In short
PhoTether connects your phone to your own camera and moves your own photographs to places you choose. It has no user accounts, shows no advertising, and contains no analytics, tracking, or crash-reporting software. Nothing is uploaded to the developer. The only data that leaves your device goes either to your camera, to a destination you configured yourself, or — for the optional place-name feature — to your device's own geocoding service.
What the app handles, and why
Photographs and videos
Images and videos you transfer are copied from your camera to storage private to PhoTether on your device. They stay there until you delete them, or delete the app.
You may additionally send them to a destination you configure:
- an SMB/Windows network share,
- an FTP/FTPS server,
- a folder you pick on the device or on removable storage.
These are your servers and folders. PhoTether has no destination of its own, and the developer operates no server that this app talks to.
Location
If you enable geotagging, PhoTether reads your device's location and:
- sends it to your camera over the Bluetooth Low Energy link, so the camera can write coordinates into the images it records, and
- writes coordinates into image metadata on the device.
Location is used for nothing else. It is not logged to any remote service and it is not sold, shared, or transmitted anywhere except to your own camera.
Geotagging while the app is in the background is served by a foreground service, which is visible as an ongoing notification whenever it runs. The app does not request the Android background location permission.
Place names (optional)
If you turn on the place badge in the gallery, PhoTether asks Android's built-in geocoding service to turn coordinates into a place name. On devices with Google Play services, that request is answered by Google, and the coordinates are therefore sent to Google under Google's privacy policy. This is the only feature that sends data to a third party. It is off unless you switch it on, and switching it off stops the requests.
Credentials for your destinations
Usernames and passwords for SMB or FTP destinations are stored encrypted on the device, using a key held in the Android Keystore. They are transmitted only to the server you entered them for, in order to log in to it.
Diagnostic log
The app keeps a rolling diagnostic log on the device to make connection problems investigable. It records connection events and errors, and deliberately redacts pairing secrets. It is never transmitted anywhere automatically. It leaves the device only if you explicitly share it, at which point it goes wherever you send it.
Permissions
| Permission | Why the app asks |
|---|---|
| Bluetooth (scan, connect) | Find and hold the link to your camera. Declared neverForLocation — the app does not use Bluetooth to infer your position. |
| Location (precise/approximate) | Geotagging, as described above. Android also requires location access for some Wi-Fi operations. |
| Nearby Wi-Fi devices | Join the camera's own Wi-Fi access point. Declared neverForLocation. |
| Internet / network state | Talk to the camera, and reach the upload destination you configured. |
| Notifications | Show the ongoing camera-session notification and transfer progress. |
| Foreground service (connected device, location) | Keep a camera session and geotag push alive while the app is not in the foreground. |
| Ignore battery optimisations | Optional, and only if you grant it. Android's Doze mode can suspend the camera heartbeat while the screen is off, which drops the session. |
| Run at startup | Restore a previously configured camera session state after a reboot. |
| USB host | Wired tethering to a camera over USB. |
What the app does not do
- No user accounts, sign-in, or profile.
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No analytics or telemetry SDKs of any kind.
- No crash reporting to the developer.
- No sale or sharing of personal information.
- No data collected about you by the developer — there is no developer-operated server.
Data retention and deletion
Everything the app holds — images, settings, credentials, logs, camera pairings — lives on your device. Deleting content inside the app removes it. Uninstalling PhoTether removes all of it, except for files you exported to a folder or uploaded to a destination you chose, which remain under your control at that destination.
Because no data reaches the developer, there is no account to close and no server-side deletion request to make.
Children
PhoTether is a tool for operating photographic equipment and is not directed at children.
Changes
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this URL with a new "last updated" date.