Privacy Policy

Summary

FAR/AIM Search does not collect data. It has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking, and it sends Motomatic LLC nothing about what you read, search or save.

• Searching and reading happen on your iPhone or iPad, and what you type into search is never sent to us.
• Your bookmarks, highlights, notes, folders and recent searches (what you typed) are stored on your device and, if you use iCloud, in your own iCloud account, which we cannot read.
• To keep the text current, the app asks our content server whether newer regulation and AIM text has been published, and downloads it. These requests carry no account, no device identifier and nothing about what you read, search or save. Like any request on the internet, they come from your network’s IP address. Cloudflare serves them for us.

This matches the privacy details we give Apple for the App Store listing: Data Not Collected.

What the app does not collect

• No account and no sign-in, so no name, email address or password.
• No analytics, advertising, crash-reporting or attribution software. The only third-party code in the app is GRDB, a database library; it reads the app’s own database on the device and makes no connections.
• No tracking, no advertising identifier and no App Tracking Transparency prompt. The app’s privacy manifest (the file Apple requires every app to include about the data it uses) declares no tracking and no collected data.
• No access to your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone. The app asks for no permissions.
• No in-app purchases and no payment information. The app is free.
• No sale or sharing of data with anyone.

Data on your device

The app keeps these in its own storage on your iPhone or iPad:

• Bookmarks, highlights and notes. For each item: the citation and title of the section, the passage you selected and its position in the text, the color and style, your note or the bookmark’s name, its folder, the edition of the text it was last checked against, the earlier wording if an update changed the passage, whether it is waiting for your review, and when it was created and last changed.
• Folders. The name and color of each folder, their order, and when each was created.
• Recent searches. Up to 200 searches, each with what you typed, when you last used it, how often, and the result you opened.
• Your reading position. Where you were last reading and the last ten documents you opened, each with its citation, title, the time, and the name iOS gives the device (for example “iPad”), so Continue reading can say which device it came from.
• Settings. Your choices such as theme, reading font, text size, line spacing and reader profile, and the screens you had open.
• App status. When the app last checked for content updates, when iCloud last synced, and which saved sections were amended after you saved items in them.
• Downloaded content. Regulation, AIM and glossary text that the app downloaded in a content update, with its figures.

Search runs on this data and on the content database on the device. None of it is sent to us.

As iOS does for any app, everything above except the downloaded content is included in your device’s iCloud Backup or computer backup, if you make one. Downloaded content is excluded from backups.

iCloud sync

If you are signed in to iCloud on your device, the app keeps a copy of your bookmarks, highlights, notes, folders and recent searches in the private database of your own iCloud account (Apple’s CloudKit), so they appear on your other iPhone or iPad signed in to the same Apple Account. Your reading position and recently viewed list go through iCloud key-value storage, a small store Apple keeps for each app in your account, so Continue reading works on your other devices too.

This data is in your iCloud account, not in ours. Apple stores it under Apple’s Privacy Policy. Motomatic LLC cannot read it, and nothing in it is sent to us. The app needs no sign-in of its own; the Sync section of the app’s Settings shows whether sync is on.

Turning sync off

In the Settings app, tap your name, then iCloud, and turn off FAR/AIM Search in the list of apps that use iCloud. Your items stay in your iCloud account and sync again when you turn it back on. If you sign out of iCloud, iOS may remove the synced items from the device until you sign in again. To keep a copy of your own, make a Backup of All Saved Items first (see Exports, backups and sharing).

Deleting what is in iCloud

While sync is on, deleting a bookmark, highlight, note or folder in the app also deletes it from iCloud and from your other devices. To delete recent searches, touch and hold one and choose Remove, or tap Clear under Recent searches to delete them all. To remove the app’s data from iCloud at once, use iCloud storage management in the Settings app (your name, then iCloud, then the option to manage storage) and delete the data of FAR/AIM Search. Deleting the app from a device does not delete its iCloud data. The reading position in key-value storage holds only your latest place and the last ten documents you opened; it is replaced as you read, and the app has no separate control that deletes it.

Content updates

To keep the regulations, the AIM and the glossary current between app releases, the app asks content.motomatic.com whether a newer edition of the content has been published, and downloads it if there is one.

When the app connects

• Automatically: about eight seconds after you open the app, if more than 24 hours have passed since the last successful check. If you leave the app before then, it waits until you open it again. The app does not check while it runs in the background, but a download that has started can finish after you leave the app. This check, and the download that follows when a newer edition is available, use Wi-Fi or a wired connection only: iOS keeps them off cellular data, Personal Hotspot and networks in Low Data Mode.
• When you ask: when you tap Check for updates (or Check again or Try again) in Settings, under Content. This check uses whatever network you are on. The app shows what it found and downloads only when you tap Download, which shows the size of the content database (figures the device does not have yet come on top of it).

A check requests one small file, manifest.json, that names the current edition. A download requests the compressed content database, a list of its figures, and the figures the device does not have yet. All of these files are under https://content.motomatic.com/faraim/.

What a request contains

Address

The address of the file, with nothing added to it.

Accept

The kind of file expected (a JSON file, an image or a download). This is the only header the app sets.

User-Agent

Added by iOS to every request: the app’s name (FARAIM), its build number, and the version numbers of iOS and its networking library, which show which iOS version the device runs.

Accept-Language

Added by iOS: the languages your device prefers.

Accept-Encoding

Added by iOS: the compression formats the device accepts.

Cache-Control

Added by iOS: no-cache, because the app tells it never to reuse a stored copy.

Nothing else is sent: no cookies, no stored passwords or credentials, no account, no identifier of the device or of the installation, and nothing about your searches, reading or notes. As with any connection on the internet, the request comes from the IP address of the network you are on. Only HTTPS is used.

Who receives the requests, and what is kept

The files are stored in Cloudflare R2 and served by Cloudflare, Inc. at content.motomatic.com. Cloudflare sees the IP address and the contents of each request described above, as any web host would. Cloudflare serves these requests for us and also processes them for its own network security and operations, as described in Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

We have turned off every per-request log our setup allows: request logging for the storage is off, and no logs are exported. One record cannot be turned off on our Cloudflare plan: Cloudflare’s security analytics for our motomatic.com domain show a sample of recent requests, with their IP addresses, for at least 31 days. We do not export these samples, use them, or link them to anything else.

If you do not want update checks

The app has no setting that turns update checks off. Automatic checks never use cellular data, and turning off Cellular Data for FAR/AIM Search in the Settings app keeps a manual check off cellular too. Without updates, the app keeps the text it has, and new text arrives with app updates from the App Store.

Links to other sites

Links to other websites, mostly ecfr.gov, federalregister.gov, faa.gov and govinfo.gov, such as View on eCFR in the reader, the source links under Editions and Sources, and the links to this website in Settings, open in Safari inside the app or in your browser. Those sites receive your visit as they would from your browser and have their own privacy policies. The app adds nothing about you to these links and does not see what you do on those sites.

Exports, backups and sharing

The app creates files and copies only when you ask it to:

• Notes and Highlights (Markdown) and Notes and Highlights (Plain Text) export your bookmarks, highlights and notes as text.
• Backup of All Saved Items writes a JSON file with your bookmarks, highlights, notes, folders and recent searches. Import Backup reads only the file you pick.
• Share Section, Print Section, Copy with Citation and Share with Citation pass text you chose to the share sheet, a printer or the clipboard.

These go where you send them. They are never sent to us. To hand a file to the share sheet, the app writes it to its temporary folder (Share Section writes a PDF there too). iOS removes files in that folder from time to time, and they are not included in backups. A backup file holds your notes as plain text, so keep it where you would keep the notes themselves.

Apple

You get the app from Apple’s App Store, and iCloud sync and device backups are Apple services. Apple handles that data under Apple’s Privacy Policy.

If you choose to share analytics with app developers in your device’s settings, Apple may give us crash reports and app usage statistics. Apple collects these; the app does not send them. Apple’s sales and download reports to developers do not name you.

For iCloud sync, Apple shows us a week of technical logs of sync requests (the time, the device platform and system version, and the kind of operation) under an anonymous identifier that Apple creates for this app. They never contain your notes or other saved items.

Other companies

We do not sell, rent or share personal data. These companies handle data in connection with the app or this website:

• Apple: the App Store, iCloud sync and device backups, in your own Apple Account.
• Cloudflare: content update requests and visits to this website, which it serves for us and also processes for its own network security and operations (see Content updates and This website).
• GitHub: hosting the pages of this website behind Cloudflare (see This website).
• Our email provider: messages you send to support (see Email to support).

Any company that has access to data described in this policy, including our service providers, provides the same or equal protection of that data as this policy describes.

Keeping and deleting data

• On your device: kept until you delete it in the app or delete the app. Deleting the app removes everything it stored on that device; backups made earlier keep their copies.
• In iCloud: kept in your account until you delete it, as described under iCloud sync.
• Update requests: we keep no logs of them. The sample in Cloudflare’s security analytics for our domain covers at least the last 31 days. What Cloudflare itself keeps is governed by Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
• Visits to this website: we keep no logs of them. Cloudflare’s security analytics for this domain keep a sample for at least 31 days, and GitHub logs IP addresses as described under This website.
• Support email: kept to answer you and follow up, and deleted when you ask.

Because the app collects nothing, there is no app data on our side to export or delete: the data is on your devices and in your iCloud account, and you control it there. The app asks for no permissions and needs no consent from you, and you can stop iCloud sync or delete the app at any time. For questions about your data, or to have your support emails deleted, write to [email protected].

Children

The app has no accounts and collects no personal information from anyone, including children under 13. It has no features aimed at children.

This website

faraimsearch.com is a set of plain pages hosted on GitHub Pages and served through Cloudflare, which provides the HTTPS connection. It uses no cookies, no analytics, no trackers and no scripts, and it loads nothing from other sites: its fonts and images are served from this site.

GitHub’s documentation says: “When a GitHub Pages site is visited, the visitor’s IP address is logged and stored for security purposes, regardless of whether the visitor has signed into GitHub or not.” GitHub handles that data under the GitHub General Privacy Statement. We do not receive these logs.

Cloudflare sees the IP address and the request of each visit, as it does for content updates, and processes them under Cloudflare’s privacy policy. We keep no logs of visits and export none. As for content updates, Cloudflare’s security analytics for this domain show a sample of recent requests, with their IP addresses, for at least 31 days; we do not export these samples, use them, or link them to anything else.

Email to support

If you email [email protected], we receive your email address, your message and anything you attach. We use them only to answer you, share them with no one except the service that hosts our mailbox, and delete them when you ask. Email is separate from the app: the app never sends email on its own.

Changes to this policy

If the app, its content updates or this website start handling data differently, we will update this policy before the change takes effect and change the effective date at the top. The current policy is always at faraimsearch.com/privacy.html. The Privacy screen in the app’s Settings summarizes it and links to it.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about how the app handles data? Email [email protected], or write to Motomatic LLC, 701 Tillery St Ste 12 B109, Austin, TX 78702, United States.