Privacy Policy

Nowby is an app for meeting people in real life, and privacy is built into how it works. This policy explains what data we process and why. Our guiding rule: we collect the minimum needed for the app to work, and we never sell your data.

What we don't do

• We don't store or share your exact location. We use your position only while the app is open, and only to work out your approximate area (~1 km). We round the exact value right away and discard it. Others only ever see a zone, never coordinates.
• We don't track you in the background. The app doesn't run in the background or monitor your location when you're not using it.
• We don't show your position to others. Others see only an approximate zone (neighborhood/area), never coordinates.

What data we process

Account and identity. By default you use the app anonymously (a random identifier, no personal details). You can optionally sign in with Sign in with Apple. In that case we store your Apple account identifier and email address (which may be Apple's private relay address). The email is used only to identify your account, not for marketing.

Approximate location. When you open the app, we ask for "while using" location. We use the reading only to compute your area: we immediately round it to ~1 km and don't save the exact value. With a ping we store only the approximate zone and an area code (geohash ~1 km), never the exact position.

Pings. When you "turn on", we store the intent you pick (e.g. coffee), an optional description, your approximate zone, and timestamps. Pings are ephemeral: they expire at the end of the day and are deleted automatically. Others nearby see your ping without access to your identifier.

Profile. Your name, a short bio, your chosen vibes, and (optionally) a profile photo. We keep the photo in private storage with a public link for display.

Contacts. People you swap contacts with in person (by bringing your phones close) are saved locally on your device. We don't send your contact list to our servers.

Contact import (optional). You can find friends you already have in your phone. If you allow it, the numbers in your address book are hashed (irreversibly shortened) on your device. Only the hashes reach our servers, never raw numbers or names from your address book. We match them against hashes of people who voluntarily (opt-in) chose to be discoverable, and we return only matches for numbers you provided (you can't probe the database). You can withdraw your discoverability at any time in Settings, and we delete the hash of your number.

Notifications. If you allow notifications, we store your device's push token so we can notify you when someone joins your ping. The token is available only to you (and the delivery mechanism), not to other users.

Blocks and reports. When you block or report someone, we record that fact so we can hide that person and enable moderation.

Advertising. Nowby shows ads to stay free. Ads are served through a third-party ad network (Google AdMob). To make ads more relevant we may use your device's advertising identifier (IDFA) and ad-interaction data, which are shared with the ad provider. On iOS we ask for your permission first via App Tracking Transparency, and in the EU/EEA we ask for your consent. If you decline, you still see ads, just non-personalized ones. You can change this anytime in your device settings.

Who we share data with

• Supabase (our backend/database/authentication provider): processes data on our behalf.
• Apple: for Sign in with Apple and push notification delivery.
• Mapbox: to display the area map (we pass rounded coordinates).
• Google AdMob: to show ads (and, with your consent, personalized ads using the advertising identifier).

We don't sell your personal data to data brokers. For advertising we share limited data (an advertising identifier and ad interactions) with our ad provider, Google AdMob, as described above and subject to your consent.

Your rights and controls

• Location: you can refuse or revoke consent in your system settings. Your area will then show as a default/general view.
• Notifications: you can turn them off in your system settings.
• Contacts: you can clear all local contacts in the app's Settings.
• Account deletion: you can delete your account and its data from within the app (Settings → Account → Delete account).
• Contact: for privacy matters, write to privacy@nowby.to.

Children

The app is not intended for people under 16.

Changes

We may update this policy; we'll announce significant changes in the app.