Join Our World
Privacy policy
This page says what Join Our World knows about you, why, who else can see it, and how to remove it. In short: we collect what the service needs to work, we do not sell it, and we never receive your phone’s location.
Draft for the pilot, to be reviewed before a public launch. Last updated 12 November 2026.
1. The short version
- You can browse public plans without an account and without telling us anything.
- We never receive your device’s coordinates. “Am I here?” is worked out on your phone.
- Other people see a display name, never your e-mail address or your account. Your profile is shown only where you choose to share it.
- People nearby can see you only while you are checked in somewhere as visible, and only if they are checked in at the same place.
- We do not sell your information, show ads or use advertising trackers.
- You can download your data and delete your account yourself, at any time.
2. Who is responsible
Join Our World is in a pilot. The Join Our World team decides how your information is used and is responsible for it (the “data controller”). The operator’s registered name and address will be added here before the public launch. For anything about your information, write to safety@joinourworld.com.
3. What we collect and why
When you sign in
You sign in with Google or Apple. They give us an identifier for your account with them, your first name, and your e-mail address if they have verified it. We never see your password. We use the identifier to recognise you when you come back, the name as a first suggestion for your display name, and the e-mail address only to contact you about your account or a safety matter and to check that a request about an account comes from its owner. Your e-mail address is never shown to other members.
Your profile
Your display name and, if you add them, a short bio, interests and a home area. We store the time at which you confirmed that you are 18 or over and accepted the guidelines. We do not ask for your date of birth.
Plans
The plans you post (title, description, time, area, venue, meeting points, details of a run), the plans you join or ask to join, any note you send to a host, the questions you ask, and whether a host marked you as present.
Check-ins
When you check in: the event or venue, the name you chose to show, what you said you are up for, the interests you chose to show, whether you are visible or just looking, when it started and ended, and how “here” was shown (a door code, your phone’s own check, or the host).
Location
We do not collect your location. When you tap “Use my location” or “Check with my location”, your phone compares where it is with the public point of an area or a venue and tells us only the outcome: the area you picked, or that the check passed. The coordinates stay on your device.
Chats and requests
The chat requests you send and receive, and the messages you send in private chats, plan chats and room chats, with the name you used there. Messages are stored on our servers so that they can be delivered to the other people in the chat and shown when you come back. They are encrypted on their way to and from our servers, but they are not end-to-end encrypted.
Moderators cannot browse chats. They see messages only as part of a report: the reported message and up to four earlier messages from the same person in that chat are copied into the report.
Rooms
The rooms you open or enter, the name you used there, your role (host, speaker or listener), and whether you shared your profile there. Audio and video are carried live by our media provider. We do not record or store them.
Blocks and reports
Who you blocked, so that the block can work. Reports you make: the reason, your note, where it happened and any messages attached. Reports made about you, and what the moderators decided.
Notifications
The notifications we create for you and, if you turn on notifications outside the app, the address your browser gives us for delivering them.
Technical information
A session cookie (in the Android and iOS apps, a session token) that keeps you signed in, with the time each session was created and last used. Your IP address is used to deliver pages and to slow down abuse; we do not keep it with your account. Our hosting provider keeps request logs, which can include IP addresses, for a short time.
On your own device
The app keeps a few things in your browser’s storage: the area you last looked at, drafts of plans you were writing, and messages waiting to be sent. They reach us only when you post or send them, and you can remove them by clearing the site’s data.
We do not use advertising or analytics trackers.
4. Why we are allowed to use it
- To provide the service you asked for (our agreement with you): your account, plans, check-ins, chats, rooms and the notifications inside the app.
- Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time: notifications outside the app, your phone’s own location check, your microphone and camera, and sharing your profile.
- Our legitimate interest in keeping people safe and the service working: blocks, reports, moderation, limits on how fast things can be done, and security logs.
- Legal duties, where a law requires us to keep or hand over information.
5. What other people can see
- Everyone, including people without an account: public plans you host and public rooms you open, with the display name you had when you posted them.
- The host of a plan you join or ask to join: your display name and any note you sent.
- People checked in at the same event or venue, while you are checked in as visible: the name you chose, what you are up for, the interests you chose to show, and whether you are here or going. Nobody else, and nobody at all if you chose “Just looking”.
- Someone you send a chat request to: your check-in name, what you are up for, the interests you share, and the opening line you picked.
- People in a chat or a room with you: the name you used there and what you write or say.
- People you share your profile with, in that chat or room only and until you turn it off: your display name, bio, interests, home area, when you joined and your member code.
- Moderators: reports, with the name you used where it happened and any attached messages. Moderators do not see your e-mail address and are not shown who made a report.
- Nobody: your e-mail address, your sign-in identifier, your device’s location, who you blocked, or the fact that you looked at a plan, a venue or a person.
7. How long we keep it
- Your account, profile and history (plans, places on plans, check-ins, chat requests): until you delete your account.
- Being visible: a check-in stops being shown the moment it ends, which is when your chosen time is up, when the event ends, or when you leave. A chat request lapses after two hours, or sooner if either check-in ends. The record of both stays in your history until you delete your account.
- Messages: for as long as the chat is open. A plan’s chat closes 30 days after the plan’s last date. Thirty days after any chat closes, its messages are deleted.
- Notifications: 60 days.
- Signed-in sessions: they end after 30 days without use, or when you sign out.
- Reports and the moderation log: two years after a report is decided, so that we can recognise repeated behaviour and answer appeals. Then they are deleted. A report that is still open stays until a moderator decides it.
- Recovery copies: our hosting provider can restore the database to an earlier moment for up to 30 days, so deleted information can remain in those copies for that long.
8. Deleting your account
You can delete your account in the app (You, then Privacy and safety, then Delete my account) or at Delete your account. It takes effect at once.
Deleted straight away
- the link to your Google or Apple sign-in, your e-mail address and every signed-in session;
- your profile: name, bio, interests and home area;
- your check-ins, chat requests, questions to hosts, area alerts, notifications and notification subscriptions;
- your blocks, in both directions;
- the notes you sent to hosts, and the exact meeting point of plans you hosted.
What changes for other people
- Plans you host are cancelled and the people going are told. Cancelled and past plans stay in other people’s history, hosted by “Someone who left”.
- Your places on other people’s plans are given up.
- Rooms you host end.
- Your private chats close. Messages you sent stay for the people you sent them to, shown as from “Someone who left”, until the chat’s messages are deleted 30 days after it closed.
What we keep
- Reports you made and reports about you, with any messages attached, for up to two years after they are decided, for safety and legal reasons. A report keeps the display name used where it happened, but it is no longer linked to an e-mail address or a sign-in.
- Recovery copies kept by our hosting provider, for up to 30 days.
Signing in again later starts a new, empty account. If your account is paused or banned you cannot sign in to delete it: write to safety@joinourworld.com from the account’s e-mail address and we will delete it for you.
9. Your choices and rights
- See and take your data: You, then Privacy and safety, then Download my data gives you a file of what we hold about your account.
- Correct it: edit your profile on the You screen.
- Delete it: delete your account, as described above.
- Control who sees you: check in only when you want to be seen, choose “Just looking”, leave at any time, and share your profile one chat or room at a time.
- Withdraw consent: turn off notifications in the app, and location, microphone or camera in your device’s settings.
- Object, or ask a question: write to safety@joinourworld.com and we will answer within 30 days.
Depending on where you live, data-protection law (such as the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, the GDPR or the UK GDPR) gives you rights to see, correct, delete, restrict or object to the use of your information, and to take it elsewhere. We offer these choices to everyone. You also have the right to complain to your data-protection authority; in Nigeria that is the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.
10. How we protect it
Connections to Join Our World are encrypted. You stay signed in through a cookie that scripts on the page cannot read (in the apps, a token kept by the app), and we store only a fingerprint of it. Other members are referred to by references that mean something in one place only (a check-in, a seat in a chat or a room), so nobody can look you up across the service. Moderation tools are open to moderators only, and their decisions are logged.
No system is perfectly secure. If something happens that puts your information at risk, we will tell you, and the authorities, as the law requires.
11. People under 18
Join Our World is not for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe someone under 18 is using it, report them in the app or write to safety@joinourworld.com, and we will close the account.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and tell you in the app before the change takes effect.