1. Introduction

LinkUp ("Company," "we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use the LinkUp mobile application ("App").

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. When we make changes, we will update the "Last Updated" date above. Your continued use of the App after any modification constitutes your acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy. Please review this policy periodically.

If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please do not use the App.

2. Information We Collect

This section describes the categories of information LinkUp holds. It is a description of categories, not an exhaustive list of every individual field: the specific items within a category change as the App changes.

2.1 Information You Provide or Create

• Account and identity information — The name, username, email address, and/or phone number you register with; your password, which we store only as a cryptographic hash and never in readable form; your date of birth, which we use to apply the minimum age requirement and to determine which advertising settings are available to you; and a record of the versions of these policies you have agreed to and when.
• Content you create and share — Groups you create or join and their names, descriptions and join codes; events, including their titles, dates, details and locations; group chat messages; direct messages; polls, reactions, replies and event tags; your RSVP responses; and event invitations, pings and reminders.
• Reports, feedback and support requests — Reports you submit about another user or a piece of content, including anything you write and a copy of the content being reported; and any feedback or support request you send us, including diagnostic logs if you choose to attach them.
• Settings and preferences — Your notification preferences, per-group mute settings, privacy toggles and advertising choices. These are held on our servers rather than only on your device, because they have to be applied before anything is sent to you.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device and app information — Device model, iOS version and app version; your Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) device token, used to deliver push notifications; and a persistent identifier for your device provided by iOS, which we record when you register and use to prevent a banned or suspended account from immediately signing up again on the same device.
• Connection information — IP address, connection timestamps, and WebSocket connection metadata.
• In-app activity needed to operate features — Which chat messages and events you have already seen, so unread counts and "new" badges are accurate, and when your device was last active.
• Safety and enforcement records — Sign-in attempts (the identifier used and the originating IP address), IP addresses seen on your account, warnings and posting restrictions issued to you, blocks you place on other users, and the outcome of reports involving you. Message content is also screened automatically for slurs, hate speech and threats; see Section 3.
• Error, diagnostic and performance data — Technical information about App and server errors, crashes, freezes and performance, so we can diagnose and fix faults and keep the App responsive. Performance measurements cover things like how long the App takes to launch, how much memory it uses, and how much data it writes to your device.
• Purchase and advertising records — The Apple transaction identifier for a Remove Ads purchase (we never receive your payment details) and a record of which ads were shown to you.

2.3 Information Collected Through Device Permissions

We request the following device permissions and use each for the purposes described below:

Permission	What We Access	How It's Used
Camera	Camera viewfinder only	Scan circular group join codes. No images are captured, stored, or transmitted.
Location (When In Use)	Precise location, only while the App is open	Center the map on where you are when you are choosing a location for an event, and show how far away an event is on its detail screen. A location you choose becomes part of that event and is shared with the group you create it in. Coordinates and addresses are sent to Apple’s mapping and geocoding services to convert between the two. Not collected in the background, never sent to our advertising partner, and never sold. You can limit the App to an approximate position by turning off Precise Location in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → LinkUp.
Calendar (Full Access)	Your calendar events, and the ability to add an event to your calendar	Display your personal events alongside group events in the Calendar tab, and save an event to your calendar when you choose Add to Calendar. Full access is requested because saving an event requires write access, while showing your events and checking whether an event is already in your calendar — so that Add to Calendar does not create a duplicate — require read access. Your calendar data is never sent to our servers.
Notifications	Push notification delivery	Send you alerts about group chat and direct messages, new, changed and cancelled events, RSVPs, join requests and approvals, and reminders.

2.4 Information from Third-Party Advertising

If you have not purchased the Remove Ads option, our advertising partner Google AdMob may collect the following. We do not enable personalized advertising and we do not use the advertising identifier on your device, so no App Tracking Transparency prompt is shown — see Section 6.

• Approximate location (country/region level)
• Device and app information used to serve relevant ads

Google AdMob's privacy practices are governed by Google's Privacy Policy.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Provide and operate the App — Create and manage your account, groups, events, and chats
• Deliver push notifications — Notify you about group activity, events, RSVPs, and reminders
• Personalize your experience — Apply your notification and in-app preferences
• Process purchases — Verify your in-app purchase of Remove Ads via Apple's StoreKit
• Improve the App — Analyze error and crash reports, and the feedback you send us, to find and fix faults and improve features
• Enforce our Terms of Service — Detect and prevent abuse, fraud, and violations. This includes screening group chat messages, direct messages, and the names and descriptions you give to groups, events and your profile automatically for slurs, hate speech and threats before they are posted, and reviewing reports submitted by other users. See Section 5.4 of the Terms of Service.
• Confirm your age — Use the date of birth you give at signup to enforce our minimum age requirement and to determine which advertising settings are available to you
• Prevent ban evasion — Record an identifier for your device at signup so that an account we have banned or suspended cannot immediately sign up again on the same device
• Comply with legal obligations — Respond to lawful requests from authorities where required
• Serve advertising — If you have not removed ads, display relevant advertisements via Google AdMob

We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

4. How We Store Your Information

4.1 Server Storage

Your account data, group data, event data, chat messages, direct messages, and your settings and preferences are stored on servers operated for us by a third-party cloud hosting provider.

Event locations are stored in encrypted form. They are decrypted to show the event to members of the group it belongs to, and may also be decrypted by authorized LinkUp personnel where necessary to review reported content, investigate a safety concern, or respond to a legal request. See 4.2 Access by LinkUp personnel below.

4.2 Access by LinkUp personnel

LinkUp is operated by a small team. Authorized personnel may access your information, including the content of group chats, direct messages, event details and event locations, where it is necessary to investigate a report of objectionable content or abusive behavior, respond to a safety concern, provide support you have asked for, comply with a legal obligation or a valid legal request, or diagnose a fault you have reported.

This access is limited to what the specific purpose requires, and each access is recorded in an internal log. We do not read your messages for advertising or for product analytics.

4.3 On-Device Storage

• Authentication token — Stored in the iOS Keychain, encrypted by the OS and readable only while your device is unlocked. Expires after 7 days. A second copy is kept in the App’s shared storage so the Home Screen widget can respond to an RSVP — see 4.4 below.
• Cached groups, events, and profile data — Stored in Core Data for offline browsing. Cleared when you log out.
• Calendar events — Never stored by us; read locally from iOS Calendar only

4.4 Home Screen Widget and Shared Storage

If you add the LinkUp widget to your Home Screen, the App keeps a small copy of some of your information in a shared storage area on your device so the widget has something to show and can act on a tap. The widget does not contact our servers itself — the App writes this copy while you are using it, and the widget reads it.

• A copy of your authentication token — so that tapping an RSVP button in the widget can act on your behalf. It is written with the strongest file protection iOS offers, cannot be read while your device is locked, is excluded from device backups, and is deleted when you sign out.
• A summary of your upcoming events — titles, dates, the group each belongs to, your RSVP status, and, where you typed one, the event’s location as readable text. If an event’s location was dropped as a map pin rather than typed, no location text is written. This summary is encrypted by iOS and excluded from device backups, but it is readable once your device has been unlocked after restarting, because the widget has to be able to draw itself. It is not encrypted in the way event locations are encrypted on our servers, described in 4.1, and it is cleared when you sign out.

This shared area is private to LinkUp on your device. Nothing in it is sent anywhere, and no part of it is shared with our advertising partner or any other third party.

4.5 Retention

We keep your account for as long as it is open. Several categories of content and records are deleted automatically on a fixed schedule, whether or not your account is active:

What	How long we keep it
Group chat messages	90 days. We also keep only the 1,000 most recent messages in any one group, so a busy group may lose older messages sooner than 90 days.
Direct messages	365 days. We also keep only the 5,000 most recent messages in any one conversation. A message you delete is purged 30 days later.
Events	30 days after the event ends.
Groups that are disbanded or removed	30 days, after which the group and everything in it is permanently deleted.
In-app notifications	90 days, or 30 days after you read them, whichever comes first.
Reports	180 days after the report is reviewed or dismissed.
Feedback and support requests	30 days after we close them; 365 days if they are still open.
IP addresses seen on your account	180 days after they were last seen.
Sign-in and join attempt records	24 hours for sign-in attempts; 7 days for group join attempts.
Advertising impression records	90 days.
Error and diagnostic logs	30 days for server errors; 60 days for errors reported by the App.
Security and administrative action records	180 days.

These are maximums, not guarantees. Content can be removed sooner — by you, by a group admin, or by us for a violation of the Terms of Service.

When you delete your account, deletion happens in two stages:

• Immediately. Your account is closed and you are signed out. You can no longer sign in, post, or be contacted through the App.
• Immediately. If you owned a group that still has other members, ownership transfers to the most senior remaining member so the group is not left without an owner.
• For 30 days. Your account and its associated data are retained in this closed state. During this period the deletion can be reversed if you contact us — see Section 7.6.
• After 30 days. Your account and associated personal data are permanently deleted from our servers and cannot be recovered.
• Backups may retain data for a limited period after deletion.

Some records outlive your account. When your account is deleted, most of your data goes with it. A few categories are kept, and they fall into three groups.

Kept without your identifier. If another user reported your content, the report — including the copy of the reported content saved with it — is kept for the report retention period shown above, with your account identifiers removed. Records of an in-app purchase are kept with your account identifier removed, so that purchase and refund records remain complete, and are permanently deleted 7 years after the purchase. Error and diagnostic records are stripped of your identifier rather than deleted, and age out on the schedule above.

Kept in de-identified form. Security and administrative records — sign-in security events, records of moderation actions taken on the account, and records of administrative messages sent to it — are retained for the period shown above, with your account identifier replaced by a surrogate reference. The surrogate keeps that account’s own records grouped together, so we can still see a sequence of events as one story, but it does not link back to you, to your email address, or to any other record. Your email address is removed, and any IP address recorded at the time is reduced to the surrounding network rather than the exact address. These records exist so that we can investigate abuse, respond to a later dispute or legal request, and show what happened to an account.

Records of what our own staff did — for example that an administrator issued a ban, and the reason given — are records of our actions rather than yours, and are kept as part of our operating history.

Kept as a hashed record. If your account is banned or suspended, we retain a one-way, non-reversible hashed form of your email address, phone number, and device identifier for 5 years from the date of the ban, after which it is deleted. This hashed record cannot be used to recover your email address, phone number, or device identifier, and is used for exactly one purpose: recognizing an attempt to create a new account after a ban. We do not use it to contact you, to profile you, or to identify you for any other purpose.

5. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only in the following circumstances:

5.1 With Other Users

• Profile — Your name and username are visible to members of groups you belong to
• Email address and phone number — Never shared with other users. They are not visible to group members and are not returned to the App when it lists a group’s members.
• Events — Event details, including location and RSVP responses, are visible to all members of the group the event belongs to
• Chat messages — Visible to all members of the group chat
• Direct messages — Visible only to the one other person in the conversation. If you block someone, your messages stop being delivered to them and theirs are hidden from you.

5.2 With Service Providers

• Google AdMob — Advertising (only if ads are enabled)
• Apple APNs — Push notification delivery
• Apple Maps / geocoding — Converting between coordinates and addresses when you choose or view an event location
• Cloud hosting provider — Operates the servers that store and serve your data
• Email delivery providers — Resend, with Google’s Gmail service as a fallback if a message cannot be sent, used to deliver account verification and password reset codes. Your email address is disclosed to the provider that delivers the message.
• Google reCAPTCHA — Used on our support website to detect and prevent automated abuse

5.3 For Legal Reasons

We may disclose your information if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with applicable law, protect the rights or safety of LinkUp, our users, or the public, or detect and prevent fraud or security issues.

5.4 Business Transfers

If LinkUp is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via email or a prominent in-app notice before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

6. Apple App Tracking Transparency (ATT)

LinkUp does not track you. We do not follow your activity across other companies' apps or websites, we do not use the advertising identifier on your device, and we do not share your personal information with advertisers for targeted advertising. Because we do not track, the App does not show an App Tracking Transparency prompt, and our app privacy information on the App Store declares that no data is used to track you.

Advertisements shown in the App are not personalized to you.

7. Your Privacy Choices and Rights

7.1 Notification Preferences

Manage push notification settings within the App under Profile → Notifications, or through iOS Settings → Notifications → LinkUp.

7.2 Per-Group Notification Preferences

Mute event or chat notifications for individual groups by opening the group, tapping the gear icon, then Notifications, where event notifications and chat notifications can be turned off separately. These preferences are stored on our server and prevent push notifications from being sent for that group.

7.3 Ad Tracking

Advertisements in the App are not personalized, so there is nothing to opt out of — see Section 6. You can remove advertising entirely by purchasing the Remove Ads in-app purchase.

7.4 Calendar Access

Revoke calendar access at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars → LinkUp. All other App features remain functional.

7.5 Location Access

Revoke location access at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → LinkUp. In the same place you can turn off Precise Location, which leaves the App with only an approximate position. Location is used when you are choosing a location for an event and when you open an event's detail screen, where it is used to show how far away the event is. It is not collected while the App is closed or in the background. A location you choose for an event becomes part of that event and is visible to the members of the group it belongs to.

7.6 Account Deletion

Delete your account at any time from Profile → Delete Account (also available from Help & Support). Your account is closed immediately and you are signed out.

30-day recovery window. For 30 days after you delete your account, we keep it in a closed state so the deletion can be reversed if you change your mind or deleted it by mistake. To request restoration, email us at hello.linkupapp@gmail.com from the address on the account. After 30 days the account and its data are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.

Two things to know about restoration:

• Groups you owned are not returned. Ownership transfers to another member the moment you delete, so that group members are not left without an owner. Restoring your account does not take that ownership back.
• Creating a new account with the same email or phone number ends the window early. If you sign up again with the same details before the 30 days are up, your previous account is permanently deleted at that point and can no longer be restored.

7.7 Rights for EEA / UK Users (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area or United Kingdom, you have the following rights under GDPR: right of access, right to rectification, right to erasure, right to restriction, right to data portability, right to object, and right to withdraw consent.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hello.linkupapp@gmail.com. We will respond within 30 days.

Our legal bases for processing: Contract (providing the App's services), Legitimate Interests (security, fraud prevention, service improvement), and Consent (push notifications, and — in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom — the choices you make in the advertising consent form the App presents to you).

7.8 Rights for California Users (CCPA / CPRA)

California residents have the right to know, delete, correct, and opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights. Contact us at hello.linkupapp@gmail.com.

8. Children's Privacy

The App is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe we have collected such information, contact us immediately at hello.linkupapp@gmail.com.

9. Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including:

• Encryption of information in transit between the App and our servers
• Encryption of particularly sensitive information, including event locations, while stored
• Storage of your password only in a form that cannot be read back
• Access controls limiting who can reach your data, with access recorded
• Measures designed to detect and limit abuse of our systems

No method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for activity on your account.

10. Third-Party Links and Services

The App may contain links to third-party websites or services (e.g., Waze for directions). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties.

11. International Data Transfers

Your information may be stored and processed in the United States or any country where our service providers operate. By using the App, you consent to such transfers. For EEA/UK users, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with applicable data protection law.

12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the Last updated date at the top and bottom of this page, so you can always tell when it last changed.

If we make a material change — for example collecting a new category of information, using your information for a materially different purpose, or sharing it with a new category of recipient — we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention, and where the law requires it we will ask for your consent. Your continued use of the App after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Policy.

13. Who We Are, and How to Contact Us

LinkUp is built and run by one person, not a company. Cameron Chalk is the data controller for the information described in this Policy, and is responsible for deciding how and why it is used. There is no legal entity behind the App, and no other person or organisation shares that responsibility.

The App's data is stored on infrastructure operated by Render Services, Inc., which acts as a processor on the controller's behalf and does not use the data for its own purposes. The other processors are listed in Section 5.

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please get in touch:

Cameron Chalk — LinkUp
Email: hello.linkupapp@gmail.com

Email is the contact route for every request under this Policy, including the rights described in Section 11. If you need to reach the controller by post, ask by email and a postal address will be provided.

LinkUp has no establishment in the European Union or the United Kingdom and has not appointed a representative there. For GDPR-related inquiries you may contact the controller directly at the address above, and you may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.