service run by komoot GmbH, for places outside your downloaded maps. The app sends komoot directly, from your phone:

• the text you are typing (from 3 characters, a moment after you stop typing),
• one reference point so near results come first: your position, the map centre, or your place on the route,
• your language.

komoot also sees your IP address. komoot's privacy policy applies to that request. In Menu → General → Online search you can point the app at another Photon server. Search in your downloaded maps never leaves the phone.

Satellite imagery

Only when you choose the Satellite map. The app loads imagery tiles directly from Esri (ArcGIS). Each request names a map tile (zoom level and tile numbers), so Esri can tell roughly which area you are looking at. Esri also sees your IP address. Esri's privacy policy applies.

Map downloads

Maps, the map list, map updates and story audio come from data.farsider.app, our storage on Cloudflare. Cloudflare and we can see your IP address and which files you download, so which regions you got. We do not keep access logs for these downloads. The app checks the map list once a day for updates.

Farsider Pro (purchases)

Only when you buy Farsider Pro or restore a purchase. Apple or Google handles the payment; we never see your name, card or store account. The app sends our server the store's proof of purchase (Apple's signed transaction, or Google's purchase token) with the app's install ID, and our server checks it with Apple or Google to know which plan the phone has and until when. Apple and Google then tell our server when the subscription renews, ends or is refunded. We keep the subscription's store ID, product, dates and status, linked to the install IDs that proved it (at most five).

Location, camera and other permissions

• Location is used on your phone to show where you are, route you and guide you. It leaves the phone only as described above (weather, groups, analytics' 5 km cell, online search).
• Background location: while you navigate, the app keeps using location with the screen off or another app in front, so it can keep guiding you. On Android this runs as a navigation notification (a foreground service; the app does not ask for "all the time" location). On the iPhone the app asks only "While Using" and the status bar shows that location is in use.
• Camera: only to scan a group's QR code. The picture is read on the phone and not stored or sent.
• Notifications: for the navigation notification and, on the iPhone, the Live Activity. Both are made on the phone. The app does not use push messages.

Our server and its logs

Our server runs at farsider.app on a host we manage, behind Cloudflare.

• All app traffic uses HTTPS.
• Our server's logs record which kind of request it was, the result code and how long it took. They do not record addresses, IDs, names, positions, routes or search text.
• Your IP address is used briefly, in memory, to limit abuse (too many requests). It is not written to disk.
• The proxy in front of our app may keep its own access logs.
• Our server's group database is not backed up: what is deleted is gone.

Who receives data

We do not sell or rent your data. We may disclose data if the law requires it.

Data outside your country

Cloudflare, Anthropic and Esri are based in the United States, and Cloudflare's network is worldwide. Where data from the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland goes to such a provider, we rely on the safeguards the law allows, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. PostHog's EU cloud stores data in the EU.

How long we keep it

The server checks every minute and deletes what is due.

Why we may use your data (legal bases)

For users in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland:

• To provide what you ask for (contract): weather, groups, group trips, the Local guide, search, satellite imagery and map downloads.
• Our legitimate interests: usage statistics, to understand how the app is used and improve it. They are rough, without accounts, and you can turn them off at any time. Also keeping the service safe from abuse.
• Legal obligations, where the law requires us to keep or disclose data.

Your rights and choices

You can:

• turn off usage statistics and weather in Menu → General, and the Local guide with its switch;
• leave a group, switch it off, or change your profile, in Menu → Groups;
• delete your rider profile on our server with Menu → Groups → Reset identity, which also takes you out of every group (see https://farsider.app/delete-data);
• delete everything on the phone by uninstalling the app;
• ask us for access to your data, or to correct, delete, restrict or export it, or object to how we use it.

Because there are no accounts, we may need an ID from the app to find your data (for example your rider ID). We cannot link usage statistics to you once the app's install ID is deleted.

To use your rights, write to [email protected]. We answer within one month. You can also complain to a data protection supervisory authority. Ours is the Dutch Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl). You can also go to the authority in the country where you live or work.

Children

Farsider is a navigation app for riders and drivers. It is not directed at children under 13, or under 16 in the EEA and the UK. We do not knowingly collect data from them. If you think a child has used rider groups, write to us and we will delete the profile.

Security

All connections use HTTPS. Group secrets are stored encrypted on the phone and only as a hash on our server. Invite codes are signed and expire. Positions go only to members of the same group who have it switched on.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app.

Contact

Verano Solutions BV, the Netherlands. Email: [email protected].