Privacy Policy

With your permission, Departly uses your device location to (1) show the bus stops nearest you and (2) power the optional get-off reminder, which alerts you as you approach your destination stop. Because a get-off reminder must reach you even after you put your phone away, while a reminder is active Departly keeps checking your location in the background — including when Departly is not on screen or your device is locked (iOS shows the blue location indicator while it does), and stops as soon as the reminder ends. For these features your location is processed on your device to measure distance to a stop, and is not sent anywhere. You can use route search and live arrivals without granting location access.

Live Bus (optional crowdsourcing). If you choose to tap “I’m on this bus — share live position” on a route, Departly shares an anonymous, temporary projected position along that route — never your raw GPS coordinates, and with no account name or identifier — to the app’s iCloud (CloudKit) public database, so other riders waiting for that route can see a live bus. While you are sharing, Departly updates this projected position in the background (even if you leave the app or lock your screen) so the live bus keeps moving for others, until you stop sharing or leave the route. Each report expires within about 90 seconds, sharing stops automatically when you leave the route or close the screen, and nothing is ever shared unless you opt in for that trip.

Motion & Fitness (optional, for the get-off reminder). When a get-off reminder is active, Departly can use your device’s motion activity (whether you appear to be in a vehicle or on foot), together with speed and your distance from the route, to notice when you have likely gotten off and ask whether to end the reminder. This is processed entirely on your device, is never sent anywhere or stored, and the feature can be turned off in Settings (“Detect when I get off”). Departly works fully without granting Motion access.

To show arrivals, Departly requests public route, stop and estimated-arrival data from Hong Kong government open-data services (DATA.GOV.HK) and, in Singapore, from the Land Transport Authority’s DataMall service (datamall2.mytransport.sg). These requests contain only the route or stop you are viewing, plus — for DataMall — an application key that identifies Departly, not you. No location, no account, and no identifier of you is sent. Macau has no live arrival feed, so Macau times come from the bundled timetable on your device and need no request at all.

Departly also periodically downloads updated route, stop, station and fare reference files from our own server (mwsupplylimited.github.io) so the trip planner and fares stay current without an app update. These are plain public transit-data files — the download sends no information about you.

When you type an address or place in Plan a Trip, Departly uses Apple’s Maps service to turn what you type into a location. The text you type, together with a coarse map region for the area you are browsing — Hong Kong and Macau, or Singapore (to keep results local) — is sent to Apple to return matching places; Apple handles this request under Apple’s privacy policy. Departly does not attach your name, account or identifier to the search. Places you save as Home, Office or recent destinations are kept on your device (and synced via your own iCloud, below); you can remove any of them at any time.

The taxi comparison on a trip shows an optional Book button. If — and only if — you tap it, Departly opens an Uber link that carries that trip’s pickup and drop-off coordinates in the web address, so Uber can pre-fill the journey. Nothing is sent unless you tap Book; Departly attaches no name, account or identifier, uses no Uber SDK, and receives nothing back. Uber then handles the request under its own privacy policy.

Your favourite routes and stops, your saved places (Home / Office / recent destinations), your reminder history and any items you unlocked before the token system was retired are stored on your device and, if you are signed into iCloud, synced through your own private iCloud (CloudKit) account so they appear on your other devices. This data is held in your personal Apple account; we cannot read it.

The free version of Departly shows ads through Unity LevelPlay (ironSource). Departly serves contextual ads only: it never requests tracking permission, shows no App Tracking Transparency prompt, and does not signal consent to personalise ads. The LevelPlay SDK does read Apple’s advertising identifier, but because tracking authorisation is never requested — and therefore can never be granted — iOS returns the all-zero identifier, so no advertising profile can be built and the ads you see are based on the app and general context rather than on tracking you across other apps and websites. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland Departly signals no consent to personalisation. Departly no longer shows rewarded video of any kind. Departly Pro removes all ads. See Unity’s privacy policy for how LevelPlay handles data.

To understand which features are used and where to improve, Departly records a small number of anonymous product-usage events (for example: the app was opened, a trip was planned, a get-off reminder was set) through TelemetryDeck. These events contain no personal information, no routes, no places, and no precise location, and no advertising identifier is used. TelemetryDeck is privacy-first and does not track you across other apps or websites — it derives only a salted, non-reversible identifier so repeat launches aren’t double-counted. See TelemetryDeck’s privacy policy for details.

Departly Pro is sold either as an auto-renewable subscription or as Departly Pro Lifetime, a one-time purchase that does not renew and does not expire. There is also the one-off 7-day Macau Tourist Pass. Every purchase is handled entirely by the App Store; Departly receives only an anonymous confirmation of it and never sees your payment details.

Tokens have been retired. Departly used to offer a virtual in-app token, earned or bought, that could unlock individual Pro features. It is no longer possible to earn, buy or spend tokens, and the token packs have been removed from sale. Nothing you already unlocked is taken away: extra favourite slots you bought remain yours permanently, and any feature pass still running keeps its remaining time. Those entitlements stay in your own private iCloud account, as before, and are readable only by you.

Referrals have been withdrawn. Invite codes existed only to credit tokens, so they went with the token system. Departly no longer offers the feature and no longer writes the anonymous, app-specific iCloud identifier it used (a code and a per-user record id — never your name, email, or payment details). If you used it before, that identifier may remain in your own private iCloud account, where only you can read it.

• No account, sign-up, or login.
• No selling of your data.
• No location history or trip log is stored on any server — your location only ever leaves the device as the anonymous, opt-in Live Bus position above, which expires in seconds.
• No cross-app or cross-site tracking, and no advertising profile is built from how you use Departly. Our only usage analytics is TelemetryDeck’s anonymous, aggregated event counts described above.

Departly is suitable for general audiences and is not directed at children under 13.

Questions about this policy: mwsupplylimited@gmail.com