ScanBuddy OBD2 Privacy Policy
Last updated: 5 September 2026
ScanBuddy is an OBD2 scan tool for Android. It reads what your vehicle has already recorded — the check engine light, readiness monitors, trouble codes, and live sensor values — and shows it to you.
ScanBuddy has no account, no sign-in, and no server of its own. Your scans are stored on your phone.
Four things can leave your phone, all described below. One of them you can switch off. The other three happen only when you tap a button that says so.
What stays on your phone
Everything ScanBuddy records lives in your phone's app storage and is not sent anywhere:
- Saved scans — vehicle details, trouble codes, readiness monitors, live readings, and the time of the scan.
- Your settings — language, appearance, units, your privacy choices, and, if you set them, the state whose emissions inspection you want explanations to answer for and the language you want explanations in.
- A vehicle-name cache, so the same vehicle is not looked up twice. It is stored under a one-way digest rather than the VIN itself, and the stored entry does not contain the VIN.
- Scan logs — a short record of the last five scans, described in section 4 below.
Uninstalling the app removes all of it. You can also erase it at any time from More → Clear saved reports, which clears the saved scans, the vehicle-name cache and the scan logs together.
What can leave your phone
1. Your VIN, sent to NHTSA, to get the vehicle's name
When a vehicle reports its VIN, ScanBuddy can send that VIN to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's public vehicle database in order to display the year, make and model:
https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles/DecodeVinValues/
Only the VIN is sent. No other scan data goes with it, and nothing identifies you or your phone.
This is on by default and you can switch it off at More → Vehicle info lookup. With it off, no VIN ever leaves your phone, and ScanBuddy shows whatever name the vehicle itself reported.
NHTSA is a US government agency and its handling of that request is governed by its own policies, not by this one.
2. A web search, when you tap a button that asks for one
Several screens offer a "Look up" button — beside a trouble code, beside a readiness monitor, and beside a live gauge. Tapping it opens a web search in your browser. Each one says so underneath, in words like "Opens a search about this vehicle's monitors".
That search contains the trouble code, monitor or gauge you tapped, along with the vehicle's year, make, model, engine and fuel type; the other trouble codes and the readiness monitors from the same scan; the readings the car recorded when the code set; the distance and warm-up cycles since the codes were last cleared; and whether the check engine light is on. If you have set an inspection state or a language for explanations in More, those go with it. Your VIN is never included in that search.
Nothing is sent until you tap. If you never tap one of those buttons, no search is ever made.
3. Anything you choose to share
The share button builds a report — as text, a picture, or both — and hands it to Android's share sheet. You choose where it goes; ScanBuddy does not send it anywhere itself.
VINs are masked in shared reports by default (ABC**********1234). You can change that at More → VIN privacy, and the setting applies to both the text and the picture.
4. Diagnostic data, if you attach it to a problem report
ScanBuddy keeps a short log of each of your last five scans — the commands it sent to your OBD2 adapter and what came back, plus how the connection went. These logs stay on your phone and are never sent on their own.
When you tap More → Report a problem, ScanBuddy asks whether you want to send them. You can attach the last scan, attach the last few, or choose "Just write a message", which attaches no scan logs at all. It asks every time; there is no setting that remembers a yes.
Whichever you choose, the email itself carries five lines so a reply can make sense of it: your app version, your phone model, your vehicle's year, make and model, whether the adapter connected, and any trouble codes. You can delete those lines before sending.
If you do attach them, they are gathered into a single text file that you can open and read, and an email is opened for you, addressed to the support address below, with that file attached. Nothing is sent until you send it. You pick which email app to use, you can read or delete the attachment first, and you can close the email without sending.
The file contains your app version, your phone model, what the vehicle reported about itself, which adapter you used, and those scan logs. It does not contain your VIN, your name, your email, or your location. VINs are removed as the logs are written and again as the file is built.
Why it is asked for: ScanBuddy has been tested against a small number of OBD2 adapters, and there are hundreds of different ones for sale. A log of what your adapter actually did is the only reliable way to fix a problem on hardware the developer does not own.
Deleting them: the scan logs are erased along with everything else at More → Clear saved reports, and the app only ever keeps the last five.
What ScanBuddy does not do
- No account and no sign-in. There is nothing to register.
- No analytics. No usage statistics, no event tracking, no session recording.
- No crash reporting. Nothing is sent when the app fails.
- No advertising. ScanBuddy contains no advertising SDK, shows no ads, and requests no advertising identifier. An advertising component was removed in August 2026 and no part of it remains.
- No location. ScanBuddy does not request location permission and does not use location. Its Bluetooth scanning is declared as never being used to derive location.
- No selling or sharing of personal information. There is no recipient to sell it to.
Permissions, and what each is for
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Bluetooth (connect and scan) | To find and talk to your OBD2 adapter. Declared as never used for location |
| Internet | The NHTSA vehicle-name lookup, and a search you tap. Attachments are handed to another app, not uploaded by ScanBuddy |
| Vibrate | Button feedback |
| In-app purchases | The optional tip. Google Play handles the payment; ScanBuddy never sees your card, your name, or your billing address |
| Network connection state | Added by Google's billing library, which checks whether you are online before opening a payment |
ScanBuddy asks for no other permissions.
Tipping
ScanBuddy is free, and it stays free. Every feature works without paying anything, and nothing is held back behind a tip.
The support card has an optional tip button. If you use it, Google Play handles the whole payment. ScanBuddy never sees your card number, your billing address, your name, or your email, and it never stores a receipt.
What Google hands back to the app is only which tip amount you chose and whether it went through — enough to say thank you, and nothing more. That is not linked to you, is not sent anywhere, and is not written into the scan logs described above.
If you never tap it, nothing about payments happens at all.
Children
ScanBuddy is a vehicle tool and is not directed at children. It does not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age.
Changes to this policy
If what the app does changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top moves. The version of this policy that applies to you is the one published here.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or a request about your data:
scanbuddy.obd@gmail.com
Because ScanBuddy holds nothing about you on any server, a deletion request is answered by telling you how to clear it from your own phone — More → Clear saved reports, or uninstalling the app.
If you have already emailed a problem report with diagnostic data attached and want it deleted, say so at the address above and it will be deleted from that inbox.