Privacy Policy

Last updated: 7 September 2026

MicDrop is a location-based audio app: people leave short audio "drops" tied to real places, and others can discover and listen to them when they're nearby. This policy explains what we collect, why, and your choices. We've tried to keep it plain and honest.

Who we are

MicDrop is operated by Guy Hudson ("we", "us"). Contact: guy@findmicdrop.com.

The short version

• You sign in with Apple, Google, or an email address — or continue as a guest, which never asks for your name, email, or a password.
• We collect your location to show and unlock nearby drops, and your microphone only while you're recording.
• Audio you drop is public to other users at that location.
• We don't sell your data and we don't show ads.

What we collect and why

Location. With your permission, the app uses your device location to:

• show audio drops near you and unlock them when you're physically close;
• (optionally) send the coordinates provided by your device to our server so it can find and create short stories about nearby real-world places;
• optionally notify you when you're near a drop (only if you turn that on).

When you create a drop, the location you choose for it is stored and shown to other users, because that's the whole point of the app.

Microphone and audio recordings. When you record a drop, we access the microphone and store that audio. Audio you publish is public — other people can hear it at that location. Don't record anything you wouldn't want shared. We also store the title and description you add to a drop, linked to your account, and show them with the published audio.

Account. When you set up MicDrop we ask you to sign in. You can create an account with your email address, or via Sign in with Apple or Google (in which case we store the email your provider shares — with Apple you can hide your real address). If you'd rather not share any of that, you can still continue as a guest — a random anonymous identifier with no personal details, though your history won't carry across devices. Optionally you may add a display name and a profile picture; if you do, those are stored and shown with your drops.

Interests. We store the topics you choose, linked to your account, to personalise discovery and rank nearby stories according to those interests.

Activity. We store which drops you've heard, saved, marked "worth hearing", or reported, linked to your account, so the app works across your devices. We also record a small number of usage events (for example that a story was played or an area was seeded) and crash, hang and other technical diagnostic reports (via Apple's MetricKit, including CPU and disk-write diagnostics) so we can fix problems — these are linked to your account identifier but never include your precise location. We run a daily cleanup that deletes these events and reports once they are more than 90 days old.

"Seeded" stories

Some drops are created automatically by MicDrop from openly licensed sources — public Wikipedia articles (licensed CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open Plaques commemorative-plaque records (public domain) — about nearby places. To do this, the coordinates provided by your device are sent to our server without rounding. They can be precise, depending on your location permission. To find nearby places, our server sends those coordinates to Wikipedia; it also sends them to BigDataCloud to identify the country and choose the appropriate voice accent. The story-writing model works from public information about places, and a text-to-speech service voices the resulting script. Your account details are not part of those scripts. These drops are clearly labelled and link to their source and licence.

Who we share data with (service providers)

We use trusted services to run the app. They process data only to provide their service to us:

• Supabase — hosts our database, file storage, and accounts (data stored in the Asia-Pacific / Sydney region).
• Wikipedia — receives location coordinates to find nearby source articles.
• BigDataCloud — receives location coordinates to identify the country for story voice selection.
• Anthropic (Claude) — writes story scripts from public Wikipedia text.
• ElevenLabs — converts story scripts to speech.
• Microsoft Azure — converted some earlier story scripts to speech.
• Apple — distributes the app and (for the test phase) TestFlight.

We do not sell your personal information.

Your choices and rights

• You can deny or revoke location and microphone access in iOS Settings (some features won't work without them).
• You can turn proximity notifications off at any time in the app.
• You can delete your account and all associated data directly in the app: Profile → “Delete account & data”. This permanently removes your drops, recordings, profile and activity from our servers. You can also email guy@findmicdrop.com for help.

Data retention

We keep your content and activity until you ask us to delete it or your account is removed. Anonymous accounts and their data may be removed after extended inactivity.

Children and Kids Mode

A MicDrop account is for people aged 13 or over (or the minimum age in your country, if that is higher). We don't offer accounts to children under 13 and we don't knowingly collect their data.

Younger children can listen through Kids Mode, which a parent or guardian turns on inside their own account. It plays only the stories MicDrop writes for children from public sources, never recordings made by other users. There is no recording in Kids Mode and no way to publish anything from it, so a child listening never signs up, never gives us a name or an email address, and is never asked for the microphone. Setting it up the first time asks the adult for a PIN, and that PIN is what leaves Kids Mode again.

Kids Mode still uses the device location to find nearby stories, in the same way as the rest of the app. That location, and which stories were played, belong to the adult account holder's account, and are covered by everything else in this policy. If a child has been listening on your account and you want that history removed, delete the account in the app or email us.

Changes

We may update this policy; we'll change the "Last updated" date above and, for significant changes, let you know in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests: guy@findmicdrop.com.