Hotspots is a proximity-based social discovery app for people 18 and older. Your trust is the whole product, so we collect as little as possible and we never sell your data. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the control you have.
Who can use Hotspots
Hotspots is for people who are 18 or older. You can join with any email address that you verify. A verified school email can add a campus badge, but it is not required to join. We collect your age at signup. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we remove it.
What we collect
Account: your email address, phone number, name, age, and gender.
Profile: photos, bio, the tags you pick, and any Instagram handle you choose to link.
Messages: chat messages and optional messages sent with hearts, plus the participants and timestamps needed to deliver and display them.
Verification: to give you the verified badge, we compare your photos to confirm you are a real person. We keep a match result, not a raw biometric library, and it is deleted when you delete your account.
Precise location for automatic crossings, when you opt in. If you enable automatic crossings and grant Precise Location access, Hotspots sends your device’s latest precise location to our server to detect when you are within about 200 feet of another person who has also enabled automatic crossings. Matching uses fresh location readings no more than one minute old and does not require a venue or a check-in. While both people have automatic paths enabled and are currently within about 200 feet, Here Now also shows each person’s profile to the other, including their shared photos and interests. Here Now removes people when their location no longer qualifies; it does not treat an old crossing as current attendance. We retain only your latest point in the active matching store, with a two-minute expiry. Other users cannot read your precise coordinates. A crossing record retains the people involved, the crossing count, and when crossings occurred, without retaining the exact coordinates in that record.
Approximate map location, as a separate choice. If you enable map sharing, other users can see a small dot representing your approximate area on a grid about 1 km across. Your shared activity also contributes to live Spots, which show an aggregate activity count when enough people gather in the same approximate area. Dots and activity contributions expire after five minutes without an update. Live Spots disappear as the area quiets down. You can collect automatic crossings without sharing map activity.
Background location, when enabled on your phone. With your separate background setting and Always location permission, Hotspots can receive location updates to collect automatic crossings while the app is in the background. iOS may pause updates, and force-quitting can interrupt collection. Your map dot is updated only if you have also enabled map sharing.
Usage and device info: how you use the app, plus standard device and diagnostic data to keep it running and safe.
Anti-abuse signals: to stop someone we have removed from simply making a new email and coming back, we keep a one-way scrambled fingerprint of your device, your phone number, and the network address you connect from. These are stored as hashes we cannot reverse, we use them only to enforce bans and prevent fraud, never to advertise to you or track you across other apps. A shared network address, like campus WiFi, is only ever a signal for a human to review, never an automatic ban, because thousands of students share one address.
Purchases: if you subscribe to Hotspots+, the App Store or Google Play processes the payment. We receive that you are subscribed, never your card details.
How we use it
Verify your email address and maintain an adult community so the community stays trustworthy.
Show you people you actually crossed paths with, and let you connect. While the temporary community portfolio is active, eligible existing accounts and new signups are also added automatically so members can discover one another without a recorded crossing. These profiles are labeled Community; blocks, Incognito, bans, and onboarding requirements still control visibility. Community entries do not create crossing records, and temporary access ends when the campaign is disabled.
Keep people safe: verification, blocking, reporting, and removing accounts that break the rules.
Provide subscriptions, send notifications you have turned on, and improve the app.
Location, said plainly. Automatic crossings use fresh precise locations privately to detect nearby people who also opted in. The active matching store holds only your latest point temporarily. Other users never see your exact coordinates. An approximate map dot is a separate opt-in. Incognito pauses automatic crossings and map sharing.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information. Other Hotspots users can see shared profiles and content according to the app’s features and privacy settings, including paths, the temporary community portfolio, Here Now, approximate map activity, and messages between participants. We also share information with service providers that help us run Hotspots, under contract: cloud hosting and database, text-message delivery, subscription billing, advertising for the optional rewarded videos, and analytics. We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect people from harm.
Your choices and rights
Edit or hide: update your profile anytime, or turn on Incognito.
Download your data and delete your account from within the app. Deletion is a real, permanent removal of your profile and content.
Location controls: enable or disable automatic crossings and approximate map sharing separately in the app. Turning off automatic crossings stops new matching and Here Now visibility and removes your latest point from the active matching store; your existing crossing records remain. Background collection is a separate setting for each phone. You can also change Precise Location and Always access in your device settings.
Control notifications and ad personalization in your device settings.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights to access, correct, or delete your data. Contact us and we will honor them.
How we protect it
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Database access controls protect private account data and limit access to shared profiles and content according to the app’s features and privacy settings. Secrets are kept off your device, and we monitor for abuse. No system is perfect, but security is built into how Hotspots is designed, not bolted on.
Keeping and deleting data
We keep your information while your account is active. When you delete your account, we remove your profile and content promptly, keeping only what we must for legal, safety, or fraud-prevention reasons.
Precise points in the active matching store have a two-minute expiry, and a cleanup job scheduled every minute removes expired points. Matching already excludes readings more than one minute old. These limits describe the active matching store and do not guarantee immediate erasure from every operational log or database backup. Crossing records keep the connection and its count and times, without storing the exact coordinates.
Changes
If we update this policy we will post the new version here and, for meaningful changes, notify you in the app.