Hirundo privacy policy

Last updated: 14 November 2026

Hirundo is a travel app that stamps a passport book on your iPhone for every new country and city you reach. It is built to work offline. This policy explains what Hirundo does with your information. The short version: your book stays on your phone, and we never receive your location.

Who we are

Hirundo is made by Jude Gamboa, Philippines. Contact: support.hirundo@gmail.com.

What stays on your phone

Everything Hirundo keeps is stored only on your iPhone:

• your stamps: which countries and cities you reached, and on which dates;
• remembered trips you add by hand, with the year if you give one;
• photos and notes you add to stamps;
• your settings, including your home area.

We have no account system and no servers for your data. We cannot see, copy, sell or share your book, because it never reaches us.

Location

• Hirundo uses your iPhone's location to work out which country and city you are in, so it can stamp new places. This happens on the phone, using a list of places built into the app. No map service or other company is asked where you are.
• Hirundo keeps the place you reached (for example "Seoul, South Korea") and the date. It does not keep your coordinates, streets or routes.
• If you set a home area, Hirundo stores one point, rounded to about 100 metres, only on your phone. Places inside your home area are never stamped by themselves and never appear in images you share.
• With "Always" permission, Hirundo can stamp places while the app is closed. To notice when you move on, it asks iOS to watch an area of about 1.5 km around your latest place (rounded to about 100 metres). iOS keeps this on the phone; Hirundo does not store it, and it is replaced as you move. You can choose "While Using" or no location at all; you can still stamp places by hand.
• You can change location access at any time in iPhone Settings → Hirundo → Location.

Photos

When you add a photo to a stamp, you pick it in the iPhone photo picker, which shares only that photo with Hirundo. Hirundo saves a smaller copy on your phone without the photo's location, time or camera details. When you save a share image, Hirundo asks for permission to add it to Photos; it never reads your photo library.

What leaves your phone

Only two things, and only when you start them:

1. App Store purchases. If you buy "Keep Hirundo forever", Apple handles the payment under Apple's privacy policy. We receive no payment details. Hirundo checks the purchase with Apple on your phone.
2. Backups you save. A backup file is encrypted with a password you choose (AES-256-GCM), then saved where you pick: Files, iCloud Drive or AirDrop. If you use iCloud Drive, Apple stores the encrypted file under its own privacy policy. We never receive backups, and we cannot open them or recover your password.

Share images (postcards, book pages, year cards) are made on your phone and leave it only when you send them through the iPhone share sheet. They do not contain coordinates or photo metadata.

Analytics, advertising and crash reports

Hirundo has no analytics, no advertising and no tracking, and it contains no third-party code that receives your location.

Notifications

Hirundo can show a notification on your phone when a new place is stamped while the app is closed, and a reminder to save a backup if you turn reminders on. These are local notifications made on the phone; no notification service receives your information.

App lock

If you turn on App lock, iOS checks Face ID or your passcode. Hirundo only learns whether it succeeded; it never receives your face data or passcode.

Children

Hirundo is not directed at children under 13, and the app collects no personal information from anyone.

Your choices

• See and change permissions in iPhone Settings.
• Remove a single stamp from its page, or everything with Settings → Delete everything. Deleting removes the data from your phone for good; we have no copy.
• Delete the app to remove everything it stored.

Because we hold no data about you, there is nothing for us to export, correct or delete on request. You may still contact us with questions.

If you email us

If you write to support, we receive your email address and what you send, and use them only to reply. We delete the conversation when it is no longer needed, and you can ask us to delete it at any time.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update the date above and describe the change in the app's release notes.