TrainTrack Privacy Policy

TrainTrack is a community railroad-crossing alert service. This policy explains the information TrainTrack uses to provide live crossing reports, alerts, optional Crossing Assist, and public contributor rankings.

Information you can provide

You may use TrainTrack and submit crossing reports without creating a public profile. Reports include the crossing, train status, optional direction, time, and a pseudonymous device/reporter identifier used for spam prevention and contributor counting.

If you create a leaderboard profile, TrainTrack stores your chosen public username, a securely hashed version of your private PIN, a reporter identifier, account creation time, favorite crossing choices, and your reporting activity. Your PIN itself is not stored in readable form.

Notifications

If you enable notifications, TrainTrack stores a push-notification token or web push subscription plus the crossings and alert types you select. These values are used only to deliver TrainTrack alerts.

Location and Crossing Assist

Location is optional. If you turn on Crossing Assist in the native iPhone app, TrainTrack can use precise location while the app is open or in the background to recognize when you approach or drive across a favorited, supported at-grade railroad crossing. It can then show a PASSING, STOPPED, or CLEAR notification prompt and automatically submit CLEAR after the phone confirms that you drove across the tracks. Raw GPS coordinates are evaluated on the device and are not uploaded or stored by TrainTrack. A submitted report includes the TrainTrack crossing identifier, status, time, and pseudonymous reporter identifier. Each verified automatic CLEAR report earns leaderboard credit. You can turn Crossing Assist off in the app and change location access in iPhone Settings at any time.

Public information

If you choose a public username, other users may see that username, report count, rank, streak, and badge. Your PIN, push token, reporter/device identifier, favorite crossings, and account sessions are not displayed publicly.

Community requests and construction reports

TrainTrack may store city/crossing expansion votes, request text, and construction-status submissions needed to operate those community features. Public usernames and expansion requests are subject to filtering and the TrainTrack Community Guidelines. Users can hide public community items on their own device and report content for review.

How information is used

Information is used to provide live crossing status, prevent report spam, calculate contributor rankings, sync favorite crossings, deliver selected notifications, operate optional Crossing Assist, review community construction reports, and improve coverage.

Account deletion

Signed-in users can choose Delete account & data from the public leaderboard/profile screen. Deletion removes the profile and data tied to that account, including its leaderboard-linked train reports, pending construction reports, favorite crossings, notification subscriptions, account sessions, and expansion votes. You may continue using TrainTrack anonymously afterward with a new pseudonymous identifier.

Retention

Live train-report data is operational data and may be automatically removed as it ages. Account data remains until the account is deleted or it is no longer needed to provide the service.

Sharing and sale

TrainTrack does not sell personal information to advertisers. Service providers used to host the app or deliver notifications may process information only as needed to provide those services.

Children

TrainTrack is a general-audience transportation utility and is not designed to collect personal information from children. Public profiles do not require an email address or real name.