Privacy
Policy
Draft pending legal review. This text describes what the app actually does, flow by flow, and is accurate to the current build. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer. Do not submit it to App Store Connect or the Play Console before that review, and fill in every highlighted placeholder first.
Who is responsible
The controller for the processing described here is [OPERATOR LEGAL NAME], [POSTAL ADDRESS], contactable at [CONTACT EMAIL].
UNSEEN is a discovery app for places and events. You use it in one of two roles, chosen once when you sign up: as an Explorer, who discovers places and posts photos, or as a Business, who lists their own venue and events. What we process differs between the two, and the sections below say which role each item applies to.
What we process, and why
| Data | Why | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Email address and password (both roles) |
To create and secure your account. The password is stored only as a hash by our authentication provider — we never see it. | Art. 6(1)(b) — performance of a contract |
| Username, role, profile picture, city (both roles) |
To identify you in the app. Your username and picture are shown next to photos you post publicly. | Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Approximate location while you use Discover (Explorers) |
To show places and events near you, sorted by distance, within the search radius you choose. | Art. 6(1)(a) — consent, via the system location permission |
| Your last known location, stored on our servers (Explorers) |
Saved when you open Discover, and used only to decide whether a newly added place is inside your search radius before we send you a "new hidden spot nearby" notification. See "Location in detail" below. | Art. 6(1)(a) — consent, withdrawable by turning that notification off |
| Background location, on your device only (Explorers, optional) |
To remind you to post a photo when you arrive at a place you saved. This runs entirely on your device and is never transmitted to us. Entirely optional — see "Location in detail". | Art. 6(1)(a) — separate, explicit consent |
| Photos you post ("vibes"), with caption (Explorers) |
To show what a place is actually like. You choose per photo whether it is public or private to you. | Art. 6(1)(a) |
| Coordinates at the moment you post a photo (Explorers) |
Checked against the venue's location so a photo can only be posted from within about 200 metres of it. The check happens at that moment; we do not store the coordinates it used. | Art. 6(1)(f) — legitimate interest in authentic content |
| Likes (Explorers) |
To build your saved collection and to compute your Unseen Score. | Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Swipe history (Explorers) |
To stop showing you the same place twice. This history is private. It is never shown to other users, and never to the business whose place you swiped away. | Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Push token and a device identifier (both roles) |
To deliver notifications to the right device, and to avoid sending the same notification twice to the same device after a reinstall. | Art. 6(1)(a) |
| Reports and blocks (Explorers) |
To act on content you report and to hide users you block. Reports are stored with your user ID so the same person cannot file a report repeatedly to force content down. | Art. 6(1)(c) and 6(1)(f) — legal obligation and legitimate interest in moderation |
| Venue and event details (Businesses) |
Name, description, photos, address, coordinates, opening hours and categories of the places you list. This is published in the app by design. | Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Aggregate engagement figures (Businesses) |
Like and photo counts for your own venues and events. Businesses see totals and the photos posted at their venue — never a list of which individual users liked or swiped. | Art. 6(1)(b) |
Location in detail
Location is the most sensitive thing this app touches, so it is worth being precise. There are three separate uses, and they behave differently:
1. While you are looking at Discover
When you open the Discover tab, the app asks your device for your position and uses it to find places and events near you. This needs the ordinary "while using the app" location permission.
2. Your last known position, stored on our servers
That same position is also saved to your account as a single point, replacing the previous one. It exists for exactly one purpose: when a business adds a new place, we check whether that place falls inside your chosen search radius before sending you a notification about it. Without a stored position we would either have to notify everyone or no one.
We keep only the most recent position, never a history, and it is only ever as fresh as the last time you opened Discover — there is no tracking in the background for this. If you have never opened Discover, no position is stored and you simply do not receive these notifications. You can stop this processing by turning off "New hidden spots nearby" in your profile.
3. Arrival reminders (background location, optional)
If you turn it on, the app can remind you to post a photo when you actually arrive at a place you saved. Your device watches for you entering a roughly 200-metre circle around each of your saved places and shows a local notification.
This runs entirely on your device. The list of places is handed to your operating system, your operating system decides when you enter one, and the notification is created locally. Your position is not sent to us, not stored by us, and we do not learn that it fired.
This is off unless you explicitly enable it, we explain what it does before the system permission dialog appears, and everything else in the app works normally if you decline. You can withdraw it at any time in your device's location settings for UNSEEN.
Photos of other people
Photos are taken in bars, on streets and at events, so other people can end up in them. If you post a photo, you are responsible for it: do not photograph people who have not agreed to it, and do not post a photo in which someone else is identifiable without their consent. Our Terms require this.
If you appear in a photo you did not agree to, report it in the app — open the photo and choose "Shows me or someone else without consent". You can also write to [CONTACT EMAIL]. We remove such photos on request; you do not have to explain yourself.
We do not run facial recognition on photos, and we do not build any biometric profile of anyone.
Moderation
Photos can be reported by users. Once a photo has been reported by two different people it is hidden automatically, pending review. Hidden photos remain visible to the person who posted them, with the reason shown, rather than disappearing without explanation. Reports are also emailed to us so we can look at them.
Who else processes your data
We use the following providers. Each is bound by a data processing agreement and processes data only on our instructions.
| Provider | What it handles | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, authentication, photo storage and server-side functions — effectively everything the app stores. | [CONFIRM PROJECT REGION — must be an EU region] |
| Expo push service | Forwards notifications to Apple and Google. Receives your push token and the notification text. | USA |
| Apple (APNs) / Google (FCM) | Final delivery of notifications to your device. Unavoidable for push on iOS and Android. | USA |
| Geoapify | Map images and address lookup. Receives the coordinates being displayed, not your account. | EU (Germany) |
| Resend | Sends us an email when content is reported. The email contains the report, not your profile. | USA |
Transfers to providers in the USA are covered by the EU Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
How long we keep things
- Account data — until you delete your account.
- Photos — until you delete them, or until you delete your account.
- Your last known position — overwritten each time you open Discover; deleted with your account.
- Push tokens — deleted when you sign out, when you delete your account, or when the delivery service tells us the device no longer exists.
- Reports — kept while the reported content exists, so a decision can be traced afterwards.
- Likes — see the next section.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account inside the app, from your profile — no email, no support request. It takes effect immediately and cannot be undone.
Deleted: your profile, your photos and the image files behind them, your swipe history, your push tokens, your notification history, your reports and blocks.
One exception: your likes remain as anonymous timestamps, no longer connected to you or to any account. The reason is that the Unseen Score of every other user is calculated from how early they liked a place relative to everyone else. If your likes vanished, other people's scores would silently change. What remains is a bare timestamp with no link back to you.
If you delete a Business account, your venues and events are deactivated and disappear from Discover and Hotspots, but are not erased: Explorers who saved them keep them in their collection, marked as no longer maintained. Deleting them outright would take those users' likes with them.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- access the data we hold about you (Art. 15);
- have inaccurate data corrected (Art. 16);
- have your data deleted (Art. 17) — for the whole account, the in-app deletion above is the fastest route;
- restrict processing (Art. 18);
- receive your data in a portable format (Art. 20);
- object to processing based on legitimate interest (Art. 21);
- withdraw any consent at any time, with effect for the future (Art. 7(3)) — location and notification permissions are withdrawn in your device settings, and in the app's own settings.
To exercise any of these, write to [CONTACT EMAIL]. You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority; in Germany that is the data protection authority of your federal state.
Children
UNSEEN is not intended for people under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we process data in a way that affects you, we will update this page and ask you to accept the new version in the app before you continue using it. The version and date at the top always identify the current text.