01 Who this covers
This policy covers the Android application Proximity Rules (com.jbtecwiz.proximityrules), published by JBTecWiz ("we", "us"). It applies to the app as installed on your device. It does not cover any other app, or anything you do with a record sheet once you have exported and sent it.
02 The short version
We do not run a server, we do not have an account system, and the app has no permission to use the network. Everything you create — photographs, tracings, job references, notes, GPS stamps, settings — is written to private storage on your own phone and stays there. We cannot see it, and we could not retrieve it if you asked us to.
03 What the app stores on your device
All of it is written into the app's own private storage area, which other apps on the phone cannot read, except where the table says otherwise.
| What | Where it is kept | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Job records | One JSON file per job in the app's private files | The site reference, street, operative name, surface type, the traced excavation and features, your notes, and the assessment's inputs |
| Photographs | The app's private files (a copy, straightened and resized) | The picture the tracing is measured against. Importing from your gallery copies the image; the original is untouched |
| Location | Latitude and longitude inside the job record | Only if you grant location permission. It stamps the record sheet so a supervisor can tell which dig it was |
| Settings | Android shared preferences | Your name and any clause distances you have changed from the specification's defaults |
| Export log | One JSON file in the app's private files | What each exported sheet was of, what it said, and where it was saved, so the History screen can list and reopen it |
| Record sheets | Pictures/Proximity Rules on shared storage | An exported sheet is deliberately put in your gallery so you can send it. Other apps with photo access can see it, like any other picture |
04 Permissions, and what each is for
Location — optional
ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION / ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION. Asked for once a job is open, and used for a single best-effort fix that stamps that job's record sheet. It comes straight from Android's own location service — there is no Google Play Services dependency and no background tracking. Refusing is not an error: the app carries on and leaves the GPS line on the sheet blank.
Camera — no permission required
The app does not declare a camera permission. Tapping Photograph the dig hands your phone's own camera app a file to write into and gets the picture back. Your camera app's own permissions apply, exactly as they would for any other photo you take.
Storage on older Android
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, limited to Android 9 and earlier, is used only to save an exported record sheet into your Pictures folder. On Android 10 and later this is done through the system media store and no permission is needed.
05 What the app does not do
- No internet permission, so no network requests of any kind — no telemetry, no remote configuration, no update pings.
- No analytics or advertising SDKs, and no crash reporting service. The app's only dependencies are Google's own Android UI libraries.
- No accounts, no sign-in, no cloud sync, and nothing is shared between devices.
- No selling or sharing of personal information, and no profiling — we never receive any information to sell, share or profile.
06 When something does leave the phone
Only in ways you start yourself:
- You export a record sheet. It is written into Pictures/Proximity Rules and appears in your gallery. What happens to it after that is up to you and to the apps you send it with.
- You share a sheet. Android's share sheet passes the image to whichever app you pick — email, messaging, a file store. That app's own privacy policy then applies.
- Android backup or device transfer. The app allows Android's standard backup, so job files and settings may be included in a backup of your phone or copied to a new one. That is handled by Android and by your Google account settings, not by us; turn it off in your device's backup settings if you would rather it did not happen.
07 Keeping and deleting your data
Jobs stay until you delete them — there is no expiry, because a record sheet is often wanted months after the dig. You are in control of all of it:
- Delete a job from the History screen; its JSON file and its photograph are removed from the phone.
- Forget an exported sheet from the Exports tab, which removes it from the app's list. The image itself lives in your gallery — delete it there.
- Uninstall the app and everything in its private storage — every job, every photograph, every setting — goes with it. Sheets already saved to your gallery are not touched.
Because none of this reaches us, there is no account to close and no copy of your data for us to hold, disclose or delete. Under UK data protection law you are exercising those rights directly, on your own device.
08 Children
Proximity Rules is a tool for working street works crews. It is not directed at children, and it collects nothing from anyone.
09 Accuracy, and what the app is not
Clause references and distances are from the SROH fourth edition. The app checks only what you trace on the photograph — it cannot see buried apparatus, damage to layers below the surface, or anything out of shot — and it is not a substitute for the specification or for your authority's own requirements.
The app assists judgement; it does not replace it. Responsibility for the reinstatement, for compliance with the specification and with any permit or authority condition, and for the safety of the works, remains with you and your organisation. Clause extracts are quoted for reference from the Specification for the Reinstatement of Openings in Highways, fourth edition, published by the Department for Transport.
10 Changes to this policy
If the app ever changes what it stores or asks for, this policy is updated before that version is released, and the effective date at the top changes with it. A material change — anything that would send data off the device — would be announced in the release notes as well.
11 Contact
Questions about this policy, or about the app: add your contact email.