Privacy Policy

• Without an account, what you make stays on your phone. The app still reaches the internet for a few things you ask it to do, listed below.
• An account is optional. With one, your collection, notes, plans and some photos are stored so they can reach your other phones.
• We do not sell personal information, and nothing in the app tracks you across other companies' apps or websites.
• Free use shows one non-personalised sponsored row, from Google. Members see none.
• This website sets no cookies and loads nothing from any other company.

Everything the app remembers is stored on your phone first, in the app’s own storage: the interests you pick and the hobbies you collect, notes and photos, sessions and plans, vision boards, hobbies you made yourself, and your settings. It also remembers the last place you searched near, so a hobby card can show places close by.

You can erase all of it at any time under Settings → Erase my data, or by deleting the app.

You can sign in with an email address and a password you choose, a six-digit code we email you, Sign in with Apple, or your Google account. We never ask for a phone number. With an account, we store:

• Your email address, to sign you in. With Sign in with Apple you can choose to hide it, and we receive a private relay address from Apple instead.
• Your password, if you set one, only as a one-way hash held by our sign-in provider (Supabase). Nobody, including us, can read it back. Signing in with Apple or Google involves no password of ours at all.
• If you sign in with Apple: an identifier Apple gives us for your account, and your name if you choose to share it the first time you sign in.
• If you sign in with Google: an identifier Google gives us for your account, and what Google includes in its sign-in: your name and a link to your Google profile picture. The app does not show or use either.
• A copy of your collection, pinned notes, sessions, plans, hobbies you made yourself, settings, and the last place you searched near — so they reach another phone you sign in on.
• Photos you add, up to your backup limit: a reduced copy (at most 1600 pixels on the long side), in a private folder only your account can read. The original stays on the phone that took it.

Some things never leave the phone, even with an account: unfinished draft notes, vision boards, and photos beyond your backup limit.

Signing in with Apple or Google means Apple or Google knows you signed in to Aspect Niche. We get nothing else from them: not your contacts, your other apps or your Google data.

An invitation is a link that carries the event itself — what, when, where, and whatever you wrote — and you send it through whichever messaging app you choose.

If you are signed in when you send one, we record the invitation’s id against your account, so replies can reach you, and its title and start time with it, so the notification that tells you someone answered can name the invitation. Nothing else in the invitation is stored. A guest’s reply then stores the name they typed and their answer — going, maybe or out — and only the host can read it. A guest needs no account and gives nothing else. Signed out, replies travel as links, and nothing passes through us.

You can put one of the app’s own pictures behind an invitation, which sends nothing but its name. If you choose a photo of your own and are signed in, we store a reduced copy (at most 1600 pixels on the long side) under a long random name, so your guest’s phone or browser can show it. Anyone with the invitation link can see that photo; nobody can find it without the link, and it carries nothing that identifies you. Signed out, the photo stays on your phone and your guest sees the invitation without it.

A repeating plan (a series) is stored on our servers, because its link has to show this week’s changes. Anyone with the link can see its schedule and the names of everyone who answered, and can add their own; the page says so above the name field. A name and its answers are deleted when the host removes them, when the host deletes the series or their account, or when the guest withdraws them. Answers to games more than 90 days past are cleared the next time anyone opens the series or changes an answer in it. The host can remove a name from every game at any time, and deleting the series removes everything. An “I’m usually in” answer stays until the guest withdraws it or the host removes it. A series holds at most 40 names.

A club needs an account. We store the club’s name, its hobby and any place you gave it, and for each member the display name they typed. Other members see those display names, never an email address. If you report a club, we store the report for a moderator; nobody in the club is told.

• Typing a place. When you type in a place field, the text you have typed — nothing else — is sent to Photon, an address search run by komoot, to suggest matches.
• Your location. Only when you tap “Use my location” or “Suggest places near me”, and only after iOS asks your permission. The coordinates are used for that one search and are not stored against your account, except as the last place you searched near, described above.
• The search. Our server looks for places in its own copy of Overture Maps data. Where that has nothing, it asks OpenStreetMap’s public servers about the area, and keeps that answer for a while against a coarse area and the place name you gave — not against you — so the next person nearby is not another request. Your IP address is used to limit how many searches can come from one connection, in a counter that only covers the current short window.

The AI features work only when you are signed in, and only when you ask. Each time, our server sends Groq, which runs the AI model, what that one answer needs, and nothing else:

• Asking about a hobby: the hobby, your question and the earlier ones in that conversation, and your level with it — how many sessions you confirmed, the time they added up to, when the last one was, and how long ago you took it up.
• A plan for your first time: the hobby, the place you picked, and your pinned notes for it.
• Looking back: the hobby, and your pinned notes and answered sessions for it.
• Ideas for a date: the hobby you both agreed on, and the time, meal, budget and place you agreed.
• What should I try?: what you type about what you like, and the names of hobbies you have collected.
• Suggested words for a vision board: the board's title, the hobbies on it, and the words already on it.
• Adding a hobby of your own: its name and description, to pick the kinds of places it is done at.

We do not store the answers on our servers; they live on your phone unless you keep one as a note. We store only how many answers you have used each month, to apply the monthly limit. Groq processes the request under its own privacy policy.

Memberships are bought through Apple. Apple handles the payment, and we never see your card or billing details. Purchases are verified by RevenueCat, which receives Apple’s record of the purchase and an id for you — your account’s id if you are signed in, otherwise a random one — along with basic device information.

For a signed-in account we store whether it has a membership, which plan, and when it ends, so the membership works on your other phones.

Free use shows one sponsored row, served by the Google Mobile Ads SDK. It is always requested as non-personalised: it is not chosen from a profile of you, and the app never asks for permission to track you, so Apple’s advertising identifier is not available to it. To show and measure the ad and to prevent fraud, Google receives device and connection information such as your IP address, and whether the ad was seen or tapped. For members the ad SDK never starts.

A hobby’s plan can link to starter gear (REI, Amazon) and to classes (Eventbrite, Cozymeal). Some of these may be affiliate links, which earn us a commission if you buy, at no cost to you. Tapping one opens that site in your browser; the app sends it nothing about you, and the link says only which search to show. What you do there is covered by that site’s own privacy policy.

Reminders for your own sessions are scheduled and sent by your phone. Nothing else in this section applies to them.

If you allow notifications, the app also tells you when something changes in an invitation or a series you follow: a guest answered, a game moved or was cancelled, a host sent a message, or a game is tomorrow and you have not answered. To do that, your phone stores a push token with us, along with its time zone, its notification switches, and each invitation or series it follows with the name you answered under. You do not need an account for this, and the token is attached to your account only if you are signed in.

To deliver a notification, its text — a name, an event title, a time — passes through Expo’s push service and Apple’s push service. They also receive which screen the notification opens, an in-app route and the event’s id, and nothing about you beyond that.

Until a notification is sent, its words wait in a queue on our servers: guest names and answers, a host’s message, and a series’ schedule before and after a change. Notifications held for quiet hours (9pm to 8am on your phone’s clock) wait there until morning.

A token is deleted when Apple says the phone no longer accepts notifications, and with the account when you delete it. With no account attached, it is deleted two days after the phone last used the app if it follows nothing, and after 120 days unused whatever it follows. An account keeps the tokens of its ten most recently used phones; signing in on an eleventh deletes the oldest. You can turn notifications off, kind by kind, under Settings → Notifications, and mute a single event from the series screen or from the invitation in the Plans tab.

When you text people about a plan, the contacts you pick stay on your phone, and the message goes through your own messaging app. We never receive their names or numbers.

• Photos and camera — only when you add a photo to a hobby. The app copies that image into its own storage and never reads your library otherwise.
• Calendar — only to put a session or date you scheduled onto your calendar. iOS asks for full calendar access because the system event editor cannot open at any lower level; the app adds the one event you asked for and does not read, collect or send your calendar.
• Location — only when you tap a button that asks for it, as described under Finding places.
• Notifications — reminders are scheduled on your phone and sent by your phone; nothing about them reaches us. Notifications about an invitation or a series you follow come from our servers, and only if you allow them, as described under Notifications.
• Contacts — only when you choose people to text about a plan. What you pick stays on your phone, as described under Notifications.

Each is asked for when you first use the feature, and declining leaves the rest of the app working.

We use these services to run the app and this site. Each receives only what its job needs:

• Supabase — our servers and database: accounts, synced copies, backed-up photos, invitation photos, clubs, replies, series, membership status and AI usage counts.
• Resend — sends the sign-in code to your email address.
• Apple — App Store purchases and payment, delivery of notifications to iPhones, and Sign in with Apple if you use it.
• Expo — passes notifications to Apple's push service.
• RevenueCat — verifies purchases and tells our servers when a membership starts or ends.
• Groq — runs the AI model for AI answers.
• Google — signs you in, if you choose your Google account, and serves the sponsored row to free users. The two are not linked.
• komoot (Photon) — address suggestions while you type.
• OpenStreetMap — place data, where our own copy has none.
• Vercel — hosts this website.

• Sell or rent personal information.
• Show personalised ads, or track you across other companies' apps and websites.
• Read your photo library, calendar or location beyond the moment you ask the app to use it.
• Show your email address to anyone else in the app.

On your phone, data stays until you erase it or delete the app. On our servers, your account’s data stays while the account exists.

Queued notifications are different: a sent one is deleted from the queue 7 days after it goes; one still waiting is sent first, then deleted 7 days later. A push token with no account attached is deleted two days after the phone last used the app if it follows nothing, and after 120 days unused whatever it follows.

You can delete your account from inside the app, under You → Account → Delete my account. That deletes, straight away and for good, your sign-in and everything our servers hold for it: the synced copy, backed-up photos, photos behind your invitations, clubs you made (their other members lose them too), your club memberships, invitations and the replies to them, series you host and every answer to them, your membership record and AI usage counts, and your customer record with RevenueCat. Everything on your phone stays. Reports you made about a club are kept for the moderator, without your name on them.

If you only want the synced copy gone, choose Sign out and delete the copy when you sign out instead. If you signed in with Apple or Google, you can also remove Aspect Niche from the apps that use your Apple ID or Google account, in Apple’s or Google’s own settings. Deleting an account does not cancel a membership bought through Apple; cancel that in your Apple ID settings. Apple keeps its own purchase records as its policies and the law require. If you cannot use the app, email devauntaenorman@gmail.com from the address you sign in with and we will delete the account within 30 days.

This site sets no cookies, stores nothing in your browser beyond the one thing described below, and loads nothing from any other company — no analytics, no advertising, no embedded video, no font service. That is why there is no cookie banner. It is a set of pages about the app, plus the pages the app’s invitation and plan links open.

The repeating-plan page remembers the name you typed, in this browser only, so you can answer in one tap. Clearing the site’s data in your browser removes it.

Like any website, it is served by a hosting provider that keeps short-lived technical request logs, which include IP addresses, for security and reliability. We do not build profiles from them or connect them to anything you do in the app.

Aspect Niche is intended for adults, and the Terms of Use require you to be 18 or older. It is not directed at children. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Depending on where you live — including under the UK and EU GDPR and California law — you can ask to see, correct, export or delete the personal data we hold about you. Email us from the address you sign in with and we will respond within 30 days. Much of it you can see and remove yourself in the app. We do not sell or share personal information for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of there.

If you are in the UK or EU and believe we have handled your data improperly, you have the right to complain to your data protection authority.

If a future version collects or sends something new, this page will be updated before that version ships, and the date at the top will change.

Aspect Niche is made and operated by Devauntae Norman. Questions about this policy, or requests about your data: devauntaenorman@gmail.com

See also the Terms of Use.