Privacy Policy

Last updated 11 September 2026

This policy explains what Parallel Bars (“Parallel Bars”, “we”, “us”) collects when you use the Parallel Bars mobile app or this website, why we collect it, and what you can do about it. Questions about anything here go to hello@parallelbars.app.

Using the app without an account

Browsing bars, searching, and finding parallel bars all work without signing in. If you never sign in, we hold no account information about you at all. Signing in is only required to contribute — to tag a bar, vote on a tag, or save a home bar.

What we collect

Account information — only if you sign in

Email address

You sign in with Apple, with Google, or with a one-time code sent to your email address. Whichever you choose, we store the email address associated with the account. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your address, we only ever see Apple’s private relay address.

Your name — only if a sign-in provider gives it to us

Apple and Google can pass along a display name when you sign in. If one does, we store it on your profile. We never ask you to type a name.

An account identifier

A random identifier (a UUID) that links your contributions to your account.

A 21-or-over confirmation

A single yes/no flag recording that you confirmed you are 21 or over. We do not ask for, and do not store, your date of birth or your age.

We never create or store a password. Sign-in happens entirely through Apple, Google, or a one-time emailed code, so there is no Parallel Bars password to be stolen.

Location — only with your permission, and only while you are using the app

If you grant location permission, the app reads your device’s approximate coordinates and sends them to our database to answer the question you just asked: which bars are near you, and how far away each one is.

• Your coordinates are not saved to your account. They are used to run the query and are not written to any table or attached to your profile.
• Foreground only. The app never requests or receives your location in the background, and never tracks your movement over time.
• Never shared for advertising. Your location is not sold, rented, or passed to any advertising or data broker — we have no relationships with any.
• Declining is fully supported. If you say no, you pick a city instead and everything else works. That choice is stored only on your device.
• Analytics events (below) record only the kind of area you searched — “near me”, a city, a ZIP code, or a metro — and the search radius. Never your coordinates.

What you contribute

When you are signed in, we store:

• Tags you add to bars, chosen from our fixed list of vibes, experiences and activities. These are public — visible to everyone using the app, including people who are not signed in — and are stored with your account identifier (not your email) until you delete your account.
• Thumbs up and thumbs down votes. These are private to you. Other users see only the aggregate confidence score a tag has earned, never who voted which way.
• Bars you save as home bars. Private to you.

There is no free-text input anywhere in the app — the tag vocabulary is fixed — so there is no way for personal information to end up in a tag.

Analytics

We use PostHog to understand whether the app works: whether searches return anything useful, and whether people who search go on to view matches. Specifically we record these events: opening the app, which screen you are on, running a search, viewing match results, adding a tag, casting a vote, and saving a home bar. Alongside each event we record counts and outcomes — how many results came back, the top match percentage, which bar or tag was involved, and whether the search radius had to be widened.

What we deliberately do not send to analytics:

• Your search text. Only how many characters you typed, never the characters themselves.
• Your coordinates. Only the kind of area, as described above.
• Your email address or name.
• Session recordings or screen contents. Session replay is switched off, and the app does not record your taps or the text of buttons you press.

PostHog also automatically collects standard technical context with each event: device model, operating system and version, app version, language and region, and an analytics identifier. Before you sign in that identifier is anonymous; once you sign in, events are associated with your account identifier — never your email address.

Stored on your device only

The app keeps some things in local storage on your phone, which are never uploaded anywhere: your sign-in session, your 21-or-over confirmation, the city you picked if you declined location, and cached copies of recent bars, tags and search results so the app still shows something useful when you have no signal. Deleting the app removes all of it.

Aggregated and de-identified insights

We combine information from many people — tags, votes, home bars, and the analytics events described above — into aggregated or de-identified form, so we can learn things like which vibes are most often tagged on bars in Chicago, what kinds of bars people look for when they travel from one city to another, or how tastes differ between cities.

We may use these insights for any purpose, including sharing or licensing them to other organisations — for example businesses in hospitality, travel, beverages or marketing, researchers, and other businesses our team works with.

Before anything is shared, we make sure it cannot reasonably be tied back to you:

• No identifiers. Names, email addresses, account identifiers and analytics identifiers are removed. Insights never include your precise location, which we do not store.
• No small groups. We do not share figures drawn from so few people that someone could be singled out — any aggregate we share reflects at least 10 people.
• No re-identification. We commit to keeping this data in de-identified form and not attempting to re-identify anyone. Anyone we share it with must agree in writing not to attempt to re-identify it, or to combine it with other data in order to identify people.

De-identified insights are not personal information, and sharing them is not a sale of your personal information. Information about bars themselves — their tags and confidence scores — describes venues rather than people and is already public in the app.

What we never do

• We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
• We show no ads and use no advertising networks or ad identifiers.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites.
• We never see your payment details. Tipping happens entirely on Buy Me a Coffee’s website (see below).
• The app does not send push notifications and does not ask for access to your contacts, photos, camera or microphone.

Who else processes your data

We keep the list of companies involved as short as we can:

• Supabase — hosts our database and handles sign-in. Your account and your contributions live here.
• PostHog — product analytics, as described above, processed in the United States.
• Apple and Google — only if you choose their sign-in, and only to authenticate you. They also distribute the app and give us anonymous, aggregated download and crash statistics we cannot tie to an individual.
• Buy Me a Coffee — only if you tap the tip link. That opens their website in your browser, and from that point their privacy policy governs. We receive no card details.

Data may be processed in the United States. We do not sell personal information to anyone, and none of the above are permitted to use your personal information for their own purposes. Aggregated, de-identified insights are covered in the section above.

Bar information

Bar listings — names, addresses and locations — come from open place datasets (Overture Maps and Foursquare Open Source Places), plus AI-generated starter tags and community contributions. That data describes venues, not people.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account from inside the app: menu → About Parallel Bars → Delete my account. You choose what happens to tags you added (see below), then type DELETE to confirm. It happens immediately and cannot be undone.

What deletion removes

• Your account and your ability to sign in
• Your profile, including the display name if one was stored
• Every thumbs up and thumbs down you have cast
• Every bar you saved as a home bar

Tags you added — your choice

• Keep them, without your name (the default). The tags stay on those bars, but your account identifier is removed from them, so they are no longer linked to you in any way. Votes other people gave them keep counting.
• Remove them. The tags are deleted from every bar you tagged, along with any votes other people gave them.

Three honest caveats

• Analytics events already collected are not removed by that button. It deletes your account from our database; it does not reach into PostHog. Email hello@parallelbars.app and we will delete your analytics history too.
• Deleted records may persist for a short period in our provider’s routine encrypted database backups before those expire.
• Aggregated, de-identified insights produced before you delete your account are not recalled. They contain nothing that identifies you, so there is nothing in them to delete.

Your rights

You can ask us to show you the personal information we hold about you, correct it, or delete it — deletion is available in the app immediately, and everything else by emailing hello@parallelbars.app. We will respond within 30 days. We will not treat you differently for exercising any of these rights. We do not sell or share your personal information, so there is no sale to opt out of; the de-identified insights described above contain no personal information.

Age

Parallel Bars is for people aged 21 or over, in line with the US legal drinking age. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 21. If you believe a minor has created an account, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data, we will update this page and change the date at the top. Significant changes will be flagged in the app rather than quietly published here.

Contact

hello@parallelbars.app