This policy explains what personal data Pinbeen collects, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and what rights you have. We have tried to write it plainly. If anything is unclear, email privacy@pinbeen.app.
1. Who we are
Pinbeen is operated by CORE DF SP. Z O.O., ul. Kasprowicza 68/97, 01-949 Warszawa, Poland, registered under KRS 0000828493, NIP 1182206095 (“CoreDF”, “we”, “us”). CoreDF is the controller of the personal data described in this policy within the meaning of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Contact for anything related to privacy: privacy@pinbeen.app. We have not appointed a data protection officer because the GDPR does not require one for our processing; [confirm, or add DPO contact details] .
2. What this policy covers
This policy applies to:
- the Pinbeen apps for iPhone and Android;
- the Pinbeen web app at app.pinbeen.app;
- this website, pinbeen.app, including public profile pages;
- emails we send you and support conversations.
It does not cover third-party services you choose to use with Pinbeen, such as Sign in with Apple, Google or Facebook, which have their own privacy policies.
3. The data we collect
Account data
Your email address, password (stored only as a salted Argon2id hash, never in readable form), username, display name, and optionally a bio, profile picture and home country, plus your language and app settings. If you sign in with Apple, Google or Facebook, we receive an account identifier from that provider, your email address (with Apple this may be a private relay address) and, if you allow it, your name. We never see your password for those services.
Travel data
The countries, regions, cities and places you mark (visited, lived or want to go), visit dates, ratings, notes, trips, and the statistics and badges calculated from them. For places you add, we store the name, category, coordinates and address or OpenStreetMap reference.
Photos
Photos you choose to add, and their metadata such as the date taken and, if the file contains it, the location where the photo was taken (used to suggest which place it belongs to). When a photo is shown to other people, we remove its location metadata. Pinbeen only accesses the photos you select.
Location
If you allow it, the app uses your device’s location only while you are using the app, to show where you are on the map and to suggest nearby places. We do not track your location in the background and do not keep a location history. A location is only stored when you save it yourself, for example as a place. You can turn location access off at any time in your device settings.
Social data
When you use social features: your friends, friend requests, blocks, reports, reactions and comments.
Device and notification data
Push notification tokens, device platform, operating system and app version, an optional device name (shown in your list of active sessions), and your notification preferences.
Technical and security data
When you use Pinbeen, our servers and our network provider process technical data such as your IP address, request times, request metadata and user agent. We keep logs to run, secure and debug the service, enforce rate limits and investigate abuse. When the app or web app crashes, a crash report (device model, OS and app version, the error and the steps leading to it) is sent to our error-monitoring provider. We configure it not to collect your travel content.
Support conversations
Emails you send us and our replies.
What we do not collect
We do not use advertising identifiers, advertising networks, analytics SDKs or data brokers, and we do not collect payment data (Pinbeen is free). Your travel history can sometimes hint at sensitive information, for example a visit to a place of worship. We do not try to infer such information and do not use your data for profiling.
4. Why we use it and our legal bases
| Purpose | Data | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Create and run your account; store and sync your travel data across devices; calculate stats and badges | Account, travel, photos, device data | Performance of our contract with you (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Sign in with Apple, Google or Facebook | Provider identifier, email, name | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Show your position on the map and suggest nearby places | Location while the app is in use | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)). Access to device location only with your permission, which you can withdraw in your device settings |
| Push notifications | Push token, notification settings | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), given in your device’s permission prompt; withdraw it at any time in the app or device settings |
| Friends, comparing maps and your public profile, according to your privacy settings | Profile, travel statistics, social data | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Service emails: verification, password reset, security alerts and account notices | Email address | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Keep Pinbeen secure: prevent abuse, spam and fraud; rate limiting; bot protection on web sign-up | Technical and security data | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) in protecting our users and the service |
| Fix bugs and keep the service reliable | Crash reports, logs | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) in a working app |
| Handle reports about content or behaviour and moderate the service | Reported content, reports, social data | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); legal obligations, e.g. under the EU Digital Services Act (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Answer your questions and requests | Support conversations, account data | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) or legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Comply with the law, respond to lawful requests from authorities, keep records of data protection requests | As needed | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Establish, exercise or defend legal claims | As needed | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
We do not send marketing emails unless you have opted in, and we never sell your personal data or share it for advertising.
Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object at any time (see “Your rights”). Providing an email address or sign-in provider is necessary to create an account; everything else is optional.
5. What other people can see
You control who sees your profile and map in Settings → Privacy. Depending on
your settings, friends or anyone with your profile link (for example
pinbeen.app/u/your-username) can see your username, display
name, profile picture and travel statistics such as the number of countries you have visited.
Profile pages are excluded from search engines. If you make your profile private, other people
see only that the profile is not available.
Content you share with friends, such as comments and reactions, is visible to the people you shared it with.
6. Service providers and other recipients
We use carefully selected service providers (“processors”) who process data only on our instructions and under data processing agreements. They are:
| Provider | What they do for us | Location and safeguards |
|---|---|---|
| OVH SAS (France) and its Canadian affiliate | Servers and databases | EU (France); standby replica in Canada, see “Where your data is stored” |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Content delivery, DNS, DDoS and security protection, hosting of this website, map tiles and images, object storage for photos and backups, bot protection (Turnstile) on web sign-up | Global network; stored data in the EU [confirm R2 EU jurisdiction] ; EU–US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses |
| Resend, Inc. | Sending service emails | USA; Standard Contractual Clauses [confirm DPF status] |
| Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry) | Crash and error reports | [EU or US data region — confirm] ; EU–US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses |
| 650 Industries, Inc. (Expo) | Delivering push notifications and app updates | USA; Standard Contractual Clauses |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, push notifications on iPhone (APNs), App Store distribution | Apple Distribution International Ltd. (Ireland) and Apple Inc. |
| Google Sign-In, push notifications on Android (Firebase Cloud Messaging), Google Play distribution | Google Ireland Ltd. and Google LLC; EU–US Data Privacy Framework | |
| Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. | Facebook Login | Ireland, with transfers under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework |
Apple, Google and Meta process sign-in data as separate controllers under their own privacy policies. When you use Facebook Login, the Facebook SDK in our app is used only for signing in: automatic event logging and advertising-ID collection are switched off.
Maps and place search run on our own infrastructure: map tiles are served from our storage, and place search uses our own server built on OpenStreetMap data. Your map views and searches are not sent to Google Maps, Mapbox or similar services.
We may also disclose data where the law requires it (for example to a court or authority with a valid order), to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or to a successor if Pinbeen is transferred to another organisation, in which case we will tell you in advance.
7. Where your data is stored
Our servers and database are hosted by OVH in France (EU). For resilience, a standby replica of the database is kept on OVH servers in Canada, which the European Commission recognises as providing an adequate level of data protection (adequacy decision 2002/2/EC). The standby is used only if the EU servers fail.
Some providers listed above are based in the United States. Where data is transferred outside the EU/EEA, we rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for certified providers or on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (Decision (EU) 2021/914), with additional safeguards where needed. You can ask us for a copy of these safeguards.
8. How long we keep data
| Data | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Account, profile, travel data and photos | Until you delete them or your account. When you delete your account there is a 30-day grace period, after which the data is permanently deleted from our live systems. When you delete a single item, a minimal deletion marker without its content is kept so your other devices can sync the change [retention to be confirmed] . |
| Backups | Encrypted backups rotate out automatically. Deleted data disappears from backups within up to 35 days after it was deleted from live systems. |
| Cached copies of photos on our content delivery network | Expire within 24 hours. |
| Server and access logs | Up to 30 days [confirm] |
| Security records (sign-ins, password changes, deletion requests) | Up to 12 months [confirm] |
| Crash reports | Up to 90 days |
| Push notification tokens | Until you sign out on that device, turn off notifications or delete your account, or the token stops working. |
| Support conversations | Up to 24 months after the conversation ends. |
| Data needed for legal obligations or claims | As long as the obligation or the claim requires. |
9. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- access your personal data and get a copy of it (Art. 15);
- rectify inaccurate data (Art. 16), most of which you can edit in the app;
- erasure (Art. 17), for example by deleting your account;
- restrict processing (Art. 18);
- data portability (Art. 20): export your data any time in Settings → Data → Export (JSON or CSV);
- object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21);
- withdraw consent at any time, for example for push notifications, without affecting processing before the withdrawal (Art. 7(3)).
We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects on you (Art. 22).
To exercise your rights, use the app or email privacy@pinbeen.app from the address linked to your account. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We reply without undue delay and within one month; for complex requests this can be extended by up to two more months, in which case we will tell you why.
10. Deleting your account
You can delete your account in the app under Settings → Account → Delete account, or by following the steps on our account deletion page. You are signed out everywhere immediately, your profile is hidden, and after a 30-day grace period (during which you can cancel by signing in) your account and its data are permanently deleted. Backups are overwritten within up to 35 days after that. If you signed in with Apple, we also revoke Pinbeen’s access to your Apple ID.
11. Children
Pinbeen is not directed at children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account, or the lower minimum age for using online services without parental consent in your country, which is never below 13. If we learn that an account belongs to someone below the minimum age, we will delete it. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact privacy@pinbeen.app.
12. Cookies and similar technologies
This website (pinbeen.app) does not use cookies, analytics or tracking.
The web app (app.pinbeen.app) uses only strictly necessary cookies and storage:
-
pb_refresh, a secure, http-only cookie that keeps you signed in (until you sign out, or at most 60 days after your last use); - local storage on your device for your settings and offline copy of your data;
-
security cookies set by Cloudflare to protect against bots and attacks (such as
__cf_bm, valid for 30 minutes), and Cloudflare Turnstile on the sign-up form.
Because these are strictly necessary to provide the service you asked for, they do not require consent under EU ePrivacy rules, and we do not show a cookie banner. The mobile apps contain no advertising or analytics trackers.
13. Security
We protect your data with encryption in transit (TLS) for all connections, hashed passwords (Argon2id), short-lived and signed links for photos, strict access controls and least-privilege access for our team, monitored infrastructure and encrypted backups. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data and is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify you and the supervisory authority as the GDPR requires. Report security issues to security@pinbeen.app.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when our service or the law changes. We will tell you about material changes in the app or by email before they take effect. The date at the top shows when the policy was last updated.
15. Contact and complaints
Questions or requests: privacy@pinbeen.app, or by post to CORE DF SP. Z O.O., ul. Kasprowicza 68/97, 01-949 Warszawa, Poland.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the EU country where you live or work, or where an alleged infringement took place. Our lead authority is the Polish President of the Personal Data Protection Office (Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Danych Osobowych, ul. Stawki 2, 00-193 Warszawa, uodo.gov.pl). We would appreciate the chance to address your concerns first.