Privacy Policy

Welcome to Parea. We value your privacy as much as we value community discovery. This policy explains how we collect, process, and protect your information when you use our platform.

1. Data Collection

We collect the following categories of information:

• Account Information: Name, email address, password (hashed), and profile preferences.
• Profile Data: Bio, avatar image, community interests, and diaspora/expat background (if voluntarily provided).
• Location Data: Approximate location only — city or neighborhood level. We never expose raw GPS coordinates to other users or third parties. See Section 2 for full details.
• Messages & Content: Posts, comments, community chat messages, and content shared in temporary rooms. Temporary room data is deleted when the room expires.
• Analytics: Usage patterns, feature engagement, session durations, and in-app interactions — used only to improve the product.
• Device Information: IP address, device type, operating system, app version, and push notification tokens.

2. Location & Discovery

Parea is built on local discovery. Location data is handled with extreme care:

• Approximate Only: We use city- or neighborhood-level location to suggest relevant communities and events. Exact GPS coordinates are never shown to other users.
• Grid-Based Approximation: Internally, we snap location to a ~1 km grid. This prevents reverse-geocoding to a specific address.
• Opt-Out Available: You can disable location services in your device settings or within the Parea app at any time. You can still use the app by manually selecting a Discovery Zone.
• No Background Tracking: We do not access your GPS in the background unless a feature you have explicitly activated requires it.

3. How We Use Data

• Discovery: Surfacing nearby communities, events, and places relevant to your interests and approximate location.
• Personalization: Tailoring your feed based on engagement history and stated preferences.
• Security: Detecting fraudulent activity, preventing abuse, and protecting accounts.
• Product Improvement: Aggregated, anonymized analytics to understand how features are used.
• Communications: Transactional notifications (security alerts, account changes) and service updates. Marketing messages require separate opt-in.

4. Push Notifications

Parea uses push notifications to alert you to community activity, direct messages, event reminders, and moderation updates. Specifically:

• Push tokens are collected when you grant notification permission on your device.
• Notifications are delivered via Apple APNs and Google FCM — only metadata necessary for delivery is shared with these providers.
• You can revoke notification permission at any time in your device's system settings or within the Parea notification preferences screen.
• We do not use push tokens for advertising or sell them to third parties.

5. Moderation & Reporting

Parea is a community platform. We take safety seriously:

• User Reporting: Any user can report content or another user. Reports include the reported content and the reporting user's account ID.
• Moderation Review: Reports are reviewed by our moderation team. In some cases, automated flagging assists human review.
• Data in Reports: Content submitted in a report may be retained beyond its normal deletion window for the purpose of safety investigation.
• Outcome Notifications: Users who file reports receive status updates. Users who receive moderation actions are notified of the action taken.
• Appeals: You may appeal a moderation decision by contacting support@getparea.app.

6. AI Personalization (Future Capability)

We are building AI-driven personalization features that will improve community recommendations and content relevance. We are disclosing this now so you can make an informed choice:

• When AI personalization is released, it will use anonymized interaction history to improve recommendations.
• Your private messages will never be used to train AI models — only aggregate, non-identifiable behavioral signals.
• AI features will be clearly labelled in the app and will include opt-out controls before they are enabled.
• We will not use your data to train third-party generative AI models without separate, explicit consent.

7. Third-Party Services

We do not sell your personal data. We share information only with trusted partners required to operate the platform:

• Cloud Infrastructure: Encrypted database and file storage providers.
• Analytics: Aggregated, anonymized product analytics (e.g., Amplitude). Raw user data is not shared.
• Push Notifications: Apple APNs and Google FCM for notification delivery.
• Error Monitoring: Crash reporting tools that receive anonymized stack traces — no message content or PII.

All third-party processors are bound by data processing agreements and may not use your data for their own purposes.

8. Data Retention

• Account Data: Retained for the life of your account plus 30 days after deletion.
• Temporary Room Messages: Deleted when the room expires (defined at room creation).
• Analytics: Aggregated for up to 24 months; raw event logs deleted after 90 days.
• Moderation Records: Retained for up to 3 years to support safety investigations and appeals.
• Location Data: Approximate location is not stored persistently — it is used in-session only for discovery queries.

9. Your Rights

To exercise any of these rights, email support@getparea.app with the subject line "Privacy Request". We will respond within 30 days.

10. Children's Privacy

Parea is not intended for individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If we discover that we have done so, we will delete it immediately.

11. Contact Us

Questions about this policy or our data practices? Contact us at support@getparea.app.