Privacy Policy for
GPS Camera - MapShot

GPS Camera - MapShot (Package Name: com.mapshot.gps) is a professional geospatial camera, geotagging, telemetry stamping, and real-time field documentation application engineered and published by THE OCS TECHNOLOGY (theocstechnology.com). MapShot GPS is constructed on a fundamental privacy-first, on-device computation paradigm: live coordinate overlay, reverse geocoding formatting, compass bearing measurement, elevation extraction, and photo watermark burning execute locally on your physical Android hardware. We do NOT harvest, profile, or transmit your geotagged imagery or physical location trails to central cloud databases.

MapShot GPS requires high-precision GPS and network location permissions (android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION and android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION) strictly to deliver the core functionality of the application: (a) Acquiring real-time latitude, longitude, and GPS altitude coordinates via device GNSS chips; (b) Measuring horizontal accuracy tolerances (±meters); (c) Performing reverse-geocoding to display the human-readable street, sub-locality, city, district, state, and postal code; and (d) Embedding these verified geospatial coordinates into the visual stamp watermark. Location data is processed strictly in foreground volatile memory while the camera viewfinder is active or when a capture is triggered. MapShot GPS does NOT run stealth background location tracking when the application is closed or minimized.

Camera hardware access is required solely to render the live camera viewfinder feed and capture high-resolution still photographs utilizing the modern AndroidX CameraX framework. The camera stream is utilized exclusively for viewfinder preview and burning the visual geotag stamp directly into the captured photo bitmap. Camera frames are processed strictly in ephemeral RAM buffers and are NEVER covertly recorded, video-streamed, or transmitted to any remote server or external entity.

In strict compliance with Google Play Developer Policies and Android 11, 12, 13, and 14 scoped storage mandates, MapShot GPS requests media access (android.permission.READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and legacy WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE for API <= 28) exclusively for: (a) Saving captured photos with embedded GPS watermarks directly to your device's public media library under 'Pictures/MapShot'; and (b) Enabling the built-in local MapShot Gallery screen to discover and render thumbnails of photos saved in the MapShot directory. MapShot GPS never scans, inspects, or uploads your unrelated personal photos, WhatsApp media, or downloads.

MapShot GPS accesses your device's hardware magnetometer and accelerometer sensors via the native Android SensorManager to compute real-time azimuth heading, compass degree direction (e.g., North, North-East), and pitch orientation. This sensor telemetry is processed 100% on-device and is displayed in real-time on the camera interface and optionally branded on the photo watermark. Sensor telemetry is never stored externally or used for biometric profiling.

To provide contextual weather stamps (temperature and sky conditions), MapShot GPS transmits ephemeral latitude and longitude coordinates over secure TLS/HTTPS to Open-Meteo's open-access meteorological API. This query is strictly stateless and contains ZERO personal identifiers, ZERO device serial numbers, and ZERO photo imagery. The resulting weather summary is displayed ephemerally in the viewfinder and stamped on your photo.

To furnish the stamp with a miniature localized map preview, MapShot GPS requests public static map tiles from OpenStreetMap (tile.openstreetmap.org) over HTTPS. This request transfers only the standard coordinate bounding box coordinates to retrieve the tile graphic. No user credentials, device identifiers, or biometric parameters are shared with OpenStreetMap tile servers.

When you explicitly choose to export or share a geotagged photo via WhatsApp, Gmail, Telegram, Google Drive, or Bluetooth, MapShot GPS generates isolated, cryptographically secure temporary content URIs via androidx.core.content.FileProvider (authority: com.mapshot.gps.fileprovider). These content URIs grant granular, temporary, read-only permissions that automatically expire once the target application receives the image.

MapShot GPS integrates the official Google Mobile Ads SDK (Google AdMob, Application ID: ca-app-pub-4374365387964509~5421978870) to support ongoing development and deliver free access to users. Google AdMob may collect and process pseudonymous identifiers such as the Google Advertising ID (AAID), coarse network IP address, and interaction metrics to serve non-intrusive banner, interstitial, or rewarded advertisements in compliance with Google Play Advertising Policies. Users can reset their Advertising ID or opt out of personalized advertising at any time via Android System Settings -> Google -> Ads.

THE OCS TECHNOLOGY enforces an absolute prohibition on data brokering: We do NOT sell, lease, rent, trade, or monetize your GPS coordinates, location history, physical addresses, photographs, or device telemetry to data aggregators, marketers, or hedge funds. Your physical location and captured media belong exclusively to you.

Because all geotagged photos are saved locally to your device's filesystem ('Pictures/MapShot'), you maintain complete physical sovereignty over your files. You can delete individual photographs directly through the in-app Gallery or your device's native Gallery app. Clearing the application's storage or uninstalling MapShot GPS permanently purges all cached map tiles and preferences without leaving residual data.

To identify device-specific fragmentation issues and ensure reliable capture across hundreds of Android OEM builds, anonymous technical crash diagnostics (such as Android OS build version, memory pressure events, and fatal exception stack traces) may be logged. These logs are strictly aggregated and contain ZERO GPS coordinates, ZERO street addresses, and ZERO photo contents.

On Android 13 (API level 33) and newer releases, MapShot GPS may request runtime notification permission (android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS). This is utilized solely to display foreground capture progress alerts, batch export notifications, or background tile pre-caching statuses. We never deploy promotional spam notifications.

MapShot GPS is a general-purpose field documentation, survey, and photography utility intended for individuals aged 13 and above (or 16 in the European Economic Area). The application does not intentionally solicit, collect, or store personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please notify our compliance desk immediately for prompt investigation and remediation.

THE OCS TECHNOLOGY conforms to international data governance regulations, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by CPRA, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) of India. Because personal photographs and coordinates are stored exclusively on-device, your rights to access, rectification, portability, and deletion are immediately executable directly through your hardware.

We reserve the right to revise this Privacy Policy to reflect technological updates, architectural modifications, or legal directives. Material revisions will be reflected with an updated revision date. For compliance questions, privacy audits, or data rights inquiries, please reach out directly to our dedicated legal and data governance desk.