Privacy
Last updated October 8, 2026
PapaMap helps people find baby changing tables and nursing rooms. This page explains what it collects, why, and how to have it removed. It is written to be read, not to be survived.
What is collected
| Data | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| A random contributor identifier | So the app can tell your contributions from everyone else’s, let you correct them, and stop one person answering the same question many times. It is a random string — not your name, not your email, and nothing taken from your phone. | Created when you first confirm a restroom or block a contributor. Not on install. |
| Email address | To sign you in. There is no password — we email you a link. | Only if you choose to sign in |
| Photos you take | A photo of the outside of a place, so other parents can see which door to walk to. Taken with the camera in the app — the app does not open your photo library. The location, time and device details a camera writes into a photo are removed before it’s stored. | Only if you choose to add a photo |
| Your position, precisely | To show what is near you and to place a location you are adding. It comes from your phone’s location service. Its precision depends on the permission and position your phone supplies. | Only while the app is open, and only if you grant permission |
| Locations you submit | The place name, arrival details, room types, coordinates and amenities you enter, so others can find the place. | When you add or edit a location |
| Reports you file | To review places that are wrong or gone. | When you report a location |
| Restroom answers and confirmations | What you report about a room and its facilities, and when you checked. Other parents can see room information, evidence counts and calendar dates for no-table reports, but not your contributor identifier or exact observation time. | When you tap to confirm or correct a restroom |
| Places you checked and found no changing table | The place, which restrooms you looked in, where it is and when you checked. Other parents can see the room-specific no-table report and its calendar date; it does not say who recorded it. | When you record one while signed in; photo permission is not required |
| A problem report you send | If the app hits an error, it can open an email to us with the app version and your phone’s platform, with space to describe what happened. It leaves out the raw error message. You see it before it’s sent, and nothing goes unless you send it. | Only if you choose to send it |
What is not collected
- No advertising identifiers, and no advertising.
- We don’t add analytics or advertising tools to the app, and we don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites.
- No background or continuous location. Your position is read only when you ask for it.
- No history of where you’ve been. Your position is used in the moment to show what’s near you. A location is saved only as part of something you choose to submit — a place you add or check, or a restroom you confirm — see the table above.
- No access to your photo library. Photos in PapaMap are taken with the camera from inside the app, at the moment you add them. The app does not read or upload photos already on your phone.
- No contacts, and nothing else from your device.
Kept on your phone
A few things stay on your phone and are not sent to us: contributions waiting for a signal (they are sent when you’re back online, or dropped if they wait too long), whether you’ve seen the welcome guide, a copy of the map text so it works offline, the restrooms you picked in the filter, photos you’ve chosen to hide, and the places you’ve starred. Signing out clears identity-specific answers, pending submissions and map caches. Your stars are kept on the phone for your account, hidden while you are signed out, and shown again when you sign back in. Deleting your account, or Delete what’s saved, clears those local copies, stars included. Pending contributions expire after six days if they cannot be sent.
If you choose Block this contributor, that choice is saved on our server for your contributor identifier. It filters that person’s reports and notes from your view, while other contributors’ reports can keep the place visible. It does not change anyone else’s map. Undo is in Account. Signing out does not delete your account’s server blocks; deleting the account removes them.
When you share a place, the link holds only which place it is. It doesn’t say who sent it or where you were.
The first time you tap
PapaMap does not make you sign in to help. The first time you tell us which restroom a changing table is in, or block a contributor, the app creates a random identifier and keeps the session on your phone. It identifies your answers and block choices — no name, no email and nothing read from your device unless you later choose to sign in.
You can delete that identity and its personal data at any time; positive room facts can remain detached, as explained below. Open the app, tap the profile icon at the top of the map, then follow Delete what’s saved.
Adding a place, editing one, or reporting a problem needs an email address. We use it to sign you in and, if we need to, to contact you about what you added. If you want to hear about PapaMap generally, that is the launch list on the website — it is a separate thing you sign up to, and it does not happen automatically when you add a place.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and ask us to delete it. The app does the last one immediately, from inside the app, without asking us — see above.
If you are in California: you have the right to know what personal information we collect and why, the right to have it corrected or deleted, and the right not to be treated differently for exercising those rights. We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we have not done so in the past twelve months. There is no advertising in PapaMap and no advertising identifiers.
To exercise any of these, email hello@papamap.com. We will not ask you for more information than we need to find your record.
What is public
Locations you submit are visible to everyone using the app — that is the point of them. Your email address is not shown with them, and there is no public profile. Problem reports you file are visible only to us.
Room answers and confirmations contribute to public information about changing tables, nursing rooms and amenities. The app can show counts, “checked by PapaMap” and the calendar date of a no-table report. It does not publish your identity or the exact time of your visit.
Who else is involved
We use a small number of service providers to run PapaMap. They handle data on our behalf to provide their service. Today they include:
- Supabase — stores the location database and handles sign-in.
- Mapbox — draws the map. To do that your phone connects to Mapbox, which receives technical information such as your IP address, device details and the part of the map being shown, and its software may send limited diagnostic data of its own. We have turned off the Mapbox data-sharing settings available to us.
- Resend — delivers the sign-in email.
- Formspree — receives the launch-list form on this website. If you fill it in, your email address and anything you type in the optional box are sent to Formspree, which passes them to us. The app does not use it.
If you install PapaMap through the App Store, TestFlight or Google Play, Apple or Google also handle information under their own policies — for example, crash reports or feedback you choose to share with them.
We don’t sell your data. We don’t share it with anyone else unless the law requires it or someone’s safety is at risk.
Photos
Photos are public. Anyone using the app can see them, alongside the place they belong to. Your email address is not shown with them and there is no public profile.
A photo in PapaMap shows the outside of a building — an entrance, a doorway, a sign. It should never be taken inside a restroom. It is there to answer one question: which door do I walk to.
We don’t run face recognition or any other analysis of what is in a photo. When one is uploaded, it is checked only to make sure it is a valid image and to remove its hidden details.
If you took a photo and want it gone, you can remove it in the app, on the place it belongs to. You don’t need to delete your account to do it, and it is removed for everyone.
Deleting your account deletes your photos, problem reports and no-table answers. Positive room facts and confirmations can remain, detached from your account, as explained below.
If you’re in a photo and want it gone
If you’re in a photo on PapaMap — or your child is — and you want it gone, email hello@papamap.com and we’ll take it down. You don’t need an account. You don’t need to explain. We won’t ask you to justify it, and we won’t ask who you are beyond enough to find the photo.
Photos here show the outside of buildings, so someone walking past sometimes ends up in one. That’s not a reason you have to argue with.
How long it is kept
Your account is kept until you delete it. You can remove your own room answers; other people’s answers stay. Removing a place from the map for everyone is an operator action.
Deleting your account deletes your problem reports, personal no-table observations and block choices. Positive facts about places and rooms are kept without your account or submission-token link, including positive table observations. Your places are detached from you so other parents do not lose the information they rely on.
Photos are treated differently from locations. That a changing table exists somewhere is a fact about the world and it stays. A photograph is something you made, so it goes when you delete your account.
If a photo of yours was used to show off the app. A few photos end up on papamap.com, in an App Store screenshot, or in a post. If one of yours was, we stop using it there when you delete your account — off the website and our own posts, and out of the App Store screenshots at our next update. We can’t recall a copy that’s already out there: a screenshot stays in the App Store until that update ships, and if someone else has already saved or reposted it, that’s out of our hands.
The list you sign up to on this website is separate from your account, and we keep it for as long as you are on it. We will email you when PapaMap launches, and occasionally after that about the app. We will not sell your address or let anyone else use it to market to you.
You can come off it whenever you like. Every email we send has an unsubscribe link in it. Or email hello@papamap.com and we will remove your address and delete anything you wrote in the box, and that is the end of it.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account and personal data at any time from inside the app: tap the profile icon at the top of the map, then Delete my account. It takes effect immediately and cannot be undone.
Here is what that does:
| Deleted | Kept |
|---|---|
|
Your account and email address. Any reports you filed. Your personal no-table reports and contributor block choices. Any photos you took — except one used to show off the app. |
Facts about places and rooms, including positive table observations, no longer linked to your account or submission tokens. |
We keep the locations because a changing table existing somewhere is a fact about the world rather than information about you. Other parents rely on it, and removing it would make the map worse for people who had nothing to do with your account. Nothing identifying you remains attached to it.
Deleted data may remain in our providers’ routine backups for a short time before those backups expire.
If you would rather a place or retained fact be removed too, email hello@papamap.com.
Children
PapaMap is intended for parents and carers, not for children. It does not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you think a child has given us information, email hello@papamap.com and we will delete it.
Changes
If this policy changes materially, the date above will change and the new version will be published here.