Privacy policy

In short

CityLayers: London does not collect, store or share any personal data about you.

• There are no accounts. You never sign up or sign in.
• There are no analytics, no tracking and no ads, and no third-party code that does any of these.
• Your camera and location are used only on your iPhone or iPad, to place the reconstruction around you. We never store them and never send them to us or anyone else.
• Apple provides the street imagery, the maps and the payments, under Apple's own privacy policy.
• Old pictures on the place cards are loaded from Wikimedia Commons, and the spoken narrations and reels from this website. Both see your IP address as any website does; nothing about you is sent with the request.

In this policy, “CityLayers: London” (shown on your Home Screen as CityLayers) means the app, and “we” and “us” mean the maker of the app and this website.

Camera

CityLayers: London asks for the camera so it can show the old city over the live view of the street. The camera image is processed on your device, frame by frame, to line the reconstruction up with the buildings in front of you. The app does not record, save or upload any photo or video.

Location

CityLayers: London asks for your location while you use the app, so it can tell where you are standing, place the city around you and show you on the map. Your location is used on your device only. We never store it, never keep a history of where you have been and never send it to us.

If you decline location access, you can still explore every layer: tap the ground to walk. You can turn camera or location access on or off at any time in Settings, CityLayers.

Apple services

Street imagery (ARKit)

To line the old city up with today's streets, CityLayers: London uses Apple's ARKit location anchors. For this, iOS sends your approximate location to Apple to download the street imagery for the area around you. This is handled by Apple, not by us, under Apple's privacy policy. We do not receive this information.

Maps

Map tiles in the app are provided by Apple MapKit. Loading the map sends requests to Apple, under Apple's privacy policy.

Pictures, narration and reels

The old pictures on the place cards are loaded from Wikimedia Commons when you open a card. Like any website, Wikimedia's servers receive your IP address and the picture asked for, under the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy. The app sends nothing else, and no information about you, with the request. Pictures are kept in the app's cache on your device.

The spoken narration of a place (Listen, read by an AI voice) and its reels (Watch the reel) are streamed from this website, citylayers.martinhartt.com, when you tap play. To know which places have them, the app also fetches two small lists from this website when you open a card. These requests carry no personal data and no identifier; as with any website, the server sees your IP address and the file asked for, in standard server logs kept by our host, Vercel (see This website). We do not use them to identify or track you. Sound plays only when you tap play, and stops when you close the card or leave the app.

Open on Instagram under a reel opens the reel on Instagram, in the Instagram app or your browser, under Instagram's own privacy policy. The app sends nothing to Instagram unless you tap it.

Purchases

London · c. 1500 is a one-time in-app purchase. Purchases, refunds and codes are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. We never see your name, your Apple Account or your payment details. The app only learns from Apple, on your device, whether the layer has been bought.

What stays on your device

CityLayers: London keeps a small amount of information on your iPhone or iPad so the app works as you left it, such as your settings and which places you have visited. It is not sent anywhere. Deleting the app deletes it.

This website

This website sets no cookies and uses no analytics or tracking. It is hosted by Vercel, whose servers process standard request information such as your IP address to deliver the pages and keep them secure. The typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts, which receives your IP address when your browser requests them.

Children

CityLayers: London collects no personal data from anyone, including children.

Changes to this policy

If the app changes in a way that affects your privacy, we will update this page and its effective date before the change reaches the App Store.

Contact

Questions about privacy: .