NS Marks The Spot

NS Marks The Spot Privacy Policy

NS Marks The Spot is made by Daniel Vincent Fakkeldy, operating as KinNoKi Labs. This policy describes the native iPhone and iPad app. You can use the app without creating an NS Marks account. Your imported maps, drawings, saved marks and tracks, attached photos and app settings are stored on the device. The app's map and property-research features also contact the services described below.

Map and public-data requests

Apple MapKit provides Apple map backgrounds and related system services. Selected OpenStreetMap backgrounds request tiles from tile.openstreetmap.org. Atlas and Fletcher map imagery is delivered from KinNoKi's tiles.kinnokilabs.com host. Available layers and property lookups request data directly from the provincial, municipal and other public-data sources named in the app's attribution. Province-restricted features require the corrected Province disclosure before they can request or display restricted material. Some layers and export types are unavailable while permission for their use is unresolved; the app identifies held sources and provides official links.

Requests can include the map area and zoom level, a selected point or parcel outline, a parcel identifier, civic-address search terms or assessment account numbers. The services receive your network address and normal HTTP information needed to handle the request. Some tile requests identify the app and its version in a User-Agent header; that header does not assign a unique user or device identifier.

These requests let the app draw the map, search published records and obtain evidence for the selected property. A returned public assessment or zoning record is different from a private file you import into the app. Providers may keep request records under their own policies. OpenStreetMap Foundation describes network/access records; Nova Scotia describes IP addresses and web-server logs; Esri describes its ArcGIS-related privacy practices. The operator of each municipal or public-data service also determines its practices.

KinNoKi's Fletcher tile host uses Cloudflare R2. The Fletcher bucket's optional Data Access Logs feature is currently disabled. Cloudflare still processes connection and request information for service delivery and security as described in its privacy policy. That setting does not establish that Cloudflare keeps no operational or security records. No universal retention period or deletion deadline for those separate provider records has been verified. Atlas map requests also use the KinNoKi tile hostname.

Location and track recording

Location access is optional. With permission, the app can show your position, place a mark or record a track. The app requests When In Use authorization. An active recording can continue off screen when iOS permits background location updates. The device can provide precise location when your system settings allow it.

Recorded track files are stored locally. System backups may include saved library files, depending on your device settings. You choose any export or sharing destination. When the map follows your position or you view an area around a photo location, map and layer requests can disclose the area being viewed. Keeping the track file local does not prevent those separate map requests.

The recording Live Activity displays elapsed time, distance and recording status on the Lock Screen. Its activity content does not include coordinates, and it does not use a remote activity-push server.

Photos, imported files and offline areas

Camera access is optional for taking feature photos. Attaching selected images uses the system photo picker. The optional Photo map requests Photos access to display accessible geotagged library images on the map. The app stores attached photo files locally. Apple Photos can download selected images from your iCloud Photos account when needed. The app does not automatically upload your photos, imported maps or track files to a KinNoKi storage service in these features.

Saving an offline area downloads Fletcher map tiles for the chosen area into local storage. The tile provider receives the requests for that area. The offline download does not upload your track or photo files. Some local data can be included in system backups according to your device settings; the active recording checkpoint directory is excluded from backups.

Sharing, exports and outbound links

Exports and the share sheet send the selected materials to destinations you choose. Those materials may contain coordinates, notes or photos. A shared map link includes the selected map position, zoom and map state. When the link is opened, its URL can be received by the website host.

Opening driving directions passes the selected destination to Google Maps. Opening ViewPoint passes the selected parcel identifier to that site. Those services and any other source links you open apply their own policies. Sharing an exported file or opening a link does not delete local or recipient copies.

Your controls and support

You can deny or change location, Precise Location, Camera and Photos permissions in iOS Settings, stop a recording, choose which layers to request, and remove local content or offline downloads using the app's controls. Removing local data does not delete providers' request records, system backups or copies you previously exported.

If you email support, we receive your email address and whatever you send. We retain support emails indefinitely. We do not currently operate a support-email deletion system. The app's feedback link can prepare a subject containing the app version; you choose whether to send the email. For app support contact map@kinnokilabs.com. For privacy questions or requests contact hello@kinnokilabs.com. Mail sent to these KinNoKi support and privacy addresses is routed through Apple iCloud Mail, subject to Apple's privacy policy.

Browser Location

On the browser map, location is also optional and stays on your device. A live watch can show your position without saving it. A track recording in the browser stays in the foreground: hiding the tab stops it. If you mark a point or save a track recording, those geometries — and for a saved recording, the raw GPX original — are stored locally as your user layers. They are not uploaded by NS Marks The Spot. They leave the device only if you export or share them yourself. Continuous live watching does not send your coordinates to an application server. If you attach a photo that includes a geotag, that location is used only if you accept the optional offer to move the feature to the photo's location. If you pick photos to place on the map, their geotags are read in the browser to create points and are not uploaded.

Browser Map And Tile Requests

On the browser map, the default NS Marks Atlas (Day, Night, or System appearance) draws original NS Marks cartography over a pinned provincial vector-tile archive (PMTiles): Nova Scotia Road Network roads, tracks, rail, and ferries; GeoNAMES labels; NSTDB hydrography and woodland; and municipal boundaries. Production builds load that archive from https://tiles.kinnokilabs.com/provincial-atlas/ with public HTTP range requests and no app credentials. The archive is a dated snapshot, not a claim of live physical conditions. A separate pinned Crown Land display archive also ships with the browser app under atlas/crown/: a public dated snapshot of Nova Scotia Open Data Crown Land (3nka-59nz), licensed under the Open Government Licence – Nova Scotia, drawn as a fill-only display union of adjoining and overlapping polygons (holes, gaps, and disconnected pieces kept). Those fills include full and partial provincial interest; display union IDs are not PIDs or owners, and the fill is not a survey or access permission. That Crown Land archive is independent of the provincial tiles and of the optional live Crown Lands overlay. Provincial geography is licensed under the Open Government Licence – Nova Scotia. OpenFreeMap still supplies only supplemental geography (ocean context, non-tree land use, and building footprints) from https://tiles.openfreemap.org/ (planet tiles). Map lettering is drawn from glyph ranges served with the app, so no font host is contacted for labels. Credit for that supplemental context is OpenFreeMap · © OpenMapTiles · © OpenStreetMap contributors; the Atlas is a hybrid, not wholly provincial. An explicit OpenStreetMap raster basemap remains available as a choice and as a fallback if the Atlas source fails. Hugh Fletcher historical overlay tiles and Nova Scotia provincial geographic services are also displayed. Those map providers may receive standard network requests for the tiles or layers you view. Searching by PID or civic address sends the search text to the provincial services that answer it. In the browser map, searching by postal community or mailing address also loads self-hosted National Address Register shards from this app's own origin; the browser does not query Canada Post, a paid mailing API, or Statistics Canada live for that lookup. Those mailing records are addresses, not residents or ownership. If you turn on the optional live-conditions layers in the browser map, your browser also requests camera imagery from 511 Nova Scotia and radar tiles from Environment and Climate Change Canada's MSC GeoMet. If you turn on the optional Sentinel-2 satellite background, your browser requests historical 2016–2017 cloudless mosaic tiles from EOX at https://tiles.maps.eox.at/; that imagery is dated landscape context, not current site conditions, and the app sends no credentials with those requests. If you turn on open-data context overlays, the browser queries the identified Nova Scotia open-data and feature endpoints for the current map viewport only. NS Marks The Spot does not operate its own tracking server.

Saved Areas And Cache

Viewed map tiles and prepared Fletcher saved areas are stored on your device to make the map more useful in weak-signal areas. You can clear cached data in the app. This offline data is not uploaded by NS Marks The Spot.

Your Browser Maps And Drawings

Maps you import, the placements you give them, the layers you draw, and GPS marks or tracks you save are stored only on your device. NS Marks The Spot does not upload them, and they leave the device only when you export or share something yourself. Features traced from parcel boundaries carry the not-a-survey caveat.

Photos you attach to features on the browser map are stored only on your device. Photos are re-encoded so EXIF (including GPS) is stripped from stored and exported bytes. A KMZ export can embed those re-encoded photo bytes; GeoJSON and KML exports do not include photos. Attached photos and their locations leave this device only when you export or share a layer yourself. If a photo includes a geotag, that location is used only if you accept a one-time offer to move the point.

Bundled Tax-Sale Data

Municipal tax-sale notices ship inside the app as datasets built from public municipal records. They describe properties, not you: the app does not ingest assessed-owner names, and browsing the notices sends nothing about you to the municipalities.

Contact

Privacy questions can be sent to hello@kinnokilabs.com. The native app policy above describes support-email handling.