Privacy
How the City Layers app and the maps on this site handle your information. The short version: no accounts, no analytics, no ads, and nothing about you is sold.
In short
- There are no accounts, no sign-ups and no tracking. The app and the website don’t use analytics tools, advertising, or tracking cookies.
- Your location is optional, is only used when you ask for it, and stays on your device.
- Searching for an address sends what you type to a search service (Apple in the app, OpenStreetMap on the website) so it can find the place.
- Your settings are saved on your own device, not on a server run by me.
- I don’t sell, rent or share personal information, because I don’t collect it.
City Layers app (iOS)
LAST UPDATED · OCTOBER 9, 2026
What the app is
City Layers shows neighbourhood and community-area map layers, and a “What’s here” card describing a spot you pick, for Toronto and Chicago. It is made by Nouman Khan, an individual developer.
Your location
Location access is optional. The app only uses it when you tap the button to find your location, to place the map pin near you. Working out which neighbourhood, ward or district you’re in happens on your device. Your location is not sent to me, not stored on a server, not sold, and not used for advertising or tracking. You can turn location access off at any time in iOS Settings, and the app still works: you can drop a pin or search instead.
Address and place search
When you search for an address, the app uses Apple’s maps and search services (MapKit), so what you type is sent to Apple to find the place. Apple handles that under its own privacy policy. Map display also comes from Apple Maps.
Map and census data
The map layers and neighbourhood facts are public open data (from the City of Toronto, the City of Chicago, Statistics Canada, the U.S. Census Bureau, OpenStreetMap and others, credited in the app’s About screen and on the Attributions page). The app comes with a copy of this data so it works offline, and it downloads updates from layers.city. Those downloads are ordinary file requests: they don’t include your location, searches or any identifier, though, as with any web request, the server that delivers the files sees your device’s IP address (see the website section).
What’s stored on your device
The app saves your preferences (such as your preferred city), your last pin, and a snapshot of the “What’s here” card so the home-screen widget can show it. These stay on your device, in storage shared only between the app and its own widget. Deleting the app deletes them.
What the app doesn’t do
- No accounts or sign-in.
- No analytics or tracking tools, and no advertising.
- No collection of contacts, photos, health data or other personal information.
- No selling or sharing of personal data with anyone.
If you choose to share something from the app (for example a link to a spot on the map), it goes only where you send it, through the iOS share sheet.
This website
LAST UPDATED · OCTOBER 9, 2026
This covers layers.city, including Toronto Layers and Chicago Layers.
No accounts, analytics or ads
The maps don’t use analytics tools, advertising or tracking cookies, and you don’t need an account.
Hosting and the services the page loads
The site is hosted on GitHub Pages. Like any website, loading it means your browser connects to some outside services, which receive your IP address and basic browser details as part of that connection:
- GitHub, which hosts the pages and map data (GitHub’s privacy statement).
- Google Fonts, for the map’s typeface (Google’s privacy policy).
- cdnjs (Cloudflare) and jsDelivr, which serve the open-source map libraries.
I don’t receive or keep these logs.
Address search
When you search for an address, what you type is sent to OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service to find it (OpenStreetMap Foundation privacy policy). Suggestions for landmarks and place names come from the map’s own data, in your browser, and aren’t sent anywhere.
Your location and pins
The website doesn’t ask for your location. When you drop a pin, working out what it falls in happens in your browser. Shareable links keep the map position and pin in the part of the link after the #, which browsers don’t send to the server; it only goes to whoever you share the link with.
Saving images
The “Image” button creates the picture in your browser. The first time you use it, a small open-source library is loaded from jsDelivr.
What’s stored in your browser
The site saves a few display settings in your browser’s local storage: light or dark theme, whether the side panel is folded, and which card sections are open. These are not cookies, aren’t sent anywhere, and you can clear them by clearing your browser’s site data.
Contact and changes
Questions about privacy: hello@noumankhan.ca.
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new date. Material changes will be noted at the top.