Pooz is a map of public restrooms with ratings, reviews, and photos from the people who used them. This policy explains what information the Pooz app and website collect, why, who it is shared with, and the choices you have. It applies to the Pooz iOS app and to getpooz.com.
Who is responsible
Pooz is operated by David Seelos ("Pooz", "we"). For anything about this policy or your data, email hello@getpooz.com.
Browsing needs no account
You can open the map, search, and read every restroom page without signing in. Browsing sends your search terms and the map area you are looking at to our servers so we can return restrooms there. We do not keep a history of what you searched or where you looked.
Your location
Pooz never asks for your location when it opens. It asks only when you tap "Find restrooms near me" or "Use my current location". Your position is used on the device and sent to our servers once to fetch the restrooms around you. It is not stored, not attached to your account, and not shared with anyone. When you add a restroom, the restroom's own position (not yours) is stored together with its city and country, which the app looks up through Apple's geocoder on your phone.
What we collect when you create an account
- Sign-in details. Your email address, and the account identifier from Apple or Google if you sign in with them. We never see or store a password. Apple's "Hide My Email" relay addresses work.
- Username. A public handle you choose. It appears on everything you contribute. It is never your real name unless you make it one.
- Contributions. Reviews, ratings, restroom details, issue reports, photos, restrooms you add, and the date each was posted. These are public and shown with your username.
- Photos. Photos you attach to reviews. Before upload the app removes embedded metadata such as the camera's location and device information. Photos are stored in a private bucket and served through short-lived links.
- Activity within Pooz. Saved restrooms, filter preferences, friends and friend requests, whether contacts may find you, challenges, badges, tiers, Poozies, blocks, and reports you file. Saved restrooms, blocks, and reports are private to you; the rest powers your public profile and games with friends.
Technical data
Like any online service, our hosting providers record the IP address, device type, and timestamp of each request in server logs used for security and reliability. These logs are kept for up to 30 days and are not used to build profiles. If you have opted in to sharing analytics with app developers on your iPhone, Apple may send us aggregated crash and usage statistics that do not identify you. We do not run our own analytics or advertising SDKs, and the website sets no cookies.
Finding friends from your contacts
If you choose "Find friends from my contacts", the app reads the email addresses in your address book on your phone, hashes each one (a one-way scramble), and sends only the hashes to our server to check against the hashed sign-in emails of members who allow it. Your contacts' names, numbers, and plain email addresses never leave your phone, we do not store the hashes, and nothing is sent to your contacts. You can turn off being found this way under Profile, "Let contacts find me". iOS asks for contacts permission the first time, and you can revoke it in Settings.
What your public profile shows
Only your username, member tier, achievement badges, Poozie count, the number of reviews, restrooms added, and photos, the month you joined, and lists of your public reviews and added restrooms. It never shows your email, real name, sign-in method, location, saved restrooms, or who you have blocked.
What we do not do
- No advertising networks, no tracking across apps or websites, no data brokers.
- No selling or renting of personal data.
- No analytics SDKs. We do not profile you.
- No messaging between members and no sharing of live location.
Service providers
These companies process data on our behalf, only to run Pooz:
- Supabase hosts our database, authentication, and photo storage in the United States.
- Google Maps Platform draws the map and provides business names, addresses, and search suggestions. When you use the map or search, your map area and search text reach Google under the Google Privacy Policy.
- Apple provides Sign in with Apple and on-device geocoding.
- OpenStreetMap contributors supply some public restroom locations. Nothing about you is sent to OpenStreetMap.
We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the safety of members and the integrity of the service.
International transfers
Pooz is operated from the United States and our servers are there. If you use Pooz from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or elsewhere, your information is transferred to and processed in the United States. Our providers rely on standard contractual clauses and equivalent safeguards for these transfers.
Legal bases (EEA, UK, Switzerland)
- Your account, contributions, saved places, friends, challenges, and rewards: performance of our contract with you (the Terms of Use).
- Keeping the map accurate and the community safe (reports, blocks, moderation, duplicate merges) and keeping the service secure (server logs): our legitimate interests, balanced against yours.
- Location for "near me" and access to your contacts for "Find friends": your consent, given through the iOS permission prompts. Withdraw it any time in Settings; the rest of Pooz keeps working.
- Responding to legal requests: compliance with a legal obligation.
An email address is the only information you must provide to create an account; without it you can still browse but cannot post. We make no decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.
How long we keep things
Your account and contributions stay until you delete them. Deleting a review hides it immediately. Deleting your account removes your profile, sign-in details, reviews, photos, reports, votes, saved restrooms, friends, challenges, badges, and Poozies. Restrooms you added remain on the map as community data with no author attached. Backups are overwritten within 30 days. Reports you filed, and reports about your content, are kept as moderation records for up to two years after the case closes. Blocks last until you unblock. Server logs are kept for up to 30 days.
Your rights and choices
- Delete your account in the app: Profile, then Account, then Delete account. This is immediate and cannot be undone.
- Delete a review or photo from the restroom page at any time.
- Change your username from Profile at any time.
- Access, correct, export, restrict, or object. Email hello@getpooz.com from the address on your account and we will respond within 30 days (45 for California requests), including a copy of your data in a machine-readable format if you ask. We may ask you to confirm the request from your sign-in email. We never treat you differently for exercising a privacy right.
- EEA, UK, and Switzerland. You may also complain to your data protection authority. In France that is the CNIL (cnil.fr); in the UK the ICO.
- California and other US states. You have the rights to know, delete, correct, and to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of; the website honors Global Privacy Control signals regardless. An authorized agent may submit a request on your behalf with written permission.
Advertising, later
Pooz has no advertising today. If we add ads in the future, we will update this policy first, name any advertising partner, and ask for your permission where the law requires it (for example the App Tracking Transparency prompt on iOS).
Children
Pooz is not directed to children under 13 (or the age of digital consent where you live, 15 in France). We do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has created an account, email us and we will delete it.
Security
All traffic between the app and our servers uses HTTPS. Photos live in a private bucket. Access to production systems is limited to the operator. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a sign-in method you control.
Changes
When this policy changes we will update the date above and, for material changes, tell you in the app. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated policy.