Legal
Privacy Policy
Last updated: [DATE]
The short version. Chuuze has no adverts, no analytics and no tracking. Accounts are optional: if you don't sign in, we don't know who you are and we're not trying to find out.
We use your location to find places near you, and we don't keep it. We store one anonymous number on your phone so a single device can't stuff a venue's ratings. If you choose to write a review, we keep the name, words, photos and videos you add, and check them before anyone else sees them. That's it.
Who we are
Chuuze is operated by [YOUR LEGAL ENTITY NAME] (“we”, “us”), [REGISTERED ADDRESS], United Kingdom. Company number [NUMBER].
We are the data controller for the personal data described here. You can reach us at [CONTACT EMAIL].
What we collect, and why
| What | Why | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Your approximate location — latitude and longitude, or a postcode you type in | To find venues near you and tell you how far away they are. Sent to our database and, for a typed postcode, to postcodes.io to turn it into a point on a map. | Consent — you choose whether to grant location access, and you can withdraw it at any time in your phone's settings |
| A random device identifier — a number generated on your phone the first time you open the app | So one device can record one verdict per venue. Without it, anyone could inflate or sink a venue's rating automatically. | Legitimate interests — keeping ratings honest, which is the point of the app |
| A one-way hash of your IP address, only when you leave a review | Rate limiting. We hash it so we can tell “lots of reviews from one place” without ever holding the address itself. | Legitimate interests — preventing abuse |
| Your verdicts — which venue, and whether you'd go back | To show other people the proportion who'd return. | Legitimate interests — operating the service |
| Your written review — the name you give, your comment, and any photos or videos you add. All optional | To show other people what a place is like. Nothing is shown publicly until we've checked it, and the name is whatever you choose to type: it doesn't have to be your real one. | Consent — you choose to write it and what to include, and you can ask us to delete it at any time |
| Upload records — when a photo or video was sent, from which device identifier, and a keyed one-way hash of your network address | To limit how many files one phone or network can upload in a day, so nobody can flood the service. | Legitimate interests — preventing abuse |
| Your account — only if you choose to sign in: your email address, how you signed in (Apple, Google or email code), the display name you pick, places you save, places you said you're going to, and which reviews are yours | To run the account you asked for: keep your saved places and history across phones, and let you see and manage your own reviews. | Contract — providing the account you signed up for |
| Your name, email, role and message — only if you claim a business | To check you're connected to the venue before we let you edit its details, and to reply to you. | Steps taken at your request before entering an arrangement, and our legitimate interest in verifying claims |
Photos and videos in reviews
Please only upload pictures you took, and avoid people who haven't agreed to be in them. Photo and video files can carry hidden details such as where and when they were taken; we remove that before anything is published. We may decline or blur anything that shows people who didn't ask to be shown.
Kept on your phone only
Your saved location and who you're going out with are stored on your device. They are never sent to us. Deleting the app deletes them.
What we don't do
- No account needed. Signing in is optional and everything works without it. We never see or store a password: Apple, Google or a one-time email code handles sign-in. If you use Sign in with Apple and hide your email, we only get Apple's relay address.
- No analytics or tracking SDKs. No Google Analytics, no Firebase, no Facebook SDK, no advertising identifiers, no crash reporting. We genuinely don't have them.
- No adverts, and no selling or sharing of personal data with anyone for marketing.
- No location history. Your coordinates are used to run a search and are not written to our database. We don't build a picture of where you've been.
- No background location. The app can only read your location while you're using it, and we've explicitly blocked the background permission.
- No profiling and no automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects.
Who else is involved
We use a small number of providers to run the service. They process data on our instructions:
- Supabase — our database and API. Hosted in London (eu-west-2).
- postcodes.io — a free UK service that converts a postcode into coordinates. It receives the postcode or coordinates, nothing that identifies you.
- Unsplash — the stock photos shown for venues are loaded from Unsplash's servers. Like any website serving an image, Unsplash receives your phone's IP address when a photo loads. We don't send it anything else.
- Apple Maps (iPhone) and Google Maps (Android) — draw the map while the app is choosing a place. Your phone loads map tiles from them for the area being shown.
- Apple and Google sign-in — only if you choose them to sign in. They confirm who you are and pass us your email and name.
- Apple and Google — they distribute the app and apply their own privacy policies to that.
Tapping Directions opens Google Maps or Apple Maps. Once you leave Chuuze you're in their hands, under their policy, not ours.
Where your data is kept
In the United Kingdom. Our database is hosted in London and we do not transfer personal data outside the UK. Server logs may briefly hold routine request information, including IP addresses, as part of normal operation; these are short-lived and are not used to build any profile.
How long we keep it
- Location — not retained. It's used to answer one search and then it's gone.
- Reviews and the device identifier attached to them — for as long as the venue is listed, since removing them would distort its rating.
- Your account, saved places and history — until you delete your account, which you can do any time in the app (Account → Delete my account). That removes your account, saved places, history, reviews and their photos straight away. Anonymous 💚/✕ taps stay, because they aren't linked to you.
- Hashed IP addresses, on reviews and uploads — deleted after 30 days. They only exist to spot abuse in the moment.
- Written reviews, photos and videos — while the venue is listed, or until you ask us to delete them. Anything we decide not to publish is deleted within 30 days.
- Business claims — while the claim is being reviewed, and for up to two years afterwards so we have a record of who was given control of a listing.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or provide it in a portable format. Where we rely on consent — for location — you can withdraw it at any time by turning off location access for Chuuze in your phone's settings, without affecting anything done beforehand.
If you're signed in, you can see, edit and delete your data yourself in the app. If you're not, be aware of a limitation: because we deliberately don't know who you are, we usually cannot connect a request to your data. If you want a review deleted, including its photos and videos, tell us the venue, roughly when you posted it and the name you used, and we'll find it. Everything else is anonymous by design, which is the trade-off for not tracking you.
Email [CONTACT EMAIL] and we'll respond within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We'd rather you told us first so we can put it right.
Children
Chuuze isn't aimed at children under 13 and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we'll remove it.
Venue information
Details about venues — names, addresses, categories, hygiene ratings — come from the Food Standards Agency under the Open Government Licence v3.0 and from OpenStreetMap under the Open Database Licence. That's information about businesses, not about you. If you run a venue and want its listing corrected or removed, get in touch.
Changes
If we change this policy we'll update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we'll say so in the app before it takes effect.