Privacy

No accounts, no cookies, no analytics, no advertising. A code is arithmetic your device does on its own. What does leave your device is listed below, with who receives it, and nothing else does.

In effect from 26 September 2026.

The website

Serving the pages

The site is hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub receives each request for a page or a file, with your IP address, as any web host does, under GitHub's privacy statement. The typefaces are served from this site, not from a font service.

Finding your country

The front page opens on a place in your country. To know which, it asks api.country.is, or get.geojs.io if the first does not answer in time, and each receives your IP address. It asks at most once a week, and the answer, a two-letter country code, is kept in your browser. If both are blocked, the page guesses from your device's time zone and language, which never leave the browser.

The map

Where a page shows a map, its tiles come from OpenFreeMap (tiles.openfreemap.org), which receives your IP address and the tiles asked for, and so the area on your screen.

Codes, names and landmarks

Encoding, decoding and correcting a code happen in your browser and send nothing. Searching by a place's name reads parts of an index from this site, so the host sees which part, and from that roughly what was typed. Anchoring a short form to a landmark reads the file of landmarks for the area around the place, about 200 km across, from this site.

Kept in your browser

Three settings: the theme, the basemap and the country above. For working offline, the pages, the landmark files already read or kept, and the map tiles already seen. Nothing is kept anywhere else, and clearing this site's data in your browser removes all of it.

The Android app

No account, no analytics, no crash reports and no advertising identifier. The app does call on Google Play services, where the phone has it: to ask whether a watch paired with the phone has the app, and to carry saved places to one that does, as the watch sets out.

Your location

Read only when you press the button to find where you are, open the emergency card, or have the app's screens on a car's display, and only while the app is open or on that display, never in the background. It comes from your device's own location service, and the app sends it nowhere: the code is worked out on the device.

What the app sends, and to whom

• OpenFreeMap (tiles.openfreemap.org) receives your IP address and the map tiles asked for, and so the area on your screen.
• This site (gridpointcode.com, on GitHub Pages) receives your IP address and, when you search by a place's name, which part of the name index was read; when you look up landmarks, which area's file, about 200 km across.
• GitHub (github.com, and thegithubusercontent.com host its downloads come from) receives your IP address when you open the list of countries whose place names can be kept, and which country's names, when you keep one.
• Google Play services, only when a watch paired with your phone has the watch app, receives your saved places, with their names and directions, to carry them to the watch.
• Android Auto, only while the app's screens are on a car's display, receives what those screens show, as the car sets out.

Nothing else is sent. A code, a pair of coordinates or a location written in another system is read on the device, however it arrived.

Kept on your device

Your saved places, with their names and directions, and two settings, your basemap and the listener's language for reading aloud, are kept in the app's own storage. Android's device backup includes them if you have backup turned on, so a new phone has them. The landmark areas and the countries' place names you keep for use offline, and the map tiles and landmarks already seen, stay on the device and are left out of backups. Uninstalling the app removes all of it. A watch with the app keeps a copy of the saved places, as below.

Sharing and reading aloud

A code leaves the app only when you press Share or Copy, and only to the app you choose. Reading aloud uses your device's speech engine. Some engines send the text to their provider to make the voice; that is up to the engine you use and its own policy.

The watch

The Wear OS app works out where the watch is on the watch, only while the app is open, and sends it nowhere. It has no internet access of its own, and reads aloud with the watch's own speech engine. Its tile and its complication never ask where the watch is: they show the code the app last found, kept on the watch until the next one replaces it, and stop showing it an hour after it was found.

If a watch paired with your phone has the app, your saved places, with their names and directions, go between the phone and the watch through the Wear Data Layer, which is part of Google Play services on both, and a place saved on the watch goes to the phone the same way. Near each other they go directly; when the two are apart and both online, Google Play services can carry them through Google's servers, under the Google privacy policy. With no watch that has the app, the phone does not hand its list to the Data Layer at all.

The watch keeps its copy, and the last code it found, in the app's own storage, left out of backups and out of any transfer to a new watch, since the phone's list is the one kept. Uninstalling the watch app removes both.

The car

On a car's display through Android Auto, the phone app shows where the car is, your saved places nearest first on the car's own map, and one place at a time. It asks the phone where it is only while those screens show, and works the code out on the phone. Android Auto draws the screens, so it receives what they show: where the car is and its code, and your saved places' names, codes, directions and where they are, to put them on its map, under the Google privacy policy.

The Android Automotive app runs in the car itself, with no phone. It asks the car where it is only while the app is on the car's screen, has no internet access of its own, and keeps nothing; the car's system draws its screens as Android Auto does. Navigate, in either, hands the place's coordinates to the navigation app you use, under that app's own policy, and reading aloud uses the phone's or the car's speech engine.

Changes and questions

This page is kept in the same repository as the code it describes, so every change to it is in its history. Questions about it can be asked by opening an issue.