Privacy

Last updated 12 November 2026

Nearby is a personal map of places you want to try, shared only with friends you choose. This page covers the iPhone app and the web app alike: they keep the same things in the same place. It says what that is, where, and why. There is nothing else.

What Nearby stores

• Your account — the email address you sign in with, your name, the handle you pick and, if you sign in with Google, the picture Google provides. If you sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email, the address kept is the private one Apple makes for you. Other signed-in people can see your handle, name, picture and when you joined, so friends can find you. Nobody else sees your email address.
• Your places — each place's name, category, tags, icon, colour and position on the map, whether you have been, and any note a friend sent it with. For a place found through search: the picture, the website and booking link that were looked up for it, and Google's reference for the place. A video link, if you paste one.
• Friends — who you have asked, who has asked you, and who has accepted.
• Places you send — a copy of the place and your note, addressed to the friend you sent it to.
• People you block — who you have blocked, so that no request or place can pass between you. They are not told, and nobody but you can see the list.
• Reports — if you report a person or a place they sent you: who reported whom, the reason you chose, and a copy of what was reported (their name and handle, and the place and its note). Only the people who run Nearby can read reports, and they are kept so that each one can be looked at and acted on.

Where it lives

Accounts and places are kept in a database run by Supabase; the web app, and the small server the iPhone app asks for search results and pictures, are run on Vercel. Your phone keeps a copy of your own places so the app works without a signal.

Your location

Your position is used on your phone to show where you are and how far each place is. It is never sent to Nearby's server or stored anywhere. When you search for a place, the centre of the map you are looking at goes with the search, so that nearby results come first.

Other services

• Google — signing in with Google tells Nearby your name, email address and picture, nothing more. Searches are answered by Google's Places service through Nearby's own server, so Google sees the words you search for and the map centre, not who you are. When that is not available, the search goes straight from your phone or browser to OpenStreetMap's search service instead, which then receives the words, the area of the map you are looking at and, as any website does, your internet address.
• Apple — signing in with Apple tells Nearby your name and an email address, your own or a private one Apple makes for you, nothing more. When you delete your account, Nearby asks Apple to end its link to the app.
• CARTO and OpenStreetMap — the map tiles come from them, so they receive requests for the areas of the map you look at, as with any map.

Each of these services handles what it receives under its own published privacy terms, which protect personal information at least as these do, and Nearby sends them nothing beyond what is listed here.

How long it is kept

Until you remove it. A place goes when you remove it; everything goes when you delete your account. Nearby does not sell what it keeps, or use it for anything but running the app.

Children

Nearby is not meant for children under 13, and does not knowingly keep anything about them. If you believe a child has made an account, write to us and it will be deleted.

No tracking

Nearby has no analytics, no advertising and no cookies. The only things it keeps in your browser or on your phone are your sign-in session, the copy of your places, and the app's own settings, such as the theme.

Deleting your account

In the iPhone app: tap the account button at the top right, then Delete account, and confirm. Your account, your places, your friend links, the people you blocked, and the places you sent or were sent are deleted at once, for good, and the copy on your phone goes with them.

On the web, or if you cannot get into the app: email nearmeapplive@gmail.com from the address you signed up with, and the same will be done for you.

Two things stay. A place a friend already added to their own map is theirs: it stays, with the note you sent it with, but without your name on it. And a report made about you is kept, with your name and handle as they were when it was made, so that it can still be acted on; a report you made is kept without your name.

Who runs Nearby, and questions

Nearby is made and run by an independent developer. For anything about your information, including a copy of what is kept about you, write to nearmeapplive@gmail.com. See also the terms of use and help.