I got this notification on my phone today about an update to the SBB Mobile app: [upl-image-preview uuid=54fb8c05-9267-486b-a9f7-e801f4b79c8c url=https://static.community.sbb.ch/2025-06-16/1750084160-137920-image.png alt={TEXT?}] ("SBB Mobile app: Your location data is now shared with third parties for advertising or marketing") This seems to be at odds with your privacy policy and my expectations of the SBB when using a service like EasyRide. Can you please explain?

@"0xab"#p131524 Thanks for sharing! 👍

Location data shared with third parties?

0xab

I got this notification on my phone today about an update to the SBB Mobile app:

(“SBB Mobile app: Your location data is now shared with third parties for advertising or marketing”)

This seems to be at odds with your privacy policy and my expectations of the SBB when using a service like EasyRide. Can you please explain?

RolandP

Hello 0xab

Welcome to the SBB Community. We are a customer support forum run by volunteers.

We are not the SBB Customer Service and I wondered why you think we are?

Please kindly contact SBB if you need more information.

https://www.sbb.ch/en/help-and-contact/customer-service/praise-comments/reklamation.html

Kind regards,
Roland

0xab

Apologies for the tone. I honestly thought this was a customer support forum, because I’ve seen many replies here from what appear to be SBB employees, and bugs I’ve reported here in the past got fixed. The complaint form you linked doesn’t have a way to report issues with the mobile app, but I’ll try sending email to the support address listed in the app info.

Retargeting my question: Did anyone else get such a notification? Google Play metadata shows that the current Android SBB Mobile app version 12.40.0.133.master is sharing location information for advertising or marketing (see below).

0xab

Just to close the loop here, I got a reply from SBB app support:

The automatically generated notification text from Android is unfortunately incorrect. A corresponding setting in Google was incorrectly configured, but this has now been reverted, and customers will soon no longer encounter this message.
Please be assured that SBB (including SBB Mobile) does not share personal location data with third parties. Here are some key points regarding your data privacy:
The location data from EasyRide is not used for marketing purposes or shared with third parties.
SBB does not provide customer data to advertisers. We only share anonymized data (e.g., from timetable queries) with Google AdServer, provided we have customer consent. This is transparently outlined in the privacy policy available in the Google Play Store, which is where Google generated this misleading text.
Your data is never passed on to advertisers or stored for further use; it is solely utilized for the one-time display of advertisements. We do not create personally identifiable profiles, nor do we process names, phone numbers, addresses, or email addresses in connection with advertising.

RedBaron

0xab
Thanks for sharing! 👍