Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 7, 2026
ancy is a travel planning app. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. The short version: we collect only what the app needs to work, we don't run ads, we don't use advertising trackers, and we never sell your data.
Information you give us
- Account details. Your email address, a display name and username, and an optional profile photo. If you sign up with email, your password is stored only as a secure hash; we can't read it. If you sign up with Apple or Google, we receive your name and email from them to create your account (see "Signing in with Apple or Google" below).
- Your travel content. Trips, destinations, dates, saved places and pins, city rankings, notes, and photos you add. This is the whole point of the app.
- Social activity. Who you follow, likes, and comments (including photos attached to a comment), if you use the social features.
- Follow suggestions. To help people find who they know on ancy, we may suggest your account to another user (and suggest others to you) based on mutual follows, a shared home city, or a contact match (see "Contacts" below). This only uses information already on your profile and your follow graph, never your private trip content.
- Weekly Prompts. If you post to a Weekly Prompt, we store the photo, an optional location tag, and the week it was posted. These posts are visible to your followers (and, if you have no followers yet, may be shown to other users through the Discover feed so your feed isn't empty). These posts follow the same visibility rules as the rest of your social activity, not your upcoming/ongoing-trip privacy protections below.
- Discovery activity. If you use the Discover feature, we store which suggested places you add or skip. This keeps places you've passed on from being suggested again and enforces the daily suggestion limit.
- Files you attach to a pin (ancy premium). If you attach a photo or PDF to a place on one of your trips, we store that file. These files are visible only to the owner and the members of that trip, whatever the trip's other sharing settings are. Anyone who redeems a share link for a trip becomes a member of it, so only share a trip's link with people you're happy to have see its documents. Travel documents often hold booking references and scannable barcodes, so treat them accordingly.
- Recap pages (ancy premium). If you turn a city ranking into a recap page, we store the link for that page and which ranking it points at, along with a count of how many times it has been opened. See "Recap pages are public" below for who can see one.
- Subscription status. Whether your account has an active ancy premium subscription, so the app knows what to unlock. We never see or store your card details at any point.
- Invite codes. If you enter a friend's invite code when you sign up, we record that they invited you. That friend can then see your display name, username, and profile photo in their invite tracker, along with whether you've ranked a city yet (that's what counts toward their free month). We don't show them anything else about your account.
- Photo library access (optional). When you add photos (to a ranking, a comment, a pin, a Weekly Prompt, or your profile), only the photos you pick are uploaded. On iPhone the app asks for photo library permission to show the picker; on Android it uses the system photo picker, which needs no permission. If you save a ranking graphic, the app asks for permission to save it to your library. ancy doesn't scan, upload, or otherwise access the rest of your photo library.
- Sharing links into ancy (optional). If you use ancy's share extension to send a link from TikTok or another app into ancy, we read that link (and, for TikTok, its public caption) to try to identify the place it's about, using Google Places and a third-party AI service (see "Services we rely on"). If a place can't be identified automatically, you're asked to search for it yourself instead. We don't store the video or the account that posted it, only the place you end up saving.
Signing in with Apple or Google (optional)
Instead of a password, you can create or sign in to your ancy account using Sign in with Apple or Google. When you do, Apple or Google shares your name and email address with us to set up your account. ancy never sees or stores your Apple or Google password. If you use Apple's "Hide My Email" option, we only ever see the private relay address Apple gives us. Signing in this way is also governed by Apple's or Google's own privacy policy for their sign-in service.
Contacts (optional)
If you choose to find friends from your contacts, the app reads the email addresses in your address book and sends them to our server only to check for matches against existing ancy accounts. This happens once when you turn it on, and then periodically in the background (about once a day, only while you have contacts permission granted) so we can let you know if a contact joins ancy later. Turn it off anytime by removing ancy's Contacts access in your device's settings. Contact emails are never stored on our servers; each check uses them for the lookup and immediately discards them. We never upload names, phone numbers, or anything else from your contacts, and we never message your contacts. A match may trigger a "people you may know" notification to you or to them, as described above under "Follow suggestions."
Location (optional)
If you turn on the location button in the trip planner, the app uses your device's location to show a dot on the map while you're using it. Your location stays on your device; it is never sent to or stored on our servers.
Sharing to Instagram & elsewhere (optional)
You can turn a ranking into a shareable graphic and post it to Instagram Stories or Feed, send it in Messages, or save it to your photo library. This happens directly on your device through Instagram's and your phone's own share mechanisms. ancy doesn't send your photos, rankings, or account information to Meta on your behalf, and we have no access to what happens after you tap share. Once shared, that content is governed by Instagram's own terms and privacy policy, not ours.
Push notifications (optional)
If you enable notifications, we store a push token for your device so we can send you things like trip reminders and social activity. These are account and activity notifications, not marketing. We don't send promotional push. You can fine-tune exactly which categories you get (new followers, likes & rankings, trip invites, trip activity, trip reminders) from Settings → Notifications in the app, or turn notifications off entirely anytime in your device's settings.
What we don't collect
- No advertising identifiers, no ad networks. Buying a subscription doesn't change this: we don't collect the advertising identifier for tracking, and nothing about your purchases is shared for advertising.
- No selling or renting of your data to anyone, ever.
Who can see your content
Your profile, city rankings, and past trips can be visible to other ancy users depending on your privacy settings. For your safety, the exact places pinned on upcoming or ongoing trips are always private; other users can never see where you're about to be, regardless of settings.
Recap pages are public
A recap page is a web page for one of your city rankings that anyone holding the link can open, with no ancy account and without installing the app. Creating one is always your choice, one ranking at a time, and you're never opted in.
A recap page shows that ranking's photos, your note and must-try spots, your display name and profile photo, and the display names and profile photos of anyone you tagged as having been on the trip with you. It doesn't show their usernames and doesn't link to their profiles. Tagging someone does put their name and photo on a page that anyone with the link can see, so please keep that in mind before you share it.
The link is the permission, so treat it like a key: anyone you send it to can forward it on. A recap page works even when the ranking behind it is private, because you chose to publish that one page. Recap pages ask search engines not to index them, though we can't guarantee every crawler honours that. You can revoke a recap page at any time from the app, which immediately stops the link working for everyone, including people you already sent it to.
Services we rely on
ancy is built on a small number of service providers that process data solely on our behalf:
- Supabase: hosts our database, authentication, and photo storage.
- Resend: delivers our emails (welcome, trip reminders). Every email includes an unsubscribe link.
- Google Places: powers place search and the Discover feature; your search queries and the city you're browsing are sent to Google to return results, and place details like ratings and photos shown in the app come from Google.
- Sign in with Apple & Google: if you choose to sign up or sign in this way, these providers authenticate you and share your name and email with us, as described above.
- Pexels & Carto: provide city photos and map tiles; these requests include standard technical data like your IP address, but no account information.
- Apple, Google & Expo: deliver push notifications.
- TikTok: if you share a TikTok link into ancy, we look up that video's public caption and thumbnail from TikTok's oEmbed service to help identify the place it's about.
- Anthropic (Claude): if you share a TikTok link into ancy, the video's public caption is sent to Anthropic's API to help extract the place mentioned. No account information is included, and Anthropic doesn't use this data to train its models.
- Apple & Google (payments): process ancy premium purchases, renewals, and refunds under their own terms and privacy policies. We receive confirmation that a subscription is active and never your payment details.
- RevenueCat: manages ancy premium subscriptions on our behalf. It receives your ancy account ID, an identifier your phone generates for this app, and your purchase history for ancy, so the app can tell whether your subscription is active. It isn't used for advertising, and your payment details never reach it.
- Sentry: receives crash reports and diagnostic information (device model, OS version, app version, and the state of the app at the time of a crash) so we can identify and fix bugs. This data is not linked to your name or account and is not used for advertising.
- PostHog: receives product analytics, meaning which screens and features you use, and your account's user ID and email so your activity ties together across sessions and devices. This is used to understand how people use ancy and improve it, never for advertising, and never sold or shared beyond PostHog acting on our behalf.
How long we keep data & deleting your account
We keep your data for as long as you have an account. You can delete your account anytime from Profile → Delete account in the app, which permanently deletes your account and all associated content (trips, photos, rankings, social activity) from our servers.
Email preferences
You can stop marketing and reminder emails using the unsubscribe link in any email. We'll still send essential account emails (like password resets) when needed.
Children
ancy is not directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we'll delete it.
Changes to this policy
If we make meaningful changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top. Continued use of ancy after changes means you accept the updated policy.
Contact
Questions or requests about your data: hello@ancy.app