Terms of Service

Last updated: May 2026

Welcome to JourneyTracker. These Terms of Service explain the rules for using JourneyTracker, including our website, user accounts, application tracking tools, community waiting-time data, emails, insights and related features.

By accessing or using JourneyTracker, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the service.

JourneyTracker is not an official government service, immigration authority, law firm or legal advice provider.

1. Who operates JourneyTracker

JourneyTracker is operated by:

Christian Jolly

Johannstraße 94

70176 Stuttgart

Germany

Contact:

General questions: info@journeytracker.de

Account and registration questions: accounts@journeytracker.de

Further legal information is available in our Imprint.

2. What JourneyTracker does

JourneyTracker is a community-driven platform that helps internationals in Germany better understand waiting times for immigration, residence, citizenship and related administrative processes.

JourneyTracker may allow users to:

  • share completed application timelines;
  • track ongoing applications;
  • compare community waiting times by city, authority, application type and other information;
  • receive estimated waiting-time insights;
  • receive reminders about possible next milestones;
  • view city-specific or application-specific insights;
  • contribute data that helps other users understand likely waiting times.

The information on JourneyTracker is based on user-submitted data and community patterns. It is intended for orientation only.

JourneyTracker does not guarantee that any waiting-time estimate, expected next step, reminder, statistic or insight will be accurate for your individual case.

3. No official status and no legal advice

JourneyTracker is not affiliated with any Ausländerbehörde, Einbürgerungsbehörde, immigration office, city authority, government body or public institution.

Nothing on JourneyTracker is legal advice. The platform does not assess your legal rights, immigration status, eligibility, deadlines, application strategy or the likely legal outcome of your case.

For legal advice, you should contact a qualified lawyer, migration adviser or the relevant public authority.

You remain responsible for checking official requirements, deadlines, appointments, documents and communications from the relevant authority.

4. Eligibility and use for others

JourneyTracker is intended for people who are managing, researching or supporting immigration, residence, citizenship or similar administrative processes in Germany.

You may use JourneyTracker for your own application or to help another person, provided that you have the right or permission to enter information about that person.

If you enter information about someone else, you are responsible for ensuring that you have their consent or another valid reason to do so.

You must not submit personal data about another person without permission.

5. User accounts

Some features require an account.

When creating or using an account, you agree to:

  • provide accurate and current information;
  • keep your login details secure;
  • not share your account with others in a way that creates security risks;
  • notify us if you suspect unauthorised access;
  • be responsible for activity under your account, unless the activity was caused by our fault or by circumstances outside your control.

We may offer login through email and password, Google login or other authentication methods.

We may refuse, suspend or restrict accounts where reasonably necessary to protect the platform, other users, data integrity or legal compliance.

6. User-submitted data and content

JourneyTracker depends on information shared by users. This may include application timelines, milestone dates, authority names, cities, application types, citizenship, status updates, notes, feedback or other information.

When submitting information, you agree that:

  • the information should be truthful to the best of your knowledge;
  • you will not intentionally submit false, misleading or manipulated data;
  • you will not submit information that violates another person's privacy;
  • you will not include unnecessary sensitive information;
  • you will not upload or submit unlawful, defamatory, discriminatory, threatening, abusive or harmful content;
  • you will not submit spam, advertising or irrelevant content;
  • you will not try to manipulate JourneyTracker's statistics or insights.

Please do not submit passport numbers, case numbers, full official documents, health information, detailed family information, financial information or other information that is not necessary for JourneyTracker.

7. Anonymous and non-account submissions

JourneyTracker may allow users to share completed application timelines without creating an account.

If you submit information without an account, the submission may not be linked to an account that you can later access or edit.

We may still use non-account submissions to create community statistics, waiting-time comparisons and public insights.

If you later want to correct or delete a non-account submission, you may need to provide enough details for us to identify the specific entry.

8. Licence to use submitted information

You keep any rights you have in content or information you submit.

By submitting information to JourneyTracker, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use that information as reasonably necessary to operate, maintain, display, analyse, aggregate, improve and promote JourneyTracker.

This includes the right to:

  • store and process the information;
  • display relevant parts in your account or dashboard;
  • use the information to generate community statistics;
  • use the information to create waiting-time insights;
  • use aggregated or non-identifying information in public pages, blog posts, data insights, social posts, presentations or other materials related to JourneyTracker.

We will not intentionally publish your email address, password, private account details or private notes as public community statistics.

Aggregated statistics and non-identifying insights may continue to exist even if you delete your account or remove a journey, provided they no longer directly identify you.

9. Community statistics and data accuracy

JourneyTracker's statistics, predictions and insights are based on user-submitted data.

This means:

  • data may be incomplete;
  • users may make mistakes;
  • waiting times can change;
  • authorities may process similar cases differently;
  • small sample sizes may be unreliable;
  • past waiting times do not guarantee future waiting times.

JourneyTracker may clean, group, moderate, exclude or adjust data where reasonably necessary to reduce spam, obvious mistakes, manipulation, duplicates or misleading entries.

We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, availability or timeliness of any community data, prediction, timeline, milestone, statistic or insight.

You should not rely on JourneyTracker as your only source of information for important legal, immigration, financial or personal decisions.

10. Emails and reminders

JourneyTracker may send service-related emails, including:

  • login or verification emails;
  • account-related emails;
  • reminders about possible next milestones;
  • prompts to update your waiting status;
  • security or technical notices;
  • important product or legal updates.

Reminder emails and milestone emails are intended to help you keep your JourneyTracker data up to date and to improve community insights. They are not official authority communications.

You are responsible for checking official letters, emails, portals and communications from the relevant authority.

Where unsubscribe or email preference options are available, you may use them. You can also contact us about account-related email questions.

11. Prohibited use

You must not use JourneyTracker to:

  • break the law;
  • violate another person's privacy;
  • submit false, manipulated or misleading data;
  • impersonate another person;
  • access another user's account;
  • scrape, copy or extract data at scale without permission;
  • interfere with the security or operation of the platform;
  • reverse engineer, attack, overload or disrupt the service;
  • upload malware or harmful code;
  • harass, threaten or abuse others;
  • post discriminatory, hateful, defamatory or unlawful content;
  • use the service for spam, advertising or unrelated commercial solicitation;
  • misuse JourneyTracker in a way that harms the community or the reliability of the data.

12. Moderation and data quality

We may review, moderate, edit, hide, aggregate, reject, restrict or delete user-submitted information where reasonably necessary.

This may happen, for example, if information appears to be:

  • false or manipulated;
  • spam;
  • duplicated;
  • irrelevant;
  • unlawful;
  • harmful;
  • privacy-invasive;
  • abusive;
  • technically broken;
  • likely to distort community statistics.

We may also restrict or suspend accounts that repeatedly submit problematic data or misuse the platform.

Where appropriate and practical, we may explain moderation decisions. However, we may not always provide detailed explanations, especially where doing so could affect security, privacy, abuse prevention or the integrity of the platform.

13. Reporting illegal or problematic content

If you believe that content or data on JourneyTracker is unlawful, violates your rights, violates these Terms, or exposes personal information, you can contact us at:

accounts@journeytracker.de or info@journeytracker.de

Please include, where possible:

  • the exact URL or location of the content;
  • a description of the content or issue;
  • why you believe it is unlawful or violates these Terms;
  • your name and email address;
  • a statement that your report is accurate and made in good faith.

We will review reports and take action where appropriate. Depending on the situation, action may include removing content, restricting access, correcting data, contacting the relevant user, or taking no action if the report is not sufficiently justified.

14. Feedback and suggestions

If you send us ideas, feedback, bug reports, feature suggestions or similar input, you allow us to use that feedback without restriction or payment to you.

This does not give us ownership of your personal data. It simply means we may use your suggestions to improve JourneyTracker.

15. Intellectual property

JourneyTracker's name, design, layout, software, database structure, text, graphics, branding, features and functionality are owned by us or our licensors, unless otherwise stated.

You may use JourneyTracker for its intended purpose. You may not copy, reproduce, sell, redistribute, scrape, clone or exploit substantial parts of the platform without permission.

You may share normal public links to JourneyTracker pages.

16. Availability and changes to the service

We aim to keep JourneyTracker available and useful, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability.

The service may be unavailable, limited or changed due to:

  • maintenance;
  • updates;
  • technical problems;
  • provider outages;
  • security incidents;
  • legal or operational reasons;
  • changes to the product.

We may add, change or remove features at any time. Where a change materially affects users, we will try to communicate it in a reasonable way.

17. Donations and external services

JourneyTracker may link to external services, such as Buy Me a Coffee, for voluntary support or donations.

Such external services are operated by third parties and are subject to their own terms and privacy policies.

JourneyTracker is not responsible for third-party websites, payment providers or external services.

Unless clearly stated otherwise, donations are voluntary support for the project and do not create a paid subscription, premium account, service guarantee or right to specific features.

18. Privacy

Your use of JourneyTracker is also governed by our Privacy Policy.

The Privacy Policy explains what personal data we process, why we process it, which service providers we use, how long data may be stored and what rights you have.

If there is a conflict between these Terms and the Privacy Policy regarding personal data processing, the Privacy Policy explains the data protection position more specifically.

19. Account suspension and termination

You may stop using JourneyTracker at any time.

We may suspend, restrict or terminate your account or access to the service where reasonably necessary, for example if:

  • you violate these Terms;
  • you submit false, harmful or unlawful content;
  • you misuse the platform;
  • your use creates security or legal risks;
  • your activity harms other users or the reliability of JourneyTracker;
  • we are required to do so by law.

Where appropriate and practical, we may notify you or give you an opportunity to respond. However, we may act immediately if necessary to protect users, data, security or the platform.

20. Disclaimers

JourneyTracker is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis.

We do not guarantee that:

  • the service will always be available;
  • the service will be error-free;
  • all data will be complete or accurate;
  • predictions or waiting-time estimates will match your case;
  • reminders will always be delivered;
  • authorities will act within any estimated timeframe;
  • any specific outcome will occur.

JourneyTracker is a community information tool. You remain responsible for your own decisions, official appointments, deadlines, documents and communications with authorities.

21. Liability

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability where liability cannot legally be limited or excluded.

We remain liable for intent and gross negligence.

We also remain liable for injury to life, body or health, and for liability under mandatory legal rules.

In cases of ordinary negligence, we are only liable for breach of essential contractual obligations. Essential contractual obligations are obligations whose fulfilment makes proper use of the service possible and on whose compliance users may regularly rely. In such cases, liability is limited to typical and foreseeable damage.

For free services, liability may be limited further to the extent permitted by law.

We are not liable for user-submitted content unless and to the extent required by applicable law.

22. Indemnity for misuse

If you intentionally or negligently misuse JourneyTracker, submit unlawful content, violate third-party rights, or provide data about another person without permission, you may be responsible for resulting claims, damages, costs or expenses, to the extent permitted by law.

This does not apply where you are not responsible for the violation.

23. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time.

If changes are minor, they may take effect when published on the website.

If changes materially affect users, we will try to notify users in a reasonable way, for example through the website or by email.

If you continue using JourneyTracker after updated Terms become effective, the updated Terms apply from that point onward.

If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you should stop using the service.

24. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany.

If you are a consumer and live in another country, mandatory consumer protection laws of your country of residence may still apply.

The place of jurisdiction is determined by applicable law.

25. Severability

If any part of these Terms is invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts remain valid.

The invalid or unenforceable provision will be replaced by the applicable legal rule.

26. Contact

For questions about these Terms, please contact:

info@journeytracker.de or accounts@journeytracker.de

You can also find contact details in our Imprint.