Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 29, 2026
Anole has no servers and no accounts. The app itself sends nothing about you anywhere. The one exception is deliberate and yours to make: if you choose to email us, we receive that email.
Location
If you grant location permission, Anole uses your location to centre the map and to sort nearby results by distance. We never receive it: it stays on your device, except that the map area you are looking at is passed to Apple Maps to run the search itself (see below). Anole does not log, store, or share your location, and every feature of the app works without granting location access.
Map searches
Shop searches run through Apple Maps (MapKit), so the search text and the map region — which reflects where you are looking, and may be centred on you — are sent to Apple to return results. Those requests are handled by Apple under Apple’s privacy policy; Anole attaches no identifiers to them and receives nothing back but the search results.
Shop and expo listings
The curated shop list and the expo calendar are refreshed from public files hosted on GitHub, so a shop that closes or a show that moves can be corrected without waiting for an app update. The app requests those files and nothing else — no account, no device identifier, and no information about you is sent with the request. GitHub, like any web host, sees the network request itself under its own privacy statement.
Links out to shops and organizers
When you tap through to a shop’s or an organizer’s website, the link carries
utm_source=anole. That tells their analytics that a visitor came
from Anole. It is the same for every person who taps it, it says nothing about you,
and we never see the result — only the site owner does. We do this so a shop can verify
for itself that the app sends real visitors, instead of taking our word for it.
Phone numbers and “Open in Apple Maps” links are never modified.
Calendar
If you use “Add to calendar,” Anole requests write-only calendar access and creates the single event you chose. It cannot read your existing calendar. Choosing Google Calendar simply opens Google’s event page in your browser.
Show reminders
Reminders are scheduled by iOS on your device. There is no push server, so nothing about which shows you follow ever leaves your phone.
Saved shops
Your saved shops are stored locally on your device and are never uploaded anywhere. Deleting the app deletes them.
Analytics & tracking
The app contains no analytics SDKs, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind.
This website is separate from the app. If it uses analytics at all, it is a cookie-free, aggregate page-count tool that records no personal data and sets no cookies. Nothing on this site is linked to anything in the app.
Children
Anole is rated 4+. The app collects nothing from anyone, including children. Anyone who emails us is choosing to send us their message, whatever their age.
Contact
Questions or submissions (shops, expos)? Email kjs140611@gmail.com.
If you write to us we receive your email address and whatever you put in the message, and it sits in that inbox until we delete it. We use it to answer you and to correct the listing you wrote about. It never goes on a mailing list and we never pass it on.