Privacy Policy

AlleyCat is run by Julio Buendia, an individual. This policy explains what the app collects, why, and what you can do about it. It covers the AlleyCat iOS app and this website.

What we collect

Your phone number. AlleyCat has no passwords and no email sign-in — your phone number is your account. We store it on your profile, and we store a one-way SHA-256 hash of it so friends who have your number in their contacts can find you.

Your profile. First and last name, username, profile photo, and hometown. Your name, username, and photo are shown to other people alongside anything you post.

What you save and write. Ratings, saved places, review text, and review photos.

Contact matching, if you allow it. See the section below — this one deserves its own explanation.

Location, while you are using the app. See the section below.

Device and usage data. A device identifier used to deliver push notifications, an analytics identifier, and records of in-app actions such as screens viewed and searches run.

We do not collect payment information, health data, or browsing history, and the app contains no advertising.

Contact matching

If you choose to find friends from your contacts, AlleyCat reads the phone numbers in your address book, normalises them, and converts each one to a one-way SHA-256 hash on your device. Only those hashes leave your phone, and only to look up whether a matching account exists.

We never upload your contacts. We do not store the hashes, and we do not store names, email addresses, or any other detail from your address book. A hash cannot be reversed into a phone number.

You can decline contact access, and AlleyCat works without it — you just have to find friends by searching for them.

Session recordings

To understand how people use AlleyCat and to find problems, our analytics provider Vexo records screen activity while you use the app. These recordings are captured with personal information masked.

They are tied to a device rather than to your account. We use them only to improve the app — never for advertising — and we do not sell them.

Location

AlleyCat asks for location only while you are using the app. There is no background location collection.

Your coordinates stay on your device. We use them to centre the map, show places near you, and label which city you are in. When you search, your location is sent to Google Places so results are relevant to where you are — we do not store your coordinates on our servers.

You can turn location off at any time in iOS Settings. The map still works; it just will not start where you are.

What other people can see

AlleyCat is a social app, so some of what you do is visible to others by design:

Your profile — name, username, photo, and hometown — is public.
Your ratings, saved places, and reviews are visible to people who follow you, and appear in their feed.
Your reviews are shown to anyone viewing that place, alongside your name, username, and photo.
Your phone number is never shown to anyone.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We use these service providers to run the app:

Google — Firebase for accounts, database, and file storage; Google Places for restaurant data, search, and photos.
Mapbox — maps. Mapbox collects its own usage and location analytics as part of providing the map.
Vexo — product analytics, so we can see which features are used.
Expo — push notification delivery.
Vercel — hosting and analytics for this website.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time from Settings. It takes effect immediately, and you do not need to email us to finish the job.

Deleting your account removes:

Your profile — name, username, photo, hometown, and phone number — along with the one-way hash that let friends find you by number, and your username, which becomes available again.
Your ratings, saved places, reviews, and review photos, including the copy of each review shown on the place you reviewed.
Your posts, and the comments and likes other people left on them.
Comments and likes you left on other people’s posts.
Your contribution to each place’s rating and Most Loved counts.
Your follows, in both directions, and any accounts you blocked.
Your notifications — both the ones you received and the ones other people received from you — and the device tokens used to send you push notifications.
Your sign-in credentials.

Two things are not covered by that, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise:

Reports you filed about someone else’s content stay. A report is a safety record about another person’s content rather than about you, and deleting it would remove something we may still need to act on. Reports about you are deleted along with everything else.

Session recordings are tied to a device, not to your account (see the section above), so deleting your account does not reach them. If you want yours removed, email support@alleycatmap.xyz.

How long we keep things

We keep your account data for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account we remove all of it immediately, apart from the two exceptions described above.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to see the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or receive a copy of it. If you are in California, you also have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights.

To make a request, email support@alleycatmap.xyz. We may need to verify that you control the phone number on the account before acting.

Children

AlleyCat is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you must be at least 16.

If you believe a child has created an account, email support@alleycatmap.xyz and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If the change is significant, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.

Contact

AlleyCat is operated by Julio Buendia, California, United States.

Questions about this policy, or about your data: support@alleycatmap.xyz