Privacy Policy
1. Who we are
AskTransit is a conversational public-transit app for the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding regions, operated by Titanbyte Technologies (“AskTransit”, “we”, “us”). We are based in Ontario, Canada, and we handle your personal information guided by the principles of Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, contact us at hello@asktransit.app.
2. What we collect
We collect only what a feature needs to work.
Using AskTransit as a guest
You can plan trips, browse nearby stops and routes, and see fare estimates without an account. In guest mode we do not collect anything that durably identifies you. Your conversation is held briefly to keep context within a session (see retention) and then expires.
If you create an account
- Email address and display name, provided by Google or Apple when you choose to sign in. With Sign in with Apple you may hide your email; we then receive only Apple's private relay address or a stable identifier.
- Saved places and trips that you choose to create (for example Home, Work, or a saved commute), including the labels and coordinates you save.
- Trip history for trips you plan or complete while signed in.
- Preferences such as accessible routing, walking speed, route priority, and notification settings.
Automatically
- Approximate device location while you use location features (see below).
- A push notification token, only if you enable notifications.
- Diagnostic and crash data to keep the app stable (via Sentry), with no email or precise location attached.
3. Location data
Location is used to plan routes from where you are and to show nearby stops, routes and vehicles. We treat it carefully:
- Location is not stored on our servers unless you explicitly save a place or trip.
- A session's working location lives only in a temporary cache and expires automatically (about 4 hours).
- When a coordinate is used in a cache key or a log, it is rounded to roughly 110 metres — we do not log precise GPS coordinates.
- You can use the app without granting location permission by typing a starting point instead.
- Background location (used by Plus navigation for “time to board” and “get off here” alerts) runs only during an active trip and stops when the trip ends.
4. How the assistant uses your messages
To understand a question phrased in plain English, the text of your message may be sent to our language-model provider (Anthropic) for intent parsing and, occasionally, to help phrase a response. The assistant never decides your route — routes are computed from official schedule data. When we call the provider:
- we send only the message text and transient trip context (such as the destination you asked about);
- we do not send your email, name, account identifier, or precise saved location.
5. How we use your information
- To plan and navigate trips, and show nearby transit and real-time information.
- To save your places, trips, preferences and history when you ask us to.
- To send notifications you have turned on (see below).
- To process subscriptions and passes.
- To keep the service secure, debug problems, and prevent abuse.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.
6. Third-party services
We rely on a small set of service providers who process data on our behalf, only as needed to run the app:
| Provider | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Anthropic | Understanding plain-English requests (message text only) |
| Azure Maps (Microsoft) | Geocoding addresses and place names (Canadian address data) |
| OpenWeatherMap | Weather for contextual greetings |
| Google & Apple | Optional sign-in |
| Stripe | Subscription and pass payments |
| Expo (push service) | Delivering push notifications you enable |
| Amazon Web Services | Hosting the app's backend |
| Sentry | Crash and error monitoring (no email or precise location) |
| PostHog | Product analytics — understanding how the app is used (no precise location) |
| Cloudflare | Hosting this website and the launch waitlist |
Some providers may process data outside Canada (for example in the United States). We use providers that offer appropriate protections, and we share only what each one needs.
7. How long we keep data
- Conversation sessions: about 4 hours, then automatically deleted.
- Trip history: your most recent 5 trips on the free tier; up to 90 days on Plus.
- Shared-trip links: 30 days, holding only the two endpoints you chose to share — no identity.
- Application logs: about 30 days, without personal information at normal levels.
- Account data: kept while your account exists; deleted within 30 days of account deletion.
- Waitlist email: kept until launch (or until you ask us to remove it), then used once to tell you we've launched.
8. Your rights & choices
Under PIPEDA you can:
- Access the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it.
- Delete your account and data directly in the app (Profile → Delete account). This removes your saved places, trips and sign-in records, and cancels any active subscription. You can also email us.
- Withdraw consent — for example by turning off location or notifications, or signing out.
- Complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada if you believe we've mishandled your information.
9. Notifications
Push notifications are off by default and require your explicit opt-in. When enabled (a Plus feature), we may send:
- Departure reminders before a saved trip's departure time;
- Commute reminders for a recurring trip you've set up;
- Disruption alerts when a service alert affects a route on a trip you saved or recently planned.
You can turn notifications off entirely, or by category, in the app at any time, and in your device settings.
10. Payments
Subscriptions and passes are processed by Stripe (and, where applicable, the App Store or Google Play). We never see or store your full card number. Applicable Canadian sales tax (GST/HST) is handled at checkout.
11. Security
We protect your information with encryption in transit, least-privilege access to our systems, and secrets kept out of our code. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep the data we hold safe and to collect as little of it as possible.
12. Children
AskTransit is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; if you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we'll delete it.
13. The waitlist on this website
If you enter your email on this site, we store it (with Cloudflare) solely to notify you when AskTransit launches, along with a coarse country and the referring page for basic anti-abuse. We send one launch email and do not use the address for anything else. Ask us any time and we'll remove it.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the app evolves. We'll change the “last updated” date above and, for material changes, provide a more prominent notice.
15. Contact us
Questions, requests, or concerns? Email hello@asktransit.app and we'll get back to you.