The short version
Loqah is a passport for places you have physically stood. To do that, it needs to know your email address, which places you have stamped, and where you are at the moment you press a stamp.
That is nearly all of it. In particular:
- We do not sell your data. We never will.
- There are no adverts in Loqah, and no advertising trackers.
- We do not run analytics. Nobody here is watching how you use the app.
- We do not ask for your date of birth, your gender, your phone number or your address.
- Photographs of places stay on your phone. They are never uploaded.
- Your location is used to check you are where you say you are, and is then thrown away. We do not store it, and we never track you in the background.
The rest of this page explains each of those properly.
Who we are
Loqah is built and run by an independent developer based in Bangalore, India. There is no registered company behind it yet, so the person responsible for your data is an individual rather than a business.
If you have a question or a complaint about your data, write to admin@loqah.com and you will get an answer.
What we collect, and why
Your email address
We need it so you can sign in. Loqah has no passwords. You type your email, we send you a six digit code, and that code opens your passport.
We use your email address for sign in codes and for replies to letters you send the office. We do not send marketing email.
Your name
You can put a given name and a surname on your passport. Both are optional, and you can change or clear them at any time from your profile.
If you exchange passports with another traveller, they can see the name you have chosen and your portrait, because that is the point of an exchange.
Your stamps
When you press a stamp we record which place it was, the date, whether the seal was certified or provisional, and which volume of your passport it went into.
We also create a few things for you: a passport number, a cover colour, the date you joined, and a short code other travellers can use to ask for an exchange.
Your location
This is the part people care about most, so here it is in detail.
When you ask to press a stamp, the app reads your position once, from your phone, at that moment. It sends the coordinates to our server, which measures how far you are from the place and decides whether the seal is certified or provisional.
We then throw the coordinates away. They are not written to the database. All that is kept is the answer: certified, or provisional. If you look in our database you will not find a single coordinate belonging to any traveller.
Loqah never reads your location in the background. It asks once, when you press a stamp, and not otherwise.
If you are somewhere with no signal, the app keeps that reading on your phone and offers it to the server when you are back online. Until then it stays on your device and nowhere else.
Photographs
There are three kinds, and they are treated differently.
A photograph of a place, taken when you press a stamp, is saved into Loqah's own folder on your phone. It is never uploaded. Nobody but you ever sees it. If you delete the app, it goes with it.
A photograph offered as proof, when you could not press a stamp on the spot, is read on your phone for two things only: where it was taken and when. Those two figures are sent to the server so it can rule on them. The picture itself is never uploaded.
Your portrait, if you choose to set one, is uploaded, because it appears on your passport's identity page and travellers you have exchanged with are meant to see it. Only you and your accepted companions can open it. You can replace or remove it at any time.
Companions and postcards
If you exchange passports with someone, we store the link between your two accounts and whether it is pending or accepted.
A postcard is a message of up to 140 characters, sent from one traveller to another about a place. We store the message, who sent it, who received it, and when.
Letters to the office
If you write to us from inside the app, we keep your message, our replies, and two pieces of context so you do not have to type them: the version of the app you are running, and your device model.
Notifications
If you turn on notifications, your phone gives us a token that lets us send them to that device. We store the token and whether it is an iPhone or an Android phone. Turning notifications off removes it.
Crash reports
When Loqah crashes, it sends a report so we can fix the fault. The report contains the technical details of the crash, your device model and operating system version, and an anonymous account number.
It does not contain your email address, your name, your photographs or your coordinates.
One thing we want to be straightforward about: the crash reporting service works out an approximate location, usually the city, from the internet address the report arrives on. That is done at their end, not ours, and it is roughly the same thing every website you visit can tell.
What the app keeps on your phone
So that your passport opens when you have no signal, Loqah keeps a copy of your stamps, your profile and the catalogue of places on your own device. It is only readable by Loqah, it is wiped when you sign out, and it never goes anywhere.
What we do not collect
We want to be clear about the things we have decided against, because "we do not collect it" is a stronger promise than "we protect it":
- Date of birth
- Gender or sex
- Phone number
- Postal address
- Contacts, calendar or photo library beyond the single picture you pick
- Any record of your movements over time
- Any advertising or tracking identifier
Who else can see your data
We use a small number of companies to run Loqah. They only handle what they need to, and none of them are allowed to use it for their own purposes.
| Who | What they handle |
|---|---|
| Supabase | The database, sign in, and stored portraits. Hosted in Tokyo, Japan. |
| Resend | Sends your sign in code by email. |
| Sentry | Crash reports. Hosted in the United States. |
| Google (Firebase) | Delivers push notifications, if you turn them on. |
| Apple and Google | The app stores you downloaded Loqah from. |
Some of these are outside India, which means your data may be handled abroad.
Beyond that, we will only hand over data if the law genuinely requires it.
We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with advertisers. There are no advertisers.
This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
How long we keep things
We keep your passport for as long as you have an account.
If you delete your account, from Profile, everything belonging to you is removed: your stamps, your volumes, your profile, your portrait, your postcards, your companions and your letters. This is not reversible, and we cannot bring a passport back once it is gone.
Crash reports are deleted automatically after our crash reporting service's retention period.
Your choices
You can, at any time:
- See what we hold. Your passport, in the app, is nearly all of it. Ask us for the rest and we will send it.
- Correct it. Names and your portrait are editable in your profile.
- Delete it. Profile, then delete account. It is immediate and complete.
- Turn off location. In your phone's settings. Stamps will still work, but every seal will be provisional, since we cannot confirm you were there.
- Turn off notifications. In your phone's settings.
- Complain. Write to admin@loqah.com. If you are in India and you are not satisfied with our answer, you may take it to the Data Protection Board of India.
Children
Loqah is meant to be enjoyed by anyone, including families travelling together. A child can stand at a fort, press the stamp and watch the seal land.
The account itself, though, should belong to an adult. Under Indian law anyone under 18 is a child, and processing a child's data properly requires verified permission from their parent or guardian, which Loqah does not yet support. So if you are under 18, please use a parent's or guardian's passport rather than opening your own.
If you believe a child has opened an account without their parent's permission, write to admin@loqah.com and it will be removed.
Changes to this policy
If we change what we collect, we will update this page and change the date at the top. If the change is a significant one, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Loqah
admin@loqah.com
Bangalore, India