Privacy Policy
BusBusGo is a bus-tracking app that works by passengers sharing where their bus is. That makes location the whole product, so it is worth being precise about it.
Last updated: 21 August 2026
The short version
- You can browse buses, routes and live positions without an account.
- Your location is only ever shared while you have explicitly started tracking a bus, and it stops the moment you stop.
- Live positions are not kept. They are deleted when your session ends, including if your phone dies or loses signal.
- We do not sell your data, and there is no advertising in the app.
What we collect
Location
Precise location, only while you are actively tracking a bus. Nothing is collected when you are simply looking at the map. Sharing is off by default, and starting it takes a deliberate action: choosing the bus you are on and confirming that you want to share.
While a session is running, the app publishes your position, accuracy, speed and heading roughly every 12–45 seconds, more often when the bus is moving and less often when it is stopped. That is attached to the bus route you selected and to an account identifier, so other passengers can see the bus move.
This is deleted, not archived. The current position for a route is the only one stored, and it is removed when you stop tracking. If the app is killed, the phone runs out of battery, or the network drops, the deletion is performed by the server rather than by your device, so it happens anyway. We do not build a history of anywhere you have been.
The app uses a foreground service with a persistent notification while sharing. That notification is there so it is never ambiguous that sharing is on, and it is how you stop.
Reports you submit
If you report a sighting (“I see it”, “it just left”, “stuck in traffic”), we store the report, the route, the time, an optional note, and the approximate location it was made from. Unlike live tracking, reports are retained, because they are the community record other passengers rely on.
Account
Browsing needs no account. Contributing does, so that a live position other people navigate by is attributable and so that a cleared app does not orphan somebody's contribution history.
Signing in with Google gives us your email address and display name through Firebase Authentication. Your email address is never written into the community database and never appears on any report or public page. What other people see is a short alias such as CB-FE8C.
Diagnostics
We use Firebase Crashlytics to receive crash reports, which include device model, operating system version, and the state of the app when it crashed. This is used to fix crashes and nothing else.
What we do not collect
- Your contacts, photos, files, microphone or camera.
- Your location when you are not actively tracking a bus.
- Any advertising identifier. There is no advertising and no ad network in the app.
- Payment information. The app is free and has no purchases.
Who can see what
While you are sharing, your position for that route is readable by signed-in users of the app, and the fused result — a single position for the bus, combined from everybody reporting it — is shown publicly on this website. The public view shows where the bus is and how many people are reporting it. It does not identify who they are.
We do not sell personal information and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. Data is processed by Google Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Realtime Database, Crashlytics) acting as our infrastructure provider, and by Google Maps for map display.
How long we keep things
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Live position while tracking | Only while the session is active; deleted on stop or disconnect |
| Sighting reports | Retained as part of the community record |
| Account and contribution totals | Until you delete your account |
| Crash reports | Per Firebase Crashlytics retention (currently 90 days) |
Your choices
- Stop sharing at any time from the tracking card in the app or from the notification. Your live position disappears immediately.
- Revoke location permission in Android Settings. The app still works for browsing buses.
- Delete your account and data — see Delete your account for the steps and exactly what is removed.
Children
BusBusGo is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect, we will update the date at the top and describe the change here.
Contact
Questions, or a request to delete your data: corvas.official@gmail.com