Compass
Last updated: August 2026
Compass is a news reader built and maintained by Daniel Southam. This policy explains what data the app does — and does not — collect.
Compass fetches publicly available news headlines from third-party RSS and Atom feeds (such as RNZ, Stuff, The Spinoff, BBC, The Guardian and others) and displays them for reading. Tapping a headline opens the article inside the app's built-in reader, which rebuilds the story as clean text — removing the outlet's advertising, scripts and known tracking pixels before anything renders. Article images are loaded from the outlet's servers so stories display correctly. An optional daily digest can appear as a notification each morning; it is created on your device from feeds you have already loaded and sends nothing anywhere.
None. Compass does not require an account, does not ask for personal information, and does not track your activity within the app. There is no analytics, advertising, or tracking code built into it. Your chosen feeds, saved stories and preferences are stored only on your own device.
To load headlines and articles, the app makes network requests directly to the news outlets' public feeds and websites — the same requests your browser would make if you visited them yourself. These requests may be visible to your mobile network provider, as any normal internet use is, but Compass sends no personal or identifying information beyond what is standard for any network request (such as your device's IP address, handled by your network provider as usual).
When you tap "open in browser" for a page the reader can't display, that outlet's own privacy policy applies to whatever happens on their site. Compass has no visibility into or control over that.
Compass is free to download and offers an optional, one-time Pro upgrade. How that purchase is handled is described under In-app purchases below.
Compass is free to download. It offers an optional, one-time Pro upgrade, purchased through Google Play. To make that possible, the app includes Google's official Play Billing components. When you buy Pro, restore a previous purchase, or when the app simply checks whether you already own Pro, those Google components communicate with Google's servers to process and verify the purchase — the same billing system used by any paid Android app.
That processing is carried out by Google under Google's own privacy policy. Compass never sees or stores your payment details or Google account identity. Whether you own Pro is recorded only on your device, and this stays entirely separate from your reading, which still never leaves your device.
If you bought Compass while it was a paid app, your Pro upgrade is included automatically, at no further charge.
Compass does not knowingly collect data from anyone, including children, because it does not collect data from anyone at all.
If the app's data practices ever change, this page will be updated to reflect that.
Questions about this policy or the app can be sent to apps.southam@gmail.com.
Compass is an independent project, not affiliated with any news outlet, political party, or media monitoring organisation.