Ground CoveredWhere does Ground Covered keep my running data?
Your activities stay in this browser, on this device. Nothing you import is uploaded, and there is no account.
What the app sends
Cloudflare Pages serves this site, so Cloudflare sees each page request (your IP address and which page), like any web host, and answers the lookup of the address groundcovered.run. It never sees your activity files.
Once the page has loaded, the app contacts only these hosts, and never sends them your activity files:
| Host | What for | What it can learn |
|---|---|---|
tiles.openfreemap.org |
Map style, map tiles, label fonts and icons (OpenFreeMap) | The map area you are looking at, like any web map. Never your tracks. |
overpass-api.de |
OpenStreetMap street data for your Home Turf box (Overpass API) | The corners of your Home Turf box. It is sent up to 5 times in all, alternating this server and overpass.private.coffee, until one answers; this server gets up to 3 of them. Never your tracks. |
overpass.private.coffee |
Second server for the street data request: the tries alternate between overpass-api.de and this one (Overpass by Private.coffee) | The corners of your Home Turf box, up to 2 of those 5 tries. Never your tracks. |
The page's security policy makes the browser block every other host.
What a shared image or web page holds
Share makes images and web pages on this device, and they go only where you send them.
They hold the routes, dates, times and stats of the runs you chose, with your privacy zones cut out as on the map, and never your file names or anything about your device.
A web page holds everything it shows, so it opens in any browser, with no account and nothing from Ground Covered to download.
When someone opens it, the background map loads from OpenFreeMap (tiles.openfreemap.org), which sees their IP address and the map area but never the runs; without it, the routes show on a plain background.
Clear all data
deletes every activity and setting from this browser; your original files stay where they are.
Privacy zones
After your first import, Ground Covered hides a 300 m circle around the spot where most of your runs start and end.
Details
Inside a zone, Ground Covered hides every line, heatmap stroke and run start, in World and in Home Turf; the route of an open run; the streets there, in every street layer, list and search; and everything in a saved image, poster or web page.
Your stored runs do not change: switch zones off in Settings and everything is back. You can also resize a zone there, or add more, such as work or a friend's place.
Lines stop at a zone's edge, so many runs together outline its circle. So that the center is not your door, each zone's center is moved by a random amount, up to a third of its radius, chosen once.
Credits
Map: OpenFreeMap, © OpenMapTiles, data from OpenStreetMap. Streets: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), through the Overpass API. Place names: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0).