GIS-iPad

Meridian Privacy Notes

Meridian is designed as an offline-first local GIS workspace. Project data is stored in local .gispad packages unless you explicitly store a project in iCloud Drive, open it from Files/iCloud Drive, or export/share it.

iCloud Drive and local storage

• Local projects remain on the device and are not uploaded by Meridian’s local-only workflow.
• If you choose iCloud Drive, Apple stores the .gispad document in your own iCloud account so it can be available on your signed-in Apple devices. Meridian does not operate a separate cloud-sync service, receive a copy of the document, or use project data for analytics.
• If you open or import a file from Files, iCloud Drive, or another document provider, Meridian reads only the file you grant it access to and uses it for the requested operation.

Online providers and network requests

• Online basemap requests go to the basemap provider selected in Settings. The provider can receive your IP address and the tile/style requests needed to render the map, which may reveal the approximate map area being viewed.
• Explicit open-data imports contact the provider you select, such as OpenStreetMap/Overpass, Census, GeoNames, Data Commons, Geofabrik, OGC API, WFS, ArcGIS Feature Services, or a user-configured endpoint. Those providers receive the network information and request parameters required to return the data.
• Meridian does not send project names, attributes, geometry, coordinates, tokens, or location history to Meridian-operated analytics. User-configured credentials are stored in the device Keychain and are not written into project packages or clean exports.

Third-party providers have their own privacy policies, retention practices, terms, and attribution requirements. Review the provider’s policy before enabling an online basemap or connected-data source.

Location

• Meridian requests location access only while the app/workspace is in use.
• Meridian does not request Always location access and does not enable background location tracking.
• Current location is used to show the device position on the map, to let the user explicitly create point or vertex geometry from the current fix, and — when the user explicitly starts a recording — to record a GPS track.
• GPS track recording (iPad, v1.1) runs only in the foreground and only while a recording the user started is active. Leaving the app pauses the recording rather than continuing it in the background. The recorded fixes exist only in memory until the user chooses to save the track, at which point it becomes an ordinary line feature in a layer the user picked. Discarding a recording leaves nothing behind.
• Meridian keeps no ambient location history: no background trail, no automatic log, and no location record outside a recording the user explicitly started and explicitly saved.
• Location coordinates are not written to logs.
• Location data is not included in shared artifacts unless the user has committed geometry created from location, saved a recorded track, imported geotagged photos, attached a photo that carries GPS metadata, or a layer already has matching capture metadata fields such as capture_accuracy_m or capture_timestamp.
• Capture metadata fields are not created automatically. Track provenance fields (capture_method, track_started_at, track_ended_at, track_point_count, track_length_m, track_avg_accuracy_m) are written onto a saved track only while the location-capture metadata setting is enabled.

Photos (v1.1)

• Photo access is never requested. Geotagged-photo import and feature photo attachments both read only the specific images the user picks in the system photo picker, which hands Meridian the chosen bytes without granting photo-library access.
• Geotagged-photo import reads EXIF/GPS metadata out of the picked images to create points. Photos without a GPS block are reported and skipped, never guessed at. The images themselves are not copied into the project by this flow — only the derived points, filename, capture time, altitude, and direction.
• Feature photo attachments copy the picked image into the project package, resized for storage. Embedded metadata, including the camera’s GPS coordinates, is deliberately preserved because it is provenance for the record the photo documents. This means a .gispad package that is shared, duplicated, or synced carries those embedded coordinates with it. The Export Inspector reports attachment count and size before a share so this is visible rather than silent.
• Attachments live in their own package storage and are never written into exported GeoJSON, GeoPackage, Shapefile, KML/KMZ, or CSV — a clean export of a layer with attachments contains no attachment file, path, or filename.
• Attachments are removed from the package when the user deletes them.

Purchases

• Meridian is free to download with a single one-time “Meridian Pro” in-app purchase. Purchases are handled entirely by Apple’s App Store; Meridian operates no server, account system, or receipt service.
• The entitlement is read from the device-local signed transaction store StoreKit maintains. Meridian records only a local flag so a returning purchaser does not see locked features while that check completes. No purchase data is transmitted to the developer.

Exports and sharing

• Meridian creates exports, PDFs, and shared project packages only after you choose an export or share action.
• Clean GeoJSON export omits Meridian’s internal editor IDs and storage metadata. Review any exported data before sharing it as authoritative information.

Meridian’s App Store privacy answers describe foreground precise location as used for app functionality and no tracking. Meridian does not use analytics or advertising SDKs.

Deferred

Survey-grade GNSS, external receivers, RTK/NTRIP correction streams, and datum workflows are outside the current release scope. Background location, automatic or ambient track logging, and any location recording the user did not explicitly start remain out of scope by design.