These terms are the agreement between you and Trace. They are written to be read. Where a term has a legal meaning that differs from its everyday one, it is explained rather than assumed.
By creating an account or using Trace, you agree to what follows. If you do not agree, do not use the app — and if you have already created an account, you can delete it from inside Trace at any time.
The short version
- Trace is a memory app. You use it to record and revisit places you have been.
- Your memories are yours. Uploading a photograph to Trace does not give us any right to use it beyond storing it and showing it back to you.
- You are responsible for what you put into Trace, including having the right to upload it.
- Trace is provided as it is. We work hard on it, but we cannot promise it will never lose data, so keep your photographs on your phone or in your own backup.
- You can leave at any time, and taking your account with you deletes everything in it.
1. Who we are
Trace is operated by the developer of the Trace application. Contact details are at the end of this document, and the same address handles legal notices, privacy requests and support.
2. Your account
You need an account to use Trace, because everything in it is private to you and there is no way to keep something private without knowing whose it is.
You agree to:
- give an email address you can actually receive mail at, since it is the only way to recover your account,
- keep your password to yourself,
- be at least 13 years old, or the minimum age of digital consent where you live, whichever is higher.
You are responsible for what happens under your account. If you think somebody else has access to it, change your password immediately and contact us.
We may suspend or close an account that is being used to break these terms, to attack the service, or to harm somebody. Where it is possible and lawful to warn you first, we will.
3. What you put into Trace
It stays yours
You keep every right you already had in your photographs, your notes and everything else you add. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of any of it to us, and nothing here lets us publish it, sell it, train anything on it, or show it to anybody else.
To run the app at all, we need your permission to do a small and specific set of things with what you upload: store it, back it up, and transmit it back to you when you open Trace. That permission is limited to operating the service for you, it is not exclusive, we cannot pass it to anybody else, and it ends when you delete the content or your account.
That is the whole licence. If Trace ever wants to do anything else with your content — feature a photograph, share a route, anything at all — it will ask you first, in the app, and you will be free to say no.
You are responsible for it
You confirm that you have the right to upload what you upload. In practice this means your own photographs, or photographs you have permission to keep.
You agree not to use Trace to store or share:
- anything unlawful, or anything that infringes somebody else's rights,
- sexual content involving minors, under any circumstances,
- content intended to harass, threaten or endanger a person,
- malware, or anything designed to damage a system.
Trace has no public surface — nothing you upload is visible to another user — so this section is about what we can lawfully host rather than about what other people will see.
4. What you may not do to the service
You agree not to:
- attempt to access another person's account or data,
- probe, scan or test the security of the service except as invited to under a responsible-disclosure request (see Reporting a security problem),
- automate account creation, or create accounts in bulk,
- use the service in a way designed to generate cost — for example uploading large volumes of data with no intention of using them,
- interfere with, overload or disrupt the service or the third-party services it depends on,
- reverse engineer the app except to the extent that law expressly permits.
Trace applies rate limits, storage limits and bot protection. Circumventing them, or trying to, is a breach of these terms.
5. Fair use of storage
Trace stores your photographs, and storage costs money. There are limits on how large a single file can be and how much one account may store. Photographs are resized before upload so that they fit comfortably; this affects the copy Trace stores and never the photograph on your phone, which Trace only ever reads.
If your usage is far beyond what the service is designed for, we will contact you before doing anything about it.
6. The app is provided as it is
We build Trace carefully and we test it, but no software is perfect and this software is young.
Trace is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.
In particular, we do not promise that:
- the service will be uninterrupted or error-free,
- any defect will be corrected,
- the map, place names or landmark data are accurate — they come from third parties and from a curated dataset that is deliberately incomplete,
- data will never be lost.
Keep your own copies. Trace is designed around the idea that your photographs live on your phone and Trace is a way of seeing them; it is not a backup service and should not be relied on as one.
7. Limits on liability
To the fullest extent the law allows:
- We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data or lost goodwill.
- Our total liability arising out of or relating to these terms or the service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or twenty pounds sterling.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain damages. Where that is the case, these limits apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing here removes rights you have as a consumer that cannot be removed by agreement — including, in the United Kingdom and the European Union, rights under consumer protection law, and liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.
8. Third-party services
Trace depends on services it does not operate:
- Supabase — database, authentication and file storage.
- OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap — map geometry and place names.
- Esri — satellite imagery.
- Photon — turning coordinates into place names.
- Cloudflare Turnstile — checking that account actions are made by a person.
- Resend — delivering account emails such as password resets.
Their availability is not ours to guarantee, and their own terms apply to their own services. What they receive is described in the Privacy Policy — in short, the part of the map you are looking at, and never your account or your photographs.
9. Changes to the service and to these terms
Trace will change. Features will be added, and occasionally one will be removed or replaced. Where a change removes something you were relying on, we will say so in the app rather than letting you discover it.
We may update these terms. If a change is material — if it changes your rights, our obligations, or what we may do with your content — we will tell you in the app and ask you to accept the new version before continuing. Changes that are not material, such as fixing a typo or clarifying a sentence, take effect when published, and the date at the top always reflects the current version.
If you do not accept a material change, your option is to stop using Trace and delete your account, which remains available to you at any time.
10. Ending it
You can stop using Trace whenever you like. Deleting your account from You → Delete my account permanently removes your account and everything you have added to Trace. It cannot be undone. The photographs on your phone are not touched — they were never Trace's to delete.
We may suspend or end your access if you materially breach these terms, if we are required to by law, or if we discontinue the service. If Trace is ever discontinued, we will give reasonable notice in the app and a way to retrieve what you have stored.
Sections that by their nature should outlive the agreement do so — ownership of content, the limits on warranties and liability, and this section.
11. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have non-exclusive jurisdiction.
If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory law of the country you live in, and you may bring proceedings there.
12. Reporting a security problem
If you find a vulnerability in Trace, please tell us before telling anybody else, at the address below with SECURITY in the subject line. We will acknowledge within 72 hours and keep you informed.
We will not pursue legal action over good-faith security research that:
- stays within your own account and test accounts you control,
- does not access, modify or delete another person's data,
- does not degrade the service for others,
- gives us a reasonable chance to fix the issue before publication.
13. General
- The whole agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Trace about the service.
- Severability. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
- No waiver. If we do not enforce a term straight away, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.
- Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these terms. We may transfer ours if Trace is acquired, and we will tell you in the app if that happens.
14. Contact
Email: support@northforge.company
For privacy requests, use the same address with PRIVACY in the subject line. For security reports, use SECURITY. We aim to respond within five working days, and within 30 days for formal data requests.