Data ownership, export & server migration

Self-hosting means the data belongs to you and lives on your server. This page shows what that means in practice — how to access your data, what you can do with it, and how a server migration works. The conceptual background is on the Self-hosted page. The data-protection tools behind this are described on the Data protection page.

An open database, no proprietary format

All data is stored on your own server in a standard MySQL database. There is no proprietary file format and no encrypted data store that only the vendor can read. Anyone with database access can read the data — that is the foundation for everything else on this page.

Export, delete, anonymise

As the operator you can at any time:

• Export all data — as CSV (tabular, filterable by period, driver, and customer), as individual PDF service records, and as a full database dump.
• Delete individual records or entire time periods.
• Anonymise driver data — personal data is irreversibly replaced with placeholder values while service records remain intact.

You can also export all data for an individual driver or all drivers as a ZIP archive — including profile data and stored consent records. This is practical, for example, when responding to a subject-access request under applicable data-protection law. Whether a given export satisfies a specific legal requirement is a legal question; the tools are there, and they are not a substitute for legal advice.

The audit trail

Every change to service-job data is recorded in an immutable log: who, when, what. GPS data is locked after a job ends and cannot be altered retrospectively. Consent records are stored with the exact wording, timestamp, and technical metadata. From an operator’s perspective this means the data set is traceable without any additional configuration on your part.

Moving to another server

Because Wintertrace is a standard PHP application with a MySQL database, a server migration follows the same steps as any such application — there is no vendor-side step in between:

1. Take a database dump of the MySQL database.
2. Copy the application files (including any uploaded photos) to the new server.
3. Restore the database on the target server.
4. Update the database credentials in the configuration and set the document root to public/ again.

The installation then runs on the new hosting. A hosting provider change is possible at any time, without data being tied to any particular product.

No vendor dependency

Wintertrace operates without an internet connection to the vendor. The only optional outbound connection is the update check — and that can be disabled (see Updates & cron in operation). Weather data comes from independent, free weather services; GPS data comes from the open-source OwnTracks app.

Even if the vendor were to disappear, your installation continues to run and your data remains accessible. The source code is publicly available on GitHub (AGPLv3).

Not a substitute for legal advice. The tools described here support data management and documentation; their adequacy for any specific legal obligation depends on your jurisdiction and circumstances.