Privacy Policy

ConnectCommunity ("Connect", "we", "us", "our") operates a local marketplace and business platform that helps people find and book neighborhood services, and helps businesses manage staff, customers, scheduling, invoicing, and messaging. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and how it's handled across our web app, Connect Community mobile app, and admin tools.

Connect is currently in alpha/beta. Sign-up is limited to Calgary, AB and Auckland, NZ (invited users may register from anywhere), features may be incomplete, and data in our development environment may be wiped without notice. Please do not enter real payment card numbers, home addresses, or confidential business information while we're in this stage.

If you have questions about this policy or want to exercise any of the rights below, contact us at support@connectcommunity.app.

1. Who this applies to

• Personal users — people who browse and book services
• Business users — owners, admins, and staff who manage a business on Connect
• Customers — people a business stores records about, who may not have a Connect account themselves (for example, a client's name, phone, and notes entered by a business)
• Donors — people who make an optional donation via Stripe
• Connect platform admins can access account, business, session, and invoice data for support and moderation purposes

If you are a business's customer and don't have a Connect account, your data is provided to us by that business, which is responsible for having a lawful basis to share it with us. See "Businesses as data controllers" below.

2. What we collect

Account information (via our authentication provider, Clerk, and our database): email, first/last name, username, phone number, avatar, address, approximate location (latitude/longitude), timezone, and last login time.

Business/tenant information: business name, URL slug, address and coordinates, timezone, phone, email, website, logo image, description, categories, and service locations.

Customer records (entered by businesses): name, email, phone, address, coordinates, free-text notes, and the date they became a client.

Booking information: appointment times, status, session notes, participant notes, and cancellation reasons.

Invoices and payment records: amounts, currency (default USD), payment method (cash, card, bank transfer, other), reference IDs, and notes. Connect does not process booking payments — invoices are records businesses keep of how they were paid.

Messages: the content of messages sent between users and businesses in our in-app messaging.

Reviews: star rating (1–5) and comment left by a client after a completed session. Your first and last name is shown publicly next to your review on the business's public page.

Audit logs: a record of who created, updated, or deleted records, and what changed, kept for accountability and troubleshooting.

Feedback: if you submit feedback during alpha/beta, the title, category, description, and your email are stored as a GitHub issue in our private tracker, visible to Connect maintainers (not the public).

Location data: if you use location-based search or the "discover near you" feature, we access your device/browser location and send your coordinates to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service for reverse geocoding. When you sign up, we also use your IP address (via hosting-provider geolocation headers) to determine your country/region/city and confirm you're eligible to join during our limited beta.

Usage metrics: our web app uses Vercel Analytics for anonymized page-view metrics. We do not currently use advertising or crash-reporting SDKs.

3. How we use your information

We use personal data to: create and secure your account; connect clients with businesses and enable bookings, messaging, invoicing, and reviews; show approved business profiles publicly; enforce our beta geographic limits; respond to support and feedback requests; understand how the site is used (anonymized page views); and maintain audit records for security and accountability.

4. What's public vs. private

Public (visible without an account): an approved business's name, description, categories, services offered, phone, email, website, address, logo, available booking slots, and reviews (reviewer name, rating, and comment). Businesses only become public after admin approval.

Private: bookings, invoices, customer lists and notes, internal staff notes, messages, and any business that hasn't yet been approved or has been unpublished.

Signed-in user search: authenticated users can search other Connect accounts by name or email (for example, when adding a customer or assigning someone to a booking). Search results include the person's name, email address, and avatar. This is not available to people who are not signed in.

5. Who we share data with

We share data with the service providers who help us run Connect. We don't sell personal data, and we don't share it for advertising.

Each provider only receives what it needs to perform its function and is bound by its own privacy terms.

6. Businesses as data controllers

When a business adds a customer record, note, or invoice, that business determines what data to collect about their customers and why — Connect provides the tool, but the business is responsible for having a lawful basis to hold that information and for responding to their customers' requests about it, unless otherwise agreed. If you're a business's customer, you may want to contact that business directly about your data, or contact us and we'll route your request appropriately.

7. Data retention and deletion

Most records are soft-deleted (marked deleted, not immediately erased) rather than removed right away, so we can maintain accurate audit history. We do not currently have a fixed purge schedule for soft-deleted or audit records.

If you delete your personal account: you'll be asked to confirm, business owners must transfer or close each business they own first, and your personal information is anonymized (replaced with a placeholder name and a tombstone email address). Your underlying account is removed from Clerk. Bookings and messages you were part of remain in our systems as historical records tied to the anonymized profile, since other users may rely on that history (for example, a business's invoice records).

If a business is closed, it is deactivated and its associated organization is removed from our authentication provider.

We do not currently offer a self-serve "download my data" export. Email support@connectcommunity.app to request a copy of your data or deletion beyond the account-anonymization process above. We may need to verify your identity first.

8. Sensitive information

Some business categories relate to sensitive services (for example, health, medical, dental, legal, financial). Session and customer notes are free text, and businesses could enter sensitive details there as part of managing their clients. We don't have dedicated fields for government ID numbers, dates of birth, or other special-category data, and we ask businesses not to record more than they need to deliver their service.

Connect is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe we have collected information from a child, contact us and we will delete it.

9. Security

Traffic to our web apps is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). We restrict internal access to personal data to what's needed for support, moderation, and platform administration, and we keep audit logs of changes to key records. Authentication is handled by Clerk. We will expand this section as we document additional controls (for example, encryption at rest and incident response).

10. Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, or request deletion of your personal data, or to object to certain processing. Contact support@connectcommunity.app to make a request. We'll let you know if we need to verify your identity first. Until a self-serve export exists, access and copy requests are handled manually.

11. Changes to this policy

We'll update the "last updated" date above when we make changes, and post material changes here or notify users directly where required.

12. Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data: support@connectcommunity.app

Legal entity name, registered address, and governing law/jurisdiction will be added here once confirmed.