Privacy — Guardia
Last updated 23 September 2026
The principle
Guardia reads numbers the Quebec health ministry publishes openly, through a relay of ours that stands between the app and the ministry’s files. It has no account, and the relay keeps no record of who asked. We never receive, store or see any of your data. There is nothing for us to sell, lose or hand over, because there is nothing on our side to begin with.
What the app keeps
Guardia records what you put into it:
- which emergency rooms you marked as favourites
- the last set of public numbers it received, so the app opens on something
- whether you agreed to share your location
Where it lives
On your device. If you turn iCloud on, it also syncs through your own private iCloud database, which Apple encrypts and which we cannot open, read or list. We have no key and no access of any kind.
What it asks permission for
Every one of these is optional. Refuse any of them and the rest of the app keeps working.
- Location, while the app is open
- Asked once, and only if you tap the button. It is used to measure how far each room is and to ask Apple Maps for driving times. It stops the moment you leave the app, and it is never sent to us. Say no and Guardia still works: you get the waits, filtered by region.
What leaves the device
The app has no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising and no third-party kit of any kind. What it does send, it sends only to the services below, and only for what you asked it to do:
- Our relay, guardia.nidello.ca
- The app asks it three things: the current state, a room’s last 24 hours, and a room’s average week. The requests carry nothing but the fingerprint of the copy already on your phone — no location, no device identifier, no account. Opening a room’s page does tell the relay which room you opened; it keeps no log of it, no address and no identifier. What it stores is the public readings themselves, for 400 days, so the curves have a past.
- Apple Maps
- Receives your starting point and the nearest rooms, to compute driving times, and again if you ask for directions. That exchange is between you and Apple.
- The App Store
- Only if you tap through to another Nidello app from the About screen.
None of it reaches us. We have no server in any of these paths, and we never receive a copy.
Guardia gives no medical advice and does no triage. The waiting times it shows are its own estimate, built from public occupancy figures — not an official number. In an emergency, call 911.
Your data is yours
Export everything, whenever you want, without asking us. Delete the app and what was only on the device is gone; what synced to iCloud goes when you remove it from your iCloud settings. We cannot recover any of it for you, because we never had it.
Children
The app is not directed at children and collects nothing about anyone, of any age.
Changes to this page
If the app ever starts doing something this page does not describe, this page changes first. The date at the top says when it last did.
Your rights
Quebec’s Law 25 and similar laws elsewhere give you the right to access, correct and delete the personal information a business holds about you. In our case the answer is the same every time: we hold none. Your information is on your device and in your own iCloud, where you can already read, change and delete all of it yourself.
Contact
Nidello — Canada — [email protected]