Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

Your account

When you sign up, our sign-in provider, Clerk, collects your name, email address, and profile photo, plus basic profile details from Google if you sign in with Google. We also save a few things to your account: your light or dark appearance choice, and a record of when you accepted the safety notice and these policies (the date, the version, your country, and the emergency numbers you were shown).

Your location

If you allow it, we use your device's precise location to show places, alerts, and ratings near you. If you don't, we estimate your city from your IP address. We also use places you search for. Your device remembers your last location and map view so the map opens where you left it. We don't keep a history of your location in your account.

What you send us

• Contact form: your name, email address, and message.
• Volunteer applications: your name, email address, and message, which we pass to the organization you apply to.
• Nonprofit profile claims: your name, job title, organization email, and phone number, so we can confirm you represent the organization.

How you use the site

We use Google Analytics to understand how people use Karma Is Real: pages visited, features used (such as switching tabs, opening a place, tapping Directions, opening notifications, or signing in), your device and browser type, and your approximate city. We don't send Google Analytics your name, email address, account ID, or exact location, and its advertising features are turned off.

We also keep our own usage records, in our own database, to see the same kinds of things: pages visited and features used (including which places are opened or get Directions, and which news and volunteer cards are used), how you sign in (for example Google), your device type (phone, tablet, or computer), whether you opened Karma Is Real from your home screen, your appearance setting, and your city. Each browser gets a random ID so repeat visits can be counted once. These records don't include your name, email address, account ID, IP address, or exact location, and we only ever look at them as totals and trends, never one person's activity.

Technical information

Like most websites, our servers and service providers receive your IP address and browser details when you use the site, and may keep them in logs for security and troubleshooting.

2. Cookies and storage on your device

We, and the services we use, store small pieces of information on your device to:

• keep you signed in (Clerk);
• remember that you accepted the safety notice;
• remember your appearance choice, your last map view and location, and alerts you've seen;
• measure how the site is used (Google Analytics, and a random ID for our own usage records).

You can clear or block these in your browser settings. Signing in won't work without cookies.

3. How we use it

• to run Karma Is Real: show the map and nearby places, alerts, and ratings;
• to create and secure your account;
• to keep a record of what you agreed to;
• to answer your messages and pass volunteer applications to organizations;
• to check nonprofit profile claims;
• to understand how the site is used and make it better;
• to prevent misuse, and to meet legal obligations.

4. Who we share it with

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it for targeted advertising. We share it only:

• With service providers that run parts of the site for us: Clerk (accounts and sign-in), Google (Analytics and place search), Mapbox (maps), OpenStreetMap (place names), ipapi.co (estimating your city from your IP address), Open-Meteo (weather), Web3Forms (delivering contact messages), and Railway (hosting and our database). They receive only what they need to do that work.
• With organizations you contact, such as a nonprofit you apply to volunteer with.
• When the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety, our rights, or the site.
• If Karma Is Real changes hands, for example by becoming part of another organization; this policy would still apply to your information.

Directions open in Google Maps or Apple Maps, which handle your information under their own privacy policies.

5. How long we keep it

We keep account information while your account is open, and delete it when you delete your account, except for records we need to keep for legal reasons, such as what you agreed to. We keep messages, applications, and claims as long as we need them to handle them. Google keeps analytics data for a limited time under our analytics settings. We delete our own usage records after two years.

6. Your choices and rights

• Turn off location access in your browser or phone settings at any time.
• Clear cookies and site data in your browser (this also resets the random ID our own usage records use).
• Opt out of Google Analytics with Google's opt-out browser add-on.
• Delete your account from Account settings, or ask us through the contact form.

Depending on where you live (for example Texas, California, the European Union, or the UK), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or get a copy of your personal information, and to object to some uses of it. To make a request, use our contact form. We may need to confirm who you are first. If we turn down your request, you can appeal by replying to our answer. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.

7. Children

Karma Is Real is for people 18 and older. It isn't meant for children, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has given us information, tell us and we'll delete it.

8. Security

We use reasonable measures to protect your information, such as encrypted connections and a dedicated sign-in provider. No website is completely secure, so we can't guarantee it.

9. Where your information is processed

Karma Is Real is based in the United States, and your information is processed there and wherever our service providers operate.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We'll change the date at the top, and for important changes we'll ask you to agree again in the app.

11. Contact

Questions or requests about your privacy go through our contact form. Karma Is Real is based in Austin, Texas.