For many first-time users, allowing FireServiceRota to access their location may seem daunting.
Understanding their concerns, this article is aimed at answering the most frequently asked questions regarding data usage, privacy concerns and benefits of allowing FSR to use your location information.
What is your location used for?
As stated in our Privacy Policy: “If necessary, we may collect your location data (GPS). We may do this to warn you if you are available but too far away from the station, or to show your location while responding to an incident. Before tracking your location, you will be asked to grant consent and tracking can be switched off any time. Location information is deleted after 24 hours.”
Your location will never be shared to a third-party or for different purposes other than the ones stated on our Policy.
How is your location collected, and how often it’s updated?
We will not track your location unless you grant FireServiceRota consent to collect it. To do that, you will need to install FireServiceRota’s mobile app on your smartphone and head over to Privacy Settings. In that menu, you can enable location tracking.
However, there are some considerations that you can still manage. You can allow FSR to track your location, but you still need to allow your device to share its location with FireServiceRota.
You can also enable your location to be shown on the Station Display ONLY when you confirm attendance to an incident.
FireServiceRota does not control the frequency with which your location updates. This depends on your device settings and is usually adapted to minimise battery usage.
Who can see your location?
This is a natural concern for most users, and we completely understand it. Which is why the short answer to who can see your location is: NO ONE.
At least, no humans can take a look at your location. Not even you. Which means that your station manager, fire control or even your spouse can not get access to your location from FireServiceRota, outside the aforementioned scenarios.
How does it work, then?
The FireServiceRota app sends your location information directly to FireServiceRota’s server through encrypted communication. From there, the system compares your location with your station’s geofence and sends a warning if you leave the proximity of the station only when you are available.
If you acknowledge your attendance to an incident (via smartphone, smart pager or phone call), and you have given consent to show your location on the Station Display, then your location will be shown in real-time with your Estimated Time of Arrival on your way to the station.
How is your information protected?
Our servers are secure and protected with several layes of encryption against prying eyes.
Also, after 24 hours, your location information is deleted from the server. There is one reason it is stored for that period, though: in case you report that something is wrong with the system or your account (i.e. you were marked as unavailable even if you didn’t leave the geofence). In this case and with your consent, our system admins (7 people in the entire world) can log in to the system and review what went wrong.
To do this, they use bank-grade encrypted computers and require two-factor authentication to access user data. None of this information is stored on physical devices of FireServiceRota’s system admins.
What is the recommended setting for the app?
To get the most out of the geolocation features, we recommend users to allow FireServiceRota to always track their location (iOS only). This is asked by your device when you first enable this setting. You can remove consent at any time from the app or your device settings directly.
As you can see, your location information is secure and is only used to enhance your experience with FireServiceRota, by allowing you to keep your availability updated, even if you are on the move.
It also provides clarity to your station manager and colleagues at the time of an alert, when it matters most.
Please feel free to share your concerns, comments and questions with us by sending an email to helpdesk@fireservicerota.com
