Privacy Policy
In WayFolk, privacy is the starting point, not a setting you turn on.
Last updated 30 June 2026 · Version 2.1
1. Who we are
WayFolk is operated by Wayfolk OÜ (registry code 14940095), P. Süda tn 3–4, 10118 Tallinn, Estonia (“WayFolk”, “we”, “us”). We are the data controller for the personal information described here.
For any privacy question or to exercise your rights, email [email protected]. You also have the right to complain to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon) — see section 16.
A privacy lead within Wayfolk OÜ is responsible for data-protection matters and can be reached at [email protected].
2. What this policy covers
This policy applies to the WayFolk mobile app and the WayFolk website (www.wayfolk.app), including the waitlist. Where a specific feature works differently, we say so in the relevant section. Links from our services to other companies’ sites or stores (for example the Apple App Store or Google Play) are governed by those companies’ own policies.
3. Our privacy principles
- Privacy by default. Live location sharing is off until you turn it on, and you can mask your location to country level. You choose the audience for every travel you add.
- Data minimisation. We ask only for what a feature needs, and we process your contacts and calendar on your device rather than uploading them.
- No ads, no selling, no cross-app tracking. We do not use advertising identifiers, we do not track you across other apps or websites, and we never sell or rent your data.
- You stay in control. Per-person controls, ghost mode, granular travel visibility, in-app data export, and in-app account deletion are built in.
4. What we collect, why, and our legal basis
The table below summarises the personal data we process, why, the GDPR legal basis, and how long we keep it. Notable categories are explained underneath.
| What we collect | Why | Legal basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account — phone number (sign-in by SMS) and an optional email address you can add for account recovery | Create and secure your account; sign you in; recover access | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | Until you delete your account |
| Profile — name, @handle, bio, photos (avatar/cover), social links, home cities | Let people recognise and connect with you | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | Until you delete your account or remove the item |
| Private interests — interest tags you add | Show only the interests you have in common with another person | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) | Until you remove them or delete your account |
| Location / presence — your current city (derived on-device from GPS or set manually) | Show where you are on the globe to the people you’ve connected with | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) | Shown to your Folk for 48 hours; cleared when you turn it off or delete your account |
| Travels — cities and dates you add, or that you confirm from your calendar | Plan trips, find overlaps, and share with the audience you choose | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); calendar access by Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) | Until you delete the travel or your account |
| Connections & social graph — your connections, close-friends list, blocks, mutes, private notes you write about people | Run the friend graph and your personal safety/visibility controls | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); safety controls by Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) | Until you remove the item or delete your account |
| Communities, trips & introductions — groups you create/join, members, and intro requests | Provide group and introduction features | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | Until you leave/delete, subject to other members’ records |
| Messages & media — chats (1:1, group, trip, community), reactions, voice notes, photos you send | Deliver your conversations | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | See section 10 |
| Contact matches — one-way hashes of phone numbers/emails from your address book | Find friends already on WayFolk and let you invite others | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) | Until you turn off contact access or delete your account |
| Subscription status — whether you have “Horizons” and which plan | Unlock paid features | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | Until you delete your account |
| Notifications & support — in-app activity, and any feedback you send (with your email) | Tell you about activity; answer your feedback | Contract / Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(b)/(f)) | Until dismissed; feedback kept for support records |
| Website & waitlist — your email (waitlist), a coarse “source” label, and cookieless aggregate analytics | Tell you when WayFolk opens; understand site usage | Consent for the waitlist (Art. 6(1)(a)); legitimate interests for cookieless analytics (Art. 6(1)(f)) | Until launch or you unsubscribe; analytics are aggregate |
A few of these explained
Location. WayFolk turns your device’s GPS into the nearest city on your phone — we do not store your raw coordinates. Live location sharing is off by default, visible only to people you’ve connected with, and you can set it to show only your country. Ghost mode hides you from discovery by strangers.
Messages. Your messages are delivered to the people in the conversation. Photos and voice notes in chats are stored privately and served through short-lived links to conversation members only. When you delete a message, its text and media are removed.
Payments. The “Horizons” subscription is billed by Apple or Google, not by us, and we use RevenueCat to manage your subscription status. We never receive or store your card or payment details — only whether your subscription is active. See the Terms for subscription details.
Website analytics. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, a cookieless service that stores nothing on your device. That’s why our site has no cookie banner: there’s nothing to consent to.
5. Contacts and calendar — processed on your device
Contacts. If you choose to find friends, WayFolk reads phone numbers and email addresses from your address book and converts them into one-way cryptographic hashes on your device. Your contacts’ names, raw numbers, and raw emails never leave your phone. Only the hashes are sent, so we can tell you which of your contacts are already on WayFolk and let you invite the others. You can turn this off at any time, and you can become non-discoverable by contact in your privacy settings.
Calendar. If you enable calendar trip import, WayFolk reads your calendar and detects flights entirely on your device using a built-in airport database. Your calendar contents are not sent to us — only the result (the city and dates of a trip you confirm) is saved to your travels. You can turn this off and edit or remove any imported trip.
6. Information about people who don’t use WayFolk
Because of contact matching and the “friends of friends” feature, we may process limited information about people who are not WayFolk users — for example, a hashed phone number from another user’s address book, or the fact that two users share a connection. The source of this information is other users’ devices and connections, and the categories are limited to contact hashes and connection relationships.
We keep this to a minimum and do not build profiles of non-users. Where we cannot reasonably contact a non-user directly to give this notice, we rely on the GDPR exception for disproportionate effort (Art. 14(5)(b)) and make this policy publicly available. If you believe your information is being processed and you don’t use WayFolk, email [email protected] and we’ll act on it.
7. Sensitive information
WayFolk does not ask for special-category data (such as data revealing your health, religion, political opinions, or sexual orientation), and we do not try to infer it. However, a community you choose to join or create could itself reveal something sensitive about you. Joining or creating such a community is your choice, and by doing so you explicitly consent (Art. 9(2)(a)) to that membership being processed and shown to other members of that community. You can leave at any time, and we keep such memberships private by default.
9. Where your information is stored and sent
We aim to store your information in the European Union. Some of our providers (above) are based outside the EU/EEA, mainly in the United States. Where information is transferred outside the EU/EEA, we rely on an adequacy decision where one applies — for our US providers this is the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified — or otherwise on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses with appropriate safeguards. You can request a copy of the safeguards we use by emailing [email protected].
10. How long we keep it
We keep personal data only as long as needed for the purposes above, then delete or anonymise it. Key periods:
- Account & profile data — until you delete your account.
- Live presence — shown to your Folk for 48 hours, then no longer visible.
- Messages & media — kept while your account is active so conversations stay intact. When you delete your account, your profile and personal details are anonymised; content you sent in conversations may remain, attributed to a “Deleted user”, so other people’s chats aren’t broken.
- Contact hashes — until you turn off contact access or delete your account.
- Data-export downloads — the secure download link expires after 7 days.
- Feedback & support — kept for up to 24 months for our support records.
- Safety & moderation records — reports, automated-scan results, and enforcement decisions are kept for up to 24 months to operate and enforce our rules and keep an audit trail. Material we are legally required to preserve and report (e.g. CSAM evidence) is handled separately under that obligation.
- Waitlist email — until WayFolk opens or you unsubscribe.
11. Your rights and choices
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- Access a copy of your data — built into the app as Export my data.
- Rectify inaccurate data — edit your profile and settings in the app.
- Erase your data — Delete account in the app removes your account and personal data (see section 10 for what is retained and why).
- Restrict or object to processing — including blocks, mutes, ghost mode, “friends of friends” opt-out, becoming non-discoverable by contact, and per-person and per-travel visibility controls.
- Port your data — your export is provided in a structured, machine-readable (JSON) format.
- Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example, turn off location or contact access) — this doesn’t affect processing done before you withdrew.
- Complain to a supervisory authority (see section 16).
To exercise a right we can’t fully serve in-app, email [email protected]. We respond within one month, as required by the GDPR.
12. How we protect your information
- Strict access rules. Every piece of data is protected by database row-level security that enforces who is allowed to see what; access is denied by default.
- On-device processing of your contacts and calendar, as described in section 5.
- Encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS) for all traffic, and your sign-in session is encrypted on your device using secure, hardware-backed storage.
- Private storage for chat media, served only through short-lived links to conversation members.
- Minimisation — we don’t store raw GPS coordinates, payment details, or your raw contacts.
No service can be perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and will notify you and the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate of a personal-data breach where the law requires.
13. Children
WayFolk is not intended for children. You must be at least 16 years old to use WayFolk. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under this age; if we learn we have, we delete the account. If you believe a child has provided us data, email [email protected].
14. Automated decisions
We do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you using solely automated processing. Features like discovery ranking or interest matching help organise what you see; they do not make consequential decisions about you.
15. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as WayFolk evolves. When we make a material change, we’ll update the “last updated” date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app or by email. Significant changes that require it will be made with notice and, where the law requires, your consent.
16. How to contact us or complain
Controller: Wayfolk OÜ, registry code 14940095, P. Süda tn 3–4,
10118 Tallinn, Estonia.
Privacy contact: [email protected]
If you have a concern we can’t resolve, you can lodge a complaint with the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon), Tatari 39, 10134 Tallinn — www.aki.ee/en, [email protected]. You may also complain to the data protection authority where you live or work.