LAST UPDATED 25 AUGUST 2026
Chicrime has no accounts, no logins and no user profiles. We never learn your name, email address or phone number, because the app never asks for any of them and has nowhere to put them.
This document describes exactly what does move, and where it goes. It is written to be checkable rather than reassuring.
| Data | Where it goes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Home coordinates | Chicrime server | To work out which incidents fall inside your alert radius. Stored as a latitude and longitude, not as an address. |
| Alert settings | Chicrime server | Radius, which crime types you want, and quiet hours. Needed to decide whether to send you anything. |
| Push token | Chicrime server, then Apple or Google | The address a notification is delivered to. Issued by your operating system and revocable by turning notifications off. |
| Install identifier | Chicrime server | A random string generated on your device the first time the app runs. It is not your device's hardware ID, is not shared with anyone, and is destroyed when you uninstall. |
| Followed cases | Chicrime server | Police case numbers you asked to be told about. Public record identifiers, not personal data. |
| Advertising ID | Google AdMob | Read by the ad SDK. See Advertising below. Not read at all if you have purchased ad removal. |
Your continuous location. Chicrime requests location only when you tap auto-detect, uses it once to fill in a home address, and does not track movement. There is no background location permission, so the app cannot follow you even if it wanted to. You can skip location entirely and type an address instead; nothing else changes.
Chicrime is free and supported by banner ads rather than a subscription. The ad SDK reads your device's advertising identifier in order to serve them. That is genuine data collection and we would rather state it plainly than bury it.
We send the ad network nothing. Not your home address, not your alert radius, not which incidents you looked at. Ads appear only on the list and settings screens — never on the map, and never beside an individual incident.
On iOS you will be asked whether Chicrime may track you. If you allow it, the ad network may link your advertising identifier with data it holds from other apps and websites in order to personalise the ads. Under Apple's definition that is tracking, and we would rather say so than describe it as merely "personalising". If you decline, ads still appear but are not personalised, and nothing else about Chicrime changes.
One purchase removes ads permanently. Once you have bought it the advertising SDK is not loaded at all, so no advertising identifier is read.
Uninstalling the app removes the install identifier and settings from your device, and your push token stops working. To have the server-side record erased as well, email the address below with nothing more than a request — you will not need to identify yourself, because we cannot identify you.
Chicrime is not directed at children and is not designed for them. We do not knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13.
Chicrime republishes public records from the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Medical Examiner. Locations are anonymised by those offices to the block, never a specific address. Reports are preliminary and may be reclassified or withdrawn. Chicrime is not affiliated with the City of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department or Cook County.
This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one’s own risk.
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect, the date at the top changes and the app will say so before the change takes effect.