Privacy Policy

Who OurPlaces is for

OurPlaces is for people aged 18 and over. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think someone under 18 has an account, tell us and we’ll delete it.

Information you give us

• Your account: your email address, display name, username and login details. If you sign in with Apple or Google, they share your name and email address with us; Apple may give us a private relay address instead.
• What you add: places, collections, notes, ratings, visits, the posts you save, and photos, including your profile photo and photos in posts. We remove location details from photos you post.
• What you share and say: posts, comments, likes, follows, direct messages, group chats, and the reports, appeals and blocks you make.
• Imports, feedback and support: Google Maps list links you import, and feedback, complaints, screenshots and messages you send us.

What other people can see

Other OurPlaces users can see your display name, username and profile photo, and can find you by username. Posts you publish are visible to the audience you choose, along with likes and comments on them and how many people have saved them. Which posts you save stays private: only you can see your saved posts, and no one is told when you save one. Collections are shared only when you create or use an invite or share link, and owners, editors and viewers get the access shown in the app. Messages are seen by the people in that conversation or group. Don’t put sensitive personal information in posts, notes or messages.

Messages

Direct messages and group chats are stored on our servers so they work across your devices. They aren’t end-to-end encrypted. We don’t read them, except to review a message someone has reported to us, to deal with suspected illegal activity or misuse, or when the law requires it.

Reports and safety

When something is reported, we keep a private copy of it as it was, including its photos and, for an edited post, its earlier versions, so the evidence survives if it’s changed or deleted. We record what we decide and why, and send the notices our Terms describe. Reports are private: we never tell anyone who reported them.

When you edit a post in a way that changes what it shows, we keep the version it replaced for 12 months, privately, to judge reports. No one else sees it.

Our word filter checks the words in what you post and the names you choose, as you save them, to stop slurs and hate terms. Our Terms explain how it works.

We report child sexual abuse content to the National Crime Agency, as the law requires.

Location

Location is optional. If you choose Near me or ask the map to find you, your device provides a current position so the app can show and sort nearby places. We request it only after your action, use it for that session, and do not store a history of your live location. To find places near you, your position is sent to Google. The app continues to work if you decline.

Purchases

OurPlaces is free to use. If you buy Pro or Founder, Apple takes the payment through the App Store. We never see your card or bank details.

Apple and the service that manages purchases for us tell us what you bought and its status: the product, purchase and renewal dates, whether a free trial or offer applies, whether it was a test purchase, the store and transaction details. We link this to your account’s internal ID so your plan works on every device you sign in to. That service also receives basic technical information from the app, such as device type, app version and country, to process purchases. We don’t send it your name or email address.

Information collected automatically

Like most online services, our servers record technical information such as your IP address, device type, operating system, app version and error details, to run, secure and fix the app. If you allow notifications, we store your device’s notification token so we can send them.

Analytics

On ourplaces.app we use an analytics service, hosted in the EU, to understand which features are used, through events such as a place being added, a collection being shared or directions being opened. Once you sign in, events are linked to your account’s internal ID. We don’t record session replays, and we strip web addresses that could contain private links. The service may estimate your approximate location from your IP address. The iPhone app doesn’t use analytics.

The analytics service itself stores nothing on your device. On the website we keep a few small flags in your browser’s storage so a milestone isn’t counted twice and to remember whether you first arrived from a shared link. You can turn analytics off for your device here, which also removes those flags.

How we use information, and why

• To provide OurPlaces (your account, saved places, sharing, messaging, Pro and purchases), because it’s needed for our agreement with you.
• For location and notifications, with your consent, which you give and can withdraw in your device settings at any time.
• To keep OurPlaces safe and working (security, preventing misuse, reviewing reports, fixing faults and improving the app, including analytics), because we have a legitimate interest in running a safe, reliable app, which we balance against your rights.
• To apply your plan and its limits, and to record which one-time offers you’ve seen so they aren’t shown again, as part of our agreement with you.
• To meet legal obligations, such as keeping records, responding to lawful requests and protecting people from illegal content.

We don’t sell your personal information or use it for advertising, and we don’t make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Services that help run OurPlaces

We use specialist providers to operate the app: for accounts and data storage, hosting, importing a public Google Maps list when you ask, transactional email, website analytics, and managing purchases and subscriptions. Map and place information comes from Google Maps and Places, and App Store payments go through Apple. Providers process information only for the relevant service and under their own privacy terms.

We may also share information with professional advisers; with the police, the National Crime Agency or regulators such as Ofcom, when the law requires it or to protect people from harm; and with a buyer if OurPlaces is ever sold, who would have to protect it in the same way.

Information outside the UK and EU

We’re based in the UK, which the EU recognises as protecting personal information to its standards. Some providers process information elsewhere, mainly in the European Union and the United States. Where a country isn’t recognised as protecting personal information to UK or EU standards, we rely on the UK–US data bridge and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, or on the UK’s and EU’s approved contract clauses in the provider’s terms.

Retention and security

• Your account, content and plan records: while your account is open.
• A post you delete: 30 days, then it’s deleted with its photos, comments and likes. A post we remove: six months, while it can be appealed, then the same. Either is kept longer only while a report about your account is open, or if the police have asked us to keep it.
• Earlier versions of edited posts: 12 months.
• When you delete your account, your profile, photos, posts, comments, likes, saved posts and follows are deleted with it, and so are your one-to-one conversations, for both of you. Messages you sent in group chats stay in the chat, without your name.
• Discover photos on your iPhone: the app keeps photos you’ve seen so it doesn’t download them again. Each day you open it, the app clears out any that are no longer in a post you can see, and any you haven’t looked at for 30 days. Signing out clears them all.
• Backups: deleted within 30 days.
• Server logs: up to 30 days.
• Analytics: up to 12 months.
• Reports and safety records, with their private copies: 12 months after a report is closed, or longer if the police or the National Crime Agency ask us to keep them, or if we need them for a legal claim.
• Feedback and support messages: up to 2 years.

When you delete your account, we also delete your purchase records and ask the service that manages purchases to delete its record of them. Apple keeps its own purchase records under Apple’s privacy policy.

We use access controls, encrypted connections and managed infrastructure, but no online service can promise absolute security.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict how we use it, or to receive it in a portable format, and you can object to uses based on our legitimate interests, including analytics. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Email hello@ourplaces.app to make a request. It’s free, we may need to confirm it’s you, and we’ll reply within one month.

If you’re unhappy with how we handle your information, email hello@ourplaces.app. We’ll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, and tell you what we found and what we’ll do. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. If you live in the EU, you can also complain to the data protection authority where you live or work.

Your choices

You can edit profile information, revoke device permissions, export your place data, leave shared collections, block people and delete your account from Settings. Deleting your account removes it and its data as described above, subject to short-lived backups and legal requirements.

Deleting your account doesn’t cancel an App Store subscription. Cancel it first in your iPhone’s Settings → your name → Subscriptions.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app changes and will show meaningful updates in the app.

Contact us

We’re the controller of your information under UK and EU data protection law. For privacy questions or requests, email hello@ourplaces.app, or in the app go to Profile → Settings → Help & feedback → Send feedback.