Privacy Policy

Pingo is operated by Pingo Studios LLC, a Delaware limited liability company ("Pingo," "we," "us," or "our"). This Privacy Policy explains how we process personal information through the Pingo mobile application, pingoapp.co, our event share pages, and related services (collectively, the "Services").

Pingo is a social travel service for adults. It helps people discover nearby users and events, organize and join events, plan trips, generate itineraries, communicate, and use related safety and subscription features.

If you have questions or want to exercise a privacy right, contact support@pingoapp.co.

Account and authentication information: name, surname, email address, profile image, login provider, provider account identifier, email-verification status, authentication credentials or tokens, account role and status, and account creation and update dates.

Profile and demographic information: biography, photos, cover photo, birthdate, derived age, gender, home city and country, interests, languages, selected activities, discovery preferences, distance settings, notification settings, and verification status.

Location information: precise latitude and longitude when you enable Nearby Buddy and location access, the time of the latest location update, a city inferred from your coordinates, deliberately altered distance ranges and obfuscated map coordinates displayed to eligible nearby users, exact locations you deliberately share in a conversation, and event or place coordinates and addresses you submit.

Social and user content: friends and followers, requests, blocks, messages, message reactions, event shares, location shares, profile and event reports, report descriptions, event details, join requests, attendance, waitlists, check-ins, saved events, reviews, traveler tips, place notes, photos, and other content you submit.

Trip and itinerary information: destinations, travel dates, trip type, preferences, traveler overlaps, saved or generated itineraries, custom places, notes, and itinerary visibility settings.

Purchase information: subscription plan, billing interval, entitlement and subscription status, App Store and RevenueCat customer, subscription, product, and transaction identifiers, renewal or cancellation status, and provider event records. Apple processes your payment details; Pingo does not receive or store your payment-card number.

Device, network, and security information: IP address, user agent, session and device identifiers, APNs push token, app and device information sent in requests, security events, login velocity, suspicious activity, compromised-password results, and diagnostic or server log information.

Communications with us: support requests, reports sent by email, feedback, and any information you include when contacting us.

We collect information directly from you when you create or edit an account, enable a feature, create content, communicate, subscribe, report a concern, or contact support.

We collect some information automatically from your device and use of the Services, including location only after the relevant device permission and in-app setting permit it, as well as session, network, security, and push-notification information.

We receive information from Apple or Google when you use their sign-in services, from Apple and RevenueCat in connection with subscriptions, and from service providers that help us authenticate users, prevent abuse, operate infrastructure, and deliver the Services.

We use information to create and secure accounts; provide profiles, social connections, conversations, events, trips, itineraries, reviews, Nearby Buddy, maps, notifications, subscriptions, and Travel Rank; personalize and improve relevant results; provide support; and maintain the Services.

We use information to verify eligibility, enforce feature limits, process join and follow requests, calculate approximate distance and traveler overlap, determine subscription access, prevent spam and fraud, investigate reports, enforce our Terms, protect users, and comply with legal obligations.

We may use aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably identify you to understand and improve the Services. We do not use message content or precise location for advertising.

When you enable Show Me in Nearby Buddy and grant location permission, Pingo may upload your latest precise coordinates while the app is active. The app may upload after meaningful movement, subject to an upload interval, and periodically refresh the latest location. Pingo stores the latest coordinates and update time; Nearby Buddy does not create a historical movement trail.

Pingo never provides or displays your real Nearby Buddy coordinates to another user. Nearby Buddy uses the stored coordinates only on Pingo’s systems to calculate discovery results. Eligible viewers receive a server-generated, deliberately displaced map point and, unless you hide distance, an intentionally broad distance range instead of your real coordinates or exact distance. These protections apply whether the viewer or the person being discovered has a Normal or Pro account.

Nearby Buddy is opt-in. If Show Me in Nearby Buddy is off or location sharing is paused, your profile is not included in Nearby Buddy results for anyone, including Pro users. A Pro subscription never overrides this choice. Nearby discovery also excludes stale locations after a limited period of inactivity, although the latest stored coordinates remain until you turn off nearby visibility, pause location sharing, delete your account, or they are otherwise removed under our retention practices.

Pingo may use a mapping or geocoding provider to infer your city from coordinates. If you deliberately use Share Location in a conversation, the exact coordinates you select are shared with that conversation’s participants and stored with the message. This is different from Nearby Buddy’s approximate display.

Turning off Show Me in Nearby Buddy or pausing location sharing stops future nearby uploads, clears the stored nearby coordinates, and removes your profile from Nearby Buddy results regardless of whether your account is Normal or Pro. You may also withdraw device-level location permission in iOS Settings. Features that depend on location may then be unavailable or less accurate.

Information you add to a profile may be shown to other eligible users, including your name, photo, age, gender, city, country, interests, languages, verification status, Travel Rank, and relevant social or travel context. Blocking and access rules may limit visibility.

Public events may appear in discovery, maps, city pages, profiles, and share pages. Private events are excluded from general public discovery, but they are unlisted rather than secret: a person with the event share link may view the share page and use it to open the event in Pingo. A share page may display event details, venue information, creator information, attendance information, and attendee previews. Do not place information in an event that you do not want link recipients to see.

Trip destinations, dates, traveler overlaps, and profile previews may be visible to other eligible users depending on the feature and subscription level. Your private itinerary notes are used to provide your itinerary unless you choose a feature that shares them.

Pingo stores message text encrypted at rest. The Services decrypt message text when necessary to deliver conversations, replies, previews, and notifications. Message metadata, including event-share details and coordinates deliberately shared through Share Location, is not covered by the message-text encryption statement.

Conversation content is available to the participants in that conversation and may be processed when necessary to provide the Services, investigate abuse, respond to a report, protect safety, or comply with law. We do not sell conversation content or use it for advertising.

Reports may contain the reporter’s identifier, the reported user or event, a snapshot of its name and image, the selected reason, description, status, reviewer, and review dates. Reports are not shown to the reported user as coming from you. We may retain safety records after content or an account is removed when reasonably necessary to prevent abuse, document enforcement, resolve disputes, or comply with law.

Pingo uses Google Gemini to generate itinerary suggestions and descriptions. We send itinerary context such as destination and duration; we do not intentionally include your name, email address, messages, or precise Nearby Buddy coordinates in an itinerary-generation prompt.

We use Google Places for place details and photos and may use OpenStreetMap/Nominatim, Wikipedia, and similar public-data services for city, map, and geocoding information. Coordinates submitted for city resolution may be sent to the geocoding provider.

We may use Apify to find public web or social-source links relating to places. Pingo may display links to third-party pages, including Instagram or TikTok. Those services operate under their own terms and privacy practices. AI-generated and third-party information can be incomplete or inaccurate, so verify important travel information independently.

With other users and link recipients: we disclose information as needed for profiles, social connections, Nearby Buddy, conversations, events, share links, attendees, trips, traveler discovery, reviews, tips, and leaderboards, subject to the applicable settings and access rules.

With service providers: we use providers for hosting and storage, databases, authentication and account security, push notifications, image processing, subscriptions, AI generation, maps, geocoding, place data, public web search, and technical operations. These may include Supabase, Better Auth and its infrastructure services, Apple, Google, RevenueCat, OpenStreetMap/Nominatim, Wikipedia, and Apify.

For legal and safety reasons: we may disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law or valid legal process; investigate fraud, abuse, or security incidents; enforce our agreements; protect the rights, property, or safety of Pingo, our users, or others; or establish and defend legal claims.

Business transfers: information may be disclosed as part of a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of assets, subject to appropriate confidentiality and legal requirements.

We require service providers that process personal information for us to use it only for authorized purposes and provide protections consistent with this Policy and applicable law.

Pingo does not sell personal information. We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and the current Services do not display third-party behavioral advertising.

Pingo does not currently use third-party advertising cookies or analytics tools to track your activity over time across unaffiliated websites or apps. Other parties should not collect such cross-service activity through Pingo. If these practices change, we will update this Policy and provide any controls required by law.

We retain account and content information while your account is active and as needed to provide the Services. Retention may be longer where reasonably necessary for security, fraud prevention, moderation, dispute resolution, tax or accounting requirements, enforcement, backup integrity, or another legal obligation.

A standard in-app account deletion immediately hides and locks the account and begins a 15-day restore period. Signing in during that period restores the account. If it is not restored, the account is scheduled for hard deletion after 30 days from the original request. Deletion jobs and storage cleanup may require additional processing time.

The permanent-deletion option initiates hard deletion without a restore period. Database relationships remove the principal account, profile, messages, events, trips, itineraries, subscriptions, and related records. Some limited information may remain where it is not technically part of the account cascade, is held in a backup awaiting rotation, or must be retained for safety, fraud prevention, transaction records, legal compliance, or legal claims. Images stored separately are deleted through asynchronous cleanup.

The latest Nearby Buddy coordinates are cleared when nearby visibility is disabled or paused and are removed with account deletion. Session records normally expire after 30 days. Message, event, report, subscription-provider, security, and operational records are retained according to their purpose and may be removed, anonymized, or retained longer where the considerations above apply.

Deleting a Pingo account does not cancel an App Store subscription. You must manage the subscription through your Apple ID settings to stop future renewal.

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed for the nature of the information we process. These include authenticated access controls, encrypted network transport, encryption of message text at rest, access restrictions, account-security and anti-abuse controls, and deletion procedures.

No system is perfectly secure. You are responsible for protecting your account credentials and should contact support@pingoapp.co if you believe your account or information has been compromised.

Pingo Studios LLC is a United States company, and the Services and our providers may process information in the United States and other countries. Those countries may have privacy laws different from those where you live. Where applicable law requires it, we use an approved legal mechanism or other appropriate safeguards for international transfers.

You can edit many profile fields and settings in the app; manage location, photo, and notification permissions in iOS Settings; turn Nearby Buddy visibility or location sharing off; hide distance; leave or clear supported conversations; block users; withdraw a pending report; and delete your account in Settings.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to confirm whether we process your information; access, correct, delete, or obtain a portable copy of it; obtain information about third parties to which it was disclosed; restrict or object to processing; withdraw consent; and appeal a denied request. Pingo will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.

Submit a request or appeal by emailing support@pingoapp.co from the address associated with your account. State the right you wish to exercise and, for an appeal, identify the earlier decision. We may request information reasonably necessary to verify your identity and authority. An authorized agent may submit a request where permitted by law, but we may require proof of authorization and direct verification with you.

We respond within the period required by applicable law. Rights are not absolute; we may deny or limit a request where an exception applies, and we will explain the decision and available appeal or regulator-complaint options when required.

Because Pingo does not currently sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising, there is no sale or targeted-advertising activity to opt out of. We do not currently respond differently to browser Do Not Track signals, which are not governed by a uniform standard. Where a legally recognized opt-out preference signal applies to a future practice, we will honor it as required by law.

Pingo is intended only for people who are at least 18 years old. We request a birthdate during onboarding to enforce this requirement. We do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to maintain an account. If you believe a minor is using Pingo, contact support@pingoapp.co so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

We may update this Policy as the Services or law changes. We will post the revised Policy with a new effective date. If a change materially affects how we process personal information, we will provide additional notice through the Services, by email, or by another appropriate method before the change takes effect where required.

Pingo Studios LLC is the controller or business responsible for the personal information described in this Policy. For privacy questions, requests, appeals, complaints, or concerns, email support@pingoapp.co.