Firebase OTP verifies you're a real person. No passwords.
Used to show nearby happenings. You control this in device settings.
We have never sold, and will never sell, your personal information.
Stripe handles payment data. We never see your card details.
Request full deletion of your account and data at any time.
We verify each person holds only one Unite account.
This Privacy Policy describes how Unite ("we," "us," "our") collects, uses, and protects your information when you use the Unite mobile application and related services. Questions? Email connect[at]unite.earth.
| Data | Why we collect it |
|---|---|
| Phone number | Primary identity verification via Firebase OTP. Ties your real identity to one account and enforces the one-account rule. |
| Name & display name | Your public identity on the platform. |
| Profile photo | Helps other members recognise you at happenings. |
| Interests | Powers personalised happening discovery (up to 80 categories). |
| Happening activity | Records happenings you've attended, hosted, or joined. |
| Family memberships | Tracks which Families you belong to and your role within them. |
| Messages & chat content | Stored and delivered for happening group chats and Family channels. |
| Gender (optional) | Only if you choose to answer: male, female, prefer not to say, or other — with an optional detail such as trans male, trans female or non-binary, or your own words. Only you can see it. It is never shown on your profile, to hosts, or to other members. We process it with your consent, which you give by answering and withdraw by clearing it in Edit Profile, and it is deleted with your account. We never ask about sexual orientation. |
With your permission, we access your device's GPS location to show happenings nearby and display them on the live map. We do not track your location in the background. You can revoke location permission in device settings at any time.
We request camera and photo library access only when you upload a profile photo or family image.
If you offer bookable services and choose to connect a calendar, we use it for one purpose: working out which time slots you are genuinely free for, and putting confirmed Unite bookings onto the calendar you chose. If you do not use availability features, we never access your calendar at all.
Connecting a Google Calendar grants Unite two permissions, and each does exactly one job. Reading your calendar lets us calculate when you are busy: from the calendars you select, we read only the start and end times of events, and we store only those times. We never store the title, description, location, guests or any other content of your events, and we never use your calendar for any purpose other than your availability. Writing to your calendar lets Unite add a confirmed booking, and remove it again if that booking is cancelled. Unite only ever creates and deletes the events it created for your own Unite bookings — it never edits or deletes anything else on your calendar.
You can disconnect at any time from Calendar sync inside Unite, or by revoking Unite's access from your Google Account. Disconnecting deletes the stored access tokens and the busy times we derived from your calendar.
Limited Use. Unite's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not use Google user data for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not transfer it to others except as needed to provide the availability and booking features described above, to comply with the law, or as part of a merger or acquisition. We do not allow humans to read your Google Calendar data, except with your explicit consent, where necessary for security or to comply with applicable law, or where the data is aggregated and anonymised.
Unite can show your address book so you can pick someone to invite. We never sell your contacts, and we never store your address book.
Before we ask your device for access, the app explains what happens and asks you to agree. Only if you agree do we send phone numbers — never names, emails, photos or any other field — to Unite's servers, where they are compared against Unite's invite list so you can see which of your contacts already have an invite. The comparison happens in memory and the numbers are discarded immediately afterwards; nothing is retained.
When you invite one specific person, we receive that one phone number so we can add it to Unite's invite list, which is what lets them register. The app names the person and shows the number before anything is sent.
If you decline, we never request access to your contacts and nothing is read or sent — you can still invite people with a link or a QR code. If you never open the contacts inviter, we never access your contacts.
For users in the EEA, UK, and Canada, we rely on the following legal bases:
We do not sell your personal data. We share data only in these specific circumstances:
| Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Firebase (Google) | Phone OTP authentication and push notifications. Governed by Google's Privacy Policy. |
| Supabase | Database, file storage, and real-time features. Your profile, happenings, Families, and messages are stored here. |
| Stripe | Payment processing under PCI DSS compliance. We never store your card details. |
| Expo / EAS | App build and distribution infrastructure. |
| Google Maps | Location services powering the live happenings map. |
| Google Calendar | Optional calendar sync: reads event times to calculate your availability, and writes your confirmed Unite bookings to your calendar. Event times only — never event content. Governed by Google's Privacy Policy. |
| Sentry | Crash reporting and performance diagnostics to help us find and fix bugs. |
All payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details are entered directly into Stripe's secure interface and are never transmitted to or stored on Unite's servers. We receive only a transaction confirmation and masked card identifier.
Subscriptions are tied to your single Unite account. If your account is terminated for violating the one-account rule, your subscription ends and no refund is issued for the unused period.
We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, your profile and happening history are deleted from active databases within 30 days. We may retain financial records for up to 7 years where required by law. Anonymised aggregated data may be retained indefinitely.
Deleting your account also removes any Happenings you are hosting. Where one of those has not yet taken place, it is cancelled: everyone who had joined, been invited or asked to join is notified, and anyone who bought a ticket is refunded automatically. That happens before your data is removed, and the refunds complete whether or not your account still exists — see our Terms. Happenings that have already taken place are not refunded.
You can request deletion of your account and associated data here — verify with your phone number to delete instantly, or email us if you no longer have the app.
We implement row-level security (Supabase RLS), encrypted transmission (HTTPS/TLS), token-based authentication (Firebase JWT), and Stripe PCI-DSS compliance. No system is completely secure, but we take our responsibility seriously and respond promptly to any incidents.
Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or port your personal data; to restrict or object to processing; and to withdraw consent at any time. To delete your account and data, use our account deletion page. For any other request, contact us at connect[at]unite.earth and we will respond within 30 days.
You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority if you believe we are processing your data unlawfully.
You have the right to know what personal information we collect, request deletion, and not be discriminated against for exercising your rights. We do not sell personal information.
Unite is not intended for users under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from minors. If we become aware that we have, we will delete it promptly. Contact us immediately if you believe a minor has created an account.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will update the "Last updated" date above and notify you of material changes via push notification or in-app message. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.
Whether you want to delete your data or just have a question — a real person will respond.
connect@unite.earth