Privacy policy

What we process and why

• Account: your email address (never public), a display name and your language choice. Needed to give you an account.
• Profile and social features: what you save, follow, mark as visited and add to collections. Your profile is private by default; you choose what others see. Collections are private until you make them public.
• Plans and ‘Choose together’: plans are private unless you turn on a share link (you can always turn it off or replace it). In ‘Choose together’ nobody sees your answers, not even the creator; sessions expire after three weeks.
• Tips: public with your display name and the month. You can always edit or delete your tip.
• Bookings: your name, phone number, email address and any note go to the place you book with, so it can handle your booking. Bookings never appear on your profile or in a shared plan.
• Payments: if a place asks for a deposit or prepayment, you pay through that place's own Stripe account. HelloWhere never sees card or bank details, only the status and the amount.
• Places and business owners: when you list or claim a place, your role, an explanation of your ownership and, optionally, a phone number and Chamber of Commerce number. We only use these to check that you may manage the place.
• Contact and reports: what you send us through the contact form or ‘Report a problem’.
• Push notifications: only if you turn them on, per device, and each type can be switched off.
• Email: only messages that belong to your account or booking (such as confirmations), no newsletters without your consent.

Automatic translation

Texts from places (such as descriptions, menus and posts) and tips from guests are translated automatically into five languages via Google's paid Gemini API. We only send the text itself, never your name, email address or other account data. If you write personal data in a tip yourself, it is included in the text. We do not translate allergen information or cancellation terms.

What we don't do

• No advertising profiles. By default we only use necessary cookies: to keep you logged in, remember your language, know in ‘Choose together’ that you already joined, and store your cookie choice.
• We only use Google Analytics if you consent in the cookie notice. Google then sets cookies (_ga) to count visits and see how the site is used. We keep your choice for 6 months and you can change it at any time via ‘Cookie settings’ at the bottom of every page; if you withdraw, we delete the Google cookies.
• Visitor statistics without cookies: per day we count pages, the source (such as ‘google’), the type of device, the language and the country. We recognise a visit by a code that changes every night (we keep those codes for at most 30 days); we do not store IP addresses. We also keep, for 48 hours, which pages were opened within one visit and when, so we can see how the site is used; after that it is deleted automatically.
• We only ask for your location if you click ‘Use my location’. We round it and don't store it.
• Photos are stripped of metadata such as GPS location when uploaded.
• We don't sell data and there is no paid ranking.
• Crown is an optional paid plan with extras (such as automatic translation and more posts). Crown never buys a better position in search or the feed. Payment runs through Creem (merchant of record); our refund policy applies to cancelling and refunds.

Who we share data with

We work with these service providers, who only process what they need for their task:

• Supabase: database, login and photo storage (servers in London, United Kingdom).
• Vercel: hosting of the website (servers in London).
• Google (Gemini API): automatic translation of texts, see above.
• Google (Analytics): visitor statistics, only with your consent via the cookie notice. Google may process data in the United States for this.
• Resend: sending emails.
• Stripe: payments, through the place's own account; the place is responsible for them.
• OpenStreetMap: map tiles, only when you open the map (your browser then fetches the tiles directly).
• PDOK (Dutch government): converting postcodes of places into coordinates.
• Your browser's push service (for example from Google, Apple or Mozilla) delivers push notifications, if you turn them on.

Outside the European Union

The United Kingdom is covered by an adequacy decision of the European Commission. For service providers from the United States we use appropriate safeguards where needed, such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep data

• Your account and everything that belongs to it, until you delete your account.
• When you delete your account, we also erase your contact details from bookings; the place only keeps what the law requires.
• Keys to prevent double counting: two days. Security logs for ‘Choose together’ and translation: two hours.
• Contact messages and reports: as long as needed to handle them.

Your rights

Via My account → Data & privacy you can download your data or delete your account. For access, correction, restriction or objection, email hello@hellowhere.app. If you disagree with how we handle your data, you can lodge a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

Places and their content

A restaurant or hotel profile belongs to the place, not to one employee. If an employee deletes their account, posts and photos stay with the place. A sole owner first transfers ownership or asks us to archive the place.

Changes

If this policy changes in important ways, we will announce it on the site or by email before the change takes effect.