Sponta Privacy Policy

Account information

When you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from that provider. We do not use passwords — Sponta only supports Sign in with Apple and Sign in with Google, and we never see or store your Apple or Google account password.

Location data

With your permission, we collect your approximate or precise location to power context-aware recommendations (for example, suggesting nearby lunch spots or venues relevant to where you are and who you’re with). Location is central to how Sponta works — it is one of the core inputs, alongside time of day and day of week, that determines what you see.

Profile and preference data

Information you provide about yourself: interests, hobbies, food preferences and dietary needs, accessibility needs, budget level, and resources you’re willing to share with a group (such as access to a car, boat, or cottage for group activities).

Activity and behavioral data

• Which venues and events you swipe on, and in which direction (this is core to how Sponta learns what’s actually relevant to you, as distinct from what you say you like)
• Groups you’re a member of, and group chat messages
• Venues and events you save or follow
• Event proposals and other content you create inside the app

Technical data

Standard technical information collected automatically for security and debugging purposes (such as device type and IP address at the time of a request).

We use your data to:

• Provide Sponta’s core function: matching your context (location, time, who you’re with) and identity (preferences, past behavior) to relevant venues, events, and group decisions
• Let you form and coordinate with groups — invite friends, chat, and reach shared decisions
• Let you follow venues and save places you’re interested in
• Improve the recommendation system over time based on real usage, not just declared preferences
• Maintain the security and reliability of the service

Legal basis: we process your data based on your consent (for example, location access, which you can withdraw at any time in your device settings), the necessity of processing to provide the service you’ve signed up for, and our legitimate interest in improving and securing the product.

Sponta shares data with a limited set of service providers necessary to operate the app:

• Apple and Google — for Sign in with Apple / Sign in with Google authentication
• Google Places API — we do not store Google Places photos, names, or venue details in our database. We store only a place_id reference and fetch live details from Google at the moment they’re displayed to you, with attribution, in accordance with Google’s terms
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) — our infrastructure, database, and image storage run on AWS servers located in the EU (Stockholm, eu-north-1)

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.

If your account is inactive for 24 months, we anonymize it automatically: your name is replaced with “Deleted User,” your email is irreversibly hashed, your preference and constraint data is deleted, you’re removed from any groups or communities, and your profile photo is deleted. We retain anonymized activity data (such as anonymized swipe history) for aggregate analytics — this data can no longer be linked back to you. You’ll receive an email confirming the deletion.

You can also request deletion of your account at any time by contacting us at the email address above.

If you’re in the EU/EEA, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Rectify inaccurate data
• Erase your data (“right to be forgotten”)
• Restrict or object to certain processing
• Data portability — receive your data in a portable format
• Withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent (for example, by disabling location access)

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the email address above. If you believe we haven’t handled your data properly, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman (Tietosuojavaltuutetun toimisto), tietosuoja.fi.

Sponta is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under this age.

We may update this policy as the app develops. We’ll update the “Last updated” date above when we do. Material changes will be communicated in-app.