Privacy policy
Window Seat is a group trip planner for friends and families at takethewindowseat.com. It's run by Window Seat LLC, based in New York ("we", "us"). This policy says what we collect, why, who sees it, and what you can do about it.
What we collect
| What | Examples | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Your account | Email address, name, password (stored scrambled by our sign-in provider, never readable by us), sign-in links | You, when you sign up or sign in |
| Trip plans | Trip names and dates, places, cards for flights, stays, dinners and day trips, votes, polls, notes, packing and task lists, who sleeps where | You and the people on your trips |
| Money on a trip | What was paid, by whom, for whom, each person's share, payments between people | You and the people on your trips |
| Files | Booking confirmations, tickets, PDFs and photos you attach | You and the people on your trips |
| Travel profile | Home airport and food preferences | You, only if you choose to add them |
| Private profile details | Passport nationality and expiry, loyalty numbers, emergency contact | You, only if you choose to add them |
| People you add | Names and details of travelers you look after, such as your kids, who don't have their own login, and the people you list as emergency contacts | You |
| Invites | The email address of someone you invite | You |
| Bug reports | Your note, a picture of the screen you were on, the page, your device and browser, and any recent app errors | You, when you send one |
| How the app is used | Pages you open, buttons you tap, your device type, browser, screen size and approximate location from your IP address | Collected automatically by our analytics provider |
Food preferences are for things like vegetarian or no pork. Please don't enter medical details such as allergies or conditions. If someone on the trip needs to know, tell them directly.
Only add someone else's details, like an emergency contact or a person you invite, if they're OK with you sharing them.
A bug report's screenshot shows whatever was on your screen, which may include other travelers' details. Check it before you send it.
We don't ask for payment details. If we add paid extras later, payments will go through a payment provider, and this policy will say which one before anyone is charged.
How we use it
- To run the app: show your trips to the people on them, work out who owes whom, and send invites and sign-in emails.
- To keep it working: find and fix bugs, and see which parts people use and where they get stuck.
- To keep accounts safe: prevent misuse and respond to problems.
- To contact you about your account or important changes to the app. We don't send marketing email.
We don't use your information for advertising, and we don't build profiles of you to sell or share.
Who sees what
A trip is visible only to the people on it. Inside a trip:
- Everyone on the trip sees the plan, votes, polls, the shared money and who owes whom.
- Surprises are hidden from the person they're for, and from the kids that person looks after. They see only a sealed envelope with a time and a hint. Our database enforces this, so the details never reach their device.
- Your name, home airport and food preferences are seen by everyone on trips you're on.
- Private profile details (passport, loyalty numbers, emergency contact) are seen only by you, the adult who manages you if you're a child on the trip, and the trip's admins. Your emergency contact is shown to everyone on a trip during its dates only if you switch that on.
- Confirmation numbers and files on a booking are seen by the people going and the trip's admins, depending on the trip's settings.
- We (the people who run Window Seat) can see counts, account emails and trip names to run the service. We look inside a trip only to fix a problem you've asked us to fix, or when the law requires it. A bug report you send, including its screenshot, comes to us.
Services we use
We use these companies to run Window Seat. They handle your information only to provide their service to us.
| Service | What it does | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and file storage | Everything stored in the app. Hosted in the United States (Northern Virginia) |
| Netlify | Hosts the website | Your IP address and the pages you request |
| Resend | Sends invite and sign-in emails | The recipient's email address, the inviter's name and the trip name |
| HeyCatch | Product analytics | Pages viewed, taps, device and browser details, and, once you sign in, your account ID and sign-up date (not your name or email) |
| Open-Meteo | Weather in Play mode | The location of your stay or city |
| Photon (Komoot) | Place search | What you type into a place search |
| Overpass (OpenStreetMap) | Nearest hospital in the Emergency sheet | The location you search near |
| Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons | Photos of places | Place names |
| Frankfurter | Currency exchange rates | The currencies and date of an expense |
| OpenFreeMap | Map tiles | The map area you look at |
The last six are contacted directly by your browser, so they also see your IP address. None of them receives your name or email from us.
Cookies and tracking
We keep a small amount of data in your browser to keep you signed in and to make Play mode work offline.
HeyCatch, our analytics provider, also tracks how people use Window Seat, using cookies and local storage in your browser. It does this only on Window Seat, not across other websites, and never for advertising.
Some browsers send a "Do Not Track" signal. Window Seat doesn't currently respond to it, so the app works and is measured the same way either way.
No ads, no selling
There are no ads in Window Seat. We don't sell or rent your personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.
We may share information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or as part of a sale or merger of Window Seat. If that happens, this policy still applies to what you shared before.
How long we keep it
- Your account stays until you ask us to delete it.
- A deleted trip can be restored by its admins for 30 days, then it's erased.
- Money records stay with a trip until everyone is settled up, so balances still add up for everyone else. If you leave a trip owing or owed money, you keep access to that trip's balance until it's settled.
- The offline copy that Play mode keeps on your phone is wiped when you sign out.
- Bug reports are kept until the problem is fixed, then deleted within 90 days.
- HeyCatch keeps analytics for as long as we use it, and for up to two months after we stop, then deletes them or makes them anonymous. See its privacy policy.
Children
You must be 13 or older to make an account. A parent or guardian can add a younger child to a trip as a traveler they look after. The child never gets a login. The adult controls what's entered about them: usually a name, food preferences and passport nationality. Their share of costs lands on the adult. To remove a child's details, delete them from the trip, or write to privacy@takethewindowseat.com. If you think a child under 13 made their own account, write to us and we'll delete it.
Your choices
- See or correct your details any time in Account. Fix trip details on the trip itself.
- Leave a trip from its Members page.
- Delete your account by writing to privacy@takethewindowseat.com from the address you signed up with. We'll delete your account and private details within 30 days. Trip content you added stays with the trip for the others on it, shown as "Former member". The one exception is a trip's money records, which keep your name until everyone on that trip is settled up.
- Get a copy of your information by writing to us.
- Ask questions or complain at privacy@takethewindowseat.com. You can also contact your local data protection authority.
Depending on where you live, you may have more rights by law. We'll honor those requests at the same address.
Security
Every connection uses HTTPS. Who can see what is enforced by the database itself, not only by the app's screens. Private profile details are kept apart from everything else. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't promise nothing will ever go wrong. If a breach affects you, we'll tell you.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll post the new version here with a new date and tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.
Contact
Window Seat LLC, New York. privacy@takethewindowseat.com