Would you be interested in a new page on PG for maps & navigation apps?
I’m happy to start a pull request if this is of interest.
Some navigation/map apps I’m aware of are: Organic Maps, OSMand, Magic Earth, HERE WeGo, KartaGPS, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, TomTom Go, Mapquest, Yandex, Petal, Maps.me, Sygic
In scope:
- mobile navigation & maps apps
Not in scope:
- web maps, as you don’t use them for turn-by-turn navigation which is probably the most sensitive thing from a privacy perspective as it reveals your location and the places you visit
- hardware sat-nats (i.e. some TomTom or Garmin device you buy yourself or whatever navigation system is built into your car), as it is harder to do proper research and also doubtful that they respect your privacy in the first place
I would propose some criteria like these, which should exclude most of them:
Minimum criteria
Privacy
- Must not require users to create an account with them.
- Must not collect PII per their privacy policy.
- Must not collect location data as per privacy policy. If the user opts in to sharing location data (e.g. for use in live traffic info) the data should be anonymized and deleted after no longer than [24 hours?] as per privacy policy.
- Must not upload search history (only stored locally in the app).
- App telemetry (if any) can be turned off.
Features
- Maps can be downloaded and used entirely offline.
- Has route planning and turn-by-turn navigation for car, bicycle, foot
- Has route planning for public transport
Best-case criteria
- Open source apps
- Live traffic information used for route planning
- Detailed information on points of interest, e.g. shop opening times and reviews
- Has additional views such as topographic maps, satellite images, or streetview
I suspect that OSMand, Organic Maps, Magic Earth and HERE WeGo will pass, maybe some others, maybe some fewer - it would require some digging in the privacy policies.
Maybe could add a summary table at the top with some additional infos such as platforms (Android, iOS, web), map data (OpenStreetMap, others), and notable features (e.g. whether it has satellite images or streetview)