Airmarq Privacy Policy

Draft for the beta. Last updated: 12 October 2026.

Airmarq lets you paint in the air with your iPhone and leave paintings at real places for yourself and your friends to find. This policy explains what information the app uses, what leaves your phone, and the choices you have.

Who is responsible: Shawn Giese, Switzerland. Contact: shawn@shawngiese.ch

The short version

• No ads and no tracking. Airmarq contains no third-party analytics, advertising or other third-party code, and stores shared data only in Apple's iCloud.
• Your location is uploaded only as part of a painting or home you choose to save, never as a trail of where you've been.
• The raw camera image is never uploaded. A painting's pictures either show only your painting strokes, or a camera view with people, faces and text blurred (your choice).
• You can delete all your data from inside the app at any time.

What the app uses and why

Camera. Airmarq uses the camera to show your paintings in the room and to recognize places. The augmented reality view you see, passed through from your camera, is not recorded or saved, and is never uploaded.

Location. When you save a painting or a home, its location is saved with it so you and the people you share it with can find it again. If you turn on arrival alerts, iOS tells the app when you arrive near a painting on a channel you follow. This check happens on your phone, and your location is not uploaded for it. Alerts need "Always" location access; everything else works with "While Using".

Paintings. A painting you save includes your painting strokes, an optional title and note, the location, a spatial map, and pictures (below).

Spatial map. To place a painting at the same spot again, Apple ARKit builds a spatial map (called the point map in the app) from the camera view: a set of 3D points and visual markers describing the shapes and textures of the room. The spatial map contains no photos.

Pictures saved with a painting. Every painting has a list picture: an image of your painting strokes alone, with the room hidden, from an angle you can choose. It's shown in lists so people can recognize the painting. For the main picture, you choose for each painting between:

• Camera view: before anything is uploaded, the picture goes through cleaning on your phone: people, faces and text (such as house numbers, signs and number plates) are detected and blurred. You can then choose a drawing-style filter (Comic, Lines, Sketch or Poster) on top. If detection fails, the camera view isn't shared and only the painting is shown.
• Painting only: no camera image at all, just your painting strokes.

The raw camera image stays on your phone and is never uploaded.

Homes. If you map a home for a party or a shared space, its spatial map, its location, and a few pictures of the rooms are saved, so guests can find the paintings there. People, faces and text in these pictures are blurred on your phone before they're uploaded; a picture where that fails isn't saved. If the upload fails (for example, when your iCloud is full), the home map is kept on your phone until it can be uploaded or you discard it.

Your iCloud account. Airmarq uses Apple's iCloud (CloudKit) to store and share paintings. Apple gives the app an anonymous ID for your iCloud account, and that ID marks which paintings and channels are yours. Airmarq never sees your Apple ID, email address or name.

Channels.

• Private channels, including your personal "My paintings" channel and homes, are stored in your own iCloud. Only people you invite can see them. Paintings guests add to your home are stored in your iCloud too.
• Public channels are stored in Airmarq's public iCloud database, and anyone using the app can see their paintings, including the paintings' locations and pictures. Only post on a public channel what you're happy for anyone to see at that place.

Reports. If you report a painting on a public channel, the report (which painting, the reason, and your anonymous ID) is sent to Airmarq for review.

Notifications. Arrival alerts and notifications about new paintings are delivered by Apple's push notification service.

Settings. Your choices, such as left- or right-handed layout, brush settings and alert settings, stay on your phone.

Usage statistics. To see whether and how much Airmarq is used, we look at the basic, anonymous figures Apple provides to app developers in App Store Connect, such as installs, sessions, active devices and crashes. Apple shares these only from people who chose to share analytics with app developers (iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements), and they don't identify you. We can also see totals in iCloud, such as how many paintings and channels exist.

Diagnostics. The app keeps a small log on your phone to help track down problems: app events plus memory, processor and heat readings. It never leaves your phone unless you tap Send diagnostics in Settings. You see the whole report before sending, and you choose where it goes (for example, an email to us). The report includes the app and iOS versions, your phone model, a few app settings and the log. It never includes your location, iCloud account, channel names, paintings, pictures or anything about other apps. Identifiers in the log are removed or replaced with short anonymous codes.

This website. airmarq.app has no cookies, analytics or tracking. Its hosting provider may keep standard server logs (such as IP addresses and the pages requested) for a short time to run and protect the site. A share link you open on the website stays in your browser; the page only uses it to show what the link is for.

What we don't do

• We don't sell or share your data with anyone.
• We don't use advertising, tracking, or third-party analytics services.
• We don't record, save or upload the camera view, and we don't upload a history of your locations.

Where your data is stored

Shared data is stored by Apple in iCloud. Private channels are in your own iCloud account and count toward your iCloud storage; public channels are in the app's public iCloud database. Apple's handling of iCloud data is described in Apple's privacy policy (apple.com/privacy).

How long data is kept

Paintings, channels and homes are kept until you delete them, or until you use Delete my data. Reports are kept as long as needed to review them. Diagnostics reports you email to us are kept only as long as needed to fix the problem, and then deleted.

Your choices and rights

• Delete a painting or home from its screen in the app.
• Delete everything: Me → Settings → Delete my data removes your paintings, channels and subscriptions from iCloud, along with everything Airmarq stored on your phone.
• Leave a private channel at any time. A channel's host can remove any painting from it.
• Change permissions for camera, location and notifications at any time in iOS Settings → Airmarq.
• Under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and, where it applies, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you can ask what data we hold about you, and ask for it to be corrected or deleted. Write to shawn@shawngiese.ch. You may also complain to your data protection authority (in Switzerland, the FDPIC).

Beta testing with TestFlight

During the beta, Apple's TestFlight service shares with us the email address you were invited with, your device model and iOS version, and any screenshots, feedback and crash reports you choose to send. This is covered by Apple's TestFlight terms and privacy policy.

Children

Airmarq is not intended for children under 13. Public channels can show paintings by anyone, so we recommend private channels for younger users.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Material changes will also be mentioned in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions or requests: shawn@shawngiese.ch