Effective date: September 8, 2026 | Last updated: September 8, 2026 | Version 2026-09-08
WhatWeShouldSee (“we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the WhatWeShouldSee website (www.whatweshouldsee.com) and the WhatWeShouldSee mobile application (collectively, the “Service”). This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how it is stored and protected, when it may be shared, and your rights regarding your personal data.
By using the Service you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service. Please also review our Terms of Service, which govern your use of the Service.
| Category | Examples | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Account & Profile | Name, email address, password, birthday, gender, phone number, profile photo, biography, Instagram handle | Create and manage your account, personalize your experience, enable social features |
| Travel Preferences | Interest tags, travel style, pace, party composition, diet requirements, must-do / avoid preferences, home city, nearest airport | Generate personalized itineraries and recommendations tailored to your travel style |
| Trip & Itinerary Data | Trip names, dates, destinations, budgets, traveler counts, day-by-day activities, notes, reviews | Build, store, and share your travel itineraries |
| User-Generated Content | Photos, videos, comments, messages, recommendation requests, blog posts, community posts | Enable content creation, sharing, and social interaction within the Service |
| Community & Social | Community membership, follow/block lists, messages, comments, invitations | Power social features such as communities, messaging, and friend discovery |
| Payment Information | Payment account identifier (for creators receiving payouts) | Process creator payouts; actual payment card details are handled entirely by our payment processor and never touch our servers |
| Category | Examples | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Device & Browser Data | Device type, operating system, browser type, screen resolution, language preference | Optimize the Service for your device and diagnose technical issues |
| Usage Data | Pages visited, features used, clicks, time spent, navigation paths | Understand how the Service is used so we can improve it |
| IP Address | We anonymize IP addresses before storing them for analytics and approximate location. We retain the full IP address on specific records where it is evidence: your acceptance of these terms, and reports or moderation actions. | Security, fraud prevention, approximate geographic analytics, and keeping a record of consent and of moderation activity |
| Cookies & Similar Technologies | Session cookies, analytics cookies (see Section 5) | Keep you logged in, remember preferences, and gather usage analytics |
If you sign in via Google or Apple, we receive limited identity information from your account (typically name and email) so we can create or recognize your WhatWeShouldSee account. We do not receive or store your Google or Apple password.
If you use Apple’s “Hide my email” feature when signing in with Apple, you will share a private relay email address instead of your real email. We accept this and use the relay address for account-related communication. You can update to a non-relay email at any time in Settings → Account.
The Service offers an optional “Find Friends” feature. If you grant permission, the app reads contacts from your device locally, generates one-way cryptographic hashes of phone numbers and email addresses, and sends only the hashes to our server. Your raw contact data (names, numbers, emails) never leaves your device. Uploaded hashes are used for matching only, are matched in memory, and are never written to our databases; hashed contact identifiers may appear transiently in error-diagnostic records, which expire on our diagnostics provider’s standard retention cycle.
We use the information we collect to:
We do not sell your personal data. We do not use your data for targeted advertising. We do not engage in cross-app or cross-website tracking — the analytics we run measure how you use WhatWeShouldSee itself, not your behavior on other apps or sites. For this reason, our iOS app does not present the “Allow tracking” (App Tracking Transparency) prompt.
We use third-party artificial intelligence services to power features such as itinerary generation, travel personality analysis, place descriptions, and trip reviews. When these features are used:
Your data is stored on secure, commercially hosted cloud infrastructure located in the United States. Different types of data (account information, session data, uploaded media) are stored using industry-standard database and file-storage services, each with encryption at rest and in transit.
We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. If you delete your account, we will delete or anonymize your personal data from our active systems within 30 days, except where retention is required by law or for legitimate business purposes (e.g., fraud prevention, legal obligations). Residual copies in backups and in our service providers’ systems are removed on their standard deletion cycles. De-identified or aggregated data that cannot identify you may be retained indefinitely and used for analytics, service improvement, and other lawful business purposes.
| Cookie / Technology | Type | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Session cookie | Essential | Keep you logged in and manage your session securely | Up to 30 days |
| Remember-me cookie | Functional | Persist your login across browser sessions | Up to 30 days |
| Analytics cookies | Analytics | Understand usage patterns, feature adoption, and user experience | Session-based |
| Error monitoring cookies | Performance | Detect and diagnose errors and performance issues | Session-based |
You can disable non-essential cookies through your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies may prevent the Service from functioning correctly.
We share data with third parties only as described below. We do not sell or rent your personal data.
| Service Provider | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| Keycloak (self-hosted, operated by us) | Account authentication and session management | Email address, name, and authentication credentials. Runs on our own infrastructure; credentials are not shared with any outside identity vendor. |
| Google OAuth | “Sign in with Google” | Email and name from your Google account, if you choose this sign-in method. Subject to Google’s Privacy Policy. |
| Apple | “Sign in with Apple” | Name and email, if you choose this sign-in method. If you use Hide My Email, we receive only Apple’s private relay address and never your real one. Subject to Apple’s Privacy Policy. |
| Anthropic | AI itinerary suggestions and content generation | Your trip queries and the trip content you ask about (destinations, dates, saved places, notes). We do not send your email address, phone number or payment data. Not used to train their models. |
| Google Maps Platform | Maps, place search, directions, geocoding | Search queries and coordinates; subject to Google’s Privacy Policy |
| OpenStreetMap / Nominatim | Geocoding and address validation | Place names and addresses being looked up. No user account data. |
| ip-api.com and ipwho.is | Approximate location from IP address (used to default your home city and to suggest nearby places when device location is unavailable) | Your IP address. This yields city/region-level location only, never precise coordinates. |
| Stripe | Payment processing for travel-guide purchases and subscriptions, and creator payouts | Purchase and subscription records, and for creators a payout account identifier. Card and bank details are collected by Stripe directly and never touch our servers. Subject to Stripe’s Privacy Policy. |
| Duffel | Flight and accommodation search, and booking where offered | For searches: place names, coordinates and travel dates. If you make a booking, the traveller details required to issue it — full name, date of birth, and contact details — are sent to Duffel and on to the airline or property. Subject to Duffel’s Privacy Policy. |
| Amazon Web Services | Hosting, file and image storage, and transactional email (Amazon SES) | All Service data is hosted on AWS. Transactional email (invitations, waitlist and account notices) is sent through Amazon SES and includes your email address and name. |
| Sentry | Error monitoring and performance tracking | Error traces and request context. We strip personal data before sending, and identify affected accounts by an internal user ID rather than by email. |
| PostHog | Product analytics and session replay | Usage events, page views and feature interactions, linked to your account. We also record a sample of sessions as replays, which capture what was displayed on screen — to understand how the Service is used and to diagnose problems. Text you type into form fields is masked, and we currently apply additional masking to on-screen text. See “Session replay” below. |
| Gravatar (Automattic) | Default profile avatars | A one-way hash of your email address, used to look up a public avatar you have already associated with it |
Session replay. To understand how the Service is used and to diagnose problems, we record a sample of sessions as replays. A replay captures what was displayed on screen during your session, which can include your own content and content other members have shared with you. Text you type into form fields is masked and is not captured, and we currently apply additional masking to on-screen text. If you have questions about session replay, contact privacy@whatweshouldsee.com.
We may also disclose your information if required by law (e.g., court order, subpoena) or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety, or the safety of others.
Service providers that process data on our behalf do so under agreements limiting their use of it to providing services to us. Some of the services listed above — including sign-in providers, mapping and IP-lookup services, and avatar services — act under their own privacy policies rather than solely on our instructions; those policies are linked or named above.
Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the right to:
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at the address below. We will respond within the time required by applicable law.
You can delete your account directly from within the app at Settings → Account → Delete Account. Deletion is subject to a 14 day grace period, during which you may cancel by signing back in. After the grace period, your personal data is deleted or anonymized within 30 days, subject to any legal retention requirements.
You may also email privacy@whatweshouldsee.com to request deletion if you cannot access the app.
The Service is not intended for anyone under the age of 17. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.
Your data may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own, including the United States, where our cloud infrastructure is hosted. We ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your data in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to: (a) know what personal information we collect and how it is used; (b) request deletion of your personal information; (c) opt out of the sale of personal information — we do not sell personal information; (d) non-discrimination for exercising your rights. To make a request, contact us below.
If you reside in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the legal bases for processing your data are: (a) contractual necessity — to provide the Service you requested; (b) legitimate interests — analytics, session replay, security, fraud prevention, and service improvement; (c) consent — where you have opted in (e.g., contact sync, device location). You may object to processing carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests, and you may contact your local data protection authority if you have concerns about our data practices.
In the event of a data breach that compromises your personal data, we will notify affected users and relevant regulatory authorities as required by applicable law. Where required, we will provide notification within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach, including a description of the nature of the breach, the categories and approximate number of individuals affected, the likely consequences, and the measures taken or proposed to address the breach and mitigate its effects.
Some browsers transmit “Do Not Track” (DNT) signals. There is currently no uniform standard for how online services should respond to DNT signals. At this time, the Service does not respond to DNT signals. You can control your cookie preferences through your browser settings as described in Section 5 above.
For terms relating to acceptable use, disclaimers of warranties, limitation of liability, indemnification, account suspension and termination, and dispute resolution, please refer to our Terms of Service.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, for material changes, notify you via the Service or by email. Your continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at:
WhatWeShouldSee
Email: privacy@whatweshouldsee.com
We aim to respond to privacy-related inquiries promptly, and within the time required by applicable law.