sparrow

Privacy policy

Last updated: May 1, 2026

sparrow is a small social app for keeping in touch with friends about where you are and where you're heading. We collect only what we need to make that work, never sell your data, and never share it with advertisers or analytics services. This page tells you what we collect, why, and what your rights are.

What we collect

• Your account info: email address, name, and profile picture from the Google or Apple account you sign in with.
• Your profile: anything you fill in voluntarily — display name, bio, languages, social links, home town, profile photo (replaces the OAuth one if you upload it).
• Your travel info: trips you add (city, dates, optional note) and your current city. Your current city updates either when you tap to update it or, if you opt in, when you open the app and your phone shares its location.
• Your social graph: which groups you're in, who invited you, who you RSVP'd to which event.
• Notifications: a list of pushes we've sent you, so you can review them from the bell icon. Plus the device token your browser or phone gave us when you turned on push, so we can deliver future notifications.

What we don't collect

• No analytics tracking. No Google Analytics, no Mixpanel, no Segment, no third-party SDKs that watch what you tap.
• No advertising. No ads in the app, no ad-network integrations.
• No tracking across other apps or websites.
• No selling your data to anyone, ever.
• No background location. Your phone's GPS is only read when you have the app open and have granted permission.

Who processes your data

To run sparrow we use a small set of well-known infrastructure providers. Each only sees the slice of data they need to do their job:

• Clerk handles sign-in. They see your email, name, and OAuth identifiers.
• Vercel hosts the app and database connections. Standard request logs only — no message bodies.
• Neon stores the database (your profile, trips, events, RSVPs, etc.) in encrypted Postgres.
• Vercel Blob stores avatar images you upload.
• Apple Maps handles city search, reverse-geocoding (turning GPS coordinates into a city name), and the map tiles you see on the home screen. Apple sees search queries, coordinates, and tile requests for the regions of the map you view, but not your account.
• Apple Push Notificationsand your browser's push service deliver notifications. They see the device token and the notification text — sparrow notifications are short (under 100 characters) and don't include sensitive data.
• Google / Apple handle the sign-in flow itself. We only ever receive what you authorize: email + name.

Who else sees your stuff

The whole point of sparrow is sharing with friends. Specifically: your group-matescan see your profile, current city, upcoming trips, and any events you create that you scope to a shared group. People who aren't in any of your groups can't see anything.

The creator of an invite link can let new people into a group with you. Use those links carefully — anyone who has one can join until you delete the link.

Your rights

• Edit anything you put in: profile, trips, events, group memberships — all editable from inside the app.
• Leave a group: from the group page. Your group-mates immediately stop seeing your data within that group's context.
• Turn off notifications: from the You tab, or in your device settings.
• Delete your account: tap Delete account at the bottom of the You tab. Your profile, trips, events, RSVPs, and group memberships are removed immediately. Groups you created stay so other members can keep using them, but they no longer show you as the creator.
• Export your data: same email address, just ask.

Children

sparrow isn't designed for kids. Don't use it if you're under 13. We'll delete any account we discover belongs to someone under 13.

Changes

If we ever change this policy in a way that affects how your data is used, we'll send you a notification before the change takes effect. Small clarifications (typos, wording) we just update with a new "last updated" date at the top.

Questions

Email stijn.vanhaute@gmail.com and you'll get a real human reply.