ATLAS
Privacy policy
ATLAS is a private family app for messages, calls, location sharing, SOS alerts and check-ins. It is made by Daniel Redetzke, an individual developer. Each family uses its own ATLAS server, run by the family or by someone they trust; the developer does not run it. This policy covers the iPhone app. It explains what the app stores, what it sends and who can read it.
End-to-end encryption
Everything you share in ATLAS (messages, photos, videos, voice notes, files, vault items, calls, locations, SOS alerts and check-ins) is encrypted on your iPhone with the Signal protocol before it leaves the device. Only the phones on your family's verified device list can decrypt it. Your encryption keys are created on your iPhone and never leave it.
What ATLAS stores on your device
- Your family: the signed list of family members and their devices, your groups, names and profile photos.
- Content: your messages, attachments and family vault items.
- Locations: the latest known position of each family member who shares it. ATLAS keeps no location history. It also keeps a list of who asked for your location in the last 30 days, so you can see it.
- Keys and settings: your encryption keys and your server's address.
All of this is kept in encrypted databases on this iPhone. Keys are stored in the iOS Keychain on this device only. ATLAS data is excluded from iCloud and computer backups. You can erase all ATLAS data on this iPhone in Settings; the keys are deleted first, so the remaining data can no longer be read.
Location
ATLAS uses your location, also in the background, to share it with your family, to send it with an SOS or a check-in, and for place alerts ("tell me when Lena leaves school"). Place alerts are checked on the phone of the person they watch, and that person can see every alert watching them. You can pause sharing at any time, and your family sees when you do. An SOS you send turns sharing back on. When your battery is almost empty, ATLAS sends one last location.
Camera, microphone and photos
ATLAS uses the camera for video calls, to scan invite and safety-number QR codes and documents, and to take photos. It uses the microphone for calls and voice notes. Photos and videos you pick are only read when you send them, and their location data is removed first. Nothing is recorded or sent without your action.
Calls
Calls are end-to-end encrypted. By default, a call connects your iPhone directly to the other person's, so each side can see the other's IP address. Turn on "Always relay calls" to route calls through your family's server instead. Calls made in ATLAS do not appear in the Phone app's Recents or in iCloud.
Bluetooth and local network
If you turn on the Bluetooth fallback (off by default), ATLAS can pass encrypted messages to family phones nearby when there is no internet. Phones nearby only carry them and cannot read messages that are not for them.
Where your data goes
- Your family's ATLAS server stores and forwards encrypted messages until they are delivered. It cannot read them, see locations, or add anyone to your family. Like any server, it does see some metadata: random device IDs, when and how much they send, IP addresses, push tokens, and whether a message is an SOS. What the server keeps is up to whoever runs it.
- Apple delivers notifications. They contain no content ("New message"); your iPhone decrypts the message and shows it. Message previews are off by default.
- Guest links share your live location with someone outside the family for a limited time. The key is part of the link and is never sent to the server, which keeps only the latest encrypted position and deletes it when the link ends. The viewing page comes from your family's server, so this is less private than sharing inside the family: a compromised server could serve a page that reads the key. You can stop a link at any time.
What ATLAS collects
Nothing. The developer runs no ATLAS server and receives no data from the app. ATLAS has no accounts, advertising, analytics, crash reporting or tracking. The open-source libraries it uses, such as Signal's libsignal and WebRTC, run on your iPhone and send nothing to their makers.
Security
You can lock ATLAS with Face ID, Touch ID or a PIN. The app only learns whether Face ID or Touch ID succeeded. An optional duress PIN opens an empty app and erases ATLAS data on this iPhone. ATLAS also hides its content in the app switcher and blocks third-party keyboards.
Children
Families can include children. ATLAS does not collect any information from anyone, including children. Every new phone, including a child's, joins only after a family admin, usually a parent, approves it.
Emergencies
ATLAS adds to Apple's Emergency SOS and the emergency services; it does not replace them. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.
Your rights
Because ATLAS sends nothing to the developer, there is no personal data about you to access, correct or delete. For data on your family's server, contact whoever runs it. If you have a question, email [email protected]. If you are in the EU or UK, you may also complain to your local data protection authority.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version is published on this page with a new date.