NotiBus Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 3, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how NotiBus (“we”, “our”, or “us”), a product in the Noti Family, collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you use the NotiBus mobile application and related services. Our website for this product is https://notifamily.net/notibus/.

NotiBus is separate from the NotiSignal alerts app; NotiSignal has its own privacy policy.

1. Information we collect

Depending on how you use NotiBus, we may process:

Account information. Email address and authentication data when you sign in with email/password, Google, or Apple. Profile fields such as display name, optional phone number, and preferred language.
Organization and bus membership. Organizations and buses (groups) you create or join, roles (for example owner, admin, driver, supervisor, rider, parent), and optional organization work-profile fields (name, phone, company email, employee ID, department, notes).
Rider and guardian information. Rider profiles (including child riders linked to guardians), guardian links, and stop/pickup details you configure (names, coordinates, optional address notes).
Trip and route data. Routes, stops, schedules, route plans, daily trips, staff assignments, trip snapshots, activity timeline entries, and estimated arrival (ETA) records.
Attendance and absence. Boarding, drop-off, absence, and correction events, including who recorded them and optional notes or absence reason categories.
Precise location and movement data (drivers). When a driver starts trip tracking, NotiBus collects precise GPS data from that device, including while the app is in the background if permission is granted. Each location point can include latitude and longitude, accuracy, speed, direction of travel, altitude, and a timestamp. NotiBus uses the speed reported by the device’s GPS to show the bus’s current speed and its average and maximum speed for a trip. See Section 3.
Device and push data. Platform (iOS/Android), app version, and Expo push tokens when you enable notifications, plus notification preferences.
Security and operational logs. Append-only domain/security audit events and technical logs needed to operate and secure the service (for example membership changes, account deletion requests).
On-device data. Session tokens and offline queues stored on your device to keep you signed in and to sync when connectivity returns.

We do not use advertising SDKs, and we do not sell personal information.

2. How we use information

Provide authentication, membership, routing, trip operations, attendance, and notifications.
Share live trip status and ETAs with people authorized on the relevant bus/group/organization.
Show authorized parents, guardians and riders the bus’s latest recorded location, how recently it was updated, and its current, average and maximum speed for the trip they are linked to (see Section 3).
Calculate routes and traffic-aware travel times using map providers (see Section 5).
Maintain an auditable operational history for the buses and organizations you participate in.
Secure the service, prevent abuse, and comply with legal obligations.

3. Location tracking (core feature)

Live bus location is a core NotiBus capability for active trips.

When collected. Precise location is collected from the driver’s device after the driver starts tracking for a trip, and may continue in the background so tracking keeps working while driving. On Android, we show an in-app disclosure before requesting background location permission.
Why. To project the bus position for authorized operational use, keep the trip timeline accurate, and compute live arrival estimates to upcoming stops and the destination.
Who can see it. Live tracking data is available to the driver and to authorized staff on that bus/group (such as owners, admins, drivers, and supervisors), subject to our access controls. Parents, guardians and riders can view the bus’s latest recorded location on a map, the time it was last updated, and the current speed plus the average and maximum speed for that trip, but only for a trip on which they (or a rider linked to them) are an expected or excused rider. They cannot see the driver’s historical route points or any other bus, trip or organization. Other users, including other parents, cannot view a bus’s location unless they are authorized for that bus or trip.
Speed information. Speed is taken from the device’s GPS reading. Readings that are missing or implausible are ignored when calculating speeds. Current speed is shown only while the location is recent; average and maximum speed are calculated from the valid readings recorded during the trip’s tracking session and are shown to authorized users as summary numbers, not as a speed history.
Accuracy and connectivity. Location, speed and arrival times depend on the driver’s device permissions, GPS signal and network connection. They may be delayed, inaccurate or unavailable, and the app shows when the location was last updated. ETAs are estimates.
Foreground location for stops. Users may also use foreground location (or map search) when setting pickup/stop locations.
Retention. Historical driver location points (including their speed readings) older than 14 days are automatically deleted for tracking sessions that are no longer active. Location points belonging to an active tracking session (preparing, tracking, or paused) are not purged by that job. After a trip ends and the session stops, older points become eligible for the 14-day retention purge. A summary of the most recent position and speed is kept on the tracking session record as part of the trip record, and is removed if the driver’s account is deleted (see Section 7).
Controls. Drivers can stop tracking from the Driver Console. You can revoke location permission in system settings at any time.

We do not use driver location for advertising.

4. Notifications

If you grant notification permission, we store a push token linked to your account so we can deliver operational alerts (for example trip started, approaching a stop, boarded, delay updates), subject to your in-app preferences.
Push delivery uses Expo’s push service together with platform services such as Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) on Android and Apple Push Notification service (APNs) on iOS.
When you sign out, NotiBus revokes the current device’s push token registration for your account. Tokens may also be revoked when a push provider reports the device as unregistered.

5. Service providers

We use processors that help us run NotiBus:

Supabase — authentication, database, realtime updates, and server functions.
Google — optional Google sign-in; Maps SDK for map display; Routes and Places APIs (via our servers) for directions, traffic-aware duration/distance, and address search. Precise coordinates or search text needed for those features are sent to Google under Google’s terms.
Apple — optional Apple sign-in where enabled.
Expo — app platform services and Expo Push for notification delivery.
Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) / Apple Push Notification service (APNs) — platform push delivery used with Expo Push on Android and iOS respectively.
Device OS geocoding — may convert coordinates to approximate address labels on your device.

These providers process information in accordance with their respective terms and privacy policies and as necessary to provide the services we use.

6. Sharing within your organization

NotiBus is multi-user by design. People you invite or who share a bus/organization with you may see operational information appropriate to their role (for example manifests, attendance, trip status, and—for authorized staff—live tracking). Parents, guardians and riders linked to a trip may see that trip’s status, ETAs, and the bus’s latest location and speed statistics as described in Section 3. We do not share your data with unrelated buses or organizations.

7. Retention and deletion

Account deletion. You can delete your account in Settings. Deleting your account removes your login, profile, memberships and notification settings. Operational records that belong to a bus or organization—such as trip history, attendance records, and rider profiles (including any rider profile created for you)—may be retained by that bus or organization, with your account no longer linked to them. Contact us or your bus or organization administrator to request removal of a rider profile. If you are the primary owner of an organization or the primary supervisor of a bus, you must transfer ownership or permanently delete that organization/bus first—NotiBus will not silently destroy organizations or buses that other people rely on.
Membership. Leaving a bus or removing membership does not by itself erase historical trip records for that bus.
Organization/bus deletion. Authorized owners may permanently delete an organization or bus (with confirmation), which removes associated operational data for that entity according to our deletion flows.
Location history. As described in Section 3, historical driver location points older than 14 days are purged for non-active sessions. When a driver deletes their account, any active tracking session is stopped, and the tracking sessions and location points recorded from that driver’s device are deleted.

8. Children and school use

NotiBus supports transportation involving children, including child Rider profiles managed by authorized parents, guardians, school staff, or other authorized adults. NotiBus user accounts are intended for adults and are not designed for independent use by children.

A child Rider profile may contain information necessary to provide transportation services, such as the rider’s name, assigned bus, pickup location, attendance or absence status, and trip-related information. Parents and guardians linked to a child Rider can see that trip’s status, estimated arrival times, and the bus’s latest location and speed statistics; NotiBus does not track riders’ or children’s own devices; the location shown is the bus driver’s.

Parents, guardians, schools, transportation providers, and other authorized organizations should only provide or manage information about a child when they have appropriate authority and a lawful basis to do so.

Children are not expected to create accounts, manage transportation groups, or operate NotiBus independently.

NotiBus does not use children’s information for advertising and does not sell children’s personal information.

We may introduce additional child-privacy and organizational controls as NotiBus develops.

9. Your choices and rights

Update profile and notification preferences in the app.
Revoke location or notification permissions in system settings.
Sign out (revokes this device’s push token registration).
Delete your account in Settings after resolving ownership blockers.
Contact us with privacy questions or requests (Section 11).

10. Security

We use technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect information, including encrypted network transport, authenticated APIs, and role-based backend access controls. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

11. Contact

For privacy questions about NotiBus, contact support.notifamily@gmail.com or visit https://notifamily.net/.

12. Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy as NotiBus evolves. We will post the updated policy at this URL and revise the “Last updated” date. Material changes may also be communicated in the app or by email when appropriate.