Privacy Policy

Murder Maps for iPhone · Effective 27 July 2026

This policy explains what Murder Maps collects, what it does not collect, and who else is involved. It covers the Murder Maps iPhone app and this website. Murder Maps is published by Plank Tech LLC.

The short version

Murder Maps has no accounts. You do not give us your name, email address or phone number, and we do not build a profile of you. The app needs to know roughly where you are in order to show cases near you, and that location is handled on your device rather than sent to us. The app is free and shows advertising, and the advertising provider collects some device information in order to do that.

Location

Murder Maps asks for location access for one reason: to work out which documented incidents fall within roughly 30 miles of you, so it can draw them on the map.

  • Your coordinates are used on your device to select which cases to display.
  • We do not upload, store or log your location on our servers.
  • We do not keep a history of the places you have been.
  • You can refuse or revoke location access at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services. The app's map will not be able to centre on you, but the rest of the app continues to work.

If you choose Always Allow for location, Murder Maps can also use your location in the background. It uses this only while you are travelling, to let you know when there are new incidents near your changing location. This may use location while the app is not open, which can affect battery life. If you would rather the app only use location while you have it open, choose While Using the App instead — you will still see nearby cases, but you will not get travel alerts.

What the app collects automatically

Apple's privacy label for Murder Maps declares a single category: Identifiers — Device ID, collected for app functionality and not linked to your identity.

The app also contacts our server to fetch the current case database, which is how new incidents appear without an app update. Those requests carry the technical information any internet request carries, such as an IP address, which is used only to deliver the response. We do not store your IP address.

Advertising

Murder Maps is free and is supported by advertising, including interstitial ads before Incident of the Day and before the Dig Deeper view.

Advertising is delivered by Google AdMob. To serve and measure ads, AdMob may collect device identifiers, coarse location, and information about how you interact with ads. This processing is carried out by Google under its own privacy policy, not ours; see Google's partner policy. On iOS, personalised advertising requires your permission through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt; if you decline, you will still see ads, but they will not be personalised. You can change this at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, the app sends a daily Incident of the Day and On This Day alert. Notifications are optional, are not required to use the app, and can be turned off in iOS Settings or in the app's own settings.

Things you choose to send us

The app includes Submit an Incident and feedback screens. If you use them, we receive whatever you type — which may include a case description, a source, and any contact details you choose to add. We use it only to review the submission or reply to you. These submissions go to our internal Murder Maps dashboard, where we review them. Please do not include information about yourself or others that you would not want us to hold.

What we do not do

  • We do not sell or rent personal information.
  • We do not require or collect an account, name, email address or phone number to use the app.
  • We do not track your location history.
  • We do not knowingly collect information from children. Murder Maps is rated 16+ and is not directed at children.

Other companies involved

  • Apple distributes the app and provides aggregate, anonymised download and crash statistics to us. Apple's handling of your data is covered by Apple's own privacy policy.
  • Google AdMob, our advertising provider, as described above.
  • Cloudflare, our hosting and backend provider, which serves the case database and this website.

Murder Maps does not use any analytics or crash-reporting SDK.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or export personal information we hold about you, to object to certain processing, or to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. Because Murder Maps has no accounts and we do not store your location, in most cases we simply hold nothing that identifies you. If you have sent us a submission or feedback and want it removed, or you want to ask what we hold, contact us and we will respond.

If you are in the EEA or UK, our lawful basis for the limited processing described here is our legitimate interest in operating and securing the app, and your consent where consent is required — for example for notifications and personalised advertising.

Where information is handled

Plank Tech LLC operates from the United States, and the service providers above may process data in the United States and elsewhere.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially we will update the effective date above and, where the change is significant, note it in the app's release notes. Continuing to use Murder Maps after a change means the updated policy applies.

Contact

Plank Tech LLC
Email: admin@plank-llc.com
Web: plank-llc.com

You can also reach us through the feedback screen in the app's settings.

This document was drafted for clarity, not as legal advice — nobody involved in writing it is a lawyer. If Murder Maps grows an audience in the EEA, the UK or California, it is worth having someone qualified review it against GDPR, the UK GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA.