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Vacationist

Privacy Policy

Effective date: 1 June 2026  ·  Last updated: 3 September 2026

1. Who We Are

Vacationist is operated as a personal side project by Gary Lude, based in Switzerland (hereinafter "we", "us", or "the developer").

Contact: [email protected]

This privacy policy applies to the Vacationist mobile application ("the App") available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, and to the Vacationist website at vacationist.app ("the Website").

2. Data We Collect

We collect only the data necessary to provide the service.

Account Information

Trip & Planning Data

Travel Documents

Travel document details you enter (full legal name, document number, date of birth, and any notes) are encrypted at rest in our database before being written. Nationality, issuing country, and expiry date are stored unencrypted, since they are needed to power reminders and are not sufficient on their own to identify a document. Access is restricted by row-level security and, on mobile, by a device biometric or passcode prompt. The encryption key is held by us, not derived from your device or biometrics — we could technically access this data, but access is logged and restricted to what is necessary to operate the service. Trip chat messages are encrypted using the same at-rest method.

Device Data

If you use Vacationist in a web browser and grant notification permission when prompted, we also store a browser push subscription — an endpoint URL and a pair of cryptographic keys the browser generates, which we need to deliver push notifications to that browser. No personal content is stored in the subscription itself, only these keys. It is deleted when you sign out, or if you revoke notification permission in your browser.

On Android, if you are signed in with a full account (not a guest), we store a "restore credential" so that you stay signed in when you set up a new Android phone and transfer your apps. This is a public key and a credential identifier only — the matching private key is generated and held on your device by Android's Credential Manager and, if you have backup enabled, in Google's end-to-end-encrypted backup, never by us. It contains no personal content. It is deleted when you sign out and when you delete your account.

Website Analytics & Advertising Measurement Data

When you visit the Website, and only after you actively accept via the cookie banner, Google Analytics 4 and the Reddit Pixel automatically collect the following data via cookies and similar technologies:

We also operate a minimal first-party analytics log of our own, for the same purpose (understanding which marketing channels lead to sign-ups). It intentionally never stores an IP address — see "Our own analytics" in Section 6.

This data is collected only on the Website, not by anything embedded in the mobile App itself. However, if you install the App after clicking a Reddit ad and then sign up, a single sign-up confirmation — carrying the same click identifier, if one was captured — is reported from our server to Reddit for ad-measurement purposes. See "Attribution for app installs" in Section 6.

3. How We Use Your Data

We do not sell your data, and we do not build cross-service advertising profiles or use your data to target you with ads on other services. We do not use your data for general profiling or marketing beyond the narrow ad-measurement purpose described above.

4. Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored on servers provided by Supabase Inc., hosted in the EU (Paris, France, AWS region eu-west-3). Supabase Inc. is a US-based company; because it could access EU-hosted data from the US, this transfer is carried out on the basis of Standard Contractual Clauses. Supabase's privacy policy is available at supabase.com/privacy.

All data is transmitted over TLS. Travel documents and trip chat messages are encrypted at the database layer before being written; see the Travel Documents section above for what "encrypted" means in practice.

Authentication is handled by Supabase Auth. Google Sign-In tokens are exchanged server-side and are not stored by us.

5. Third-Party Services

6. Analytics & Cookies

What we use

The Website uses Google Analytics 4, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA ("Google"). Google Analytics places first-party cookies (_ga, _ga_*) in your browser to distinguish visitors and measure how the Website is used.

IP anonymisation

Google Analytics 4 truncates IP addresses before any data is written to Google's servers. Your full IP address is never stored or made available to us. The approximate location derived from the truncated address is limited to country and city level.

Consent

Google Analytics is loaded, and the _ga / _ga_* cookies are set, only after you actively accept via the cookie banner shown on your first visit (legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR / § 25(1) TTDSG where applicable; Art. 6 DSG for Swiss visitors). If you decline or do not respond, Google Analytics does not load and no analytics cookie is set. You can review or withdraw your choice at any time via Cookie settings in the footer. We do not use Google Analytics to build personal profiles or target individuals.

International data transfer

Google LLC is headquartered in the United States. Data collected by Google Analytics is transferred to and processed on Google's servers in the US. This transfer is carried out on the basis of Google's Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission and recognised by the Swiss FDPIC, and Google's participation in the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework. You can review Google's data transfer safeguards at business.safety.google/gdprreference.

Data retention

Analytics event data is retained for 2 months in Google Analytics (the minimum configurable period). Aggregated reports may be retained indefinitely but contain no personally identifiable information.

How to opt out

You have the following options to prevent or stop Google Analytics from collecting data about your visit:

Your cookie choice is remembered in your browser's local storage (key v_consent) for up to 12 months, after which you will be asked again. This storage entry itself is strictly necessary to remember your choice and does not require consent.

Reddit Pixel

The Website (vacationist.app) and the web version of the App (web.vacationist.app) use the Reddit Pixel, an advertising measurement tool provided by Reddit, Inc., 548 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94104, USA ("Reddit"). It places a first-party cookie (_rdt_uuid) and, if you arrived via a Reddit ad, reads the Reddit-generated click identifier from the page URL. This is used solely to measure whether our Reddit ad campaigns lead to Website visits, app installs, or sign-ups — never to build a profile of your browsing beyond that.

Like Google Analytics, the Reddit Pixel is loaded — and the _rdt_uuid cookie is set — only after you actively accept via the cookie banner (legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR / § 25(1) TTDSG where applicable; Art. 6 DSG for Swiss visitors). One Accept/Decline choice covers both Google Analytics and the Reddit Pixel together. If you decline, or later withdraw consent via Cookie settings, neither loads and both are cleared.

Reddit, Inc. is a US company; Reddit's Conversions API transfer (described below) and Pixel data are processed on Reddit's servers in the US, on the basis of Standard Contractual Clauses. Reddit's data practices are described at redditinc.com/policies/privacy-policy.

Attribution for app installs (Conversions API)

There is no Reddit SDK or pixel embedded in the mobile App itself. Instead, if you click a Reddit ad, the click identifier is temporarily encoded into the Google Play install link you land on. When you sign up in the App for the first time, our server (not Reddit) reads that identifier — if present — from the Play Store's own install-referrer mechanism, and reports a single "sign-up" confirmation back to Reddit via its Conversions API, together with the click identifier. If you installed the App without clicking a Reddit ad, there is no click identifier and nothing is reported to Reddit — your sign-up is still recorded in our own first-party analytics below, but only as an unattributed (organic) event. This mechanism only exists on Android — the App Store has no equivalent install-referrer handoff, so a sign-up from the iOS App is always recorded as an unattributed (organic) event and nothing about a Reddit ad click is ever reported for it.

Our own analytics

Alongside Google Analytics and the Reddit Pixel, we operate a small first-party analytics log on our own infrastructure, recording Website page visits, clicks on the Play Store / App Store / web-app links, and app sign-ups. In the web version of the App (web.vacationist.app), it also records when you create a trip, generate an invite link, join a trip, or add an expense. It exists only so we can see how the app is discovered and first used, in one place, without depending on Google or Reddit.

It deliberately stores less than a typical analytics tool: no IP address is ever stored, in raw or truncated form. Where a coarse per-visitor identifier is needed to avoid double-counting the same visit, we compute a one-way hash from your IP address, browser, and a secret salt that changes daily — your IP address itself is used only for that instant and is never written to a database. We store: the page path, the Reddit click identifier and campaign parameters if present, the referring site's domain (not the full URL), your browser's user-agent string, and — for sign-ups and the web-app actions listed above — only that the action occurred, linked to your account, with no further detail (no trip name, no invitee, no amount). Nothing you type or plan is recorded here.

Like Google Analytics and the Reddit Pixel, nothing is recorded until you accept via the cookie banner on the Website. This log is retained for 14 months, after which entries are automatically deleted.

Neither Google Analytics, the Reddit Pixel, nor any third-party analytics SDK is embedded in the native mobile App (iOS/Android). The web version of the App, at web.vacationist.app, has its own separate cookie-consent banner covering the Reddit Pixel and our own first-party analytics (both described above), and uses privacy-focused Vercel Analytics for anonymised performance monitoring — see Section 5. The only data ever sent to Reddit from a native app sign-up is the single, server-side Conversions API report described above — never a raw IP address, and never anything beyond what's needed to confirm that one sign-up.

7. Data Retention

Your data is retained for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account, your directly-owned personal data — sign-in identity, name, email address, avatar, push tokens, travel documents, votes, and notifications — is deleted immediately, with database backups rolling off within 30 days. Because Vacationist is collaborative, content you created inside a shared trip (activities, expenses, notes, chat messages, and similar) is not deleted along with your account — it remains visible to the other members of that trip, re-attributed to a generic "Deleted User" with no link back to you. If you were the sole member of a trip, that trip is deleted along with your account. See Delete Your Account for the full breakdown of what is deleted versus retained, and how to request deletion.

Guest accounts (created via an invitation link, without an email address) that are never upgraded to a full account may be deleted after a period of inactivity; this is not currently an automated process. Data associated with a guest account is retained only as long as the account exists.

8. Your Rights

Under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (DSG) and, where applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the following rights:

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

9. Children's Privacy

The App is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, the "Last updated" date at the top of this page will change. For material changes, we will notify users via in-app notification. Continued use of the App after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact

For questions, data requests, or complaints, contact the developer at:
[email protected]

If you are unsatisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC): www.edoeb.admin.ch.