Philly3D Privacy
Last updated September 29, 2026. This covers the website at philly3d.com and the Philly3D apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.
In short: there are no accounts and no advertising, and we never sell your information. The website counts visits with Google Analytics; the iPhone, iPad and Android apps do not. Your location never leaves your device. We keep ordinary web server logs for up to 14 days.
Your location
Philly3D asks for your location only when you tap the locate button. Your device works out the position and the app uses it right there, to fly the view to where you are. It is not stored and it is not sent to us or to anyone else.
If you are in Philadelphia, the app shows what is near you. To show live bus and train arrivals for the stops closest to you, it asks SEPTA for those stops' arrival times by stop number. Your coordinates are not included.
You can turn location access off at any time in your device's settings. Everything else in Philadelphia's model works without it.
What stays on your device
The app keeps a few settings in your browser's or the app's local storage: which map layers you turned on, your Graphics choice, whether you have seen the welcome guide, which concert and game markers you closed, and a note that helps the app recover if your device runs out of memory while it is loading. These never leave your device. Clearing your browser's site data, or deleting the app, removes them. On the website, Google Analytics also sets its own cookies, described below.
Live data the app fetches
To show the city as it is right now, the app downloads public data: SEPTA vehicles, stops and arrivals, Indego bike stations, flights and ships, Amtrak trains, weather and air quality from the National Weather Service and the City of Philadelphia, street closures, events and game scores. Some of it comes through philly3d.com and some straight from the provider. As with any web request, those services see your device's IP address. We send them nothing else about you.
When you tap a building, the app looks up that property's public record from the City of Philadelphia's open data. Links on the cards (tickets, flight and ship tracking, permits) open the provider's own site, under its own privacy policy.
What our server keeps
Like most websites, philly3d.com keeps standard access logs: your IP address, the time, the file requested and your browser type. We use them only to keep the site running and secure, and they are deleted after 14 days.
While the model loads, and again one and three minutes after you enter the city, the page may also report to our server how far loading got, how long it took and how smoothly the city is drawing (frame times, how much is drawn and the drawing resolution it chose), with your device's general capability (screen density, number of processor cores, memory class and graphics support). This helps us find where phones run out of memory and keep the picture sharp. It includes no name, account, location or advertising identifier, and it is not linked to you.
Google Analytics (the website only)
The website at philly3d.com uses Google Analytics to count visits and to see which parts of the model people use. When you visit, it records the pages you open and how long you stay, how you arrived (a search or a link, for example), your general area (city and country, worked out from your IP address, which Google Analytics does not keep), and your type of device, browser and screen. It stores a random identifier in a cookie in your browser so that a return visit is counted once. We see the results as totals and trends, not as individual people.
We have not turned on Google's advertising features, so this information is not used to show you ads or to follow you across other websites, and we keep it for the shortest time Google Analytics allows. Google handles it under Google's privacy policy, and explains how it uses information from sites that use its services. To opt out, block cookies for philly3d.com in your browser, or install Google's opt-out browser add-on.
The Philly3D apps for iPhone, iPad and Android do not include Google Analytics.
Google Search Console
We use Google Search Console to see how philly3d.com appears in Google Search: which searches show it and how often people click through, as totals. It adds nothing to the page and tells us nothing about individual visitors.
What we do not do
- No accounts, sign-ins or contact details.
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No tracking across other apps or websites.
- We never sell your information, and we never share it for advertising.
Children
Philly3D is for a general audience and does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The apps collect none from anyone, and the website's analytics are counted anonymously and are not linked to anyone.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the date at the top will change with it. Questions: privacy@philly3d.com.