Privacy Policy

PlugCam is a dash cam app for Android Automotive cars, made by PlugLog. It plays the clips your car's dash cam records, shows your speed and battery power on them, and can back them up to the cloud. This policy covers the PlugCam app and the website at plugcam.app.

PlugCam uses your PlugLog account: the same sign-in, the same cloud storage and the same Pro plan. What PlugLog's own apps and website collect is described in PlugLog's privacy policy; this page describes what PlugCam collects and does on its own. Questions go to support@pluglog.app.

Your dash cam clips, on the car

You choose your dash cam's folder (on its USB drive or SD card) with Android's folder picker, and PlugCam reads the clips in it to show and play them. It needs no access to your car's other files, and it never deletes or changes anything in that folder. It keeps small preview pictures of clips on the car, and what you do with them there: the clips you keep, their tags and when you last opened PlugCam (to mark new clips).

Drive data, on the car

While your car is on, PlugCam records once a second its speed, and for an electric vehicle its battery power and charge (%). With Location on, it records the car's position too. This is kept on the car in hourly files for 30 days, then deleted, so your clips can show the speed and power at each moment and be grouped into drives. PlugCam runs a small background service for this, with a notification that says PlugCam is recording drive data, and starts it when the car starts.

With Location on, PlugCam names your drives and clips by town (“Fort Wayne, IN”) using your car's built-in Android place lookup (Android's Geocoder), and keeps those names on the car. PlugCam doesn't send your position to us for this; the lookup is done by your car's system, which may use its own location service, such as the car maker's or Google's.

Your vehicle

What the car reports about itself: its model year, make, model, what it runs on (electric or gas) and an electric vehicle's battery size. PlugCam uses it to set up or match the vehicle in your PlugLog account and to work out the battery charge. It doesn't read your car's VIN.

Your account and sign-in

If the PlugLog car app is on the same car and signed in, PlugCam uses its sign-in, so there's nothing more to do. Otherwise you sign in to PlugCam with your PlugLog account: by scanning a QR code with your phone, or with a sign-in link emailed to you (app reviewers use an access code instead). Signing in this way creates a PlugLog account if you don't have one. PlugCam keeps its sign-in tokens on the car, encrypted with a key held in Android's secure key store, and never logs them. It also keeps which vehicle in your account this car is.

Clips you back up

Backup is off until you turn it on, and is part of PlugLog Pro. With Over Wi-Fi on, PlugCam uploads the clips from the cameras you choose to your account, over Wi-Fi only unless you also allow Over the vehicle's data (your car's cellular connection). Clips you keep, and any clip you choose to back up, upload from every camera. With each clip go its file name, when it was recorded and how long it is, its tag, whether you kept it, and its drive data: the speed and (for an electric vehicle) battery power for each second of it. A clip's drive data never includes your position. The video itself shows whatever the cameras saw.

Drives you back up

If you sign in to PlugCam itself (not through the PlugLog car app) and answer yes to Back up your drives to PlugLog? (or turn on Drives), PlugCam sends each drive to your PlugLog account once it ends: its start and end times, route, distance and speeds, and for an electric vehicle its battery energy, power and charge. This needs Location on, because a drive goes with its route. When you turn it on, drives still in the last 30 days of drive data are sent too. If the PlugLog car app is recording your drives on this car, PlugCam doesn't send any.

A backup log, only if you turn it on

If the PlugLog car app's debug log is on, PlugCam also sends a short log of what its backup did (which clips uploaded, or why one couldn't) and its app version, to help us fix problems. It has no video or drive data in it.

On plugcam.app

When you sign in on the website, your email address, to send you a sign-in link. The site uses two cookies: one that keeps you signed in and one, for a few minutes, that finishes signing in from the link. There are no advertising, analytics or third-party tracking cookies.

• Location, including in the background: to record where the car is with its drive data while the car is on, even when PlugCam isn't on screen, since you're driving, not looking at the app. It's used for town names on your drives and clips and, only if you back up drives, their routes. Turn off Location in PlugCam's Backup page to stop recording positions (the town names it worked out are forgotten), or deny the permission in your car's settings.
• Car speed and car energy: to read the car's speed and an electric vehicle's battery power and charge, shown on your clips as they play.
• Car information: to read the car's make, model, year, fuel type and battery size.
• Internet and network state: to sign in, back up clips and drives, and play backed-up clips, and to back up over Wi-Fi only unless you allow your car's data.
• Notifications and foreground services: to show that PlugCam is recording drive data or uploading clips, and the player's controls when a clip plays in the background.
• Run at startup: to start recording drive data when the car starts, and after PlugCam updates.

PlugCam doesn't ask for camera, microphone, contacts or storage permissions: it reads only the folder you choose.

To run PlugCam for you: showing and playing your clips with their speed and power, grouping them into drives, naming places, backing up and storing your clips and drives, signing you in, and emailing you about your account, such as sign-in links and a warning when kept clips fill most of your video storage. We also use it to fix problems. We don't use your data or videos for advertising, and we don't use your videos to train AI models.

What you choose to share

You can share a backed-up drive's clips, every camera, with Share link. They then appear on your PlugLog public profile, which anyone with its link can see, along with your first name. A shared video shows what the cameras saw, which can include where you were. You can stop sharing at any time. Public pages aren't listed in search engines.

Your drives in PlugLog

Drives PlugCam backs up are drives in your PlugLog account, so PlugLog's settings apply to them, including its anonymous efficiency figures for each electric vehicle model, which never include your name, account, routes or locations, and which you can opt out of in PlugLog. See PlugLog's privacy policy.

Service providers

We use a few companies to run PlugCam. They handle data only to provide their service to us:

• Cloudflare hosts plugcam.app and pluglog.app, stores our database and your backed-up clips, and sends our emails.
• Google distributes PlugCam through Google Play.
• Stripe processes payments for PlugLog Pro (bought on pluglog.app, not in the app), under its own privacy policy. Your card details go to Stripe, never to us.

When the law requires it

We may disclose information if we're legally required to, or to protect people's safety or PlugCam from fraud or abuse. If PlugLog is ever sold or merged, this policy continues to apply to your data, and we'll tell you before anything changes.

• On the car: drive data for 30 days; clips stay on your dash cam's drive, which your dash cam manages, not PlugCam.
• Backed-up clips: until you delete them, or, for clips you haven't kept or shared, until newer backups need the room in your storage (the oldest go first). Kept and shared clips stay until you delete them. A backed-up clip that's no longer on the dash cam's drive before it finished uploading is deleted.
• Backed-up drives and your account: until you delete them.
• Backup logs: 4 days.
• If you delete your account, everything in it is deleted right away, including your clips and drives. It can't be recovered.

• Turn off Location, drive backup or clip backup in PlugCam's Backup page at any time, or sign out there.
• Delete backed-up clips on pluglog.app's Videos page, drives in PlugLog, or your whole account and everything in it in PlugLog's Settings → Data.
• Download your drives as CSV files from PlugLog's Settings → Data.
• Remove PlugCam from your car to delete everything it kept there.

Depending on where you live, you may have further rights over your data, such as asking what we hold about you. Email support@pluglog.app and we'll help.

Everything PlugCam sends travels over encrypted connections, and backed-up clips are stored privately, encrypted at rest. You sign in with one-time links, QR codes or codes instead of passwords, and PlugCam's access can be signed out at any time. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data and will tell you if a breach affects it.

PlugCam is meant for drivers, and isn't directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect their data.

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. For significant changes, we'll tell you by email or in the app before they take effect.

Questions or requests about your privacy: support@pluglog.app. PlugCam's terms are PlugLog's Terms of Service.