Fair Mileage privacy policy

Effective 11 October 2026. This policy covers the Fair Mileage app for iPhone and Android, developed by Shikher Verma. Questions: shikherverma42@gmail.com. Published at https://shikherverma.com/fairapps/fairmileage/privacy.

The short version

Fair Mileage records your drives on your phone and keeps them there. There is no Fair Mileage account and no Fair Mileage server, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking by us. Your location never goes to us. It leaves your phone in two cases only, both described below: street addresses are looked up by your phone's own map service (you can turn that off), and, if you turn it on, a copy of your trips is kept in your own iCloud or Google Drive. Store purchases are handled by Apple or Google.

Location

Fair Mileage needs your location to do its job: to notice when you start driving and to record the drive, even when the app is closed.

While you are not driving, the app does not use GPS. Your phone wakes it up when you have moved a significant distance, left a place you stayed at, or left the area where you last parked (iPhone), or when Android's activity recognition sees you get into a vehicle or you leave the area where you last parked (Android). The app then checks your speed for up to three minutes to tell whether you are driving.

During a drive, the app records your position with GPS about once a second until you have been parked for five minutes. On Android a notification shows while a drive is being recorded.

From each drive the app keeps the start and end time, where it started and ended, the distance, and a simplified version of the route (kept so a distance can be checked later; it is not shown on a map and not sent anywhere).

Short movements, walks and bike rides are discarded on the phone.

Fair Mileage keeps a short log of what tracking did (for example "drive started", "drive ended: 12 km"), on the phone, so you can see why a drive was or was not recorded.

Motion and physical activity

On iPhone, Motion & Fitness data tells drives apart from walks and bike rides, and the phone's own record of the last seven days of motion lets the app point out drives it may have missed. On Android, physical activity recognition lets the app notice when you get into a vehicle. This data is used on the phone and not stored by the app beyond the recording of a drive, and it never leaves the phone.

Street addresses

To show where trips started and ended, Fair Mileage asks your phone's built-in map service to turn the coordinates into a street address: Apple's on iPhone, Google's on Android. Apple or Google receive those coordinates under their own privacy policies. You can turn this off in Settings ("Look up street addresses"); trips then show coordinates and the place names you give them. Place names you give (Home, Office, a client) stay on your phone.

What stays on your phone

Your trips, how you sorted them and their purposes, your vehicles and odometer readings, the places you named, your sorting rules and your settings, and whether you have unlocked the PDF log.

These are kept in the app's private storage. Deleting a trip removes it; deleting the app removes them all.

Totals and rates are worked out on your phone. The mileage rates are bundled with the app.

A PDF log, a CSV file or a backup you export is written to the app's temporary storage and handed to the system share sheet. Where it goes from there (mail, files, your accountant, another app) is your choice. A backup contains everything listed above except the unlock.

If you back up your phone (iCloud Backup on iPhone, Google backup on Android), that backup may include the app's data. Those backups are run by Apple or Google under your account and settings, not by Fair Mileage.

Notifications

Fair Mileage shows only local notifications that the phone itself schedules: a warning if the app has not been able to check for drives for three days, a Sunday-evening reminder when there are drives to sort (you can turn it off), and on Android the notice shown while a drive is being recorded. No push notifications, and nothing is sent to us.

Copy in iCloud or Google Drive (optional, off by default)

The copy keeps your trips safe for a new phone. It is off until you turn it on in Settings, and you can turn it off at any time.

What is copied: the same data as a backup file (trips with their routes, vehicles, places, rules and settings). Each phone keeps one file.

On iPhone and iPad, the copy is in Fair Mileage's folder in your own iCloud Drive, which does not show in the Files app. Apple stores it under your Apple Account.

On Android, the copy is in a hidden app folder in your own Google Drive. Turning it on asks you to let Fair Mileage see, create and delete its own data in your Google Drive (the drive.appdata permission); it cannot see your other files. The app talks to Google directly from your phone; no server of ours is involved.

Turning the copy off stops it; the file stays in your iCloud or Google Drive until you delete it there. On iPhone: Settings > your name > iCloud > Manage Account Storage > Fair Mileage > Delete Data. In Google Drive on the web: Settings > Manage apps > Fair Mileage > Options > Delete hidden app data.

Network

Fair Mileage itself makes no network requests, except for the copy in your cloud when you turn it on. Address lookups are made by your phone's map service (see above).

Purchases. The one-time unlock is bought and restored through the App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google handle the payment and tell the app whether you own the unlock. Fair Mileage never sees your payment details.

Not tax advice

Fair Mileage keeps a mileage log and applies published mileage rates to it. It is not tax advice.

Children

Fair Mileage collects no data from anyone, including children.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be published with an app update and the effective date above will change.

Contact

Shikher Verma, shikherverma42@gmail.com