Last updated: 7 October 2026.
CarWatch Local is a vehicle-document and reminder app. This policy describes, plainly, what the app does with your data — which is almost nothing, because almost nothing ever leaves your phone.
Every car, driver profile, ID card picture, scanned document, reminder, and recording you create in CarWatch Local is stored only in the app's private storage on your device. There is no account, no sign-in, and no server that CarWatch Local talks to for any of this. We (the developer) never see any of it, because it is never sent anywhere.
This includes: vehicle records and their documents (registration, insurance, inspection paperwork you scan or photograph), driver's licence and other ID card pictures, video and audio recordings made in Traffic Stop Recorder, and the reminder schedule you set.
CarWatch Local can run in two ways, and you choose during setup (and can change it later in Settings). On this phone only is the default and works exactly as described above. Server mode is for households that run their own CarWatch server at home: the app then mirrors that server - it downloads the household's cars, people, document lists and card pictures from it, and sends the changes you make in the app back to it. Nothing is sent anywhere except to the server address you typed in yourself when pairing, and the server is one you (or your household) operate; the developer does not run, host, or have access to any CarWatch server. Documents are downloaded from the server only when you open them. Switching back to "on this phone only" stops both directions at once.
CarWatch Local has one optional feature that makes a network call: looking up a vehicle by VIN using the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's free public vPIC API, to help pre-fill a car's make and model when you type a VIN in by hand. This only happens when you tap "Look up this VIN online" — it never happens automatically, and skipping it does not limit anything else the app does. The VIN is sent to NHTSA's public API; nothing else about you or your phone is sent, and the response is cached on your device so the same VIN is never looked up twice.
If you use "Share with family" in Settings, CarWatch Local builds an encrypted file containing the household data you choose to include, and hands it to Android's own share sheet — the same system dialog used by every other app on your phone to share a photo or a document. Where that file goes after that (a message, an email, a cloud drive) is entirely up to you and whichever app you pick; CarWatch Local does not upload it anywhere itself, and the developer never receives a copy.
CarWatch Local uses your camera and microphone only when you explicitly start a recording by tapping the "Traffic Stop" button, and only for as long as that recording runs. A persistent notification stays on screen the entire time a recording is active, so it is never running without your knowledge. Recordings are saved to the app's private storage on your phone only, and are never uploaded, transmitted, or shared automatically — the same rule as every other document in the app.
CarWatch Local schedules reminder notifications (for example, "your registration expires in 30 days") entirely on your device, using Android's own notification system. No notification content is ever sent to us or to any third party.
If you have Android's own device backup enabled, a small amount of CarWatch Local's data (your car and driver records, and — only if you turn the setting on — your ID card pictures) may be included in your phone's normal Android backup, which is encrypted and controlled entirely by Google/your device manufacturer, not by CarWatch Local. Documents, proof images, and recordings are excluded from this backup by design.
Settings → "Delete everything" permanently removes every car, driver, document, and ID card picture from your phone (recordings are handled separately, under Settings → Recordings). Because nothing is stored anywhere but your phone, there is no separate "account" to delete and no copy anywhere else to remove.
CarWatch Local is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age — because, again, it does not collect information at all.
If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date above will change, and the new version will be posted at this same address.
Questions about this policy can be sent to s007m77@gmail.com.