Place BankPrivacy
Last updated 30 September 2026
Place Bank is made by Ed Halvey, an individual developer in Perth, Western Australia. The app has no accounts, no advertising and no tracking, and nothing you save is sold or shared for marketing. This page explains exactly where your information goes.
What stays on your iPhone
Your places, trips, photos, notes, ratings and "been" ticks are stored on your iPhone. If you never turn on sharing, they never leave it except for the look-ups described below.
Sharing, only if you turn it on
| Feature | What is sent | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Shared list | Your places, trips, photos and the first name you enter, stored under a secret 10-letter code. | Anyone you give the code to. |
| Group trip | That trip and the places saved in its city. Your own notes, ratings and ticks are not sent. | Anyone you give the trip code to. |
| Share link | A copy of one place or trip (name, address, description, hours, photos). Never your notes, ratings or name. | Anyone with the link, on placebank.app. |
Shared data is stored with Supabase in Sydney, Australia. You can leave a shared list or group trip at any time in the app. To have a list, trip or link deleted from the server, email the address below.
Reading what you save (AI)
To work out which places a clip, article, screenshot or description means, Place Bank first uses Apple Intelligence on your iPhone where available, which stays on the device. Otherwise the text or picture is sent through Place Bank's server to Google's Gemini AI, and for descriptions of recent or half-remembered places, Google Search. YouTube links are read by Google through a separate Place Bank server (Cloudflare). Google may use content sent on its free service to improve its products, so please do not save anything private or sensitive. A random ID for your install, not linked to you, is used to apply daily limits, and the number of requests is counted.
Finding places, photos and opening hours
Place names and addresses are looked up on Apple Maps. Opening hours and features come from the venue's own website, OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia. Those services receive the place name or location being looked up, not who you are.
This website
placebank.app uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read, using cookies and a shortened IP address. It does not identify you and is not used for advertising. You can block it with your browser's privacy settings or Google's opt-out add-on. The app itself does not use Google Analytics.
Your location
If you allow it, your location is used on your iPhone to show distances, journey times and nearby alerts. It is never sent to Place Bank's server. Directions and journey times come from Apple Maps under Apple's privacy policy.
Children
Place Bank is not directed at children under 13.
Changes and contact
If this changes, this page will be updated and the date above changed. Questions, or a request to see or delete anything held on the server: ejhalvey@gmail.com.