Privacy policy
Updated 12 October 2026
AboveSea: Elevation Map (AboveSea) is a free iPhone app by Vitalii Fastovets. It has no accounts, no ads and no analytics of its own. This page explains what leaves your phone, where it goes and how long it is kept.
What stays on your iPhone
- Saved places (your name for the place, coordinates, date), settings and the last map position. They are never sent anywhere. Settings → Delete all saved places, or deleting the app, removes them.
- Your location. When you first open the app, AboveSea asks for access to your location while the app is in use. If you allow it, your location is used on the phone to open the map at your position and to show your current altitude on the My Altitude screen. If you don't, the map still works and opens where you left it. AboveSea does not send your location to our server; when the map opens at your position at sea, only the point under the crosshair is used to look up the depth, as described below.
Mapbox: map, elevation and search
The map, the elevation data and place search come from Mapbox. To draw the map the app downloads map tiles for the area on screen; a search, including the suggestions shown while you type, sends the text you type and the centre of the map on screen, so that places near the area you are looking at come first. Search results are not stored.
The Mapbox SDK built into the app also sends anonymous usage and location statistics that are not linked to you. You can turn this off at any time: tap the i button on the map, then Mapbox Telemetry. See the Mapbox privacy policy.
Sea depth: our server
Over the sea the app sends the coordinates of the point under the crosshair, rounded to about 11 m, to our server to look up the depth. The server does not store these coordinates and does not write them to any log. Like any web server it sees the IP address of the request.
Messages to the developer
When you write to the developer, by email or with the support form in the app, we receive what you send: the message and its category, and only if you choose to add them, your email for a reply, technical details (app version, iOS version, iPhone model, language) and the selected point on the map.
Messages from the form are kept on our server for 90 days and forwarded by email to the developer's mailbox. They are used only to answer you and to fix problems.
Server logs
Our web server keeps technical access logs (IP address, time, requested page; never the content of messages or depth coordinates) for 7 days to protect the service from abuse.
What we don't do
- We don't sell or share data and don't show ads.
- We don't track you across other apps and websites.
- We don't build profiles and don't require an account.
Your choices
- The map works without access to your location.
- Saved places can be deleted in Settings.
- To ask what we hold about you or to delete a message you sent, write to win32@admi.me. Add the ticket number if you have one.
Children
AboveSea is a general-audience tool and does not knowingly collect data from children.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the new version will be published on this page with a new date. Questions: win32@admi.me.