We track the train.
Not you.
ChooTrack has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party code. This page says exactly what the app handles, when it leaves your phone, where it goes and how long it is kept.
- Account
- Analytics
- Ads
- Tracking
- Data sold
The short version
You never sign up, never log in, and are never identified. The app is built from Apple's frameworks and our own code, with no analytics, advertising, crash-reporting or attribution library. Our server stores three things, each only because you asked it to: a train you chose to track, a message you chose to send us, and a diagnostic report you chose to submit. Your location is used once, for one feature, and never stored. Your spotting collection goes to your own iCloud, or nowhere, and never to us.
1. Who we are
ChooTrack is an independent iOS app published by Ted Roubour. It is not affiliated with National Rail, Network Rail, or any train operating company. For anything on this page, use the contact form.
2. No accounts, no identifiers
- No sign-up, no login, no user account of any kind.
- We never ask for your name, email address, phone number or date of birth. The one place you can type an email address is the contact form, and only if you want a reply.
- The app does not create, read or send an advertising identifier, a device identifier or a persistent profile. Requests to our server carry no identifier of any kind.
- No App Tracking Transparency prompt, because there is no tracking to ask about.
3. Location
Location is used for two things only: Guess my train and Find nearest stations. It is requested only when you tap one of those buttons, as a single When-In-Use fix. There is no background or Always-On location, and the app never asks for it. Decline the permission and everything else works as normal.
For Guess my train the coordinate (with heading and speed if you are moving) goes to ChooTrack's own server to match you against nearby live services. It is not stored on the device, not written to a database, not written to logs, and not sent to the rail data feeds or anyone else. It exists for that one request, then it is gone.
4. What stays on your phone
Pinned stations, home and work stations, recent searches, saved journeys, settings, and any photographs you attach to sightings. Some of this also sits in the app's own App Group container so the widget, Live Activity and Siri shortcuts can read it; that container is private to ChooTrack on your device. Deleting the app removes all of it.
5. Looking things up
Opening a board, a train or a journey sends our server a station code, a train identifier, or a pair of stations and a time. Nothing about you or your device travels with it. The server keeps a count of requests per hour, by feature, to keep the service affordable and to notice when a feed is down; that table has no column that could hold an address, a user, a coordinate or a search, and counts are pruned after 35 days. The short-lived request log records method and path only, no IP addresses and no bodies, and is not kept. A per-address rate limit lives in the server's memory and is forgotten on restart.
6. Tracked journeys and push notifications
When you track a train, our server has to know which train to watch so it can push updates to your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. For each tracked journey it stores the service identifier and date, the station codes where you board and alight, the destination name, the Apple push tokens for that Live Activity, and the train's last known state. No name, no email, no account, no location.
The record is deleted when you stop tracking, or two minutes after the train arrives, or sooner if Apple reports the token invalid or the railway's feed stops recognising the train. A journey set to Repeat daily is kept, rolling on to the next day's train, until you turn the repeat off.
7. Your Spot collection
Sightings go to your own private iCloud database if you are signed in to iCloud, and otherwise stay on the phone. They never reach ChooTrack's server and we have no way to read them. Photographs stay on the device. You can export or delete the whole collection at any time, and switch the tab off in Settings.
8. Where the train data comes from
Our server, not your phone, requests rail data from National Rail Enquiries (boards and disruption notices, via the Rail Data Marketplace) and Network Rail (the train movement and timetable feeds behind live running, tracking and the journey planner). Those requests carry station codes and service identifiers only.
Powered by National Rail Enquiries. Contains information of National Rail Enquiries, licensed under the Rail Data Marketplace terms. Contains information of Network Rail Infrastructure Limited licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
9. Messages and diagnostics
If you write to us through the app or this site, we keep the message, the name and email you chose to give (both optional), which screen it came from and the user-agent string, use it to reply, and delete it once dealt with. Nothing is used for marketing because we do none.
The app's Developer Mode is off at every launch. While it is on, the app keeps a short timeline of what it did, with searches reduced to station codes, coordinates rounded to about ten kilometres, and anything identifier-shaped stripped out. Nothing leaves your phone until you tap Send. Reports are deleted after 30 days.
10. What we never do
- Sell your data. There is nothing to sell.
- Share it with advertisers, brokers or partners.
- Track you across other companies' apps or websites.
- Embed analytics, advertising, attribution or crash-reporting SDKs.
- Read your contacts, calendar, microphone or health data. The camera and photo library are used only if you attach a photo to a sighting.
- Require anything for the tip jar. Tips are optional, unlock nothing, and are handled entirely by Apple; no receipt reaches our server.
11. Hosting, legal basis and your rights (UK GDPR)
Our server runs on our own hardware in the United Kingdom. Connections to it pass through Cloudflare's network, which terminates the secure connection and, like any network carrier, sees the connecting address in transit; the data held on the server is the tracked journeys, messages and diagnostic reports described above and nothing else.
A tracked journey's push token is processed on the basis of your consent, given by choosing to track that journey, and withdrawn by untracking it, turning off notifications for ChooTrack, or deleting the app. A location fix is processed only to perform the feature you asked for and is not retained. A message is processed to reply to you.
Because there is no account, we hold nothing that can be looked up by name or email, so there is generally nothing to export or correct. If you believe we hold data about you and want it erased, contact us and we will do so. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office.
12. Children, changes and contact
ChooTrack is a general-audience rail information app, not directed at children, and it does not knowingly collect data from them. If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it and anything material is called out in the app's release notes. Questions: the contact form reaches a real person.