Timeline

Privacy Policy

Last updated 15 November 2026.

This policy explains what personal data Timeline handles, why, who receives it and what rights you have. It covers the Timeline iPhone app, this website, and the optional account, web timeline and assistant access. Your history stays on your iPhone unless you choose to share it.

Who is responsible

The controller under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is Marcel Marais, Gipsstraße 5, 10119 Berlin, Germany. See the Impressum for more details. Questions or requests: marcel@differentiated.io

On your iPhone

Timeline records the places you visit using Apple’s Core Location and Core Motion, once you allow this in iOS. You can change those permissions in iOS Settings at any time. Your history, saved places and diagnostics are stored on your iPhone and in its backups. You need no account for this, and none of it is sent to us.

If you choose to, Timeline can also show where you went before you installed it, from when and where your photos were taken. It asks for access to Photos only when you tap Use My Photos, or ask to see your photos on a visit. To find places it reads each photo’s date and location and nothing else, and it doesn’t keep which photo a place came from. With that access it also shows your own photos on the visits and places where you took them, straight from your library. The places it finds stay on your iPhone unless you share all your history, as described below. The photos themselves, and anything about what is in them, are never uploaded.

A few features send data from your iPhone straight to other services. We don’t receive it:

  • Apple Maps receives the positions of your stops, and of the places found from your photos, to look up addresses and place names, and to draw maps. It also receives where your rides began and ended, to find stations, airports and ferry terminals nearby, which help tell a train from a car.
  • Wikimedia (Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia) receives a place’s name and position so that Places can show a picture of it.

Files you export go wherever you send them.

Your account and shared history

Sharing is optional and off by default. It lets you see your timeline on this website and lets assistants you connect read it. When you sign in with Apple or Google and choose what to share, the app uploads:

  • your stops: arrival and departure times, location, reported accuracy, time zone, and the place name, address, city and category the app shows;
  • how you travelled between stops: on foot, cycling or in a vehicle, which vehicle when the app can tell or you chose it, and when;
  • the path the app’s map draws for each trip between stops: the way you went, simplified to a few dozen points, so your timeline on this website matches the app;
  • the places found from your photos, if you used that and share your existing history: when the first and last photo at each place were taken, its location, how far apart the photos were, and the saved place, address or city the app shows;
  • your saved places, such as Home and Work, with their addresses;
  • the notes you write on your stops, in the app or on the website (a note written on the website waits here until your iPhone takes it), and the notes an assistant adds to them if you allow it to when you connect it;
  • the names and kinds of the nearby places the app offers for each stop, in its order, so an assistant you allow can correct which place a stop was at, and the place it chose, or how it said you travelled on a trip, until your iPhone has applied it;
  • your most recent position, with its address, how you were travelling, and the path of the trip you were on, so you and your assistants can see where you last were;
  • a device identifier, a device name and the app version.

Your account also holds your name, email address and profile picture from Apple or Google (with Sign in with Apple, the email can be a private relay address), and the account identifier they give us.

Raw location samples, motion activity, step counts, air pressure readings and the app’s diagnostics are never uploaded; only what the app makes of them is: how you travelled, such as on foot or by train, and the simplified path it draws. When you start sharing, you choose whether to upload your existing history or only what is recorded from then on. Your existing history includes the places found from your photos.

Your location history can reveal sensitive things about you, such as where you worship or receive medical care. We therefore store it only with your explicit consent, which you give by choosing what to share in the app. You can withdraw that consent at any time with Delete Shared History in the app’s account settings. This stops sharing and removes the copy we hold. It doesn’t affect what was done before you withdrew it.

How your history is used

Your shared history is used only to show it to you on this website when you sign in, and to answer requests from assistants you connect, such as Claude or ChatGPT. When an assistant asks, the relevant stops, saved places or last position are sent to that assistant’s provider, such as Anthropic or OpenAI, on your instruction and under their privacy policy. Assistants are given your stops, the places found from your photos (marked as such) and how you travelled, not the paths between them, which are only drawn on your timeline here. Disconnecting an assistant revokes its access.

If you add a webhook in Settings here, or let an assistant you connect subscribe to your arrivals and departures, then each time your iPhone reports that you arrived at a stop or left one, we send that stop’s place, its coordinates and its times to the address you or the assistant chose, on your instruction. Removing the webhook or disconnecting the assistant stops it.

We don’t sell your data, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI models, and we don’t share it with anyone except as this policy describes.

The map on your timeline is drawn by Apple Maps (MapKit JS), so your browser asks Apple for the map of the area on screen. Apple receives your IP address and that area, but not your history.

Timeline Pro

Timeline Pro is bought through the App Store. Apple handles the payment, and we never see your card or Apple Account. When your iPhone reports a purchase, we store Apple’s transaction number, the product, when it renews or ends, and whether it was refunded, linked to your account, so the website and assistants know you have Timeline Pro. Apple sends us the same details when a subscription renews, lapses or is refunded. If you were given free access, we store your email address, until when, and a short note.

This website

Hosting. When you open a page, our host Vercel processes your IP address, browser, the page requested and the time, to deliver the site and keep it secure.

Analytics. We count page views with Vercel Web Analytics. It uses no cookies. Visitors are told apart by a hash of the request, which is discarded after 24 hours, and we only see totals, such as which pages were read, the referring site, country or region, browser and device type.

Cookies. We use no advertising or tracking cookies, which is why there is no cookie banner. Signing in sets cookies that keep you signed in, for up to 30 days, and protect the sign-in. These are strictly necessary for the service you asked for.

Sign-in security. We store the IP address and browser of each signed-in session, and briefly use your IP address to limit repeated sign-in attempts.

Google Timeline viewer. The file you open is read in your browser and never uploaded. Names you give places are saved in your browser only. The map comes from OpenFreeMap, which receives your IP address and the area on screen.

Waitlist. Before launch, you could join a waitlist; it closed when Timeline came to the App Store on 7 November 2026. If you joined, we store your email address, when you joined, the page you joined from and the tag of any link that brought you there. We use your email address only to tell you once that Timeline is out. You can withdraw your consent at any time through the contact below.

Email. If you write to us, we use your address and message to answer you. Our email is hosted by Google.

Legal bases

  • Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) and Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR): storing your shared history, passing it to assistants you connect, and sending your arrivals and departures where you ask. Art. 6(1)(a) also covers the waitlist.
  • Our contract with you (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): your account, your web timeline, assistant access and Timeline Pro.
  • Our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): delivering the website and keeping it secure, understanding which pages are read, showing maps and pictures of places, and answering your messages.
  • Legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR): records that tax or commercial law requires us to keep.
  • Your device: reading location, motion and photo data needs your permission in iOS (§ 25(1) TDDDG). Sign-in cookies are strictly necessary (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG).

Who receives your data

These companies process data for us under data processing agreements:

These companies receive data as independent controllers, under their own privacy policies:

We disclose data to courts or authorities only where the law requires it.

Transfers outside the EU

Your account and shared history are stored in the United States. Vercel and Neon are certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, for which the European Commission has adopted an adequacy decision (Art. 45 GDPR). Vercel’s data processing agreement also includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). The other companies listed above may also process data in the United States; their privacy policies explain how.

How long data is kept

  • Shared history: until you delete it or your account, or until 90 days after Timeline Pro ends, when it is deleted automatically. If you never had Timeline Pro, the 90 days start at your last upload. Your last position is replaced by each new upload.
  • Account and purchase records: until you delete your account.
  • Free access: until it is no longer needed. It isn’t linked to your account, so ask us if you want it removed sooner.
  • Sign-in sessions: up to 30 days after you last used them, and deleted within a day of expiring.
  • Hosting logs: we can see them for one day. Vercel’s privacy notice explains how long it keeps them.
  • Waitlist: until we have sent the launch email, or until you ask to be removed. The waitlist isn’t linked to your account.
  • Emails: until your request is settled, then for up to three years in case of follow-up questions or claims.

Deleting your account takes effect immediately and also disconnects your assistants. Deleted data can remain in our database provider’s restore history for up to 30 days. Your history on your iPhone isn’t affected; deleting the app removes it. We keep data for longer only where the law requires it.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and sign-in tokens are stored encrypted. Location data is never written to our logs.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

  • access your data and receive a copy (Art. 15);
  • have it corrected (Art. 16) or deleted (Art. 17);
  • restrict how it is processed (Art. 18);
  • receive it in a portable format (Art. 20);
  • withdraw any consent at any time, for the future (Art. 7(3));
  • object at any time, for reasons relating to your situation, to processing based on our legitimate interests (Art. 21).

You can do much of this yourself: download your shared history in Settings on this website, and delete it or your account in the app or on the website. For anything else, use the contact below.

You can also complain to a data protection authority, for example where you live. The authority responsible for us is the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

Other information

You don’t have to give us any data. The app works without an account; without one you can’t use the web timeline or assistants. We make no automated decisions about you with legal or similarly significant effects (Art. 22 GDPR). Timeline isn’t intended for children under 16.

We update this policy when Timeline or the law changes, and show the date at the top. We’ll tell you in the app about changes that matter.

Contact

Questions or requests: marcel@differentiated.io