Privacy Policy

We only collect what the app needs to work:

• Your accountPhone number (used to sign in and to help friends find you — never shown on your profile), and optionally an email, display name, handle, avatar, and home city.
• What you postDrops, notes, photos, videos, voice notes, captions, plans, scrapbook pages, and messages you send to your circles — along with the place and time you attach to them.
• LocationOnly while you use the app, and only when you allow it. When you drop a pin, we store the exact spot you chose. Live sharing publishes your current location while the app is open only to friends or groups you switch on. If the app closes, those people can see the last spot with a “last seen” time until you revoke their access or a timed group share ends. Pause all removes the latest live-location coordinate. If you set a home area, we store only a coarse area code for it — never your home address or exact coordinate.
• Device basicsA push notification token (so we can notify you), and standard session details like IP address and device type when you sign in.
• UsageBasic first-party analytics about how features are used, tied to your account, to help us improve the app. We do not use third-party analytics or advertising trackers.

If you choose to find friends from your contacts, phone numbers are scrambled (hashed) on your device before anything leaves your phone. We compare those scrambled values against existing members and immediately discard them. We never store your contact list, and we never message or text your contacts.

You pick the audience for everything you post: private, close friends, a circle, friends, followers, or public. Whatever audience you choose is exactly who can see that drop — including the spot it is pinned to. Private things stay private.

Live location is separate: you choose friends or current group members individually, or a whole group you belong to. Individual shares stay on until you switch them off; group shares end after 24 hours. A person never has to share their location back to see a location you deliberately shared with them, and revoking access hides your spot immediately.

You can also blur how precisely locations appear. A drop can show its exact venue, just the block, or only the neighborhood — and blurred drops never show the place’s name. Live location works in tiers too: close friends and circle-mates see your exact spot, other friends see roughly the block, and if you set a home area, everyone outside your close friends sees only the neighborhood while you are near home. The precise location is stored, the blur is applied when others view it, and blurred views are never un-blurred retroactively for anyone who wasn’t allowed to see them.

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. Ever.

A few providers process data on our behalf to run the app. They are not allowed to use it for their own purposes:

• Google FirebaseDelivers the SMS verification code when you sign in with your phone number.
• ExpoDelivers push notifications and app updates.
• DigitalOcean & AWSStore the photos, videos, and audio you upload, and deliver verification texts.

When you choose Google sign-in, we receive your Google account name, email address, profile image (if available), and a stable account identifier. We use these details to create or sign you into Local Lore and to link the account for future sign-ins. We store the account link with your Local Lore account. We do not sell Google user data or use it for advertising.

When you post a photo or video, we strip its embedded file metadata — like the GPS location a camera writes into the file — before it is stored. The place a drop shows is only ever the spot you chose on the map, never something read from your files.

Your content stays until you delete it. Individual location-sharing grants stay until you switch them off; group grants last 24 hours. An authorized viewer sees your latest spot as “last seen” when fresh updates stop. Pause all revokes every grant and deletes the latest live-location coordinate. Push tokens are removed when you log out. Verification codes expire right after sign-in.

You can delete anything you posted from inside the app. To delete your entire account, go to Settings → Delete account — it permanently erases your profile, everything you posted, your uploaded media, and your sign-in details, immediately. You can also email us to request deletion, a copy of your data, or to ask what we hold about you.

Local Lore is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use it.

If we change this policy, we will update the version and effective date here, and call out anything meaningful in the app before it takes effect.