Privacy Policy

Who we are

Vibecheck is a venue-discovery service operated by VC Technologies AS. You can reach us at hello@vctechnologies.no. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and the rights you have over it under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and equivalent laws.

What information we work with

Public venue information

The places, photos, opening hours, ratings, and reviews shown in Vibecheck come from public, third-party data providers that aggregate information already published online by venues themselves and by their customers. We do not collect this content from individuals — we license it from a commercial provider, just as a search engine would. We never republish private or restricted information.

Information you give us directly

• Account data — email and password (hashed) when you sign up.
• Saved places & preferences — venues you bookmark, filters you set.
• Feedback — vibe ratings or comments you choose to submit.

Information collected automatically

• Approximate location — looked up from your IP address by a location service, to show venues near you. We keep the result (a city or area, never precise coordinates) for up to 24 hours.
• Technical data — browser type, device, and random session identifiers required for security and basic operation.
• Visit statistics — page views counted with Umami, a cookieless analytics tool hosted for us by our technology partner. It stores nothing on your device, keeps no personal data or IP addresses, and respects your browser's Do Not Track setting. Legal basis: legitimate interest in knowing which parts of the service are used.
• Searches that find nothing — when a search returns no results, we keep the words searched for, without who searched, so we can improve what Vibecheck covers. Legal basis: legitimate interest.

Optional collection (consent-gated)

Each of the categories below is off by default. You can turn them on or off any time from /settings/privacy. Every change is audited.

• Preferences — remember your filters, last-viewed city, theme.
• Behavior analytics — first-party-only events: page views, searches, clicks, linked to your session (and to your account when you are signed in). No third-party trackers (no Google Analytics, no Facebook Pixel, no Mixpanel). Events are stored on our servers, kept for 365 days, and never sold.
• Location — your device's GPS for "near me" searches and to detect when you arrive at a venue. Raw GPS readings are deleted after 30 days. When the app notices you arrived at a venue, that arrival is kept with your activity for up to 365 days; venues only see totals. Only collected when the app is open in the foreground. Sharing a venue's vibe also takes one location reading to check you are there; that check is not saved.
• Crowdsourced feedback — when the app notices you arrived at a venue, it asks once per visit how the place feels right now. Your answer is kept with your account; others only ever see totals — the live vibe of the last hour and the place's recent vibe.
• Marketing — emails or push notifications about new venues, events, or promotions. Always optional, always easy to turn off.

How we use it

• To show you nearby and relevant venues.
• To remember your sign-in, saved places, and preferences.
• To send service-related messages (security alerts, account changes).
• To improve the app, with consent-gated, anonymous analytics only.

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

Legal basis

• Contract — to provide the service you signed up for.
• Legitimate interest — to keep the service secure and reliable.
• Consent — for non-essential cookies, optional analytics, and device-level location access. You can withdraw consent any time.

How long we keep it

• Account data — while your account is active.
• Consent audit log — preserved (anonymized after deletion) to satisfy data-protection compliance requirements.
• Behavior events — 365 days, then automatically purged.
• Raw GPS readings — 30 days, then deleted.
• Venue arrivals — 365 days, like other activity.
• Feedback votes — kept indefinitely (anonymized after account deletion).

If you delete your account from /settings/privacy, we remove personal data within 30 days, except where law requires us to keep specific records longer (for example, security logs and consent audit).

Your rights — how to exercise them

You can act on most of your rights directly from /settings/privacy:

• Access / export — download a JSON of everything we hold about you.
• Rectify — edit your profile from /settings/profile.
• Withdraw consent — toggle off any category, instantly stops collection.
• Erasure — "Delete my account" button. Cannot be undone.

For anything we don't expose in the UI, email hello@vctechnologies.no. We respond within 30 days.

Where it lives, and who helps us

Your data is stored on our own servers in the European Economic Area (EEA). Some tasks are handled by service providers working on our behalf, and each receives only what its task needs:

• AI services — read what you type into search to find matching places, and write venue summaries from public reviews. They receive the search text, not your name or account.
• Location lookup — turns an IP address into an approximate area (see above).
• Map data — turns map coordinates into a street or area name.
• Push notifications — deliver notifications to your device, if you turn them on.
• Email — sends account, invitation and notification emails.
• Sign-in — the account provider you choose, if you sign in with an existing account instead of a password.

Some of these providers may process data outside the EEA. To ask which provider handles a task, email hello@vctechnologies.no.

Children

Vibecheck is not directed at children under 16. If you believe a child has signed up without parental consent, contact us and we will delete the account.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service evolves. Material changes will be highlighted at the top of this page and, if you have an account, communicated by email.