Privacy policy · mafuá

The short version

No ads, analytics or trackers.Not on this website, and not in our apps.
We don't sell or share personal information.We don't use it for advertising or to build profiles.
Your Handbrake journal stays yours.It lives on your device and, if you use iCloud, in your own iCloud account. Mafua, LLC has no server that receives it and can't read it.
Location only when you ask for it.While you record a drive, or once when you check the weather before one.
Family sees only what you share.Invited family members get a read-only view. Routes and reflections stay private unless you turn them on.

Who we are

Mafua, LLC (“Mafua”, “we” or “us”) makes the mafua.com website and the apps listed on it. This policy covers the website and Handbrake. When we add an app, we'll add a section for it here.

Some features rely on Apple services, such as iCloud, Apple Weather and the App Store. When they do, Apple handles that information under Apple's privacy policy. This policy explains what Handbrake sends to those services and why.

The mafua.com website

The website has no accounts, forms, cookies, analytics or advertising, and it doesn't load scripts or fonts from other companies.

It's hosted on Amazon Web Services. As with any website, the hosting service receives the technical information your browser sends with each request, such as your IP address, browser type and the page you asked for, so it can deliver the page and protect the service. We don't use this information to identify you or to build a profile of you. If we turn on hosting access logs, we use them only for security and troubleshooting and delete them within 90 days.

Links to other sites, such as Apple's TestFlight page, take you to services with their own privacy policies.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a road journal for learner drivers and the family members they invite. You don't need an account with us to use it. There is no Handbrake server, sign-in, analytics or advertising code, and no third-party software libraries. The app talks only to Apple services. Links to outside pages, such as Florida's licensing requirements, open in your browser.

What Handbrake keeps

Your profile: your name, an optional emoji or photo for your avatar, the name of your usual supervising adult, your state and practice goals, the date your learner permit was issued if you enter it, and your reminder and sharing settings.
Your drives: date and times, practice intervals, daytime and nighttime minutes, a title, and the supervising adult's name and confirmation. For drives you record with GPS, Handbrake also keeps the route (positions with time, speed and accuracy), weather conditions recorded along the way, possible firmer braking or acceleration estimated from GPS speed, a count of how often the phone moved, and an optional short reflection on the drive.
A drive in progress, so it can be recovered if the app closes.
A short session history of up to 200 entries, each with a date, the type of event, a random session ID and a count of route points. It helps recover and troubleshoot drives. It contains no names, locations or sensor readings, it isn't included in device backups, and it never leaves your device.

If you choose a photo for your avatar, Handbrake uses Apple's photo picker, so the app sees only the photo you pick. It keeps a small 256-pixel copy without the photo's original details, such as where it was taken.

Where it's stored

On your device, in Handbrake's private storage, protected by iOS data protection. It's included in your device backups.
In your iCloud. If you're signed in to iCloud, Handbrake syncs your profile and completed drives to your private iCloud database using Apple's CloudKit. Drives in progress stay on your device. Your private iCloud database is stored by Apple, and Mafua, LLC can't access it. Your profile is stored in CloudKit's encrypted fields, and drives are stored as iCloud assets that Apple encrypts. How the encryption keys are protected depends on your Apple Account settings, such as Advanced Data Protection. See iCloud data security overview.
In your iCloud Drive, only for spreadsheet and JSON exports you choose to save there (Files › iCloud Drive › Handbrake › Exports).

You can use Handbrake without iCloud. Recording and PDF export still work, but sync, family sharing and saving exports to iCloud Drive need an iCloud account.

Location and motion

Recording a drive: with your permission, Handbrake uses precise location while you record a drive, including when the phone is locked. iOS shows its location indicator while this happens. Location is used to record your route, distance and speed, and to work out how much of the drive was in daylight or at night. Tracking stops when you pause or finish.
Checking the weather: before a drive, the weather postcard takes one approximate location reading, accurate to about a kilometer, to fetch current conditions. That location isn't saved.
Motion: during a drive, Handbrake uses the phone's motion sensors to notice when the phone itself moved, which lowers its confidence in braking and acceleration observations. Motion readings aren't saved, only a count.

Braking and acceleration observations are estimates from changes in GPS speed. They aren't a safety score and don't judge your driving. You can change location and motion permissions at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security.

Apple services Handbrake uses

Apple Weather (WeatherKit): for the weather postcard, Handbrake sends Apple the approximate location described above. While you record a drive, it sends your current position about every ten minutes. Apple returns the current conditions. Handbrake saves the conditions with the drive, not the location it sent.
Apple Maps (MapKit): showing a route or map loads map images from Apple, so Apple receives the map area being displayed. This happens in any app that shows an Apple map.
iCloud (CloudKit): for sync and family sharing, as described here.
Apple Intelligence: on supported devices, Handbrake writes a short reflection on a drive using Apple's on-device language model. Only summary observations are used, such as practice time, event counts and weather conditions, never names, addresses or route locations. The processing happens on your device. Where the model isn't available, Handbrake uses a simple built-in explanation instead. No cloud AI service is used.
App Store: for optional tips, described below.

Family sharing is off until you invite someone. Invitations use iCloud's private sharing. Only the people you invite, who accept with their own Apple Account, can see your shared journal, and they can't edit it, add drives or control your sessions.

What they see: your name, your state and practice goals, and your completed drives: title, date and times, practice intervals, daytime and nighttime minutes, and the supervising adult's name. They can also save or print a PDF practice log of what you share.
Only if you turn it on: routes and finished reflections. These settings apply to everyone you've invited.
Never shared: weather readings, braking and acceleration observations, phone-movement counts, drives in progress, your avatar, and your permit date.

You can remove people with iCloud's share controls in Handbrake, or stop sharing completely, which deletes the shared copy for everyone. Copies someone already saved or printed can't be recalled. If you're the one invited, Handbrake shows the shared journal while you're viewing it and doesn't keep its own copy.

Exports and printouts

You choose when to export, which dates to include, and where the file goes.

PDF practice log: your name and state, and each drive's date, start and finish times, supervising adult, and daytime, nighttime and total minutes. For Florida, it can include the official, unmodified certification form, with signature lines left blank.
Spreadsheet (XLSX) and JSON: the same practice-log details, plus drive titles and practice intervals. They leave out routes, weather, motion observations, reflections, deleted drives and drives in progress, and they're saved to your iCloud Drive.

Once you share or print a file, it's in your hands. If you give it to a licensing office such as the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, their policies apply.

Optional tips

Tips are optional and unlock nothing. Apple processes them through the App Store, and we never see your payment details or Apple Account. Handbrake doesn't keep a record of your tips. Apple gives us sales reports that don't identify you.

Notifications and Live Activities

The only notification Handbrake sends is an optional reminder to finish a drive after a long stop. It's scheduled on your device, not sent from a server, and contains no name or location. Handbrake doesn't use push notifications.

While you record a drive, a Live Activity can show elapsed time, distance, and whether you're driving in daylight or at night on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. It contains no names or locations, but anyone who can see your Lock Screen can see it. You can turn Live Activities off in Settings.

What Mafua, LLC receives

This is the complete list:

Emails you send us. We use them to answer you.
TestFlight beta information. If you join a beta, Apple shares the name and email address you were invited with, the devices and builds you install, and any feedback, screenshots and crash reports you choose to send. We use it only to run the beta and fix problems.
Crash reports and diagnostics. If you turn on Share With App Developers in Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements, Apple may share crash reports and usage diagnostics with us. Apple doesn't link them to your name.
App Store reports. Apple gives developers summary information such as downloads, tips and countries. It doesn't identify you.

We don't receive your driving journal, your location, your photos or your family's information.

No selling, sharing or ads

We don't sell personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, use it for targeted advertising, or use it to build profiles. We don't work with data brokers. Our apps don't track you across other companies' apps and websites, so they never ask for App Tracking Transparency permission.

We disclose information only when the law requires it, and only information we actually have.

Keeping and deleting data

A drive: deleting it in Handbrake removes its details. To keep your devices in sync, iCloud keeps a small deletion marker with a random ID and the time of deletion, and nothing else.
Everything on a device: deleting the app removes its data from that device. Device backups made earlier still contain it until those backups are replaced or deleted.
Everything in iCloud: in Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then the storage settings, and choose Handbrake to delete its iCloud data. Exports in iCloud Drive can be deleted in the Files app.
Family sharing: stopping sharing deletes the shared copy for everyone you invited.
Emails and beta feedback: we keep them only as long as we need them to help you and to run the beta, then delete them.

Teens and children

Handbrake is for learner drivers, who are usually teenagers, and the adults who supervise them. It isn't directed to children under 13, and Mafua, LLC doesn't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. A learner's journal stays on their device and in their own iCloud, so we don't receive it at all.

If you think a child under 13 has sent us personal information, email privacy@mafua.com and we'll delete it.

Security

Handbrake stores your journal with iOS data protection and syncs it only to your own iCloud account, over Apple's encrypted connections. Mafua, LLC runs no server that holds your journal, so there's no Handbrake database to break into. No storage or transmission method is perfectly secure, so protect your device with a passcode and your Apple Account with two-factor authentication.

Your choices and rights

Your Handbrake journal is in your control. You can view, correct, export and delete it in the app and in iCloud, choose what family members see, and change permissions in Settings.

Depending on where you live, privacy laws may give you the right to know, access, correct, delete or get a copy of your personal information, to object to or restrict some uses, to opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising or profiling, and not to be treated differently for using these rights. We extend these rights to everyone, wherever you live.

For information Mafua, LLC holds, such as emails or beta feedback, write to privacy@mafua.com. We may need to confirm the request came from you, and you may use an authorized agent where the law allows. We'll respond within the time the law requires, which is usually 30 to 45 days. If we turn down a request, you can appeal by replying to our decision, and you can also contact your local privacy or consumer protection authority.

We don't sell or share personal information or use it for targeted advertising, so there's nothing to opt out of. Browser signals such as Global Privacy Control are respected automatically.

Privacy laws and platform rules

Here's how our practices relate to the main privacy rules that may apply:

Apple App Store guidelines: Handbrake explains why it needs each permission, uses data only for the feature you're using, and includes no third-party software libraries. Its privacy manifest declares no tracking and no data collected by us.
Children's privacy (COPPA): Handbrake isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't collect personal information from them. See Teens and children.
U.S. state privacy laws, including California (CCPA/CPRA): We don't sell or share personal information or use it for targeted advertising. Precise location, which some state laws treat as sensitive, is used only to record the drives you ask Handbrake to record, and it stays on your device and in your iCloud. The rights described above apply to everyone.
EU and UK data protection (GDPR and UK GDPR): Handbrake processes your journal on your device and in your iCloud, under your control. For the limited information Mafua, LLC receives, Mafua, LLC is the controller. We rely on legitimate interests to answer you, run betas and fix problems, and on your consent for crash reports you choose to share. We are based in the United States, and our service providers, Apple and Amazon Web Services, may process information in the United States and other countries.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how your information is handled in a meaningful way, we'll explain it on this page and, where appropriate, in the app before it takes effect.

Contact

Mafua, LLC
privacy@mafua.com