Last updated: 29 June 2026
Offline Finder (“we”, “us”) is a private family-location app. We designed it so that we cannot see your family’s location. Your location, messages, and saved places are end-to-end encrypted on your device; for those items we only ever store ciphertext and have no key to read them. This policy explains exactly what we hold and what we don’t.
The following are encrypted on your device with keys held only by you and your circle’s devices. They are sealed using your device’s hardware-backed key and stored on our servers only as ciphertext. We have no key and cannot decrypt them:
| Account details | Your name, and the phone number or email you sign up with. |
| Circle membership | Which circles you belong to, your role, and approximate online/offline timestamps. |
| Device & push | A device identifier and a push-notification token, so alerts reach you. |
| Crash & diagnostics | Crash logs, diagnostics, and a Crashlytics installation identifier (via Google Firebase Crashlytics), used only to find and fix stability problems. |
| Place alerts | When a member crosses a saved place, we process an anonymous place id, an enter/exit flag, and a timestamp to deliver the alert. We cannot see the place’s name or coordinates. |
This metadata is the minimum needed to operate accounts, deliver notifications, and route encrypted data to the right circle. It is not sold and it is not used for advertising.
Offline Finder requests location, including in the background, so your circle can still see you when the app is closed. That is the core function you opt into. You can pause sharing (location updates stop for everyone in the circle), hide from specific members (circle admins can still see you), or turn location off at any time from within the app.
You can ask a circle member’s phone for its location by SMS when it has no data connection. The location in the reply is end-to-end encrypted; only your circle can read it. SMS messages travel over your mobile network, so your carrier sees the phone numbers, timing, and size of the messages (not the location), and standard SMS rates apply. In the Google Play edition you send and open these texts yourself; only the separately downloaded Ultra edition replies automatically.
We keep your data while your account is active. You can delete your account and its data at any time: open Offline Finder, tap your avatar (top right), then tap Delete account under Account & security. This permanently erases your profile, your location, your messages, your recovery backup, and any circles you own. After deletion, residual copies in routine backups and server logs are purged on a rolling 30-day cycle. Crash and diagnostic reports are retained by Firebase Crashlytics for 90 days and then deleted automatically. You may also request access to or correction of your data by contacting us.
We use Google Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Messaging, Hosting, and Crashlytics) to operate the service. They act as our processor under their terms. For your encrypted content they receive only ciphertext. Two things travel in readable form: crash and diagnostic data goes to Firebase Crashlytics so we can fix bugs, and push notifications carry the sender’s name and the type of alert (for example “needs help” or “new message”), not the message content or your coordinates, through Google’s notification service. Map imagery is served by CARTO and OpenStreetMap; the app does not send your identity to map providers. Email to our support and privacy addresses is handled by Hostinger, our email hosting provider, which acts as our processor for the messages you send us.
Google Firebase may store and process data outside the UK, including in the European Economic Area and the United States. When data leaves the UK we rely on the UK adequacy regulations for the EEA, on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where Google is certified, and on the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in Google’s data processing terms.
The data controller is Waseem Khan, trading as Offline Finder, at 16 Knightheadpoint, London E14 8SR, United Kingdom, contactable at privacy@offlinefinder.co.uk. Our lawful bases are the performance of our contract with you to run the service (your account, circles, and encrypted sharing), your consent for background location, which you can withdraw at any time in the app, and our legitimate interests in keeping the service reliable and safe (crash and diagnostic reports, abuse and spam prevention, and service security). You can object to processing based on legitimate interests at any time. You have the right to access, correct, export, restrict, or erase your data, and to object to processing. You can erase everything yourself in the app, or email us. You may also complain to your local data-protection authority (in the UK, the ICO).
In the past 12 months we collect the categories described above (identifiers, location, and your in-circle content as ciphertext). We do not sell or share your personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioural advertising. California residents may request access to or deletion of their information, and may exercise these rights without discrimination, using the same contact and in-app deletion described here.
Offline Finder is for people aged 13 and over. Every member of a circle has their own account, so every member must be at least 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13; if we learn an account belongs to someone under 13 we will delete it. Contact privacy@offlinefinder.co.uk if you believe a child under 13 is using the service.
We’ll post any changes here and update the date above. Questions or requests: privacy@offlinefinder.co.uk.