Privacy

The short version: what you save stays on your phone. There are no accounts, no analytics, no trackers, no advertising, and nothing about you is sold or shared.

We do not have a copy of your spots.

Every place you star, every waypoint, every track you record and every note you write is stored on your own device. It is never uploaded, because there is nowhere to upload it to — BushMap has no user accounts and no database of people. If you clear your browser's data for this site, or uninstall it, that information is gone, including from us, because we never had it.

What stays on your phone

Saved spots and tripsthe places you star, routes you plan, tracks you record, and your own notes
Offline packsthe maps, contours and answers you download for an area before you leave signal
Your settingswhich layers you show, day or night map, the species you last picked
Recent errorsif the app misbehaves it keeps the last few errors so you can read them out to us under You → Settings. They are not sent anywhere.

What leaves your phone, and where it goes

BushMap draws a map and answers questions about a place, so some of what you are looking at has to be requested from somewhere. Those requests carry the part of the map you are viewing, which is roughly where you are looking — not who you are.

Map tilesdata.bushmap.ca (ours), and OpenFreeMap when you are zoomed right out. Satellite imagery, if you switch it on, comes from Esri; the topographic basemap from Natural Resources Canada.
Driving directionsthe start and end points go to a routing server — ours when it is running, otherwise the public OSRM demo server. Nothing else is sent with them.
Weather and daylightthe coordinates of the spot you are asking about go to Open-Meteo.
Fire bans and live land statusthe area you are looking at goes to Ontario's own public map services.
Elevationpublic elevation tiles, hosted on Amazon S3.

These are ordinary map requests. We do not attach an identifier to them, and we do not receive anything back about you from those services. Each of them has its own privacy policy and its own server logs, which we do not control or see.

Your location

BushMap asks your browser for your location so it can show you where you are and measure distances from you. Your position is used on your phone. It is sent out only when you ask for something that needs it — a driving route, or the weather at a spot — and then only as coordinates, to the services named above. If you refuse the permission, everything except the blue dot and distance-from-you still works.

What we never do

Children

BushMap is a mapping tool for hunting, fishing and camping. It is not directed at children and collects no personal information from anyone, of any age.

Changes

If this ever changes — if BushMap gains accounts, or anything is collected — this page will say so plainly and be dated before the change takes effect.

Getting in touch

BushMap is made in Ontario by Brandon Thompson. Questions about privacy: privacy@bushmap.ca.

Last updated 5 September 2026. See also the terms of use.