Gather and your information

What we collect and why

We use your email address, account ID and display name to provide your account, sign-in and recovery. We store the profile details you choose to share, the plans you create, meeting places or areas you enter, requests and confirmations, and plan messages. These let people find a plan, decide whether to join and coordinate meeting.

If you use Friends, we store mutual friendships, private circles and invitations, including your personal friend link and who asked to be friends through it. Anyone you send your link to sees your first name. It works for up to 25 people for 30 days unless you turn it off, and nobody becomes your friend until you say yes. Availability is visible only to the friends you select until it expires. Expiry hides availability from those friends; it does not erase the stored record. Stop sharing removes it.

When you tap “I’d go” on an idea, Gather records that you’d go, never your location. Your friends see it only if you let them, as described below; nobody else does unless a group forms. “I’d go” works once you’ve set your area inside San Francisco with Use my location. It counts for 14 days from the last time you tap it, and taking it off deletes it. When three or more people want the same idea, Gather may suggest a time to a small group of them; each answer stays private. Gather may also show “People want to go here” on that idea to anyone browsing, never who or how many. It counts only “I’d go”s that are at least a day old and Gather works it out about once a day, so one “I’d go”, said or taken off, never changes it right away. Gather notes when you first see a suggested time in Together, or read its update, so a suggestion you never saw doesn’t take away your “I’d go” or hold you back. If at least three say yes, Gather makes it a small group plan at that public place, where the people in it see each other’s names and share a group chat. Gather starts that chat with a line naming everyone by first name, with the time and the place, and adds a line when someone joins later; a line that names you is deleted with your account. Whoever said yes first is recorded as the plan’s host for technical reasons only. When someone starts a plan at an idea’s place, people who said “I’d go” to that idea may get one update about it. The person who started it is never told who, or how many. No one in a group Gather made can call it off for everyone: each person steps out with Can’t make it. While a group Gather made has fewer than six people (or fewer than three, when Gather suggested meeting again to people from one meetup) and starts more than 3 hours away, Gather may offer its open places to others who said “I’d go” to the same idea; the people in it aren’t told who was offered a place, only who joins, and someone offered one of those places sees who is in it only once they join. If a group drops below three people, Gather asks the people still in whether it’s still on; if it still has fewer than three people 12 hours before it starts, it ends quietly (each person still in gets one update that names no one) and their “I’d go” comes back. If someone in the group deletes their account or is suspended, it carries on with the others.

Gather may ask after an “I’d go” whether your friends can see where you’d go. It stays off until you say yes, and you can turn it on or off in Profile with “Friends can see where you’d go”. With it on, your accepted friends see your first name on ideas you say “I’d go” to from then on, and on the idea you’d just said it to if you say yes when Gather asks (for example, “Sam and Alex would go”); any other “I’d go” from before stays private until you say it again, and people who aren’t your friends never see it. Gather keeps your choice, when you last changed it, and for each idea when you last tapped “I’d go” or let friends see it there. A tap is deleted with its “I’d go”, and deleting your account deletes all of them.

After a plan at one of Gather’s ideas, the check-in may ask whether you’d go back to that place. Gather stores your answer with the idea, and you can change it by answering again. Answers are never shown one by one or with your name. An idea only shows “Loved by people who went” once enough people from more than one outing have answered, using answers at least a day old, and never shows a number. Deleting your account deletes your answers.

Communities. When you start or join a community, we store which communities you’re in, whether you help moderate one, when you joined, and the level you chose for yourself there (for example “Intermediate”). Your level is shown only to other members of that community, as a word, never as a score or rank. Members see your first name and level in that community. People outside it see only its name, description, category, area, whether it’s open to everyone, the level words it offers and a rough size like “a few people”, never who is in it. When someone posts to a community, we store who the post reached so those members can see it and say they’re in. If you join later, or your level there changes, posts by people still in it that still take joins, for everyone in it or for your level, reach you too; no update is sent. Leaving deletes your membership; plans you already said you’re in for stay yours. Moderators see who asked to join. Reports about a community go to the Gather team. Deleting your account deletes your memberships, levels and asks; a community you started stays for its other members, without your name.

Gather keeps in-app updates about your plans and friends (for example, someone is in, a friend is going somewhere, a group formed, a plan was called off or moved, the next date of a weekly plan you went to is up, or you and someone both want to meet again) with the person and plan each one is about, so they can appear in your updates. They are deleted with your account, or with the account or plan they are about, except a short note that a plan you were in isn’t happening (its time only), which stays in your updates until you delete your account. If the host changes the time or place, everyone who’s in gets one update and the plan chat shows a short note.

If you turn on alerts in the iPhone app, Gather keeps a push token for your phone, with its time zone, so Apple’s push service can send alerts for five moments only: a time Gather suggests, your group is set, someone wants to come, you’re in, or a plan you’re in is called off. An alert that would arrive between 10 PM and 8 AM waits until 8 AM. Turning alerts off, signing out or deleting your account removes the token (if your phone is offline right then, as soon as Gather next opens with a connection). Reminders come only with alerts: while alerts are on, the app sets one reminder on your phone about two hours before a plan you’re in, and Gather doesn’t send or keep it. If you join a plan on Gather’s website and don’t have alerts on in the app, Gather may email you if that plan is called off. Each email has a link to stop them.

After a plan you hosted or were in, Gather may privately ask whether it happened and, if it did, whether you felt welcome. Your answer, or that you skipped, is kept with your account and that plan, is never shown to anyone else on Gather (including the host and the people who were there), and is used only in totals, such as how often plans happen and how often people feel welcome. It is deleted with your account or the plan. After a meetup, Gather may ask you privately whether you’d like to see the people you met again. Only a yes from both of you is ever acted on: Gather then makes you friends and tells each of you. A one-sided answer is never shown to anyone, counted or used to rate anyone, and is deleted about a week after the meetup. If three or more people from a group Gather formed all say yes to each other, Gather may suggest the same place to just them about a week later.

The app asks about activities you enjoy and offers optional everyday hangout preferences. These answers are private and linked to your account. A guest draft stays in this app session for up to 30 minutes while you create or sign in to your account. The questionnaire is optional: you can look around, join and post without it, and answer it later from your profile. You can skip preferences and edit your answers later. Your interests help order available plans. If you turn on people matching, Gather compares your answers with other opted-in hosts and confirmed participants of plans you can see. Others who also opt in can see the answers you have in common on a plan’s page, never your raw answers; Explore uses the comparison only to order plans and never shows it. With a small group, those signals may still allow someone to infer preferences. Matching is optional and can be turned off from your profile. We do not treat similar answers as a prediction of friendship. Earlier app versions may store a separate optional shared-preference profile, with its own sharing choice.

Communities uses your existing Gather sign-in and a separate Community profile. We store the details you enter there, such as your introduction, interests, activities, offers, learning goals, chosen area, timezone and meeting preferences. We also store your community, event and group memberships, invitations, goals and requirements for each context, connection requests, activities, attendance and waitlist choices, and meetup proposals and responses. These records let you find people and coordinate activities with the access and sharing choices you select.

If you use the optional Communities questions, we store your original answers, sample drafts, corrections and confirmation choices with your account, including earlier saved answers. Sample processing uses rules within Gather to prepare a draft from your answers about yourself, interests, activities, offers and learning goals. Your answers about connection preferences and boundaries are not used to produce that draft. Saving or processing answers does not publish them: you review and choose which draft details to apply to your profile and who may see each detail.

Communities suggestions compare shared profile details and goals within the context you select. Your membership, connection and sharing choices determine which people and details are eligible; supported requirements are checked privately. These are rules and literal comparisons, not predictions of friendship or compatibility. Search uses the words and filters you submit to find visible people or activities. We save which suggestions were shown, the context and versions used, and any feedback you choose to give. Useful, not useful and “We met” feedback is private to you in the app. Dismissal hides a card in that list; feedback does not change scores or future suggestion lists, notify the other person or create a connection.

We also store reports, blocks and staff moderation decisions to investigate safety concerns and limit abuse. A person on the Gather team reads every report, usually within a day. Gather records when a staff member first opens a report. A report keeps the reason you choose, including “Something else”, and any details you add. Support correspondence is used to answer your request. Hosting, authentication and email services record technical delivery and security information, which can include IP addresses, browser or device information, timestamps, account identifiers, authentication events and request errors. We use this information to deliver the service, investigate failures and protect accounts, not for advertising or tracking across other companies' apps. On the website, sign-in checks whether the page is open inside another app’s browser, where Google sign-in doesn’t work, so it can suggest Safari; nothing about that check is stored or sent.

Gather does not import your address book. In the iPhone app, tapping Use my location asks for location access while you use the app. Your search center is sent to Gather’s database service with your radius and filters to find nearby plans and ideas. When you use your location, the app also remembers a rough area (about 1 km, without its name) on your device so the map opens there next time; tap Forget this area, or sign out, to remove it. Neither is saved in your profile or shown to other members. Service request logs may include technical request information. Gather needs your location to show plans near you, so What’s on, Friends and + I’m down won’t open without it. You can turn location off at any time in Settings. Apple provides map imagery and place search and processes those requests under its privacy policy. Hosts can explicitly choose a public meeting pin, which is stored with the plan and visible to people allowed to see that plan. Do not publish a home address or someone else's private information. With the current app and website, a post people nearby can see must be at a public place picked from map search (such as a café or a park) or at a Gather idea; dropped pins and typed addresses are only for friends-only posts. There is no advertising or cross-app tracking SDK in this version, and Gather does not sell personal data.

In the iPhone app, a few things stay only on your device: which plan chats you’ve read and any you chose to step away from, until you sign out, and for up to 30 minutes, an “I’m in” or “I’d go” you tapped before signing in, so you can pick up where you left off. Add to calendar opens Calendar’s own editor, so Gather never gets access to your calendar, and Tell someone you trust opens your phone’s share sheet, so Gather doesn’t see what you send. On the website, Add to calendar makes a calendar file on your device with the plan’s title, time, place name and the page’s link; nothing about it is sent to Gather.

Who can see it

A new Community profile starts with a private introduction, area and timezone, and suggestions are off until you opt in. It does not copy private details from your earlier Gather plans or profile. Your Community display name, handle and meeting styles can appear when your profile is available to another member. Profile details and context goals follow the public, shared-member, connection or private visibility choices shown in the app, together with the community's access rules. Organizers can manage membership and relevant activity participation. Original answers and drafts are not shown to other members or organizers through the app.

You may optionally save an email address, phone number or messaging handle so connections can reach you outside Gather. These contact details stay private until you choose to share them with an accepted connection, separately for each person. You can stop sharing them. An accepted connection, invitation or suggestion does not by itself grant access to your contact details. Meetup proposals and responses are available to the organizer and invited participants; changing a proposal requires participants to confirm the updated details.

In earlier profile versions, preference matching is off by default. When you and another person both turn it on, people viewing your plans can see the answers you have in common with them. No score is shown. Comparisons with confirmed participants follow the plan's membership access rules. Friends-only plan and block restrictions still apply. Your full set of answers is not a public profile, but shared results can reveal or allow people to infer social goals and preferences. In the personal-profile version, these include goals such as meeting someone special and your selected friendship values; they are shared only through the mutual opt-in comparison described above.

Hosts can optionally choose one photo for a plan. Gather compresses the selected image and re-encodes it without embedded EXIF or GPS metadata before storing it in Supabase, linked to the host account. The image itself may still reveal a location or other personal details. Choose only images you have permission to share. Gather does not import your photo library. Photos follow the plan's viewing permissions; signed-in people who can see the plan can see and save its photo. Unused draft uploads can remain stored until account deletion or a separately reviewed cleanup. Removing a photo from a draft does not guarantee deletion of an already uploaded file.

Public plans show their description and meeting information to people browsing Gather. With the current app and website, the host’s name shows once you’re signed in; display names can still be read without signing in through Gather’s service, which older versions of the app use, until those versions are retired. A note you add to a post is its description, shown to people who can see the plan. Confirmed participants and relevant profile information help members know who they are meeting. When you’re in a plan, your friends who can see it and could still join see your first name as going (for example, “Sam and Alex are going”), whoever is hosting; people who aren’t your friends don’t. A host can mark a post “I’m hosting”, which their friends see. A request and its note are available to the requester, host and authorized staff. Plan chat is for the host and everyone who is in. On some posts you’re in with one tap (for example, a friend’s “who’s in?” post or a post marked “Anyone can come”); on others, the host says yes first. The host can coordinate the plan there. People who were in an earlier date of a weekly plan can join its later dates in one tap, even when it’s just for the host’s friends.

Your circles are visible only to you. Friends-only plans are limited to the host, invited friends, people who join through a link from the host, people who were in an earlier date of the same weekly plan, and authorized safety staff. Anyone holding the host’s “who’s in?” link, even without a Gather account, can see the plan’s title, its time, the host’s first name and whether the host says yes to each person. Once signed in, an adult can also see the place name and the first names of up to five people who are in, and can join while there’s room — in one tap, or, on a post where the host says yes to each person, by asking first (the host’s friends on Gather still join in one tap) — until the plan starts (for posts that start within about an hour of being posted, until about two hours after the start) or the host turns links off. A one-person invite link shows whoever holds it the plan’s title, time and place name and the host’s name until it is used. Share links only with people you’d welcome. If you send a new post to the people from last time, its link goes into that earlier plan’s chat as an ordinary message that everyone in that chat can read and use; turning links off stops it working there too. On the website, Safari’s app banner on a share-link or friend-invitation page can open that same link in the Gather app. Blocking restricts interactions and private sharing. It cannot retract information someone has already read or copied. If you block someone in a group Gather formed, you step out of that group and your “I’d go” comes back so Gather can find you another one; they aren’t told.

Authorized staff may access relevant account, plan, report and chat information for safety investigations. A removed message is hidden from ordinary members on future reads but retained for authorized staff review until separately deleted under the safety retention policy below.

Services that help Gather run

Supabase provides account authentication, database and photo storage. If you choose Apple or Google sign-in, that provider authenticates you and shares an account identifier and the name and email address it makes available to Gather. In the iPhone app, the first time you sign in with Apple, Gather uses only your first name from Apple, to fill in your name, and saves it only if you do. If you sign in with Apple on the website, Apple doesn’t share your name there, so Gather asks what people should call you. Apple can provide a private relay address if you choose Hide My Email. Gather does not receive your Apple or Google password or access to your mail or files. Apple’s push notification service delivers alerts to your iPhone; an alert can show first names, a plan’s title and times. Vercel hosts the website and account services. Resend delivers sign-in codes, verification and password-reset emails, and call-off notes for plans you joined on Gather’s website, and processes the recipient address and email contents. The support inbox uses Gmail. Data necessary for these functions is processed by those services. This app version has no payments or contact import.

No external AI service is connected for Communities in this version. Sample processing and suggestions run within Gather and do not send your answers to an AI provider.

Your choices and deletion

Open your profile icon to edit your private connection answers. Earlier shared-preference profiles have separate controls to turn matching off or delete those answers. Turning it off stops new comparisons without deleting the saved answers. Deleting the answers removes them from the active database; deleting your account also removes them. These actions cannot retract results someone has already seen or saved. The backup and provider-record limits below still apply.

You can edit your profile, withdraw a request, leave or cancel a plan, stop availability sharing, remove a friend, block someone or contact support. These actions have different effects: for example, cancelling a plan closes participation but is not account deletion.

In Communities, you can edit or remove profile details, change visibility, stop contact sharing, leave communities or activities, and turn suggestion participation off. Turning suggestions off does not erase saved answers, drafts or previous feedback. These remain linked to your account until removed through account deletion or a separately reviewed privacy request. Changes cannot retract information another person has already read or copied.

To delete your account in the iPhone app, open your profile icon, choose Delete account and complete the confirmation and identity check. Email accounts use a password or a code we email you; provider accounts require a recent sign-in. Accounts linked to Apple also require Apple authorization so Gather can revoke its access before deletion. Deletion removes the account, profile and ordinary authored messages and cascades the account's plans and participation records, except that a group Gather formed carries on with the people still in it. It also removes linked friendships, private sharing records, “I’d go” choices, in-app updates to or about you and your uploaded plan photos, including unused drafts. Deletion does not remove copies other members already saved.

The same account deletion also removes your Community profile, original answers and drafts, memberships, connection records, goals, attendance records, your organized meetups, and linked suggestion and feedback records from the active database. Shared communities, events, groups and activities you created can remain with their creator account link removed. Their titles, descriptions and meeting details are not automatically erased and may still contain information you wrote. Community notifications already delivered to other members can also remain with your account link removed. Contact support if you need those retained details reviewed.

Restricted safety reports may remain with deleted account references detached so concerns can still be handled. They may still contain information someone included in a report. We review retained safety and support information when a case closes or when we receive a deletion request, and keep it only while needed to investigate a concern, handle an appeal, enforce an active safety restriction, or meet a legal obligation. Records no longer needed for those purposes are deleted or de-identified through a separately reviewed process. This is not an automatic deletion deadline.

Provider security logs, authentication audit records, delivered emails and private operational backups are separate from your active account. Removing the account does not instantly erase those copies. Provider records follow the applicable service's retention processes; records kept by Gather remain restricted to support, safety and recovery purposes and are reviewed for continued need. Contact sauceventures@gmail.com to request access, correction, deletion or a review of retained information. We may need to verify that a request concerns your account before acting.

Adults only and changes

Gather is for adults 18 and older. When you confirm you’re 18 or older, Gather records that confirmation and its time with your account. Joining any plan needs this confirmation; on an older version of the app, update Gather first. Contact support to report an account you believe belongs to a minor. Material changes to these practices will be reflected in this page with an updated effective date.