Gatherings privacy policy

01.What we collect

We collect only what the app needs to work:

• Account: your email address and display name, used to sign you in and identify you to other players.
• Profile: an optional photo, optional pronouns, and an optional short bio. All of these are up to you.
• Games and availability: which games you play, your formats and skill level, and the general time blocks when you are free. This powers matching and discovery.
• Approximate location: a deliberately imprecise version of your location, used to show nearby venues and players. See section 03 for exactly how this works. If you deny location access, you can enter a city or ZIP instead and the app still works.
• Chat messages: messages you send in gathering group chats and direct messages, so we can deliver them and so recipients can read them.
• RSVPs and attendance: which gatherings you join, host, and attend. This feeds the attendance stats shown on your profile.
• Reports and blocks: reports you file and blocks you set, so we can act on them and keep blocked users apart.
• Push token: if you enable notifications, a device token so we can deliver them.

02.What we do not collect

• No precise background location. The app reads your location only while you are using it, and never tracks you in the background.
• No contacts. We never read or upload your address book.
• No advertising identifiers. There are no ads in Gatherings, no ad networks, and no third-party tracking SDKs.

03.How location privacy works

Location is the most sensitive thing an app like this touches, so it is handled with hard rules:

• Your exact coordinates never leave our servers. No other user, and no app screen, ever receives them.
• Before any distance is computed, your stored position is jittered: offset by a few hundred meters so it does not correspond to a real address.
• Other players only ever see distance buckets such as "about 3 mi" or "about 15 mi", never a number precise enough to locate you and never a pin on a map.
• Your profile shows your home area as a city name only.
• Appearing in player discovery at all is opt-in and off by default.
• Check-in beacons attach to a public venue you choose, never to your own coordinates.
• Push notifications never contain coordinates.

04.Data sharing

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. Data leaves our systems in only three cases:

• Service providers: our database, authentication, and storage run on Supabase, which hosts data on our behalf under its own security and privacy commitments. Push notifications are delivered through Apple and Google notification services, which is how push works on every phone.
• Other users, as designed: the profile fields, messages, RSVPs, and distance buckets described above are shown to other users because that is what the app does. Nothing is shown beyond what those features require.
• Legal requirements: if we are legally compelled to disclose data, we disclose the minimum required.

05.Retention and deletion

We keep your data while your account is active. You can delete your account from inside the app at any time. Deletion removes your profile, location data, availability, and discovery presence. Messages you sent may remain visible to other participants in their threads, attributed to a deleted account, and records of reports may be retained where needed for safety and legal reasons.

You can also request deletion by email at rob@contriboot.dev and we will process it promptly.

06.Age requirement

Gatherings is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account, and the signup flow blocks anyone younger. This is a deliberate choice for an app that brokers in-person meetups between strangers.

07.Children's privacy

We do not permit accounts for anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we delete the account and its data. If you believe a minor is using Gatherings, email rob@contriboot.dev.

08.Your rights

Wherever you live, you can:

• Ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Ask us to correct data that is wrong
• Delete your account and data, in-app or by email, without needing to justify it

California residents: under the CCPA you have the right to know what personal information we collect (this policy is that disclosure), the right to delete it, and the right to non-discrimination for exercising those rights. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in the CCPA, so there is nothing to opt out of.

EU and UK residents: we process your data to provide the service you signed up for (contract) and to keep the community safe (legitimate interest). Optional items like your photo and visibility are processed with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time. You have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection, and the right to complain to your local supervisory authority. Contact for all of these: rob@contriboot.dev.

09.Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the effective date at the top and notify you in the app before the change takes effect. We will never quietly weaken the location privacy rules in section 03.

10.Contact

Gatherings is operated by Contriboot. For anything about this policy or your data, email rob@contriboot.dev.