Cerqa is a location sharing service for friends and family. Cerqa collects location data to keep your live position updated for the people you choose, and to guide you while you navigate, even when the app is closed or not in use. This page explains when that happens and how to stop it.
When Cerqa uses your location in the background
Your location is shared in the background only while a share or navigation you started is running. That starts when you:
- Start sharing with a person or group, including from a plan, trip, or Meet me request
- Tap Share or Join on a request or invitation notification
- Start turn-by-turn navigation
A request from someone else, or a plan reaching its start time, does not start sharing on its own. You always make that choice.
What Cerqa collects
While you are sharing, Cerqa collects:
- Your GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude)
- Your speed, direction of travel, and GPS accuracy
- The time of each location update
- If you are navigating, your route, distance, and time remaining to your destination
While you are inside a Private Place, such as home or work, your device stops sending your real location to anyone you have not trusted for that place.
What Cerqa keeps
The stream of live positions is sent in real time and is not stored on the company's servers. When sharing ends, your live location is no longer sent or kept.
Cerqa does keep a few things so that plans and trips work. While a plan or trip is live, it stores status points for each person who shares, such as when they left, their estimated arrival time, and when they arrived. When a trip ends, it saves a summary to your trip history: the destination, distance, time, average and top speed, and who took part. Neither one includes the route you drove. See the Privacy Policy for details.
Who sees your location
Your location is shared only with the people you choose: a contact, or the members of a group, plan, or trip.
Your location is never sold, never shared with advertisers, and never used to target ads. Service providers process it only as needed to run Cerqa: Ably delivers live location to the people you share with, and Mapbox provides maps and navigation and receives your location while you use the map or navigate.
How to stop it
Background location for sharing and navigation stops when:
- You tap Stop sharing in the app, or in the notification on Android
- You end navigation
- The time limit on your share runs out
- You sign out of Cerqa
Closing the app works differently on each phone:
- iPhone: force-quitting Cerqa stops background location. If your share has not ended, Cerqa offers to continue it the next time you open the app.
- Android: swiping Cerqa away does not stop sharing. The notification stays up until you tap Stop sharing there or the share ends.
You can also change the permission at any time in your phone's settings:
- iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Cerqa → "Never" or "While Using the App"
- Android: Settings → Apps → Cerqa → Permissions → Location → "Allow only while using the app" or "Don't allow"
On your phone
iPhone
Cerqa asks for "Always" location access when you start sharing, so your share keeps running when you switch apps or lock your screen. If you choose "While Using the App," iPhone shows a blue indicator while Cerqa uses your location in the background, a share may be less reliable, and tapping Share on a notification opens Cerqa first.
Android
Cerqa runs a foreground service while you share or navigate, and a notification stays visible the whole time. "Allow all the time" lets you answer a request from its notification without opening Cerqa. With "Allow only while using the app," a share you start in the app still keeps running in the background, and tapping Share on a notification opens Cerqa first.
Contact
Questions about how Cerqa uses your location can be sent to privacy@cerqa.net.