Privacy Policy

Homing is a messaging app where a virtual bird carries your letter across a real map, and takes real time to get there. To do that it needs a server and a rough idea of where you are. This page explains exactly what is stored, who can see it, and what we deliberately do not collect.

Your account

There is no sign-up. No email address, no password, no phone number. When you tap Connect, your device is given an anonymous account and nothing about you personally is attached to it.

The only thing you choose is a display name, and a short code made from it so friends can find you. Use a nickname if you prefer - nothing checks that it is your real name.

Because there is no email or password, the account lives only on this device. If you uninstall the app or lose the phone, that account and its letters cannot be recovered. We have no way to identify you and hand it back.

Your location

The whole app is built on the real distance between two people, so it needs an approximate location. You choose how to give it: let the phone find it, or pick your city from a list. Picking a city works fully and needs no permission at all.

If you let the phone find it, we ask only for approximate location, never precise. The precise-location permission is blocked in the app itself, so no part of the app can request it.

Whatever the source, the position is rounded to about one kilometre before it is stored. We never hold your street or your exact position.

Friends you have accepted can see the city you set, and the rounded point, because a bird has to have somewhere to fly to. Nobody who is not an accepted friend can see either. Someone who has only sent you a friend request sees nothing but your name and city.

Your location is never tracked over time. It is a single point you set, and it changes only when you change it.

Your letters

The letters you send are stored on our server so they can be delivered. They are kept there with the flight they belong to.

A letter can be read by exactly two people: you, and the person you sent it to. This is enforced on the server, not just in the app.

Until a bird lands, even the recipient cannot read the letter. The server withholds the text and returns nothing in its place. That is the entire point of the app, and it is enforced at the database level.

We do not read your letters, and they are not scanned, analysed, or used to profile you or to choose advertising.

Delivered letters older than six months may be deleted from the server.

Where the data is held

The server is provided by Supabase and is hosted in Paris, France, inside the European Union.

Stored there: your display name, your code, your city, your rounded position, who your friends are, and your letters with their flight details.

The map

The map images come from OpenStreetMap and CARTO. When the map is on screen, your device requests those images directly from them, which means they receive your IP address, as any website you visit would.

We do not send them your location, your letters or anything about your account. The map does not know where your bird is - that is drawn on top, on your phone.

Advertising

This version of Homing contains no advertising and no advertising software.

If that changes, this page and the app listing will be updated before it ships, and the change will be described here.

Analytics and tracking

There is none. No analytics service, no crash reporter, no advertising identifier, no tracking pixel, no third-party software development kit that watches what you do.

Your daily streak is counted on your phone and stays there.

Permissions

Internet access, to deliver letters and load the map.

Approximate location, asked once, and only if you choose that instead of picking a city. You can refuse and the app still works.

Vibration, for the small taps you feel when a bird is released.

The app does not use your camera, your microphone, your contacts, your files, your calendar or your precise location. There is no contacts permission of any kind - friends are added by code, and your address book is never read or uploaded.

Deleting your data

Uninstalling the app removes everything held on your phone and cuts off the only key to your anonymous account.

To have the account and its letters erased from the server, write to barichati0696@gmail.com from within the app and include your code. We will delete them.

Children

Homing is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect anything from them.

It is a messaging app: people write to each other, and we do not screen what they write. Please tell us if you believe a child is using it and we will look into it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Continuing to use the app after that means you accept the new version.

Contact

Questions about privacy can go to barichati0696@gmail.com and we will reply.