MapSprout Privacy Policy

Effective date: 2026-04-28 Last updated: 2026-04-28

This is the privacy policy for MapSprout, an iPad and iPhone learning app for kids made by Vectory LLC ("we," "us," or "Vectory"). MapSprout helps children learn about all 50 U.S. states through quizzes, road trip adventures, and a digital passport of stamps and badges.

We built MapSprout for families. Your child's privacy matters, and we designed this app to collect as little data as possible.

TL;DR for parents

• MapSprout does not collect personal information that identifies your child. No name, email, photo, location, or contact list.
• All learning progress (quizzes, stamps, badges, streaks, road trips) stays in your child's own iCloud account. It is private to the iCloud user; Vectory has no normal channel to access it.
• No third-party tracking, no analytics SDKs, no advertising.
• Optional in-app feedback form is gated behind a Grown-Up Check (a math problem) so children cannot submit unsupervised. Free-text comments are only available when the form is filled out as a parent.
• In-app purchases are handled by Apple. We never see your payment details.

If you have any questions or want to know exactly what is in your child's iCloud data, write to support@vectoryapps.com.

1. Who we are

MapSprout is owned and operated by Vectory LLC, a U.S. limited liability company. Vectory LLC is the data controller responsible for this privacy policy.

Contact: support@vectoryapps.com (privacy questions, data requests, and general support all go to the same inbox).

2. Information MapSprout does NOT collect

We don't ask for, and we don't collect:

• Personal information — no name, email, phone number, mailing address, date of birth, or photograph.
• Location information — no GPS, no IP-based geolocation, no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi positioning.
• Contacts, calendars, photos, or microphone — MapSprout does not request access to any of these.
• Behavioral or advertising identifiers — no IDFA, no third-party cookies, no advertising profiles.
• Analytics about how your child uses the app — MapSprout does not use any third-party analytics SDK.
• Crash logs that include personal data — we do not run any third-party crash reporter. (If you opt in to Apple's standard crash reporting in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements, those reports go to Apple, not to us.)

3. Information stored ONLY in your child's iCloud

MapSprout uses Apple's CloudKit private database, which is a private storage area inside your child's iCloud account. This is how MapSprout's progress survives across devices when you sign into the same iCloud account.

The following data lives in your child's iCloud private database. It is not transmitted to Vectory or to any third party — Apple's CloudKit infrastructure isolates it operationally from us; we have no normal channel to access a user's private database:

• Profile flags: whether onboarding finished, whether the feature-tour has been seen, etc.
• Quiz progress: which states have been answered, which questions were correct or wrong, mastery level per state.
• Road trip events: which routes have been started, which states have been visited on a trip, which trips are complete.
• Streak tracking: consecutive days of activity, badge unlocks.
• Stamps and badges: which ones have been earned and when.
• Trial / purchase status: whether the free trial is active or whether full access has been purchased.

If you want to see this data, you can do so via Settings → Apple ID → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → MapSprout on your device.

If you want to delete this data, you can do so in two ways:

1. In MapSprout: open Settings → Reset Progress (this erases learning progress; purchase history is preserved per Apple's guidance).
2. In iCloud: use the iCloud storage manager linked above.

4. Information that MapSprout DOES send to Vectory

There is exactly one path that sends data to Vectory: the Send Feedback form, which appears in two places (Settings and Home Hub).

4.1 What the feedback form sends

When the form is submitted, the following anonymous record is written to MapSprout's CloudKit public database (a separate area from your child's private data).

The form has an "Include device info" toggle (off by default). The first six fields below are always sent; the remaining "context" fields are sent only if the user leaves that toggle on.

Always sent:

Only sent when "Include device info" is on:

The submission is anonymous. We do not include any iCloud account ID, device identifier, name, email address, or any other identifier that could link the submission back to you or your child.

4.2 The Grown-Up Check

Before the feedback form opens, MapSprout shows a Grown-Up Check: a randomized multiplication problem (e.g., "What is 7 × 9?"). This is designed to ensure a parent or older sibling, not the child, is the one filling out the form. The same Grown-Up Check protects in-app purchase and restore-purchase actions.

4.3 Free-text comments

The free-text "Other notes" field is hard-disabled when the form is filled out in player mode. This is enforced in code (see FeedbackSubmission.swift's init, which nils otherNotes whenever role == .player). We do this so children cannot submit unsupervised free-text content to us.

When a parent submits a free-text comment, please do not include personal information (name, email, child's name, school, etc.). If a submission accidentally includes personal information, we will redact or delete it on receipt. You can request deletion at any time by emailing support@vectoryapps.com.

4.4 How we use feedback

We use feedback to decide which features to build, improve, or fix. We never sell feedback, share it with third parties, or use it for advertising. Feedback is read by Vectory team members only.

5. In-app purchases

MapSprout offers a single in-app purchase: MapSprout Full Access (a one-time, non-consumable purchase — not a subscription — at $3.99 USD or local equivalent), which unlocks all 50 states after the free trial.

Purchases are processed by Apple's App Store. Apple's privacy policy governs payment processing. Vectory does not receive your payment details, billing address, or Apple ID. We only receive a receipt indicating that a purchase was successful.

6. Children's privacy (COPPA)

MapSprout is designed for children. We comply with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Because MapSprout does not collect any personal information from children (see §2), verifiable parental consent is not required under COPPA's "no-collection" path. We do not need to ask for, and have not implemented, a parental-consent mechanism — there is nothing to consent to.

• We do not collect personal information from any user, including children under 13.
• We do not require account creation, login, or any form of registration.
• All progress data is stored in the user's own iCloud account, which is administered by Apple under Apple's privacy policies and any Family Sharing controls a parent has set up.
• The Grown-Up Check gates the feedback form and all purchase actions to prevent children from submitting data or initiating financial transactions without parental supervision.
• The player branch of the feedback form does not collect any free-text content.
• We do not use behavioral advertising, do not run third-party analytics, and do not allow third-party SDKs to access any data through MapSprout.

If you believe your child has somehow provided personal information to MapSprout (we cannot think of how, but please tell us), email support@vectoryapps.com and we will investigate and delete it.

7. Data retention

• Progress data in your child's iCloud is retained for as long as it remains in iCloud. Deleting the app or resetting progress in Settings removes it. Removing your iCloud account removes it.
• Anonymous feedback submissions are retained for up to 24 months so we can analyze trends over time, after which we delete or further aggregate them. Because submissions are anonymous and contain no identifiers, there is no individual record we could identify and delete on request.

8. Your privacy rights

Even though MapSprout does not collect personal information, residents of the U.S. (including under California's CCPA / CPRA) and the EU / UK (under the GDPR / UK GDPR) have certain rights. To the extent any data attributable to you might exist:

• Right to know what data we have. We will respond honestly: we hold no personal information about you.
• Right to access, rectify, or delete any data linked to you. (See §4.3 if you accidentally included personal information in a free-text feedback comment — we will honor a correction or deletion request.)
• Right to data portability. If we ever do hold personal data linked to you, you can request a copy in a structured, commonly used format.
• Right to object or restrict processing of any personal data attributable to you.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share data, period.
• Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. EU residents may complain to their national Data Protection Authority; UK residents may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

Email support@vectoryapps.com with any of these requests.

Legal basis for processing (GDPR / UK GDPR). The only personal- data-adjacent processing MapSprout performs is the optional anonymous feedback submission described in §4. We rely on legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — improving the product based on aggregate feedback — as the legal basis. Because submissions are anonymous and the feedback form is gated by a Grown-Up Check (so submissions come from parents), this processing has minimal impact on data subjects.

Controller. Vectory LLC is the data controller. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer (we are not required to under GDPR Art. 37), but you can reach the team responsible for privacy at support@vectoryapps.com.

9. Security

Progress data is protected by Apple's iCloud security model: encryption in transit and at rest, with access restricted to the iCloud account holder. End-to-end encryption applies when the user has enabled iCloud Advanced Data Protection in iOS Settings; for standard iCloud accounts, Apple holds the encryption keys. Either way, Vectory has no normal channel to access a user's private database.

Anonymous feedback travels over HTTPS via Apple's CloudKit infrastructure to Apple-managed servers.

We do not run our own servers. We do not store user data outside of Apple's infrastructure.

10. International users

MapSprout is available worldwide through the Apple App Store. Because MapSprout does not collect personal information (see §2), the policy above applies equally to users in every region. Specific rights for U.S., EU, and UK residents are summarized in §8.

Progress data is stored in your child's iCloud account; Apple allocates CloudKit storage to regional data centers based on the iCloud account's home country. See Apple's privacy documentation for details on where that data is held.

If you are submitting feedback (§4) from outside the United States, the anonymous record is transmitted via Apple's CloudKit infrastructure to Apple-managed servers, which Apple operates globally under its own data-protection commitments. Vectory LLC, the data controller, is established in the United States. Because feedback submissions are anonymous and contain no identifiers, they cannot be linked back to an individual data subject and are therefore not subject to data-subject access requests under GDPR once submitted.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change this privacy policy, we will update the Effective date at the top of this page and post the new version at the same URL. Material changes — for example, introducing a new way of collecting data, a new third-party processor, or a new category of data — will be announced inside the app via a banner or modal at next launch, with a link to the updated policy.

11a. A note for kids

This policy is written for parents and guardians. We've explained MapSprout in plainer language inside the app's onboarding and in the TL;DR at the top of this page; if a child wants to know "what does the app know about me?", the short answer is nothing that says who you are — your stamps and badges live in your family's iCloud, not on our computers.

12. Contact

• Email: support@vectoryapps.com (one inbox for privacy questions, data requests, and general support)
• Mailing address: (TODO: add Vectory LLC business address before hosting publicly)