Privacy Policy

Effective October 6, 2026

This policy explains how The Move ("we", "us") collects, uses, shares and deletes information when you use the iPhone app and this website. The Move is a social app for people at Harvard, used by invite only, for telling friends what you're up to and seeing who's free to hang out.

1. Information we collect

Account information

• Harvard email address. Used to verify you're eligible and to sign you in. We email you login and password-reset codes.
• Password. Handled by our authentication provider. We never see it in readable form.
• Name. The display name you choose. Other people can see it.
• Phone number. Required when you sign up. We keep your number and a hashed version of it (see below) so friends who have your number in their contacts can find you. Nobody else is shown your number.
• Profile photo (optional). If you upload one, it's stored with our hosting provider and shown to other people in the app.
• Invite information. The invite code you used to join, who invited you, and the people who joined with your code.

Contacts

If you allow it, the app reads your iPhone contacts (names, phone numbers and photos) to find friends who are already on The Move and to let you text invites to people who aren't. We handle this carefully:

• On your phone: contact names and photos stay on your device. We don't upload them.
• What we send: the phone numbers in your contacts are sent over an encrypted connection and immediately converted to a one-way hash using a secret key. We store only those hashes, not the readable numbers, and not the names attached to them. We compare the hashes to the hashed numbers of people who have joined, and that's the only way they're used.
• Limited access: if you choose "Selected Contacts" in iOS, we only see the contacts you share.
• If you turn contacts off, we delete the hashes we stored for you and the copy of your contacts the app kept on your phone. Friends you already had through contacts stay as friends, but we stop reading your contacts.
• When you tap Invite on a contact, your phone opens its Messages app with the invite typed in. You send it yourself. We don't see the message.

Friends, groups and moves

• Friend requests, friendships, groups you create and who's in them, friends you've silenced, removed or blocked, and people you've dismissed from "People you may know".
• The moves you send: what the activity is, where, which groups it went to, who received it, who replied that they're in, and when.
• A friend's profile shows only their name, photo and recent moves, never who went with them. People on a move can see who else is going to that move.

Notification and device information

If you turn on notifications, we store a push token (a code that Apple and our notification service use to deliver messages to your phone) and your device's platform (iOS). We also keep a record of the notifications we send you (their type, title and text). We don't collect your advertising ID, location, or other device identifiers.

Things you send us

If you use Share Feedback or Report user in the app, your phone opens an email to us. We receive what you choose to send, along with your email address. If you join the waitlist, we store the email address you enter.

Technical information

Our hosting providers automatically process standard technical data, such as your IP address and request logs, to deliver the service and keep it secure. We don't use analytics, advertising or crash-reporting tools in the app.

2. Why we use it

We use your information only to provide and improve The Move and keep it safe. We don't use it for advertising.

3. Who receives your information

We don't sell your information or share it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers to run the app, and they only process data for us:

• Supabase — our database, sign-in, file storage and server functions. Holds the account and app data described above, including your email and your profile photo.
• Expo — delivers push notifications. Receives your push token and the title and text of each notification.
• Apple — delivers notifications to your iPhone through its push service, and provides the App Store.
• Email delivery services — send the login and reset codes to your email address.
• Vercel — hosts this website.

Other people in the app see only what's described above: for example, your name and photo, and your recent moves if you're friends. We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect people's safety or our rights. If The Move is ever sold or merged, your information may transfer to the new owner, and this policy would continue to apply to it.

4. How long we keep it, and deletion

• We keep your account information and app activity (friends, groups, moves and replies) for as long as you have an account.
• You can delete your account at any time: open Settings in the app, tap Delete account, and confirm. This permanently deletes your profile, email, phone number, photo, contact hashes, push tokens, friends and friend requests, groups, moves and replies, invite codes, and notification records, including notifications other people received that name you. Deletion happens immediately.
• Copies in our database provider's backups are overwritten on their normal schedule and aren't used for anything else.
• Push tokens are deleted when you turn notifications off in the app's Settings.
• Contact hashes are deleted when you turn contacts off.
• Waitlist email addresses are kept until we invite you or you ask us to remove yours.
• Emails you send us (feedback and reports) are kept as long as we need them to respond and to protect the community.

5. Your choices

• Contacts. Allow, limit or turn off contacts access any time in iOS Settings (or from Settings → Contacts access in the app). The app works without it. You can still add friends by name, email or phone number.
• Notifications. Turn them on or off in the app's Settings, or in iOS Settings. You can also silence an individual friend, and they aren't told.
• Who you're connected to. Remove a friend, block someone, or report them from their profile. Blocking is mutual and silent: you won't see each other anywhere in the app. Manage blocked people in Settings.
• Your profile. Change your name or photo, or remove your photo, at any time in Settings.
• Suggestions. Dismiss anyone from "People you may know" with the ✕.
• Your data. You can ask to see, correct or delete the information we hold about you by emailing us. Most of this you can do yourself in the app. Residents of some places, such as California and the EU/UK, have additional legal rights. We honor them, and you can exercise them by contacting us.

6. Security

Information is sent over encrypted connections, and our database provider encrypts stored data. Contact phone numbers are stored only as keyed hashes. Access to your data is limited by account-level permissions in our database. No service is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information.

7. Who can use The Move

The Move is for people with a Harvard email address. It isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

8. Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes, we'll update the date at the top and let you know in the app. Using The Move after a change means you accept the updated policy.

9. Contact us

Questions or requests about your privacy: getthemovesocial@gmail.com.