Pings shows you what a place is like right now, using photos and short videos from people who are actually there. That means we handle your location and your photos, so this page says plainly what we collect, why we need it, and who can see it.
Pings is an iOS app operated by Chuka Anako. If you have a question about anything on this page, email canako@pingapp.live.
Your email address or phone number, used to sign you in. A username you choose. Optionally a display name, profile photo, pronouns and short bio. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the identifier those services give us.
We collect your device location for two reasons: to show you places near you, and to confirm you are actually at a place when you post about it. That second check is what keeps the app honest.
By default this happens only while the app is open. You can choose to allow background location, which lets us reach you when someone nearby is asking about a place you are at. That is your choice, and you can withdraw it at any time in iOS Settings. We store your most recent position, not a history of everywhere you have been, and we delete stale positions after 30 days of inactivity.
When you post an echo we store the media, the place and the time. Other people in the app can see it. Please do not post photos of people who have not agreed to be photographed.
If you choose to find friends from your contacts, your device turns each phone number into a scrambled one-way code before sending it. We never receive or store the phone numbers themselves. The codes we store are scrambled again with a secret key that only our servers hold. We use them for one thing: telling you which of your contacts already use Pings.
We store direct messages so we can deliver them and show them to you and the person you are writing to. They are not end-to-end encrypted, which means we can technically read them. We will only do so if we need to investigate a report of abuse, or if the law requires it.
A push notification token so we can send you notifications. Basic device and app version information. Crash reports. And a record of what you view and tap in the app, which we use to decide what to show you.
This part is unusual, so it is worth spelling out.
When you post an echo or ask about a place, people who are not your accepted mutuals cannot see who you are. They see the word "Anonymous" and a colour. Your username, display name, profile photo and account identifier are not sent to them at all. Our servers enforce that, so it is not something the app could accidentally reveal.
The colour comes from a secret key. It is specific to one place and it changes every week, so nobody can use it to follow you between places or over time. You and your accepted mutuals always see your real handle. If someone becomes your mutual later, your past echoes become attributed to you for them.
We do not sell your personal information. We do not license or sell location data to data brokers, advertisers, or anyone else.
Echoes stop appearing on the map after about 2 hours, and drop out of the rest of the app after about 8. We keep the underlying content unless you delete it. Location positions are deleted after 30 days of inactivity. Account information is kept while your account exists.
You can delete your account at any time from Settings. That removes your account information and your content.
If you are in California, you have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to ask us to delete it, and to correct it. If you are somewhere else with similar rights, we will honour equivalent requests. Email us and we will do it. We will not charge you or make it difficult for exercising a legal right.
Pings is not intended for anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, email us and we will delete it.
Google Firebase Authentication handles sign-in. Access to your data is enforced by server-side rules rather than by the app alone, so a modified copy of the app cannot read data it should not. No system is perfectly secure. If something happens that affects you, we will tell you promptly.
If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we will update the date at the top and tell you in the app. Pings is early software under active development, so this page will change as the product does.
Questions, requests, or anything you think this page gets wrong: canako@pingapp.live.