Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

HangoutAlert ("we", "our", or "us") is a social event planning application that helps you organize hangouts, coordinate RSVPs, and plan activities with friends and family. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your information when you use our application at https://HangoutAlert.com or our mobile apps.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Account Information

When you register or sign in, we collect your name, email address, and profile picture. If you sign in with Google, we receive your basic Google profile information.

2.2 Google Account Data (OAuth2)

With your explicit permission, we access the following Google services:

• Google Calendar — We read your calendar events to check your availability and suggest free time slots for hangouts. We may create calendar entries on your behalf when you confirm or RSVP to events. We do not store your calendar data on our servers beyond what is necessary to display suggestions.
• Google Contacts — We read your contacts to let you quickly invite people you already know to events. Contact data is used in-session to populate the invite UI and is not stored on our servers.

2.3 Event & Usage Data

We store events you create, RSVPs, chat messages within events, polls, and location proposals. This is the core content of the app.

2.4 Contact Phone Numbers & SMS

If you add a contact who has a phone number but no email address as an event attendee, we use that phone number, via our messaging provider Twilio, to send a text asking whether they'd like to receive that event's details by text — we do not text anyone event details before they've replied YES to that question. We do not use phone numbers for marketing, and we do not share them with anyone other than Twilio for the purpose of sending these messages. Recipients can reply STOP at any time to opt out of future texts — see our Terms of Service, §6.1, for the full SMS program details.

2.5 Device & Technical Data

We collect standard web/app analytics (device type, operating system, app version) and push notification tokens (Android/iOS) if you grant notification permissions.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To authenticate you and maintain your session securely
• To display and manage events you create or are invited to
• To suggest free time slots and nearby venues based on your calendar and location
• To invite contacts to events using your Google Contacts
• To send push notifications and email reminders about upcoming events (only with your consent)
• To power the AI-driven Ideas feature (anonymous activity data only)
• To improve the application and troubleshoot bugs

4. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal data. We share information only as follows:

• Other users: Your name, profile picture, and RSVP status are visible to other participants in events you join.
• Service providers: We use Google APIs, SendGrid (email), Twilio (SMS invitations), and Firebase (push notifications). Each provider's own privacy policy applies.
• Legal requirements: We may disclose data if required by law.

5. Google API Scopes — Limited Use

Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:

• We only use Google Calendar data to display free/busy availability and to create calendar entries you explicitly request.
• We only use Google Contacts data to populate the invite autocomplete, requested with read-only access. This data is never stored beyond your active session or shared with third parties.
• We do not use Google user data to serve advertisements.
• We do not use, transfer, or sell Google user data — including raw, aggregated, or derived data — to develop, train, or improve any AI or machine learning models, whether ours or a third party's. Our AI-assisted features (voice-to-text event creation and venue suggestions) process only the text or audio you actively submit to them; your Google Calendar and Contacts data is never passed to these AI services.

6. Data Retention & Deletion

You can delete your account at any time from the Profile page. Upon deletion, we permanently remove your user record, profile, session data, contacts, saved ideas, and notifications. Google OAuth tokens are revoked automatically when you delete your account or disconnect Google via the app.

7. Security

We use HTTPS for all data transmission, HTTP-only secure cookies for session management on web, and Bearer token authentication for mobile apps. We do not store passwords in plain text (bcrypt hashing). Google OAuth tokens are short-lived and refreshed as needed.

8. Children's Privacy

HangoutAlert is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy periodically. We will notify you of significant changes via email or an in-app notice. Continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance.

10. Contact Us

For privacy-related questions or to request data deletion, contact us at: arthur.akselrod@gmail.com