Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and scope of this policy

Hangout is the controller responsible for the personal information described in this policy. The Service is available to people in Canada and the United States. This policy applies to information we process when you create an account, post or join hangouts, message other members, build or join communities, and otherwise interact with the Service across iOS and the web. It does not cover third-party services that have their own privacy practices, which are described in Section 21.

If you do not agree with this policy, please do not use the Service. Your use is also governed by our Terms of Service.

2. A quick summary

We collect as little as we can to make Hangout work, and we do not sell your personal information. We use phone-number sign-in, we store private fields (your phone number, birthday, gender, and newsletter email) owner-only, and your location is used only when you opt in to a discrete, confirmed check-in. Content you post is visible according to the openness you choose for it. You can review, correct, export, and delete your information in Settings. Trust is the product.

3. Information you provide to us

When you create and use your account, you provide:

• Account and sign-in: your phone number, which we use to sign you in with a one-time SMS code (OTP). We do not use passwords.
• Public profile: first and last name, username, avatar photo, bio, city (free text), interests, and optional social links (for example, an Instagram handle).
• Private profile: your phone number, birthday, optional gender, and an optional newsletter email. These fields are stored owner-only and are not shown to other members.
• Content you create: hangouts and their poster images (uploaded to our storage or chosen from templates), feed posts, comments, likes, reposts, zaps (light pokes), saves and favorites, RSVPs and attendee participation, communities and groups you create or join, and direct messages.
• Check-ins: when you confirm a check-in at a hangout, we record that discrete event (see Section 9).
• Communications with us: messages you send to support, feedback, and reports you submit about other members or content.

4. Information we collect automatically

When you use the Service, we and our providers automatically collect:

• Device and app information: device type and model, operating system and version, app version, language and region settings, and push-notification device tokens (when you enable notifications).
• Log and usage data: IP address, access times, the screens and features you use, hangouts you view or join, interactions such as likes and RSVPs, diagnostics, and crash logs.
• Approximate location: general location derived from your IP address, and place or city information you search for, which is used to surface relevant nearby hangouts. Place and city search uses Apple MapKit on iOS and OpenStreetMap Nominatim on the web.
• Cookies and local storage: on the web, we and our providers use cookies, local storage, and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember preferences, and measure usage. See our Cookie Policy.

5. Information we receive from others

We may receive limited information about you from other people and sources:

• Invites and participation: if someone invites you to a hangout or community, adds you as a co-host, or includes you in an RSVP or attendee list, we receive the information needed to deliver it.
• Mentions and messages: when another member mentions you, zaps you, or sends you a direct message, we process that content to deliver it to you.
• Optional contact matching: if you choose to invite contacts, we use only the contacts you select to help you connect. We do not continuously upload your address book or harvest people who are not part of an invite you initiate.

6. How we use information

We use the information described above to:

• Operate and provide the Service, including creating your account, authenticating you by SMS code, and enabling hangouts, RSVPs, check-ins, messaging, communities, posts, comments, likes, reposts, zaps, saves, and follows.
• Rank and personalize your feed. Hangouts are surfaced based primarily on their openness (who can see and join them) and their lifecycle (where a hangout sits in time, from upcoming to live to ended), along with relevance signals such as approximate location and your connections.
• Deliver notifications you turn on, including push notifications, SMS for verification and service messages, and optional email such as a newsletter or digest. You control these per type in Settings.
• Keep the community safe: detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, harassment, and violations of our Terms, and enforce blocking and reporting.
• Measure and improve the product through privacy-respecting analytics and first-party usage signals.
• Communicate with you about the Service, respond to support requests, and send administrative messages.
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our agreements.

7. Legal bases for processing (EEA, UK, and similar laws)

Where the GDPR, UK GDPR, or a comparable law applies, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract: to create your account and provide the core features of the Service you request.
• Consent: for optional features such as location and check-ins, push notifications, marketing and newsletter email, and the AI quick-post feature. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Legitimate interests: to secure and improve the Service, understand how it is used, prevent abuse, and keep the community safe, balanced against your rights and interests.
• Legal obligation: to comply with applicable laws and respond to lawful requests.

8. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only as described here.

With other members

Content you post is visible according to the openness and visibility settings you choose. Your public profile (name, username, avatar, bio, city, interests, social links) is visible to other members to the extent your settings allow. Hangouts, posts, comments, RSVPs, attendee lists, posters, and check-ins are shared with the audience that the relevant openness permits. If you use a private account, your content is limited to approved followers, and new follows require your approval through follow requests.

Within communities

Content you share to a community or group is visible to that community according to its settings.

With service providers (subprocessors)

We share information with vendors who process it on our behalf under contracts that limit their use of it, including:

• Supabase, for our database, authentication, storage, and serverless functions.
• Twilio, for sending SMS verification and service messages.
• Apple, for the App Store, push notifications (APNs), and MapKit place search.
• Google, for distribution through the Google Play Store.
• Anthropic, for the optional AI quick-post parsing feature.
• Tenor, for GIF search.
• OpenStreetMap, for geocoding and place search on the web.
• PostHog, for privacy-respecting product analytics.
• Sentry, for crash and error diagnostics that help us fix problems.
• Vercel, for hosting our web app.

For legal, safety, and law-enforcement reasons

We may disclose information when we believe in good faith it is necessary to comply with law or legal process, respond to lawful requests from public authorities, enforce our Terms, or protect the rights, property, or safety of Hangout, our members, or the public.

Business transfers

If Hangout is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

We do not sell your personal information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

9. Location data and check-ins

Location is opt-in. We use approximate location to surface relevant nearby hangouts and to enable place and city search. Hangout does not perform continuous background location tracking, and we never display a live location dot.

Check-ins are confirmed and discrete. When you arrive near a hangout, a geofence may prompt you, and a check-in happens only when you tap “Check in.” A “precise vs approximate” setting controls the granularity recorded with your check-in. A check-in’s visibility inherits the openness of the hangout it belongs to, so it is shown only to the people that hangout’s openness permits. You can change location permissions at any time in your device settings.

10. Messages and content visibility

Direct messages let you communicate privately with other members, but they are not end-to-end encrypted, and we may process them to deliver the Service, enforce our Terms, and respond to safety reports and legal requests. The visibility of all other content (hangouts, posts, comments, posters, RSVPs, check-ins) follows the openness you set for it. Please consider what you share, and remember that recipients can save, screenshot, or repost content depending on the context.

11. Cookies and similar technologies

On the web, we and our providers use cookies, local storage, and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember your preferences, secure the Service, and measure usage. For details about the categories we use and your choices, see our Cookie Policy. Because there is no common industry standard for Do Not Track signals, the Service does not currently respond to them.

12. Automated processing and AI features

We use automated systems to rank and personalize your feed based on openness, lifecycle, and relevance. This ranking helps you discover hangouts and is not a solely automated decision that produces legal or similarly significant effects about you.

The AI quick-post feature is optional. When you use it, the text you type is sent to Anthropic (Claude) to parse it into a draft hangout (for example, extracting a title, time, and place). You can create hangouts without using this feature. We do not use this feature to make consequential automated decisions about you.

13. Data retention

We retain information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. When you delete your account through the in-app self-serve deletion, we remove your hangouts, check-ins, posts, comments, messages you authored, and your social graph (follows, follow requests, and related connections), subject to the points below.

Some information may persist after deletion: content others have already received (such as a message in another person’s inbox), records we are required to keep for legal, security, tax, or fraud-prevention reasons, and residual copies in routine backups, which are overwritten on a rolling schedule. Aggregated or de-identified data that can no longer be linked to you may be retained.

14. How we protect your information

We use technical and organizational measures designed to protect your information, including Postgres Row-Level Security so that private fields (such as your phone number, birthday, gender, and newsletter email) are accessible only to you, encryption in transit and at rest, and phone-based one-time-code authentication instead of passwords. Despite these measures, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your information, we will notify you and the appropriate authorities where required by law.

15. International data transfers

Hangout is offered in Canada and the United States, and our infrastructure providers, including Supabase (which runs on cloud infrastructure such as AWS) and Vercel, may process and store information in the United States and other countries with data-protection laws that differ from those where you live. Where required, we use appropriate safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses, for cross-border transfers of personal data.

16. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Delete your account and information through self-serve deletion in Settings.
• Obtain a portable copy of certain information.
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Withdraw consent you previously gave (for example, for location or marketing).

You can also manage many choices directly in the app: update your profile, control who can see your content through openness and private-account settings, manage follow requests, block and report other members, and adjust granular per-type notification and privacy settings. To opt out of marketing or newsletter email, use the unsubscribe link or your Settings; we will still send essential service messages such as verification codes.

To exercise a right, use the in-app controls or contact us at legal@myhangout.xyz. We will verify your request and respond as required by law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

17. Canada (PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25)

If you are in Canada, we handle your personal information in accordance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial laws, including Quebec’s Law 25. You may request access to and correction of your personal information, and ask about our collection, use, and disclosure practices. We obtain consent appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, and we identify the purposes for which we collect it. As noted in Section 15, your information may be stored or processed outside Canada, including in the United States, where it may be accessible to courts and authorities under local law. To reach our privacy contact, including the person responsible for personal information under Law 25, email legal@myhangout.xyz. You may also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information.

18. California (CCPA and CPRA)

This section applies to California residents and uses terms defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act.

Categories of personal information we collect

• Identifiers: phone number, name, username, account identifiers, IP address, and device identifiers.
• Customer records: profile details and optional newsletter email.
• Internet and network activity: usage, interactions, and diagnostics.
• Approximate geolocation: general location derived from IP and place or city searches.
• User-generated content: hangouts, posters, posts, comments, messages, RSVPs, and check-ins.
• Inferences: preferences inferred to rank and personalize your feed.
• Sensitive personal information: we may process your phone number for sign-in and, if you provide them, optional details such as birthday or gender. We use this information only to provide and secure the Service and do not use it to infer characteristics. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that would trigger the right to limit.

Sources and business purposes

We collect this information from you, automatically from your use of the Service, and from other members and sources described in Sections 4 and 5. We use it for the business purposes described in Section 6, including operating the Service, security and anti-abuse, analytics, and communications.

No sale or sharing

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, including the personal information of consumers we know are under 16.

Your rights

You have the right to know and access the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect, to delete it, to correct inaccurate information, to opt out of sale or sharing (which we do not conduct), and to limit the use of sensitive personal information. To exercise these rights, use in-app Settings or email legal@myhangout.xyz. You may use an authorized agent, with proof of authorization, to submit a request on your behalf. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

19. Other U.S. state privacy rights

Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws, including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and others, may have rights to access, correct, delete, and obtain a portable copy of their personal data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, and certain profiling, none of which we conduct. Nevada residents may submit a verified request regarding the sale of covered information; we do not sell such information. To exercise these rights, use in-app Settings or email us, and we will verify and respond as required by law, including any appeal process available to you.

20. EEA and UK rights

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you have the rights described in Section 16, including access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, and the right to withdraw consent. We process your information on the legal bases set out in Section 7, and we transfer it internationally with the safeguards described in Section 15. You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection supervisory authority, though we encourage you to contact us first at legal@myhangout.xyz so we can try to resolve your concern.

21. Third-party links and services

The Service may include links to, or rely on, third-party websites, apps, and services that we do not control, including those listed in Section 8. Their privacy practices, not this policy, govern your interactions with them. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party service you use, including Apple, Google, Twilio, Anthropic, Tenor, OpenStreetMap, PostHog, Sentry, Supabase, and Vercel.

22. Children’s privacy

Hangout is intended for people aged 13 and older, and you must be at least 18 to host a hangout. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected information from a child under 13, we will delete it. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us at support@myhangout.xyz.

23. App stores and platform disclosures

On iOS, the app requests permissions (such as location, notifications, contacts, and photos) in context, and you can change them at any time in your device settings. We do not track you across other companies’ apps and websites for advertising, and we do not use the device advertising identifier for tracking. Our App Store and Google Play data disclosures reflect the practices described in this policy.

24. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the date shown above and, where appropriate or required by law, provide additional notice of material changes. Your continued use of the Service after an update takes effect means you accept the revised policy.

25. How to contact us

If you have questions, requests, or complaints about this policy or your information, contact us at:

• Privacy and legal: legal@myhangout.xyz
• Support: support@myhangout.xyz
• General: contact@myhangout.xyz or info@myhangout.xyz

We will respond to your request as required by applicable law. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may have the right to contact your local data-protection or privacy authority, as described in Sections 17 and 20.