Privacy

Last updated: September 13, 2026

SparkMates (“we”) sets out this Privacy Policy regarding the handling of user information in the iOS app “cRawl” (the “App”) as follows.

1. Information we collect

(1) Account information

The App creates your account using Sign in with Apple. In doing so, we obtain an identifier used for authentication (a user ID) and, if you allow it to be shared, your name. We do not obtain your email address. Your name is stored as your display name in the App and can be changed at any time. In addition, we store the profile image, self-introduction and links to external social accounts that you choose to set.

We may grant a verification badge to certain accounts at our discretion. Only we can change whether a badge is present.

(2) Content you create and post (UGC)

The following information is stored on our servers.

• The contents of lists (title, description, cover image and style, the information of the places included, and the area information assigned automatically from addresses)
• The state of having saved an Open list, participation as a co-editor, and the state of friendships (mutually approved relationships) and friend requests
• The text, photos, date and time of posting, and the place of logs you have made public. The five-item rating (the pentagon) is stored together with the log, but it is not shown to other users, whether the log is public or private.
• Comments on places, lists and logs
• Aggregate information about lists (the number of places included, and the number of people who have saved the list)
• The content of reports, and your settings for hiding or blocking other users

(3) Photos

The photos you take are stored in the App’s own area on your device. In addition, while the setting is enabled, they are also saved to the iPhone Photos app (the cRawl album).

(3-2) Saving photos to iCloud

So that your photos are not lost when you change devices or reinstall the App, the photos in your logs are also saved to your own iCloud (a service of Apple). They are stored in a private area within your iCloud account (the CloudKit private database), and we cannot view or retrieve these photos. They are not made visible to other users either.

• This saving is enabled by default. You can turn it off at any time from “Settings > Photo backup” in the App. Once it is off, photos taken thereafter are no longer saved to iCloud (photos already saved are not deleted).
• When you delete a photo in the App, the corresponding photo saved in iCloud is deleted as well.
• The storage used is taken from your own iCloud storage. If you are not signed in to iCloud, or if there is not enough free space, this saving does not take place (the photos remain on your device).

(4) Location information

Location information is used for the following four purposes.
(i) Showing nearby places on the map
(ii) Grouping the photos you take into a single meal (based on the time and the position at which they were taken)
(iii) Suggesting candidate names of the place to attach to a log
(iv) Only when “Nearby Alerts” is enabled, detecting that you have entered a registered point
Detection under (iv) uses region monitoring (geofencing) while the App is not open. When “Nearby Alerts” is disabled, we do not collect location information for (iv).

We do not transmit or record a continuous stream of your device’s coordinates on our servers. What remains on the server is the record of which place you visited and when, which amounts to coarse location information.

(5) Device and usage information

• The device token used for push notifications
• Usage statistics (such as screen views and counts of principal actions). These do not include free-text input, location coordinates or user IDs.
• Crash logs and performance information used to analyse defects

The App displays no advertising, does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA), and does not track you across the apps or websites of other companies.

(6) Purchase information

We store the status of your Premium subscription (whether you are subscribed, and the source of that subscription). Payment information such as credit card numbers is handled by Apple and is never received by us.

(7) Entries to topics (BOARD)

If you submit an entry to a topic, the content of the entry (the name of the place, your comment, the photo and the area shown) is stored on our servers and listed on the page for that topic. The entry data itself does not store any identifier of the user. It contains neither your display name or icon, nor the coordinates or address of the place.

However, in order to prevent duplicate entries, to confirm eligibility to enter (that there is a record of your having visited that place during the period concerned) and to respond to reports, we separately keep a record linking each entry to the user who submitted it, in a form that users cannot access. Only we can view this record, and it is not disclosed to other users.

2. Features processed only on your device

On supported devices, the following features are processed only on your device, and the content they process is never sent to our servers or to those of any third party.

• Translation: translation of comments and similar text. The translated text is used only for display at that moment; it is neither stored nor transmitted.
• Extracting place names, estimating genres and assisting search: these use Apple’s on-device models.
• Import from images: text recognition from screenshots or from photographs of printed pages. The images themselves are never sent to our servers.
• Fuzzy search: computing how close words are in meaning.
• Registration with iPhone search (Spotlight): only your own lists and places are registered; the data of other users is not. The index exists only on your device, and is erased when you sign out or delete your account.

On devices that do not support them, these features are either not shown or operate in the conventional way.

3. Purposes of use

We use the information we collect to provide the functions of the App (account management; creating, sharing and saving lists; managing friendships; displaying logs and comments; listing entries to topics; notifications; statistics; and providing Premium features), to prevent misuse, to respond to reports, and to analyse defects and improve the service. We do not use it for any purpose other than these.

4. Provision to third parties and external services

Except where required by law, we do not sell or provide user information to third parties. The App uses the following external services.

• Firebase (Google LLC) — Authentication / Cloud Firestore / Cloud Storage / Cloud Messaging / Analytics / Crashlytics. The information described in section 1 (1), (2), (3), (5) and (6) is stored there. Its handling is governed by Google’s privacy policy.
• Apple Inc. — Sign in with Apple, the App Store (Premium subscription), map display and place search (MapKit), and the saving of photos (iCloud / CloudKit). Search terms you use to look for a place on the map are sent to Apple. Photos saved to iCloud are placed in a private area within your own iCloud account, which we cannot view or retrieve (section 1 (3-2)).
• The server that parses imports from social services (operated by us on Cloudflare Workers) — only when you run an import from an Instagram / X / TikTok post, only the URL of that post is sent, and candidate place names are extracted from publicly available information. No account information or login information is sent.
• Reading shared pages — when a link such as Google Maps or Tabelog is imported, we read the public information on that page.

5. Visibility, and its limits

There are only two visibility settings for a list.
・Private … only the owner and the co-editors the owner has invited can view it.
・Open … in addition to the above, the owner’s friends (users who have mutually approved each other) can view it.
There is no setting that publishes a list to the general public, and no visibility limited to followers.
A log (a record of a visit) has two visibility settings, public or private, and a log you make public reaches your friends only.
Invitation links, QR codes, profile links and place-sharing links can be opened by anyone who knows the link. However, if someone who is not a friend of the owner opens a list invitation link or QR code, they are taken to the friend-request screen rather than to viewing or joining the list.

Please note the following.

• Content you make public can be viewed, saved and screenshotted by other users. Withdrawing it from publication cannot undo what other users saved before that point.
• When you switch a log to private, that post is removed from your friends’ timelines, and the photos that had been uploaded for publication are also deleted from our servers. However, content that other users viewed, saved or screenshotted while it was public cannot be undone (this is the same as the previous bullet). If you make a log public again after having made it private, it appears in the timeline as a new post. The reactions and replies it previously received are not carried over.
• People you invite as co-editors can add and edit places in that list.
• In a match list, only the places that both parties have added are shown to the two of them.

6. Retention and deletion of data

Account information and usage data are retained for as long as the account exists. You can delete your account at any time from “My Page > Settings” in the App.

When you delete your account, the profile on the server, the lists you created, the logs you had made public and their photos, comments, and friendships and friend requests are deleted. The photos saved to iCloud under section 1 (3-2) are deleted as well. The logs and photos stored on your device are erased by deleting the App. Copies saved in the Photos app (the cRawl album) remain, so please delete them from the Photos app if you wish.

Records of reports and records that we are required by law to retain may be kept after account deletion, limited to the extent and period necessary.

7. Transfers outside Japan

As a result of our use of the external services described in section 4, user information may be stored and processed on servers located outside Japan, including in the United States.

8. Your rights

You may request the disclosure, correction, suspension of use or deletion of the information we hold about you. Please send such requests to the contact details in section 10. We will respond in accordance with applicable law once we have been able to verify your identity.

9. Children’s privacy

The App is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect the personal information of children under 13.

10. Changes to this policy and contact

This policy may be changed as necessary. If there is a material change, we will give notice by reasonable means, such as a notice within the App. The latest version of this policy is published within the App and on this site (/en/privacy, Japanese original: /privacy).

Please direct any enquiries regarding this policy to the following.

• Operator: SparkMates
• Email: sparkmates.dev@gmail.com