Privacy Policy
Last updated 9 November 2026
NJ Commute puts a countdown to your next NJ TRANSIT bus or train on your Lock Screen. To do that, the app talks to one service of ours, which follows the buses and trains for you and keeps your card up to date. This page says what the app sends it, what each thing is for, how long it's kept, and how to delete it.
While NJ Commute is in testing. The app is in a private test and isn't on the App Store yet. Until it is, everything below holds except two things: ride data is kept without a time limit, so that the boarding detection can be tuned against real rides, and “Forget this device” signs the phone out without deleting its data from the service. To have it deleted now, email njcommute@j0wy.com. Both change before anyone outside the test can install it.
No account
There is no sign-up. NJ Commute never asks for your name, email address, phone number or a password. When you first open it, the phone proves to the service that it's a genuine copy of the app (Apple's App Attest) and is given a random device ID. That ID is what your data is filed under; it isn't connected to your Apple Account or to anything that names you.
What the app sends, and why
- Your cards
- The stops, days, times, lead time and name you give each card. So the service knows what to count down to, and when to start and end the card.
- Your settings
- Which alerts you want (delays, the next bus) and the experimental “count from where you are” switch. The service sends the alerts, so it needs to know which ones.
- Push tokens
- The tokens iOS issues so the service can start and update your Live Activity. Without them the card can't change on your Lock Screen.
- Precise location, around a ride only
- When you arrive at a card's stop, the phone notices (iOS tells the app when you enter the area around the stop) and from then on sends its location every few seconds, until you get off, leave the stop without boarding, or the card's time window closes, and never for more than three hours. iOS shows its location indicator the whole time. At any other time the app sends no location. To tell whether you boarded, which bus or train you're on, and where you got off, so the card can follow your trip.
- Your location when you look for stops near you
- Sent with the request to find the stops, and not stored.
- Rides
- Which bus or train you boarded, at which stop and when, and where and when you got off. So the card can follow the trip you're on, and so that your commute history is there for you.
- Diagnostics
- During a ride, the app's own record of its location tracking: when it started and stopped and why, when iOS moved the app to the background, gaps between fixes, and the battery level and Low Power Mode. To find out why tracking stopped when it shouldn't have.
- Ordinary request data
- Like every web service, ours receives your IP address with each request. We don't store it. Our host, Cloudflare, keeps logs of requests for a few days, which we use only to find faults.
NJ Commute doesn't read your contacts, photos, calendar or health data, and it has no ads.
What we don't do
- We don't track you. Nothing the app collects is used for advertising, combined with data from other companies, or shared with data brokers, so the app never needs to ask your permission to track you.
- We don't sell or rent your data, and we don't share it with anyone, except the service providers who run the service on our behalf (below) or where the law requires it.
- We don't send your location to NJ TRANSIT. The app never talks to NJ TRANSIT at all: our service fetches the departures once a minute for everyone, and nothing in that request is about you.
Who else handles it
- Cloudflare hosts the service and stores its data, in the United States.
- Apple delivers the Live Activity's updates (Apple Push Notification service) and checks the app is genuine (App Attest). Apple's own privacy policy covers what it does with them.
How long it's kept
- Precise location: 30 days.
- Diagnostics and boarding records: 90 days.
- Rides: one year.
- Cards, settings and push tokens: as long as you use the app, and deleted when you forget the device.
- A device that hasn't been in touch for a year is deleted with all of its data.
Vehicle positions and departures from NJ TRANSIT's feeds are kept longer, to learn how long buses really take between stops. They are about the vehicles, not about you, and contain nothing from your phone.
Deleting your data
In the app, open Settings and tap Forget this device. The service deletes everything it holds for your device (cards, settings, push tokens, location, rides and diagnostics) and the phone signs out. Deleting the app alone doesn't reach the service, so forget the device first. You can also email njcommute@j0wy.com with the device ID shown in Settings, and we'll delete it for you.
Your choices
- Location: “While Using” works; the card can't notice you reaching the stop with the phone in your pocket, so you tap Boarded instead. “Never” turns off boarding detection altogether, and the card still counts down.
- Alerts can be turned off in Settings.
Children
NJ Commute isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new date. If a change means collecting something new or using it in a new way, the app will say so before it happens.
Contact
Questions about privacy: njcommute@j0wy.com.