Village Privacy Policy

Effective November 11, 2026

Village is an iPhone and iPad app for organizing individual and group (“villages”) activities: threads, calendars, tasks, sign-ups, and messages. It is made by Christopher Chodaczek (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what information Village collects, why, who can see it, and the choices you have. The rules for using Village are in the Terms of Use.

1. Information you give us

Your account

• Email address and password. Used to sign you in and to send account emails (confirming your address and resetting your password). Passwords are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form; we can't read them.
• Two-step verification, if you turn it on (Account → Privacy): we store a secret key that matches your authenticator app, so we can check the 6-digit codes it makes. It's removed when you turn two-step verification off.
• Name and profile photo, if you add them. Your name is shown to the people you share villages and chats with.
• Age confirmation. When you sign up, Apple's Declared Age Range feature tells Village only whether you're 18 or older, never your birthday. We keep a record that it was confirmed, and when.
• Vouching. New accounts are approved (“vouched for”) by an existing member, so we keep a record of who asked, who vouched, and the answer. Requests that aren't answered within 3 days expire.
• Profile characteristics, only if you choose to add them (Account → Profile Characteristics): an age range, gender, zip code, and interests. Village can also suggest interests by looking, on your device, at the names and titles of your villages, events, and threads; only the interest words are saved. Nobody else can see your characteristics, including village managers. They're used for the totals described in section 5. Your zip code and interests are kept with your account so Village can count nearby members of public squares (section 5) and measure Val's “about 25 miles” (section 6). They're also used on your device to put Public Square results in a better order (“Personalize to My Interests”) and to shape the suggestions Mo makes.

What you create and share

• Villages you create or join, the invitations and connection requests you send or receive, and, for a public square you create, its description and town or zip code.
• Threads, replies, and Small Talk chat messages, including any photos, videos, audio messages, files, and map places you attach.
• Calendar events (title, time, notes, an optional photo, and a place if you add one) and your RSVP answers. If you answer for someone else, such as your dependent, the name you type is stored with that answer.
• Calendar Links. If you add a calendar link (for example, from Google, iCloud, Outlook, or a team app) to a village, we store the link and copy that calendar's events into the village, checking it about once an hour. Members see the calendar's name and its events, but not the link itself. If you use “Bulk Add Calendar” with a calendar file, its events are copied in once.
• Sign-ups: your answers to a sign-up's questions, any files you upload with it, and whether you have a spot or are on a waitlist.
• Tasks, including due dates and who is doing them.
• Background photos: a village's background, if its manager (or a member, when the village allows it) sets one, and your own backgrounds for the app's tabs and My Office.
• Requests to a village's manager, such as asking to rename the village or remove someone, or asking to answer for someone else (like a dependent), and the manager's answer.
• Your personal settings for each village: pins, colors, categories, labels, whether to show its background, and what to hide from My Home or the Calendar.
• Reports you make about posts, photos, videos, or people, and the people you block.

2. Information collected automatically

• Notification token. If you allow notifications, Apple gives your device a token that we store so we can send you notifications about new activity, invitations, vouching, and changes to events from Calendar Links.
• Read markers. We note which threads and chats you have opened, so the app can show what's new. In a private village, the person who posted a thread and the village's managers can see which members have opened it (“Seen by”).
• Basic technical records. Our hosting provider keeps short-term server logs (such as the time of a request) to keep the service running and secure.

Village never uses your phone's location (GPS) and never asks for it. The only place information we keep is the zip code you choose to add in Profile Characteristics, as described above. We do not collect your contacts or your browsing activity, and Village contains no advertising or analytics software.

3. Features that stay on your device

These features run on your device. What they look at isn't sent to us:

• My Office (Em and Mo) answers your questions with Apple Intelligence on your device. The questions you ask Em and Mo, and their answers, are remembered only on your device (you can clear them: Account → Privacy → Clear My Office History, or stop My Office from using your village information in Account → Privacy). To answer, Mo asks our server only for totals about public squares, as described in section 5. Val, also in My Office, works differently: it sends your questions to people near you, as described in section 6. Val's “Need an Idea?” suggestions are written on your device the same way, from your interests and the kinds of villages you're in, and nothing is posted until you press Post.
• Your phone's calendars, if you turn on “Show Calendars on My Phone”: Village reads them to show next to your village events. They're never uploaded or shown to anyone else.
• Photo safety. If you've turned on Apple's Sensitive Content Warning, Apple's on-device check may blur photos and videos that might contain inappropriate content, and Village won't post one that the check flags. Nothing about this check is sent to us.
• Require Face ID, if you turn it on, is handled by your device.
• The My Home widget, if you add it to your Home Screen: Village keeps a small summary on your device for it (this week's events, unread chats, and latest threads). Anyone who can see your Home Screen can see the widget; with Require Face ID on, it shows only counts.
• Link previews. When a post contains a web link, your device may load that page to show a preview, so that website can see the request, as with any web visit.

4. Permissions on your device

Village asks for these only when you use the feature that needs them. You can change them any time in your device's Settings app.

• Photos and Camera: to attach photos and videos you choose, or take one.
• Microphone: to record audio messages. Recording only happens while you're recording a message.
• Calendars: only if you turn on “Show Calendars on My Phone” (read-only).
• Face ID: only if you turn on “Require Face ID”.
• Notifications: to tell you about new activity and event reminders.
• Siri & Shortcuts: if you ask Siri to add a task, event, or thread, Siri (run by Apple) handles what you say and passes the details to Village. See Apple's privacy policy for how Siri works.

When you search for a place for an event, your search text is sent to Apple Maps to suggest places. If you ask to see public squares within a distance of you, or ordered by how near they are, your zip code (and the town or zip code a public square lists) is also sent to Apple Maps to find its point on the map. Nothing else about you is sent.

5. How we use your information

• To run Village: sign you in, show your villages, and share what you post with the right people.
• To send notifications and account emails.
• To keep Village safe: confirm members are adults, approve new accounts, handle reports, honor blocks, and keep language suitable. Text you post is checked against a list of words that aren't allowed; some words ask you to confirm before posting.
• Totals for My Office and Public Square. Mo and the “Personalize to My Interests” switch in Public Square (reached from “Search Public Square” on the Villages tab) ask our server how many of a public square's members are near you (by the first 3 digits of your zip code), in your age range, or share an interest with you. These counts are given only when at least 5 people match, never include anyone's name, and are only about public squares; private villages aren't counted.
• To answer you when you contact us, including messages sent through “Suggestions? Let Village know!”.

We don't use your information for advertising, and we don't sell or rent it to anyone.

6. Who can see what

• Village members see that village's threads, replies, photos, videos, audio messages, files, events, RSVPs, tasks, background photo, and member list. Someone who joins a village sees threads posted after they joined, plus the village's events and tasks.
• Public squares can be found by anyone signed in to Village. Before joining, people can see a public square's name, description, town, manager, upcoming events, and latest announcements. Only the manager posts there, and members can't see each other's names.
• Chat members see that chat's messages. Someone added to a chat sees messages sent after they were added.
• Val questions (My Office → Val → Seek) are shown, without your name, to people within about 25 miles of your zip code who have turned Val on. They see the topic, title and question (not how far away you are) and, only if you chose to share them, whether they share a village with you and whether they are in your circle. Someone who answers starts a private chat with you alone, where you appear as “A seeker” and they as “A guide” until each of you chooses to introduce yourself. Thanking a guide ends that one conversation; your question stays open for others until you close it, and stops being shown after 30 days in any case. For this, Village keeps the map point at the middle of your zip code area (not where you are) with your account and with each question you ask. The Village team can see who asked a question, so that a report about one can be handled.
• Sign-up answers and files are seen only by you, the person who made the sign-up, and the village's manager. Whether others can see how many signed up, or who, is up to the person who made it.
• “Just for me” is your private village: only you can see it.
• Your own tab backgrounds are seen only by you.
• Reports are seen by the village's manager (for posts in that village) and by the Village team. A photo or video reported by several people is hidden until the Village team reviews it.
• Your email address is not shown to other members. If someone invites you by typing your email, Village never tells the sender whether that email belongs to a member.

7. Safety and moderation

The Village team reviews reports and may suspend an account (it can't be used until reinstated) or remove it from Village (it is closed: it leaves every village and chat, and villages it manages are handed to another member). Because members vouch for each other, if an account is removed, the member who vouched for it is told, and their account may be reviewed too. We keep a record of these decisions.

If Village grows, we may use an outside moderation service to help review reported content. If we do, we'll update this policy to name it before it's used.

8. Service providers

We use a small number of companies to run Village. They handle your information only to provide their service to us:

• Supabase: stores your account, posts, photos, videos, audio, and files, and runs the server code that sends notifications and checks Calendar Links.
• Resend: sends account emails (confirmations and password resets).
• Apple: delivers push notifications and provides age confirmation, Maps place search, Siri, and Apple Intelligence.

When Village checks a Calendar Link, it contacts the calendar's own website (such as Google's) to download it. We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect the safety of our users.

9. Keeping and deleting your information

How long we keep things. We keep your information while your account exists, and we don't delete your villages, threads, events, tasks or files on a timer: they stay until you or the village's manager delete them, or until your account is deleted. A few things do expire on their own:

• Small Talk chats with no new message for five years are deleted automatically, with their photos, audio messages and files.
• If Village removes an account for breaking the rules (see section 7), the photos, videos, audio messages and files that account uploaded are deleted within about an hour. Its posts may stay visible to the villages they were posted in, with the files gone.
• Val questions stop being shown to other people after 30 days, or when you close them; they stay with your account until it is deleted. The chats that answers started are Small Talk chats and follow the rule above.

Records of reports, blocks and account decisions are kept while they are needed to keep Village safe. You can delete things you posted at any time, and you can delete your whole account in the app: Account → Delete Account. Sign-up answers are kept until the sign-up or your account is deleted. If you withdraw from a sign-up (or its organizer removes you), your answers are deleted right away and any files you sent with it within about a day; deleting a sign-up deletes its files the same way.

When you delete your account:

• Your account, profile, profile characteristics, Val questions, chat messages, RSVPs, and personal settings are deleted, along with every file you uploaded: photos, videos, audio messages, attached files, sign-up files, your profile photo, and your backgrounds.
• Villages you manage are handed to their longest-standing member, so the other members don't lose them. A village with no other members is deleted. Sign-ups you made pass to the village's manager.
• Events and tasks you created in a shared village are handed to that village's manager instead of being deleted, and your replies and threads stay in the village.
• A village icon or background, or a chat icon, that you set stays, if other people are still in that village or chat.
• Copies in our providers' backups are removed as those backups expire.

You can also ask us to delete your information by emailing privacy@takesthevillage.com.

10. Security

Information travels between the app and our servers encrypted (HTTPS). Access rules on our servers make sure only the right people can read each village, chat, photo, file, and audio message. Calendar Links are visible only to the people allowed to manage them. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information.

11. Children

Village is meant for adults. New accounts must have Apple confirm they're 18 or older, and we do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to use Village. Members may type children's first names, for example when answering an RSVP for them; please share only what your village needs. If you believe a child is using Village, email us and we will delete the account.

12. Your choices and rights

You can see and change your profile and profile characteristics in the app, edit or delete what you've posted, leave villages and chats, block people, turn off My Office's use of your village information, turn Val on or off (My Office → Val), and turn notifications off. You can download a copy of what you've put into Village (your profile, posts, events, answers, tasks, sign-ups, your own Small Talk messages, your Val questions, and the photos, videos and files you posted) in the app: Account → Download My Data. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to request a copy of your information, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how it is used. To make a request, email privacy@takesthevillage.com. We will respond within 60 days.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll post the new version here and update the date at the top.

14. Contact

Questions about privacy or this policy: privacy@takesthevillage.com