Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22 October 2026

MachiSpot turns places you see in short videos into pins on your own map, and lets you plan routes between them. This policy explains what the app stores, why, and what you can do about it.

MachiSpot is run by Michael, based in Ontario, Canada. You can reach us at hello@machispot.com.

What we collect

Your account

• Your email address and a scrambled version of your password. We never store the password itself and cannot read it.
• Your username, and a display name if you set one.
• A profile picture, if you add one: a small square copy of the photo you choose. Before we keep it, everything hidden inside the photo is removed, such as where and when it was taken and which camera took it. Remove it any time: tap your picture on your profile, then Remove picture.
• Your date of birth, used to check you are old enough to use MachiSpot.
• A record of each device signed in, so you can sign out of one without the others.
• How many searches, shares and place look-ups you used, and when you used the first one (they all come back 24 hours later), so the free limits stay fair. It is a count, not what you searched for.

What you save

• The places you save: Google's ID for the place, its map coordinates, your own title, your note, the category and tags you chose, which collections it is in, whether you have been, and who you allow to see it.
• The video link you shared, if you saved a place from a video. A screenshot stays on your phone; it is never kept on our server.
• A video you share or pick from your phone never leaves your phone. The app takes still moments from it (at most one a second, 60 in all). Only those stills are sent, to read the place names written on screen, and they are thrown away right after.
• Reviews you write: the stars, any words and "What stood out?" tags you add, which place it is for (Google's ID for the place), and when you wrote or changed it.
• Which parts of the welcome tour you have seen, your tip settings, and that you agreed to the community rules, so each shows once on any phone you use.
• Your routes: their stops, travel mode, how long you plan to stay, and the time you plan to leave. A route you copy from a chat with Just the route keeps its places inside the route only: they are stored like your other places, always hidden, never on your map or profile, and deleted with the last route that uses them.
• Your collections.
• Your home location, if you set one. Your home is never shown to anyone else, ever.

Social

• Who you follow, who follows you, and follow requests.
• People you have blocked or muted. A block is never revealed to the person blocked.
• Reports you send us, including what you wrote in them.
• Shared routes: the stops, the name you join with, and when you last looked.

Messages and plans

• The messages you send in MachiSpot chats: your words, and the pins and routes you share into a chat. A shared pin is a copy of your own name for the place, its tags and Google's ID for it (or your custom pin's spot). A shared route is a copy of its name, travel mode and stops: never where it starts and never its times.
• Likes (♥) on messages, who is in each chat, which chats you muted, and when you last opened each chat. That last one only counts your own unread messages: nobody can see whether you have read anything. There are no read receipts, typing dots or "online" signs.
• A group's plan: its copy of the route, the date and time you picked, who is coming, and the 👍 on each stop.
• Messages are kept on our server, like everything else, and are not end-to-end encrypted. Nobody reads them, except a person reading a report someone sent about that message or chat.
• Your notification settings, and, if you allow notifications, your phone's push token: an ID from Expo and Google (Android) or Apple (iPhone) that lets us send a notification to that one phone. It is deleted when you sign out.
• Before a message, a name or a review is saved, our server checks its words against the community rules. Words it refuses are not saved, and nothing new is kept about them.

Location

• The app asks for your location when you open it and when you tap the locate button, so the map starts where you are. It is not tracked in the background, and your live position is not stored on our server. The only location we keep is a home you choose to save (below).
• You on the map: while the map is open, your marker shows where you are. It stays on your phone: it is never saved and never sent to us.
• When you search for places nearby, your precise position is sent with that one search so the results are near you. It is used for that search and not kept.
• Places like yours (Discovery, and inside a route) looks only when you tap Show. It sends one area near you, or up to three areas along your route, and the kinds of place you save most (like "Café"), so the server can ask Google for similar places there. The areas are used for that one search and not kept.
• Discovery shows new places near the part of the map you are looking at (or the last spot the app read when you asked it to). The app sends that spot rounded to about 1 km; it is used for that one answer and not kept. Discovery never reads your location by itself.
• Road-shaped route lines: when a route's map is shown, the app sends that route's stops (and its start, if it starts at a fixed spot like your home) and how you travel, so our server can ask Google for the roads between them. Our server does not keep them. Your phone keeps the drawn line for up to 29 days, then asks again.
• If you tap Set home from my location, that one position and its street address are saved as your home, so routes can start there. It stays until you remove it (Profile → Settings → Remove home) or delete your account.

The iPhone waitlist on this website

• If you join the iPhone waitlist, the email address you type is sent to us as an email, so we can tell you when MachiSpot is on iPhone. It is not stored in the app's database. We use it only for that message, and we delete it whenever you ask us to.

What we do not collect

• No background location tracking.
• No advertising identifiers, no ad networks, no selling of anything to anyone.
• No screenshots kept on our server. A screenshot you share is read once to find the place in it and is not stored by us.
• No Google place names, addresses, ratings, review counts or photos kept in our database. Those are fetched fresh from Google when a place is shown, as Google's terms require.

Who else sees your data

• Google Maps Platform — we send a place search, a place ID, or your location for a nearby search to find places and photos, and a route's stops to draw the roads between them. The Google map inside the app also sends Google some information by itself, to keep its map working and improve Google's services: your phone's model and system version, crash reports from the map, your IP address, a random ID made by the map, and how you move and zoom the map. We don't see or keep any of that. Google's privacy policy applies to what they receive.
• Anthropic — when you share a video link, a screenshot or a video, its caption, the image or the video's still moments are sent to Anthropic's Claude to work out which place it names. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
• Resend — sends account emails such as password resets and sign-up codes, and delivers iPhone waitlist sign-ups from this website to us. See Resend's privacy policy.
• Cloudflare — hosts this website and forwards email sent to our contact address. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
• Render — runs the MachiSpot server, which stores everything listed above. See Render's privacy policy.
• Expo, Google Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple — if you allow notifications, a notification's title and words (such as "@priya: see you at 6!") pass through Expo's push service and then Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) or Apple's Push Notification service (iPhone) to reach your phone. A notification about a message request never shows the message. Notifications never say where you are. See Expo's privacy policy, Google's privacy policy and Apple's privacy policy.

Nobody else. We do not sell your data, and we do not share it for advertising.

Where your data is stored

MachiSpot is run from Ontario, Canada, but the server that holds your account and your saves is in Ohio, in the United States. It is operated for us by Render.

This matters because data stored in the United States can be subject to United States law, including lawful requests from its authorities, whatever country you live in. If you are not comfortable with that, please do not create an account.

What other people can see

Everything you save starts hidden. A place, route or collection becomes visible to others only when you choose Followers or Public for that one item.

• A public route shows its places but never your times, and never your notes.
• Your home location can never be published.
• Your profile picture, if you add one, is shown next to your name to anyone who can see your name in MachiSpot, even if your account is private. People you block cannot see your profile or your picture.
• A public profile shows only the name you typed for a place, never Google's.
• Place save counts never name anyone, and are hidden entirely when the number is small enough to point at one person.
• Friends lately (on Discovery) shows people who follow you the places you saved in the last two weeks that you already let them see (Followers or Public), and your reviews. It says only "this week" or "last week", never the time. Hidden places never show. Blocked people never see it.
• The gold glow on a place means MachiSpot people love it: good MachiSpot reviews, or saved by lots of people. It is worked out from counts and names nobody. It can never be bought.
• Discovery (Loved near you, Trending this week, Hidden gems) is worked out from counts of saves and reviews. It never says who saved or reviewed a place, a place saved by fewer than 3 people that week is never "trending", and a place you keep only inside a copied route never counts as a save.
• A message is seen only by the people in that chat. A group's plan (its places, date and time) is only ever seen by that group: never on a profile, never public.
• Messages from people you don't follow wait in message requests. You can turn requests off in Settings. Deleting or blocking a request is never revealed to the sender.

Reviews are public. When you rate a place, everyone on MachiSpot can see your stars, words and tags, with your username, name and picture, and a "Was there" badge if you got that place's stamp. You can edit or delete a review any time. People you block cannot see your reviews, and you cannot see theirs. Anyone can report a review; a person reads every report within 24 hours, and a review may be hidden after one. The stars in MachiSpot come only from MachiSpot reviews: we never copy or show Google's reviews or ratings, and "Compare with Google reviews" simply opens Google Maps.

How long we keep it

• Your saved places, routes and collections stay until you delete them or delete your account.
• Map coordinates from Google are refreshed or erased within 30 days, as Google requires.
• Shared route links expire on their own.
• Messages stay until the person who sent them deletes them for everyone, or deletes their account. Leaving a group keeps its messages for the people still in it.
• Sign-in sessions end when you sign out, when you reset your password, or when the server rejects them.
• We keep private backup copies of the database for up to 30 days, so we can recover from mistakes. Older copies are deleted.

Deleting your account

Settings → Delete my account deletes the account and everything attached to it: your saved places, notes, collections, routes, reviews, profile picture, follows, blocks, shared routes, the messages you sent, your likes, your place in every chat and plan, and your push tokens. It cannot be undone and we cannot restore it. Reports you have sent may be kept without your name so they can still be acted on. Can't open the app? See how to delete your account by email.

Age

MachiSpot is for people aged 18 and over. We ask for your date of birth when you sign up and refuse accounts for anyone younger. If you believe someone under 18 has an account, email hello@machispot.com and we will delete it.

Security

Passwords are stored only as scrambled hashes. Sign-in tokens are stored only as hashes on our server and in your phone's secure storage. Google's API key stays on our server and is never sent to your phone.

No system is perfect, and we will tell affected users if something goes wrong.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. In-app deletion is the fastest route; for anything else, email hello@machispot.com and we will respond within 30 days.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect.

Contact

Michael · hello@machispot.com · Ontario, Canada