Music Maps Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 17, 2026 · Versión en español (aviso de privacidad para México)

Music Maps shows where the artists you listen to come from. This policy explains what information the app and its server handle, why, how long it is kept, and how you control it.

Ricardo Sanchez Aguilera, the developer of Music Maps, based in Budapest, Hungary, in the European Union, where he lives and works. He also works from Mexico for periods of time. Postal address for privacy requests: Av. Juárez 117 Oriente, Colonia Centro, C.P. 27000, Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico. Contact for privacy questions and requests: ricsan120@gmail.com.

• Your listening history stays on your iPhone. Our server does not store what you play or look up under your installation or account, and its logs do not record your IP address with your requests.
• Our server keeps an installation identifier (to secure the service) and the app version you run. If you sign in to Last.fm through the app, it also keeps your Last.fm username and session, linked to that installation. If you report wrong artist information, it keeps your report linked to that installation. If you turn on notifications, it keeps this iPhone's notification token, linked to that installation. We do not ask for your name or email address.
• No advertising, no analytics or crash-reporting services, no tracking across apps or websites, and nothing is sold.

• Listening history read from Apple Music, Last.fm or Spotify playback, and the places and artists built from it. Delete it at any time with Profile → Clear playback history…, or only the part recorded from Spotify with Profile → Disconnect Spotify…. It is included in your own iCloud or computer backups of your iPhone, like other app data.
• The Spotify connection token the Spotify app gives Music Maps, and your Last.fm credentials, are kept in the iOS Keychain on your device.
• Your location. If you allow it, the app takes one approximate location fix to choose the map icon for your region. It is never stored or sent anywhere.

Music Maps uses its own server (hosted by netcup in Germany) to find artist locations.

Database backups may contain the installation and Last.fm records, and the wrong-data reports and report-trust decisions with their links to an installation. A backup is taken every day and before maintenance. Each one is kept for up to one year from when it was taken and then deleted; one taken only to undo a failed update is deleted within a day and never leaves our server. A copy of each daily and maintenance backup is also kept on a computer we own that the developer keeps with him: in Budapest, Hungary, or in Mexico while he works from there. The copy is on an encrypted disk that our server reaches only through a private, encrypted connection, and it is deleted on the same schedule, counted from when the backup was taken. While the computer is in Mexico, the copies on it are outside the EU, and Mexico is not covered by an EU adequacy decision. The computer is our own, the copies on it are encrypted, and nobody else receives them, so we do not treat keeping them there as a transfer of your data to anyone else. Every deletion is also recorded, without any username or token, in a separate log kept outside the database, and that log is copied to the same computer as each deletion happens. If we ever restore a backup, we first re-apply every deletion recorded after the backup was taken, so restoring it does not bring data you deleted back into service. Until a backup is deleted, it still contains the data it held when it was taken. Copying a backup to that computer does not restart its one-year limit. Each entry in the deletion log, and its copy on that computer, is kept as long as a retained backup still needs it to re-apply the deletion.

A deletion takes effect on our server at once, but our server confirms it to the app only once its record is safely stored on that computer, in Budapest or in Mexico. If that computer cannot be reached at that moment (for example while it is switched off or travelling), our server finishes storing the record by itself when it can, and the app gets its confirmation the next time it asks.

We do not receive your Spotify or Apple Music account details, your email address, your contacts or your location.

Their own privacy policies apply to what these services receive: Spotify, Apple, Last.fm.

• Spotify: with your permission, the app connects to the Spotify app on your iPhone (Spotify's App Remote) to see what is playing, show its cover and control playback, for whichever account the Spotify app is signed in to. It does not use Spotify's Web API: it does not read your Spotify profile, account or listening history from Spotify, and does not search Spotify. The Spotify app does its own networking under Spotify's policy. Our server is not involved.
• Apple Music: the app talks to it directly from your iPhone, with your permission. Our server is not involved.
• Last.fm with a public username: the app sends the username directly to Last.fm, never to our server.
• Last.fm with Authorize Music Maps: our server makes the Last.fm calls for you. During sign-in it sends Last.fm the one-time authorization token. After that, each time the app reads your history, our server sends Last.fm your Last.fm username and session key to fetch it. Apart from notifications (see Notifications below), this is the only case in which our server sends your data to another company.

To build artist pages, our server also queries public music databases (MusicBrainz, Wikidata, Wikipedia, Last.fm, Bandcamp via a web search, and OpenStreetMap Nominatim) using artist and place names only — never your identifier, IP address or account.

• Looking up artists and connecting Last.fm: performing the service you asked for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
• Installation identifier, server logs and app version: our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
• Wrong-data reports and report trust: our legitimate interest in keeping the shared artist catalog correct and preventing abuse of reporting (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
• Notifications: performing the service you asked for when you turned them on and allowed them in iOS (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Turning them off ends it.

• Clear your history: Profile → Clear playback history… (on your device).
• Disconnect Last.fm: Profile → Last.fm → Disconnect Last.fm removes the connection from the app at once and asks our server to delete your Last.fm session. If your iPhone is offline or our server cannot be reached at that moment, the app keeps that deletion request on your iPhone and sends it again the next times you open the app, until our server confirms it. Until the request reaches our server the session stays there, and while your iPhone stays offline, or if you stop using the app, the request cannot reach us: email us and we will delete it. Once the request reaches our server, the session is deleted at once, even if the confirmation still waits for the backup copy in Budapest or Mexico (see What our server receives and keeps); our server then finishes on its own, even if you never open the app again. You can also revoke Music Maps' access on Last.fm under Settings → Applications, which makes the stored session useless. Revoking does not delete anything from our server, though: your Last.fm username and its link to your installation stay there until the session is deleted.
• Disconnect Spotify: Profile → Disconnect Spotify… stops the app using Spotify at once. It removes the Spotify connection token from your iPhone and deletes the listening history Music Maps recorded from Spotify on your iPhone; your Last.fm and Apple Music history, and the shared artist catalog, are kept. Nothing is requested from the Spotify app again until you choose to connect it again. It works offline: our server holds nothing about your Spotify use, so there is nothing to delete there. If a step cannot finish, the app says so, keeps Spotify off, and finishes it when you try again. Reconnecting Spotify to replace the connection deletes the history recorded from the previous connection the same way, even if the Spotify app is still signed in to the same account. You can also remove Music Maps' access in your Spotify account under Apps.
• Switching Spotify accounts: Music Maps cannot tell which account the Spotify app is signed in to. The history it records from Spotify belongs to this installation of Music Maps, not to a Spotify account, and it is kept when the connection is simply renewed. If you switch accounts in the Spotify app and want the histories kept apart, disconnect Spotify in Music Maps first.
• Turn notifications off: Profile → Notifications. See Notifications below.
• Delete your data on the server: Profile → Delete my data on the server… deletes your Last.fm connection, notification registration and app-version information from our server. We keep a minimal security record so this installation can continue using the service and any existing block remains enforced. Continued use can record your app version again. It also removes this installation as the sender of the wrong-data reports it sent, including where an applied correction is shown to the developer; the reports themselves can stay, no longer linked to you, for review and to keep the catalog correct. If the developer trusts, or has trusted, reports from this installation, that decision and its history are kept, like a block. To delete that security record as well, use the next control. The app disconnects Last.fm on your iPhone first and keeps it, and notifications, off until you turn them on again; your playback history on your iPhone is kept. If your iPhone is offline, the app keeps the request and asks you to confirm it once it can reach our server; once confirmed, it sends it again the next times you open the app until our server confirms the deletion. Profile → Your data on our server shows what we hold for this installation and lets you share a copy. The copy includes the wrong-data reports still linked to this installation, whether it is registered for notifications (never the token itself), whether the developer trusts its reports, and the history of that trust. A blocked installation can still delete its data. If the app no longer holds this installation's access token — for example after it was replaced — the app cannot delete that installation's data, and says so; email us, and if you connected Last.fm we can find it through your Last.fm account.
• Delete this installation's record: Profile → Your data on our server → Delete this installation's record from the server… deletes everything the previous control deletes, plus the security record it keeps: the key ID, the scrambled token and the time it was registered. It also deletes any report-trust decision about this installation, and the history of that trust keeps its entries, no longer linked to the installation. The app proves the request with this installation's own access token, so nothing else is needed. It works the same way as the previous control: Last.fm is disconnected on your iPhone first, Last.fm and notifications stay off until you turn them on again, your playback history on your iPhone is kept, an offline request waits for your confirmation, and a confirmed one is sent again until our server confirms it. Until then the app does not register as a new installation; once confirmed, it does, with a new key. If our server does not offer this deletion yet, the app says so and keeps the request until you try again or cancel it. A blocked installation keeps its block: its key ID, the scrambled token (a one-way verifier, so the blocked app keeps being refused) and the time it was blocked are kept indefinitely; everything else is deleted, report trust included, and the app does not register again. What remains afterwards: our server keeps a record of each deletion — the installation's identifiers (such as the key ID), the operation, the day and what was deleted, and for a blocked installation the details of its block, including its one-way token verifier; never a name, a username or an access token — so that restoring a backup can never bring the deleted data back, and so that the app can get its confirmation. That record is kept for at least 30 days from when our server has stored the deletion safely, including its copy on the computer the developer keeps with him in Budapest, Hungary, or in Mexico — not from when you asked, or when the app got the answer. After that it is deleted once no backup and no deletion log could still need it to re-apply the deletion. Because backups are kept for up to a year, that is usually close to a year after the deletion, and it can take longer while we cannot yet show that a backup no longer needs it. A deletion our server has not yet stored safely keeps its record until it has, and only then do its 30 days start; repeating the request does not restart them. Once the record is deleted, our server can no longer confirm a repeat of that same request and deletes nothing more. For a deletion of your data, or of a blocked installation's record, the app then says it cannot tell what happened and asks you to review your data. For the record of an installation that is not blocked, our server no longer knows the installation at all, so the app treats its record as gone and registers as a new installation. Copies of the record in the deletion log, including its copy on that computer, are kept only as long as a backup still needs them. Backups taken before the deletion still hold the deleted data, and backups taken after it, while this record was still kept, still hold the record; backups taken after the record was deleted do not. Each keeps what it holds until that backup expires (at most one year from when it was taken; copying a backup does not restart that time), and the deletion is applied again before a restored backup is used. So the key ID does not disappear from every copy at once. A blocked installation's block is separate: its key ID, the one-way token verifier and the time it was blocked stay indefinitely, even after the deletion's record is deleted.
• Access or delete other server data: email ricsan120@gmail.com.
  • If you connected Last.fm — including if you tapped Disconnect but the server deletion did not go through: your Last.fm username leads us to your session and to the installation it is linked to, including that installation's app version and timestamps and the wrong-data reports still linked to it. We act on it once we have checked that the request comes from that Last.fm account (we email you a one-time code; you add it to the "About me" section of your Last.fm profile; once we see it on your public profile we act on the request, and you can remove the code). If you are not sure whether a Disconnect reached our server, ask; we can check by username. This way we can also delete an installation's security record, but only for installations your Last.fm account is still linked to; if it is linked to several, tell us which one (we can describe each by key ID, registration day, last-used day or app version) or ask for all of them.
  • If you never connected Last.fm, or our server has deleted your Last.fm session: nothing links the installation identifier and app version to you, so we cannot match them to you from an email. Use Profile → Delete my data on the server… or Profile → Your data on our server → Delete this installation's record from the server… instead. A key ID names an installation but does not show that it is yours, so we do not act on a key ID or an email alone: without the app's access token or a verified Last.fm account still linked to the installation, we cannot establish that it is yours, and we delete nothing.
  • New iPhone: moving to a new iPhone starts a new installation, because the app's access token is kept only on the original device.
• You have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to complain to a data-protection supervisory authority, in particular the one where you live or work. In Hungary, where the developer is based, that is the NAIH (Nemzeti Adatvédelmi és Információszabadság Hatóság, naih.hu).

Notifications are off until you turn them on. Music Maps never asks at first launch: when you turn on Profile → Notifications, the app explains what it will send and only then does iOS ask whether to allow notifications. If you allow them, iOS gives the app a notification token, an address Apple issues for Music Maps on this iPhone, and the app sends it to our server with this installation's identifier. It sends it again each time you open the app, which updates the day kept with it. Our server keeps one token per installation (see What our server receives and keeps).

• What we send. Service and test notifications from the developer, such as a test or a notice about Music Maps, to one installation at a time. No advertising, no notifications chosen from what you listen to, and no silent notifications. If we ever wanted to send promotional notifications, we would ask for your consent separately first.
• Apple delivers them. To send a notification, our server sends Apple's push notification service this iPhone's token, the app it is for, and the notification's title and text, never your installation identifier, your listening history or your location. Apple delivers it to your iPhone under its privacy policy. Apple tries once and does not keep a notification for an iPhone that is offline, so you may never see one.
• Turning them off. Turning notifications off in Profile asks our server to delete the token at once. If your iPhone is offline or our server cannot be reached, the app keeps the request and sends it again the next times you open the app, until our server confirms it; until then our server still holds the token. Turning notifications off only in iOS Settings stops them from appearing at once, but our server learns of it, and deletes the token, only the next time you open Music Maps. Our server only knows what this iPhone last told it.
• Deleting your data. Deleting your data on the server or this installation's record (Your choices and rights) deletes the token too, and the app keeps notifications off until you turn them on again.

We will update this page and its effective date when what we collect changes, and we will not start collecting new kinds of personal data without updating it first.