Scenic Drive — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-07-13

Scenic Drive helps you send a precise, curated driving route to your Tesla, so the car navigates the route you chose. This policy explains what data the app handles and why.

What Scenic Drive accesses on your device

Route points you choose or import — when you pick a curated scenic route or import your own GPX file, the app uses those geographic points (coordinates) to build the drive and send it to your car.
Your phone’s location — two separate uses, both under your control:
- Sorting the route list. With your permission (when-in-use), the app takes a single, kilometre-coarse location fix to show the scenic routes nearest to you first. This fix is used on your phone only and is never sent to our servers. If you decline, the list is grouped by country instead — nothing breaks.
- Guiding your drive. During a guided drive, with your permission, the app uses your location in the background so the route advances as you reach each point — this is what keeps guidance working with the screen off. While a drive is running, your phone sends its current position to our server every couple of seconds. The server keeps only your latest position and its timestamp — each update overwrites the previous one, so we never build a track or history of where you have been. If your phone’s signal stops, guidance falls back to your car’s own position from Tesla. This data lives with your account and is deleted with it.
Your Tesla account connection — you sign in through Tesla’s own login (OAuth). We receive a connection token that lets the app send routes to your car through Tesla’s official Fleet API. We never see or store your Tesla password.

What Scenic Drive does NOT access

Your Tesla password or Tesla login credentials (sign-in happens on Tesla’s side; we only receive a connection token).
Your contacts, photos, microphone, camera, or health data.
Other apps on your device.
We do not read data from your car beyond what is needed to follow the route you chose (see “What we read from your Tesla” below).

What we send, and to whom

To Tesla (official Fleet API): the destination and route points you choose, because that is required to push the route into your car. Tesla’s handling of that data is governed by Tesla’s own privacy policy.
Curated route content (the scenic routes we ship) is prepared in advance on our side. The address lookup used to build that catalogue happens during our content preparation, before it ever reaches your device.
If you import your own route (a GPX file), the points of that route are sent to Google’s Geocoding API to convert each point into the address format your Tesla requires to navigate. This happens when you import the file. Google processes these coordinates to return an address identifier; their handling is governed by Google’s own privacy terms. We do this only to make your imported route driveable in your car.
Purchases and subscriptions are made through Apple (StoreKit); Apple handles all payment details — we never see your card number or billing address. To activate what you bought, the app sends the Apple-signed transaction to our server, which verifies it and credits your account. We store the Apple transaction identifier and the product you bought — bound to your account — to make sure each purchase is credited exactly once and a receipt can’t be reused. We do not keep the receipt itself.

What we read from your Tesla

While you are driving a route, the app reads your car’s current location and active navigation route from Tesla, repeatedly, to detect when you pass the points on your route. This is why Scenic Drive needs Tesla’s location and vehicle-data permissions when you connect your car.
This live location is used in the moment to follow your progress, then discarded. Scenic Drive does not store your car’s live location on its servers — it is held only in memory during the trip. (Your car’s full location is passed to the app on your device when you check status; on-device handling stays on your device.)

Routes you save or import

The scenic routes themselves — and any route you save — are made up of geographic points (coordinates). These coordinates are the route content. We store the routes you save so you can reuse them; they are removed from our servers when you delete your account (see “Your choices and rights”).
A route you import from your own GPX file is treated the same way: it becomes one of your saved routes (its coordinates and the address identifiers looked up for it), stored so you can reuse and send it to your car, and deleted with your account. A recorded GPX track can reflect where you actually drove; we use it only as your route content — to show it, store it for you, geocode it (see above), and send it to your Tesla. We do not analyse it for any other purpose.

What we do NOT do

No advertising and no ad tracking.
No selling or renting your data to anyone.
No third-party analytics profiling you.

Payments

Purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store. Apple is the Merchant of Record: Apple handles your payment details and applicable taxes (including EU VAT). Scenic Drive never sees your card number, billing address, or tax ID.

How long we keep data

Your car’s live location is used in the moment and not stored on our servers (read during a trip to measure distance to the next point, then discarded — it is held only in memory during the trip).
Your account data — your Tesla connection token, your saved routes, and your route progress (which point you’ve reached, the route’s name, your settings) — is kept while your account is active and is removed when you delete your account (see below). The routes you save are made of geographic points (coordinates) — this is the route content itself, and it is deleted with your account.
Our operational log records what the app did during a drive: the destination name, the distance to it, speed, point number, and the position that distance was measured from — your car’s, or your phone’s if you chose phone guidance. Each entry carries your account identifier. It is kept only for a limited period and then deleted automatically.
Purchase records: kept as required for support and for tax/legal retention. Apple transaction identifiers may be kept even after you delete your account — this is what prevents the same receipt from being credited twice (for example, by deleting and re-creating an account).

Your choices and rights

You can disconnect your Tesla account inside the app at any time. On our side that removes the connection token we hold for you, the record of the paired key and your car list — we stop being able to reach your car at all. Two things stay with Tesla until you remove them yourself, and we cannot remove either for you: this app’s permission in your Tesla account settings (Account Settings → Security → Third Party Apps), and the virtual key in the car’s own key list.

You can delete your account and its data directly inside the app, in Settings. Deleting your account removes your stored Tesla connection token, your saved routes, your route progress, and your sessions from our servers. Our operational log (see above) is not rewritten when you delete your account: entries already written age out on their own, within the same limited period, and are then deleted automatically. The two things named just above stay with Tesla after deletion as well — this app’s permission in your Tesla account settings and the virtual key in the car’s key list — and only you can remove them. Purchase records held for tax/legal reasons are kept only as long as the law requires.

If you are in the EU/EEA or UK, you can also request access to, or correction of, your data by contacting us at the support address below.

Children

Scenic Drive is not directed at children under 16 and does not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

We will update this page when our data practices change, and update the date above.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a data request: support@scenicdrive.app

Questions about your privacy? Email support@scenicdrive.app — we read every message.