Privacy Policy
Effective date: September 24, 2026 · Version 2026-09-24
This policy explains what information Palytt Inc. ("Palytt," "we," "us") collects when you use the Palytt apps, palytt.com, and related services (the "Service"), how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. Palytt is offered in the United States to people 18 and older. Washington and Nevada residents should also read our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.
The short version
- We don't sell or share your personal information, and there are no ads in Palytt.
- Location features are optional, and you can turn each one off. Nearby discovery is off by default.
- We treat allergies and dietary restrictions as sensitive health information.
- Optional AI features only run after you consent, and you can withdraw consent in Settings.
- You can delete your account in the app or at palytt.com/delete-account.
1. Information we collect
Information you give us
- Account: name, username, email address, phone number (if you sign in with your phone), and identifiers from Sign in with Apple or Google sign-in.
- Profile: photo, banner, bio, and a school or campus, plus the campus email address you use to verify it.
- Content: photos, captions, posts, comments, ratings, lists, and saved places.
- Messages: direct messages and group and meetup chat.
- Meetups: plans you create or join, RSVPs, times, places, and votes.
- Taste and diet: taste-profile answers, dietary preferences, allergies, and religious-diet preferences such as halal or kosher. These are sensitive — see Section 6.
- Choices and support: your AI consent and notification settings, reports you file, and messages you send our support team.
Information from your device, with your permission
- Location: precise location while you use the app, and optionally in the background (Section 4).
- Contacts: phone numbers from your address book, hashed on your device before anything is sent (Section 5).
- Camera and photos: the images you capture or pick to post.
- Calendar: to add meetups to your calendar. We use this access only to add the events you choose, and we don't upload your calendar to our servers.
Information collected automatically
- Device and usage: device model, operating system, app version, IP address, identifiers, screens viewed, features used, and similar analytics events.
- Diagnostics: crash reports, error details, and server logs.
- Cookies and similar technologies on our website (Section 9).
Information from others
- Friends who invite you, including your phone number if a host invites you to a meetup by text.
- Other users who mention you, add you to a meetup, or report content involving you.
- Sign-in providers (Apple, Google), which share your name and email (Apple may give us a private relay address).
- Restaurant and menu information from Google Places, web search through Tavily, and public menus. This is mostly about places, not people.
Information we create
We derive a taste profile, match scores, recommendations, and dietary tags from your activity and preferences. These are inferences about what you may like.
2. How we use information
- To run the Service: accounts, posts, messages, meetups, notifications, and support.
- To personalize: match scores, taste profiles, dish and restaurant recommendations, and friend suggestions.
- To keep people safe: moderation (including automated AI screening of posts), handling reports and blocks, and preventing spam, fraud, and abuse.
- To communicate: account and security messages, push notifications you allow, and product email you can opt out of.
- To improve Palytt: analytics, debugging, and measuring how features perform.
- To meet legal obligations and enforce our Terms.
- For any other purpose we describe when we ask for your consent.
We don't use your information for targeted advertising, and we don't sell it.
3. AI processing
Optional AI features — such as match scores, Pal's notes, dish recommendations, and menu summaries — only run after you agree to our AI consent. Consent is tied to a version, so we'll ask again if what we do materially changes, and you can withdraw it at any time in Settings. When you use these features, we send the information needed for your request (for example, a photo, a menu, your taste and diet preferences) through OpenRouter to AI model providers (Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI). We configure OpenRouter to exclude providers that retain prompts or use them for training.
Separately, posts you publish are screened by automated AI moderation to help keep the community safe. We don't use AI to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.
Dietary and allergen tags are AI estimates from menus and posts. They can be wrong or out of date. If you have an allergy, always confirm ingredients with restaurant staff before ordering.
4. Location
- While using the app: with your permission we use precise location to show nearby restaurants and dishes and, if you choose, to tag a post with a place. Place tags on posts are visible to people who can see the post.
- Background ("Always"): optional. If you allow it, we use background location to send visit reminders when you're near or at a restaurant. You can switch back to "While Using" in your device settings at any time.
- Nearby discovery: off by default. If you turn it on, other users see only an approximate distance range — never your exact location. Turn it off in Settings.
- Live location in meetup rooms: only when you choose to share, only with the people in that room, and only for a limited time. We keep just your latest shared position and delete it after the share ends or expires.
5. Contacts and text-message invites
Finding friends. If you allow contacts access, the app normalizes the phone numbers in your address book and hashes them on your device. Only the hashes are sent to us, and we use them only to find people you know who already use Palytt. We don't upload your contacts' names or other details.
Inviting people who aren't on Palytt. When a host invites someone to a meetup by text, we receive that person's phone number and send a one-time invite through Twilio. We keep the number for about 30 days so the invite works, then delete it. We don't use it for marketing. If you received an invite and want your number removed sooner, email privacy@palytt.com.
6. Sensitive information and consumer health data
Some information is sensitive under U.S. privacy laws: precise location; the contents of your messages; your account login; allergies and dietary restrictions, which we treat as consumer health data; and religious-diet preferences such as halal or kosher, which could reveal religious beliefs.
We collect this information only when you provide it or turn on the feature, and we use it only to provide the features you ask for — such as filtering dishes, flagging possible allergens, calculating match scores, and delivering messages — and to keep the Service secure. We don't use sensitive information to infer characteristics about you, we don't sell it, and we don't use it for advertising. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy has more detail.
8. No sale, no sharing, and Global Privacy Control
We don't sell personal information, and we don't "share" it for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined in U.S. state privacy laws. We haven't done either in the past 12 months, and we don't knowingly sell or share information about anyone under 18.
We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC). When our website detects a GPC or Do Not Track signal, it doesn't load analytics or session-replay scripts at all. We also treat a GPC signal as a valid request to opt out of any sale or sharing of your information.
9. Analytics, session replay, and cookies
We use PostHog and Google Analytics, Firebase, and Google Tag Manager to understand how people use Palytt. On our website, PostHog may record session replays — a reconstruction of clicks and page changes — with text you type into forms masked. Our Google Analytics setup anonymizes IP addresses and turns off Google signals and ad personalization. We use PostHog and Axiom to find and fix errors.
Our website uses cookies and similar storage that are needed to sign you in and keep the site secure, and, unless you send a GPC or Do Not Track signal, analytics cookies. You can block or delete cookies in your browser; the site may not work properly without the essential ones.
10. How long we keep information
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Account, profile, and content | Until you delete it or delete your account |
| After you request account deletion | Deleted from our active systems within 30 days; removed from backups within 90 days |
| Phone numbers of people invited by text | About 30 days |
| In-app notifications | 30 days |
| Live location in meetup rooms | Only your latest position, deleted after the share ends or expires |
| Server and error logs | Up to 90 days |
| Information needed for legal or safety reasons | As long as required — for example, to comply with law, resolve disputes, or act on a legal hold or an abuse investigation |
Messages you sent may remain visible to recipients, as described in our Terms.
11. Security
We use safeguards such as encryption in transit, access controls, and monitoring to protect information. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee security. If you think your account has been compromised, contact support@palytt.com right away.
12. Children and anyone under 18
Palytt is only for people 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we'll delete it and close the account. If you believe someone under 18 is using Palytt, tell us at privacy@palytt.com.
13. Your choices and rights
Choices in the app
- Delete your account in Settings or at palytt.com/delete-account.
- Edit your profile, dietary preferences, and allergies at any time.
- Withdraw AI consent in Settings.
- Turn off location, background location, nearby discovery, contacts, camera, and calendar access in Settings or your device settings.
- Turn off push notifications in your device settings, and unsubscribe from product email with the link in any email.
Your privacy rights
Depending on where you live — including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and other states with privacy laws — you may have the right to:
- know what personal information we have about you and get a copy of it in a portable format;
- correct inaccurate information;
- delete your information;
- opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising, and certain profiling (we don't do these); and
- limit the use of sensitive information (we already use it only as described in Section 6).
We offer these rights to all Palytt users, wherever they live in the U.S. To request a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion, email privacy@palytt.com from the email address on your account (or include the phone number on your account). We'll verify your request by matching it to your account and may ask you to confirm from inside the app. We'll respond within 45 days, and if we need more time (up to another 45 days) we'll tell you why. An authorized agent may submit a request for you with your signed permission; we may still ask you to verify your identity. We won't discriminate against you for using your rights.
Appeals
If we decline your request, you can appeal by replying to our decision or emailing privacy@palytt.com with the subject "Privacy appeal." We'll respond within 45 days (or up to 60 days where your state allows). If you're not satisfied with the outcome, you can contact your state attorney general.
14. State-specific notices
California notice at collection
In the past 12 months we collected the categories below. We collect them from you, your device, other users, and the sources in Section 1, for the purposes in Section 2. We disclose them only to the categories of recipients in Section 7, and we keep them as described in Section 10. We don't sell or share any category.
| Category (California law) | Examples |
|---|---|
| Identifiers | Name, username, email, phone number, account ID, IP address, device identifiers |
| Customer records | Contact details you give us |
| Internet or other electronic network activity | App and website usage, interactions, session replay on our website |
| Geolocation data | Precise location, background location, meetup live location |
| Audio, electronic, and visual information | Photos you post |
| Education information | School or campus and campus email used for verification |
| Inferences | Taste profile, match scores, recommendations |
| Sensitive personal information | Account login, precise geolocation, message contents, allergies and dietary restrictions (health), religious-diet preferences |
We don't disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing (California's "Shine the Light" law).
Nevada
We don't sell covered information as defined by Nevada law. You can still send an opt-out request to privacy@palytt.com. Nevada and Washington residents: see our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.
15. Where information is processed
Palytt is offered in the United States, and we and our service providers process information in the United States.
16. Changes to this policy
We'll update this policy when our practices change. For material changes we'll notify you in the app or by email before the change takes effect, and we'll ask for your consent where the law requires it. The effective date and version at the top of this page show which policy applies.
17. Contact
Palytt Inc.
Email: privacy@palytt.com
General support: support@palytt.com.