Privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 11, 2026

Overview

SqoolQuest ("we", "us", or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. We aim to collect as little personal information as possible — only what is needed to track buses accurately and keep the service running. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and safeguard your information when you use our school bus tracking application, and works alongside our User Agreement, which governs your use of the Service more broadly.

1. Information We Collect.

Account Information: When you register, we collect your username and, if you choose to provide them, your full name, email address, account type (student, parent/guardian, school staff, or bus driver), school name and address, home or bus-stop address, preferred school range, and your chosen avatar. Guest sessions skip account creation entirely and are tied to your device rather than a server-side profile.

Location Data: When you tap "GO" on the bus, your device's GPS coordinates are collected — including briefly in the background if you leave the app open but switch away mid-ride — and used to update bus position and learn the actual route from observed movement. Your individual location is not displayed to other users.

Battery & Charging Status: While location sharing is active, we also collect your device's battery percentage and whether it is charging, checked roughly every 30 seconds. This lets us automatically hand tracking duty to the nearby phone best able to handle it (e.g., one that's charging), so no single rider's battery is drained keeping the bus tracked. We do not use battery data for any other purpose.

Push Notification Token: We collect a device token so we can deliver bus alerts, Late Bus Pass updates, support ticket responses, and other notifications you've opted into.

Photos (optional): If you choose to upload a photo, we access your photo library only for that action.

Family, District, and Guardian Linking: If you use family plans, district sponsorship, or parent/guardian linking codes, we store the resulting link between accounts (see Section 5) so linked parties can see the access or bus information the link is meant to share.

Submissions and Support Content: Proposed routes or stops, inaccuracy reports, account notes, and support tickets you submit are stored along with your account so we can review, act on, and respond to them.

Usage Data: We collect anonymized session identifiers, app version, device platform, and general usage patterns to diagnose problems and improve the service.

2. How We Use Your Information

• To provide and improve the bus tracking service

• To fairly rotate live-tracking duty among nearby devices based on battery level and charging status

• To learn and refine route and stop geometry from observed trips (see Section 3)

• To maintain and secure your account

• To send you bus alerts, Late Bus Pass notices, and other important notifications

• To calculate your Reward Coin balance

• To operate family plans, district sponsorship, and parent/guardian linking

• To generate anonymized demographic and district-level analytics (school range, account type distribution, ridership and on-time trends) for service improvement

• To review and respond to your submissions and support requests

3. Location Data, Route Learning, and Map-Matching

Location data shared via the "GO" button is used to update bus positions visible to users on the same route and, over time, to learn the actual path a bus travels, refine stop locations, and flag suspected-versus-confirmed stops. This is done by analyzing anonymized, aggregated GPS traces from riders together with third-party mapping and map-matching services (Section 6) — it is a best-effort, statistical process that improves as more trips are observed. Only the aggregated bus position is shown to other users — your individual location and device battery status are never shown to other users. The bus marker you see may be "snapped" to the learned route or road network rather than your raw coordinates. Location (and, briefly, background location) collection stops as soon as you tap the button again or leave active tracking. Bus drivers may publish live location only for the specific route and vehicle they are assigned to.

4. Rewards, Ads, and Premium

Coin-earning activity (boarding a tracked bus, contributing ride data, completing optional rewarded ads) is recorded against your account to calculate your balance; Coins have no monetary value. Free-tier use may show ads from third-party advertising partners, who may collect device or usage data under their own privacy policies, independent of this one; a Premium subscription removes standard ads. Where Premium is purchased through a device app store, billing information is handled by that app store, not by us — we do not receive or store your payment card details.

5. Family, District, and Guardian Data Sharing

Family plans, district sponsorship, and parent/guardian linking codes each create a data-sharing relationship between accounts that you or your school control:

• Family plans: the primary account holder can see which members are linked and the privileges granted to them.

• District sponsorship: your district links your account via a district code and roster identifier to enable or disable sponsored access; the district controls this link under its own policies.

• Parent/guardian linking codes: a short-lived (currently 30-minute) one-time code lets a parent or guardian link their account to view the buses a student tracks. This grants view access only — not administrative control — and the student may unlink a parent or guardian from Settings at any time.

Staff and driver accounts have data access scoped to their role: district-level staff see only their own district's data, and drivers see only their assigned route(s).

6. Third-Party Service Providers

Operating the Service relies on third-party infrastructure, including cloud hosting and database services, authentication services, mapping/routing/geocoding providers, push-notification delivery services, and, where applicable, payment processors and advertising partners. These providers process data on our behalf under data processing agreements, or independently under their own terms when noted above (for example, advertising partners). We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes. We may also share data with:

• School districts or transport authorities you are associated with, when required for service delivery

• Law enforcement, when required by applicable law

7. Data Retention, Soft Delete, and Deletion

Account data is retained while your account is active. Live bus position, battery, and charging status data are short-lived and not kept once a tracking session ends. Route trace data may be retained temporarily for route learning, confidence review, abuse prevention, and service reliability. You may request deletion of your account at any time from Settings → Delete Account: your account is first soft-deleted — hidden and inactive, but fully recoverable simply by signing back in within a 90-day recovery window. After 90 days without a sign-in, the account and its associated data are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.

8. Children's Privacy and School Compliance

SqoolQuest is designed for students of all school levels, and many users are minors. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. Where a school or district distributes or recommends the Service to students, or acts as the authorizing party for student use, it is responsible for obtaining any parental consent or notice required of it under applicable children's online privacy and student-data-privacy law before doing so. If you believe a child has provided personal information without appropriate consent, contact us immediately at privacy@sqoolquest.com.

9. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures including encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest. API keys and secrets are stored in encrypted vaults and never exposed in client builds. Access to personal data within SqoolQuest is limited to what staff need to operate and support the Service.

10. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, or delete your personal data, or to object to or restrict certain processing. Most profile fields can be reviewed and edited directly from Settings. To exercise other rights, contact us via Help & Support or at privacy@sqoolquest.com.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. We will notify you of significant changes via in-app notification. Continued use after changes are posted constitutes acceptance. This Policy is versioned and edited alongside the User Agreement; material changes to either may prompt re-acceptance as described in the User Agreement.

12. Contact

For privacy-related questions, contact:

Email: sqoolques@weeklyeat.com

In-app: Settings → Help & Support