Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Egypt Trains collects, uses, and protects your information when you use our website and services. The privacy of our visitors is a top priority.

1. Information We Collect

Information You Provide

We collect information you voluntarily provide when:

• Contacting us through the contact form (name, email, message)
• Submitting feedback or reporting issues

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit our website, we automatically collect some information:

• IP address and browser type and version
• Device information and pages visited
• Referral sources and on-site search queries

2. How We Use Your Information

• Service delivery: Providing train information, improving search functionality, and personalizing user experience
• Communication: Responding to your inquiries and sending service updates when necessary
• Analysis and improvement: Analyzing usage patterns, improving site performance, and developing new features

3. Information Sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We do not sell, rent, or share your information with third parties for marketing purposes. We may only share your information with:

• Service providers: Trusted service providers who help us operate the website
• Legal requirements: When legally required or by court order

4. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical measures to protect your information, including SSL/TLS encryption for all connections, secure data storage, and regular security updates.

5. Cookies and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies to improve your experience:

• Essential cookies: Necessary for basic website functionality
• Analytics cookies: Through tools like Google Analytics to understand how the site is used
• Preference cookies: Remember your language and display preferences

6. Advertisements

We may use third-party advertising services (such as Google AdSense), which may use cookies to serve ads based on your visits. You can control ad settings through your browser settings or by visiting www.aboutads.info/choices.

7. Mobile App Data (Permissions & Location)

When you use the Egypt Trains mobile app on Android or iOS, it may request the following permissions. All of them are optional and only work after your explicit action:

Location (foreground and background)

• Your location is yours: the nearest station and trip alerts are computed on your device. When you request directions to a station, the route is calculated transiently through our servers without storing your coordinates or linking them to your identity or membership ID.
• Trip alerts: if you enable trip alerts, the app monitors your location in the background during your journey — even with the screen off — to notify you before reaching your stop. Coordinates are processed on your device only; tracking stops automatically when you arrive or leave the train route, can be stopped at any time, and a persistent notification is shown while it runs.
• Train delay sharing: an entirely optional feature — when you enable it, other users see the train's delay and its approximate position along its line, together with your nickname. Your GPS coordinates are never transmitted at any time, and you cannot be personally tracked.
• We never build a history of your locations, never use them for advertising, and nothing that identifies you ever reaches any external party.

Physical activity recognition

Used only while trip tracking is active, to distinguish the train moving from stopping and to detect that you left the train so tracking stops automatically and saves battery. Data is processed on-device in real time, never stored, never transmitted, and never used for any health purpose.

Microphone & voice search

The microphone is used only when you tap the voice-search button; audio is converted to text by the operating system's speech-recognition service (Apple / Google). We do not record or store your voice, and we never send the audio or the recognized text to our servers or anyone else.

Train chat

• Your messages in chat rooms are stored on our servers and shown to riders in the room under your nickname; we keep only the most recent messages per room.
• When a message is reported, moderators can see the message text plus the reporting and reported membership IDs in order to review the report.
• Violations may lead to message deletion or a temporary or permanent ban.

Fare & seat updates

To keep ticket prices and seat availability accurate and up to date, this data is refreshed from the official Egyptian National Railways source. These lookups contain no personal data — no name, no membership ID, and no location; only the route and date being queried.

Notifications and membership ID

• We use Firebase Cloud Messaging for schedule and news notifications; your device's notification token is stored on our servers linked to your membership ID to deliver them. You can disable notifications in your device settings.
• The app generates a random membership ID that is not linked to your real identity and requires no name or email; it stores your contribution points and nickname. You can permanently delete your account in-app (Settings → Delete Account) and its data is erased from our servers after a 30-day grace period.
• The app shows ads via Google AdMob, which may collect the advertising ID to serve relevant ads under the Google Privacy Policy. We use Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics for anonymous usage statistics (screens used, routes searched, feature usage) and crash reports to improve the app — these are not linked to your membership ID and never include your location or your voice-search text.

8. Your Rights

You have rights regarding your information including: requesting access to your data, requesting correction or deletion, and unsubscribing from any communications at any time.

9. Policy Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date. Your continued use of the website means acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your rights, please contact us through the contact page. We will respond to privacy requests within 30 days.