Amap (Gaode Maps)

Is Amap safe to use?

Amap is safe in the everyday sense: we found no breach of its users' data and no wave of account thefts. For anyone travelling in China it is often the most useful map available, with live traffic, transit times and taxi booking in one place. The catch is privacy. Apple's label says Amap links your precise location, search history, browsing history and device ID to you for third-party advertising, and its overseas privacy policy says data from users outside China is stored in Singapore and/or mainland China.

We score Amap 46/100. That puts it below Google Maps (60), which also uses location for advertising but keeps Timeline on your phone, and above WeChat (36), the other app most visitors to China end up installing.

What data does Amap collect?

Amap's App Store entry is one of the broadest we have seen for a navigation app. Under "data linked to you" it lists precise and coarse location, search history, browsing history and device ID for third-party advertising, for the developer's own marketing, for analytics and for personalisation. For app features it adds fitness data, contact details, photos or videos, audio and customer support records. The label is the same in the US and Chinese stores, where the app is sold as AMap Global and 高德地图 respectively.

The overseas privacy policy, updated in December 2025, fills in what the label means. Advertisers and ad-measurement partners receive de-identified device advertising IDs, location and interest tags. Amap also says it may link information across devices and across its own products, for example tying your phone number to your account, and use it for automated recommendations and marketing. Optional features such as predicting your home, work and regular routes are switched on separately.

The location of the data matters more than usual. The policy names 高德亚洲有限公司 (Amap Asia) as the operator for users outside China and says their data is normally stored on servers in Singapore and/or mainland China. Data held in mainland China falls under Chinese law, and the policy lists lawful requests from administrative and judicial authorities among the cases where Amap shares data without asking you. For a tourist checking metro times this is a small risk. For journalists, activists or anyone whose movements are sensitive, a map app that logs every route is a bigger concern.

Has Amap been in trouble with regulators?

Yes: twice in China and once in Taiwan, all without a fine. On 1 May 2021 the Cyberspace Administration of China named Amap among 33 input-method, map and messaging apps whose checks found problems such as collecting personal data unrelated to the service, and gave them 10 working days to fix them. The same day, national rules took effect that list the only personal data each common type of app, including navigation apps, may require before it lets you use basic features.

In January 2024 the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology listed Amap among 31 apps and SDKs in its first batch of the year, for splash-screen pop-ups that "jumped" to other pages and misled users, and ordered fixes. For a navigation app that is more than an annoyance. In June 2026 Chinese media reported that Amap and Baidu Maps had dropped splash-screen ads, after a widely shared video showed a driver's map switching to a shopping page when the car shook. That report comes from the business press rather than an official notice.

Taiwan went further. In April 2026, after Amap's traffic-light countdowns for Taipei and Kaohsiung went viral, the Ministry of Digital Affairs classed it as a product that endangers national cybersecurity and barred government agencies from using it. On 27 May 2026 the ministry published test results listing 11 risky behaviours, including sending data while the app was closed and reading contacts, calendar and health records, and said the data went to servers in China. Ordinary users in Taiwan can still install it.

We found no fine anywhere. Repeated orders without a fine put Amap's regulatory record (45) just above WeChat (42) and above RedNote (40), which faced a national block in Taiwan.

How safe is it on the road?

Amap does more than navigation. It aggregates taxis from several ride-hailing platforms, books hotels and attraction tickets, and runs a ranking of restaurants and shops built from navigation and visit data plus reviews checked through Sesame Credit. Those features add risk the way any marketplace does: when you book a car, the driver comes from a third-party platform with its own safety rules and complaint process. The Chinese listing also mentions in-app chat, user-generated content, social features and loot-box style purchases, which is why it carries a 13+ rating rather than 4+.

How to use Amap with less exposure

1. Set Amap's location permission to "While Using the App". The listing says navigation keeps using satellite positioning in the background.
2. Turn off personalised ads under My, Settings, Privacy management (the programmatic advertising setting), and limit ad tracking in your phone's settings.
3. Leave optional features such as predicted home and work locations off unless you will use them.
4. When booking a taxi in the app, check which platform supplies the car and screenshot the plate and driver details before you get in.
5. After a trip, delete the account from My, Settings, Account and security, once any orders are closed.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (62) is Amap's best factor, because most of the app is maps rather than strangers. Privacy (25) is its weakest: the label ties precise location and browsing to advertising, and foreign users' data may be stored in mainland China. Security (52) is held back by Taiwan's test findings, and the regulatory record (45) by two Chinese orders and Taiwan's government ban. For transit outside China, Citymapper collects far less.