IDrive Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

This privacy policy covers the IDrive Android and iOS applications and the IDrive Project website at https://idriveproject.ro/. It explains the information we access, collect, use, store and share, and how you can request its deletion. Feature availability, permissions and controls can differ between platforms and app versions; the relevant descriptions below apply when you use those features.

The IDrive Project team is responsible for these services and for decisions about how your personal information is processed. Our privacy contact is Daniel Voinea at daniel.voinea@unitbv.ro. Contact this address with privacy questions, requests concerning your information or account deletion requests.

IDrive is a non-commercial research project investigating phone-based driving measurements, trip recording and driving-behaviour feedback. Research participation and any use of your information in a particular study are explained separately as described below.

To delete your IDrive account and associated data, follow the account deletion instructions below. You can request deletion by email without reinstalling or opening the app.

Account and data deletion

You can request deletion of your IDrive app account and its associated personal data by emailing daniel.voinea@unitbv.ro with the subject IDrive account deletion request.

1. Include the email address associated with your IDrive account. If possible, send the request from that email address. If you use Sign in with Apple and Hide My Email, the account may use an Apple private relay address rather than your personal email; include that account address if you know it, or contact us for help identifying the account.
2. State that you want your IDrive account and associated data deleted. Specify whether you also want a website account or website comments removed, if applicable.
3. We may ask you to confirm ownership of the account before processing the request. Do not send your password, authentication codes or identity documents with the initial request.

You do not need to have the app installed, sign in to the app or provide a reason to request account deletion. If you cannot access the registered email address, contact us to discuss an alternative verification method.

You can also initiate account deletion through the app's Delete Account control. On Android, this is available from the Home screen's three-dot menu; on iOS, use the account-deletion control in the app's account or settings area. You may need to sign in again to verify ownership. The email route above remains available if you cannot access the app. Signing out, disabling recording or uninstalling the app does not, by itself, delete your account or cloud data.

Deletion covers your authentication account, profile, stored trips and routes, uploaded trip files, account-associated scores and achievements, leaderboard entry, memberships and other personal records under our control associated with your account. We also remove or de-identify your contributions in shared features where required, while respecting other participants' information.

In Android versions using the server-driven deletion workflow, a Deletion requested message means the server accepted your request, not that every record has already been erased. Cleanup continues on the server if you close the app, with retries for failures. The app signs you out and attempts to clear its local account data after acceptance; if local cleanup fails, it tells you to clear app data in device settings. Do not interpret signing out as proof that server cleanup is complete.

We aim to complete verified account deletion requests within 30 days. We confirm email-based requests by email; for an in-app request, you can contact us at the address above to check completion. If additional time or information is needed, we will explain why and provide an expected completion date, subject to applicable legal deadlines.

Limited information may be retained only where necessary to meet a legal obligation, resolve a dispute or address security and fraud prevention, for as long as necessary for that purpose. In particular, minimal account, group or competition deletion identifiers and request timestamps may be retained to prevent delayed uploads or processing retries from recreating deleted records. Hashed notification-token or installation denial identifiers may remain without the deleted account association, to prevent stale notification registrations from being reused. These safeguards do not retain your name, email, routes or raw trip files. Their retention depends on the continuing need to prevent replay or recreation and is subject to review. Where another exception applies, we will explain the information retained, the reason and the retention period or criteria, unless prohibited by law. Service-provider backups and diagnostic records may be removed according to their applicable retention cycles rather than immediately.

Email-based deletion removes data from the services we control; it cannot remotely erase copies already stored on your phone or another person's device. You can remove remaining local app data through your device's settings or by deleting the app. Platform backups may retain copies according to their settings and retention practices. Copies you deliberately shared with others may remain outside our control.

Information collected by the IDrive app

• Account information: email address and name when supplied, driver or display name, account identifier and information needed to authenticate you. Android supports email/password and Google Sign-In. iOS supports email/password, Sign in with Apple and Google Sign-In. Google or Apple processes its sign-in request under its own privacy terms and supplies the information needed for authentication. With Sign in with Apple, your account email may be an Apple private relay address if you choose Hide My Email. IDrive account authentication is handled by Firebase Authentication.
• Location and trip information: precise or approximate location, coordinates, speed, heading, location accuracy, timestamps, route points, trip duration and distance.
• Motion and driving information: accelerometer, gyroscope and related phone sensor readings used to analyse movement, detect driving events and calculate scores. The full recording made during a trip is kept on your phone at least until the trip is uploaded. Uploaded trips contain a trip summary, detected-event information and a compact recording file with about ten readings per second: timestamps, location, speed, heading, location accuracy, phone motion and orientation readings and running event counts. Vehicle diagnostic (OBD) data is not uploaded.
• Optional maintenance log: service types or names, service dates, odometer readings and notes that you manually enter. These records are stored in your private account to provide a service history. Avoid including unnecessary personal information in notes.
• Optional cooperative warnings: hazard type, location, time, speed, heading, confidence and technical identifiers used to receive warnings, verify reports and prevent abuse. These reports are pseudonymous, not fully anonymous.
• Optional social features: leaderboard alias and statistics, group memberships, competition and challenge contributions, and live location when you choose to share it with a group.
• Technical and diagnostic information: app version, device and operating-system information, installation and service identifiers, network information such as IP addresses, and SDK usage or map interaction information as collected by the platform-specific services described below. Both apps use Firebase Cloud Messaging for notifications, including notification delivery tokens. Android uses Firebase Crashlytics for crash reports. The iOS app does not include Firebase Crashlytics; its use of Apple sign-in and MapKit does not imply use of Android's diagnostic or map SDKs.
• Measurement provenance: in recording versions that provide it, app build and platform version, scoring/detector/export versions and settings, device manufacturer/model, sensor availability and technical specifications, configured and estimated phone placement, calibration information, observed sampling intervals and monotonic sensor timestamps, event/risk components, recording end reason and quality flags. This information accompanies uploaded trips to help interpret measurements. The recording metadata does not add device serial numbers or persistent hardware identifiers. Recorded and uploaded rows are sampled and may contain cached sensor values; they do not support guaranteed exact reconstruction of every detector input.
• Communications: information you send when contacting us, including your email address and the contents of a support or deletion request.

Location access and background recording

IDrive uses location to display your position on maps, record routes, calculate distance and driving scores, and provide nearby cooperative warnings when enabled. These uses may involve location access even when you are not recording a trip, for example when using a map feature.

When you start a trip, location and motion recording can continue while another app is open, the screen is locked or the IDrive app is not visible, subject to your permissions and operating-system restrictions. Android uses a foreground-service notification to indicate checking for a trip or recording. On iOS, background location and motion access are governed by iOS permissions and system controls; Android's notification and activity-recognition mechanisms do not apply to iOS.

If you enable automatic trip detection in a version that provides it, vehicle or walking activity information and fresh location measurements can be used to check for movement and suggest trip boundaries while the app is not visible. Background location access is needed where those checks or recording begin in the background. Automatic detection is optional and experimental. Permissions, battery settings, sensor availability, app termination and platform restrictions can delay or prevent it. The app cannot reliably infer whether you are the driver or a passenger.

Trip uploads and who drove

The current Android and iOS apps follow the same upload rules. A recorded trip is first saved on your phone. Older app versions may behave differently, as described at the end of this section.

• Trips you start yourself are treated as trips you drove. When you are signed in, they upload to your private IDrive account as soon as they end. There is no separate upload setting. A trip recorded while you are not signed in to the account that recorded it stays on the phone; on Android you can upload it later from the trip's details after signing in to that account.
• Automatically detected trips are recorded with an Unknown driver and no score, and stay on your phone until you answer the question Were you driving? in the trip list, on the trip's details or from the notification shown when the trip ends. If you answer that you were driving, the trip is treated as your drive and can receive an index if it was measured well. If you answer that you were not driving, it stays unscored. Either answer uploads the trip to your account; an unanswered trip is never uploaded. There is no Passenger answer; trips labelled Passenger by older Android versions keep that label.
• Automatic movement detection does not establish that you were driving. Unknown, Passenger, poorly measured and interrupted trips remain unscored and do not earn new rewards. Uploaded trips cannot be relabelled or changed. Existing legacy scores may remain in your history.
• An automatically detected trip shorter than about 300 metres is treated as a false start and deleted on your phone before any question or upload. An automatically detected trip that ends with walking or a long standstill is shortened to its last moving moment: its duration, distance, events and score are calculated up to that moment, and the uploaded file leaves out the later part. Trip endings after a prolonged standstill are provisional because traffic and parking can look alike.
• Recordings recovered after an interruption are marked Interrupted and unscored, not treated as a perfect drive. A recovered automatic trip still asks who was driving before it uploads.

Uploaded trips are checked by our server for file structure and measurement consistency before new rewards; this is not proof of genuine driving. The result of that check is shown on the trip's details in the app. Offline or failed uploads may retry later under the same trip identifier. After a successful upload, the Android app removes the trip's full recording from your phone, while the trip summary and route shown in the app's history remain on the phone; the iOS app's handling of its local recording file can differ. The uploaded copy remains in your account until you delete your account. Optional live group sharing, cooperative hazard reporting, map services and diagnostic SDKs are separate from private trip uploads.

Earlier Android versions (up to 1.4.13) uploaded trips only if you had switched on an account automatic-upload setting, and offered a Passenger role. After updating, automatically detected trips that those versions kept on the phone without a role are offered the Were you driving? question; manually started trips they kept on the phone stay there unless you choose to upload them from the trip's details. Older iOS builds may also differ.

You can stop recording in the app, disable automatic detection, turn off optional sharing and change permissions in your device settings. Android also offers Stop through the recording notification. Android manual Stop pauses future automatic starts until explicit Resume or a newly observed walking separation; disabling automatic detection stops automatic-owned recording, not a manually started session. The iOS app uses its own recording and permission controls. Because trips you start yourself upload when they end while you are signed in, do not start a recording you do not want added to your account; you can leave an automatically detected trip unanswered to keep it off your account. Uploaded trips cannot be withdrawn individually from within the app; to remove uploaded information, contact us or use the account deletion instructions above.

How we use app information

We use account information to authenticate you and manage your profile; location, sensor and trip information to record trips, display routes, analyse driving events and generate driving scores; maintenance entries to provide your service history; optional shared information to provide cooperative warnings and social features; and technical information to deliver notifications, operate maps, diagnose failures and protect the services from abuse.

Driving analysis is automated and produces an experimental driving-behaviour index, sometimes described as a score in earlier app versions. Indices, event labels, coaching and cooperative warnings are research features, not certified safety assessments, crash-risk predictions or guarantees that a journey is safe. The high-speed indicator uses an absolute threshold; it does not determine the applicable road speed limit or establish a traffic-law violation. Phone placement, sensor quality and recording interruptions can affect results. We do not sell personal data or use recorded trips to serve personalised advertising.

Where applicable, we process information necessary to provide the services you request, use consent for optional sharing where required, and rely on legitimate interests to secure and maintain the services while considering your rights. We may also process information to comply with legal obligations. The specific legal basis for a research study is explained in its participant information. Android or iOS permissions, account registration and uploading a trip do not replace any separate consent required by law.

Research participation and use of study data

A particular study may examine driving-event detection, trip-start and trip-end reliability, measurement quality, device performance or driving-behaviour feedback. Before your information is used for a study or model training, we explain its specific purpose, the information needed, who can access it, any sharing, the legal basis, retention and the withdrawal process. Installing IDrive or granting device permissions is not blanket consent for every future study or for unrestricted model training.

If you are invited to participate, the study's participant information explains its procedures, duration, expected risks and benefits, contact details and any applicable ethics arrangements. Where consent is the legal basis, participation is voluntary and you can withdraw it by contacting daniel.voinea@unitbv.ro. Stopping or not starting recordings stops the affected future collection but does not, by itself, withdraw you from a study or erase previously uploaded or exported records.

Access to identifiable study records is limited to authorised personnel who need it for the stated research purpose. Replacing your name with an account or participant code is pseudonymisation, not guaranteed anonymity; precise routes may still identify you. Research outputs should use aggregated or appropriately de-identified results, and any proposed sharing of participant-level records is explained before it takes place under an appropriate legal basis.

Research records and analysis copies have the retention period or review criteria stated for the particular study, rather than being kept indefinitely simply because the project is research. Contact us to request withdrawal, access or deletion, including for study copies under our control. Records that have been irreversibly anonymised can no longer be linked to your account and cannot be individually retrieved or removed; replacing your name with an identifier alone does not qualify as irreversible anonymisation.

Sharing and service providers

Both apps use Google Firebase and Google Cloud services for IDrive account authentication, cloud databases, file storage and server processing. The shared backend includes Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Storage, Realtime Database and Cloud Functions. Both apps support email/password and Google Sign-In; Sign in with Apple is available on iOS. Sharing a backend does not mean that the apps use identical sign-in, map or diagnostic integrations.

• Android: email/password and Google Sign-In for sign-in; Google Maps for maps; Firebase Crashlytics for crash reporting; and Firebase Cloud Messaging for notifications.
• iOS: email/password, Sign in with Apple and Google Sign-In for sign-in; Apple's MapKit for maps; and Firebase Cloud Messaging for notifications. iOS does not include Firebase Crashlytics. iOS maps are not provided through the Google Maps SDK.

These providers process information needed to supply their services, including technical information from the integrations used on the relevant platform. Details about Firebase data handling are available in Firebase's privacy and security information. Google Sign-In on both platforms and Google Maps on Android are subject to Google's privacy policy; Android map SDK data handling is described in Google's Maps SDK disclosure documentation. Apple's sign-in, map and platform services are covered by Apple's privacy policy, with additional information in Sign in with Apple and privacy and Apple Maps and privacy. Using MapKit to display maps does not mean that every recorded trip or uploaded trip file is sent to Apple by IDrive.

If you join the leaderboard, your alias and selected aggregate statistics are visible to other signed-in users. Group members and competition participants can see the information needed for their shared features. If you enable live group location sharing, members of that group can see your current shared position. Turning off that sharing stops further publication of your position.

Usernames, leaderboard aliases and group names are checked on your phone for offensive or impersonating words when you set them, and names that fail the check are shown to others as a neutral placeholder. Next to other users' names on the leaderboard and in groups you can report a name or group name, or hide a user. Reporting opens your email app with a pre-filled message to daniel.voinea@unitbv.ro containing the reported name, the reported user's or group's identifier, your account identifier and the screen where you reported it; nothing is sent unless you send that email. We review reports by hand, normally within 24 hours, and may remove or replace offending names. Users you hide are stored only on your phone, for your account, and are not sent to us; you can unhide them in Settings.

General cooperative hazard reporting is a separate choice from sharing your live position with a group or approving a private trip upload. If you enable it, nearby users outside your group may receive reports containing hazard location and driving-event information. Sharing your live position with a group does not grant permission for general nearby hazard reporting. In Android versions using the separated-consent workflow, this choice is specific to the account and device, and older combined consent settings require a new opt-in. Withdrawing consent cancels unsent reports; changing accounts or re-enabling sharing does not authorise reports queued under an earlier consent. Reports whose transmission has already begun cannot be recalled by changing the setting and may remain until their validity and cleanup periods expire.

We do not include your name or email in a nearby warning response. Our server authenticates submissions and uses account-derived identifiers for deduplication and abuse prevention, so these reports must not be understood as untraceable or fully anonymous.

Access to private account and trip data is restricted to the account holder and authorised personnel or service providers who need it to operate, support and secure the services. We may disclose information when required by law or when necessary to protect users or the services.

Storage, security and international processing

App data may be stored on your device and in our Firebase and Google Cloud services. Network communications with these services use encrypted connections such as HTTPS. We use authentication, access controls and service-provider security measures to protect personal information. No storage or transmission system can guarantee absolute security.

Google services may process information outside Romania or the European Economic Area, depending on the service and its configuration. A European location for one service does not mean that every service processes data only in Europe. Applicable service-provider data protection terms and transfer safeguards govern such processing.

Android or iOS backup and device-transfer features may retain or transfer some settings and local data according to the app's configuration and your device settings. These copies are subject to the applicable platform controls and retention practices. Deleting cloud account data does not guarantee immediate removal from device backups.

App data retention

• Accounts, trip records and uploaded files: retained to provide account features and driving history until account deletion or another applicable deletion request, subject to the limited exceptions described above. After a successful upload the Android app removes the trip's full recording from your phone; this does not delete the uploaded copy. Trips that are not uploaded, such as unanswered automatic trips, remain only on your phone until you delete the app's data or the app.
• Maintenance entries: retained in your private account until you delete an entry or request account deletion, subject to the limited exceptions described above.
• Cooperative hazards: reports have short validity windows, normally up to 30 minutes; additional reports may extend an active hazard's validity. Expired hazards are excluded from nearby warnings. Physical removal takes place through periodic server cleanup and may occur later than expiration.
• Live group positions: removed when sharing stops or a disconnect is detected. Stale positions are excluded from the live display; this is distinct from guaranteed immediate physical deletion.
• Leaderboard entries: removed when you successfully leave the leaderboard or delete your account.
• Android crash diagnostics: Firebase Crashlytics generally retains crash reports and associated identifiers for 90 days before beginning removal from live and backup systems. This Crashlytics retention description does not apply to the iOS app, which does not include that SDK. Other service identifiers, operational logs and backups follow the applicable provider retention practices.
• Support, deletion and report correspondence: retained as needed to handle the request or report, document its outcome and meet applicable legal obligations.
• Research datasets: retained according to the study-specific period or review criteria explained to participants, with appropriate safeguards and applicable rights. Account history and separately exported study copies are distinct.
• Minimal deletion safeguards: retained while necessary to prevent delayed processing from recreating deleted records, subject to review, as explained in the account-deletion section.

Website comments and media

If you leave a comment on this website, we collect the information entered in the comment form, your IP address and browser user-agent information to help detect spam. An email-derived hash may be sent to Gravatar to determine whether you have a profile image. Its privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval, your comment and profile image may be publicly visible.

If you upload images to the website, avoid images containing embedded location information such as EXIF GPS coordinates. Visitors may be able to download images and extract that information.

Website cookies and embedded content

If you leave a comment, you may choose to save your name, email address and website in cookies for convenience. These cookies last for one year. Visiting the website login page sets a temporary cookie to check whether your browser accepts cookies; it contains no personal information and is removed when you close the browser.

Website login cookies normally last two days, and screen-preference cookies last one year. Selecting "Remember Me" keeps the login active for two weeks. Logging out removes login cookies. Editing or publishing an article may set a cookie containing its post identifier, which expires after one day. You can manage cookies through your browser, although disabling essential cookies may affect website features.

Website pages may include embedded videos, images or other content from external services. Those services may collect information, use cookies and track interactions as if you had visited their websites, including linking interactions to an account you hold with them. Their own privacy policies apply to that processing. These website practices are separate from the Android and iOS apps' data handling.

Website sharing and retention

Website information may be processed by our hosting, email, spam-detection and other website service providers. Visitor comments may be checked by an automated spam-detection service. If you request a website password reset, your IP address may be included in the reset email.

Comments and their metadata may be retained indefinitely to recognise and moderate follow-up comments, unless a valid deletion request is made or another retention requirement applies. If you register a website account, its profile information is stored while the account remains active. Website administrators can access that information to administer the service. Cookie lifetimes are described above.

Your rights and choices

Depending on applicable law, you may request access to, correction of, deletion of or a portable copy of your personal information, and may object to or request restrictions on certain processing. Where processing relies on consent, you can withdraw it without affecting processing that took place before withdrawal. Contact daniel.voinea@unitbv.ro to exercise these rights.

You can change app permissions in Android or iOS settings, disable automatic detection and cooperative warnings where available, stop live sharing, leave optional social features, report or hide other users' names, and leave an automatically detected trip unanswered so that it is not uploaded. These choices may limit the affected functionality. For study withdrawal or deletion of exported research records, contact us as described in the research section. Account deletion instructions are provided in the Account and data deletion section.

You may lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in your country. In Romania, this is the National Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Processing (ANSPDCP), available at https://www.dataprotection.ro/.

Children

IDrive is designed for drivers and is not intended for children. If you believe a child has provided personal information through our services, contact us so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our services or data practices change. The date above identifies the latest revision. We will provide additional notice of material changes where appropriate and obtain fresh consent where required; continued use does not replace consent where the law requires it.

Contact

For privacy enquiries, data-rights requests or account deletion, email daniel.voinea@unitbv.ro. For account deletion, use the subject IDrive account deletion request and follow the instructions above.