Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy describes how Towne, operated by Axiomic, LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”), collects, uses, and protects information when you use our paid, ad-free neighborhood social platform (“Service”). This Service is operated by Axiomic, LLC, based in California.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties. We never have, and we never will.

This Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with our Terms of Service, which governs your use of the platform.

2. Definitions

• “Personal Information” means any information that identifies, relates to, or could reasonably be linked to you.
• “Service” refers to the Towne mobile application, the website at towneapp.com, and all related features.
• “Neighborhood” refers to the geographic community within which you are verified and participate.
• “Member” refers to a verified subscriber of the Service. “Visitor” refers to anyone accessing the public website without an account.

3. What Personal Information Is Collected

3.1 Information You Provide Directly

Account and profile information. Email address, display name, profile photo, bio, and optional demographic details you choose to share.

Verification information. Street or block (used only for neighborhood verification), and if you use the neighbor vouch method, the vouch code.

Content.Posts, comments, direct messages, photos, poll responses, RSVP responses, bookmarks, and flags. Content you post is visible to other members of your neighborhood according to the channel’s visibility rules (see Section 5).

Payment information. Processed directly by Apple through In-App Purchase and managed by RevenueCat. We do not store payment card details, CVVs, or bank account information. We receive only subscription status and purchase receipts.

Waitlist and pre-launch signups. If you sign up for our waitlist before we launch in your neighborhood, we collect your email, optional neighborhood, and any open-ended feedback you provide.

Support and feedback. When you contact support, we collect your email, the content of your message, and any attachments.

3.2 Information from Third-Party Services

Apple Sign-In. If you choose to sign in with Apple, you authorize Apple to share with us your Apple user ID, email address (or a private relay email if you choose), and name. You control what Apple shares via your Apple ID settings. We do not receive information about your other Apple activity.

3.3 Information Collected Automatically

Device data. Device type, operating system version, app version, screen resolution, IP address, device identifiers used to deliver push notifications, and approximate region derived from your IP address.

Usage data. Features you access, posts you view (anonymized view counts are used for community moderation scoring such as the political-flag ratio), RSVP responses, and votes.

Push notification tokens. For delivering the notifications you opt into.

3.4 Location Data

Location data is collected only during the verification process and is deleted afterward. If you choose passive location verification, we collect periodic location pings over a 7-day window to confirm you reside in your claimed neighborhood. All location pings are permanently deleted after verification is complete. You may revoke location permission at any time via your device settings.

We do not continuously track your location. We do not use location for advertising or analytics. Posts optionally include a manually added location pin (e.g., for Safety & Alerts or Lost & Found) — these pins are information you choose to share with your post content, not data we automatically collect.

3.5 Image Metadata (EXIF)

Photos from your device camera often contain embedded metadata such as GPS coordinates, device model, and timestamps. When you upload photos to Towne, we automatically strip EXIF metadata before storing the image. This protects against accidental disclosure of your home address or device details to other members. We recommend you also strip metadata from any images you share elsewhere online.

3.6 Contacts and Address Books

We do not sync, upload, or collect your contacts or address book. Ever. Towne never requests access to your phone contacts, never asks you to “find friends,” and never invites non-members on your behalf from contact lists. This is a deliberate design choice: your relationships are your own, and using contact sync to accelerate growth is exactly the kind of practice we’re building Towne to avoid.

3.7 Information About Non-Members

If a member posts or comments mentioning a non-member (for example, naming a neighbor who is not on Towne), that content may reference the non-member. Members are responsible for only sharing information about others with consent. Non-members may contact hello@towneapp.com to request that content about them be removed.

Visitors to towneapp.com have basic request data collected as described in Section 3.3.

4. How Your Personal Information Is Used

• To provide the Service: displaying your posts to neighbors, delivering direct messages, processing votes and notifications.
• To verify neighborhood residence: matching your vouch code, validating location pings, or reviewing address proofs.
• For community moderation: anonymized view counts and vote tallies power the community-driven moderation system (political-flag scoring, post ranking). We may use automated systems to detect spam, abuse, or Code of Conduct violations.
• To communicate with you: sending transactional emails (welcome, account updates, support replies) via Resend.
• To improve the Service: privacy-first analytics via Vercel Web Analytics (cookie-free, hashed IPs, no individual profiling, no advertising cookies) to understand aggregate usage patterns.
• To detect and prevent abuse: identifying spam, fraud, and bot activity; enforcing our Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.
• For legal and safety reasons: see Section 6.
• Anonymized aggregate research.We may generate aggregated, de-identified data from personal information and use or share this anonymized data for research, Service improvement, and public communication about Towne (for example, “93% of our members report better neighborhood connection”). Such data no longer identifies you.

5. Content Visibility and Public Content

Posts, comments, and direct messages are visible to other members of your neighborhood, subject to the visibility rules of each channel. Direct messages are visible only to the sender and recipient.

You should have no expectation of privacy in Content you post publicly within the Service. Other members can view, screenshot, copy, or describe your public posts and comments, and we cannot prevent that. Content shared only in direct messages is visible to the intended recipient, who can similarly screenshot or share it. Do not post anything to Towne that you would not want preserved, shared, or resurfaced later.

Posts in the Recommendations, Events, and Safety & Alerts channels are visible on the public web at towneapp.com in anonymized form. Your display name is replaced with “A neighbor in [Neighborhood].” The post body, location (if provided), and channel-specific structured fields (business name, event date, etc.) are visible. You are informed of this during post composition.

You can control the visibility of your profile information in your account settings.

6. When We Share Personal Information

6.1 We Do Not Sell Your Data

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We do not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking.

6.2 Service Providers

We share data with service providers who help us operate the Service. These providers are contractually bound to use your information only to provide their service to us:

Sub-processor changes. If we add, remove, or materially change the sub-processors listed above, we will update this Privacy Policy and notify active Members in advance of the change via email and in-app notification. You have the right to object to new sub-processors by terminating your account.

6.3 Law Enforcement and Legal Requests

We may retain, preserve, or share your Personal Information with law enforcement, government authorities, or private parties if we have a good-faith belief it is reasonably necessary to:

• Respond to a valid, binding legal request (subpoena, search warrant, court order, or other legal process);
• Detect, investigate, prevent, or address fraud, unauthorized access, abuse, or security issues;
• Enforce our Terms of Service or Code of Conduct;
• Protect the rights, property, or safety of Towne, our members, or the public.

6.4 Emergency Response

For posts in the Safety & Alerts channel that indicate an imminent threat to life or public safety, we may share relevant information with emergency responders or first responders to facilitate emergency response.

6.5 Business Reorganization

If Axiomic, LLC is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you before your Personal Information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

7. Data Storage and Security

Data is stored on Supabase (PostgreSQL) with TLS 1.2+ encryption in transit and AES-256 encryption at rest. Passwords are hashed using bcrypt. Authentication tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain. We do not store payment card numbers, government identification documents, or biometric data.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your Personal Information, we will notify affected users within 72 hours of discovery via email and in-app notification, as required by applicable law.

8. Data Retention

Account data is retained while your account is active. Upon account deletion, we provide a 30-day grace period during which you can reactivate. After the grace period, your personal data is deleted from our primary production systems.

Specific retention periods:

• Account & profile data: while your account is active; deleted within 30 days after account deletion request.
• Posts, comments, and direct messages: deleted within 30 days after account deletion request. Content that has been reshared or screenshotted by other Members is outside our control.
• Location verification pings: deleted within 14 days of successful verification.
• Payment and subscription records: retained up to 7 years for tax, accounting, and audit purposes as required by law.
• Moderation logs (reports, violations): retained up to 2 years to identify repeat violators and respond to legal process.
• Anonymized vote tallies and aggregate statistics: retained indefinitely but no longer linked to you.
• Waitlist signups: retained until you unsubscribe or we delete the waitlist (typically after launch in your neighborhood).

Backups. Our database provider (Supabase) maintains encrypted point-in-time backups for disaster recovery. Deleted data may persist in those backups for up to 30 days before being fully overwritten. We do not restore or query backups to recover deleted personal data except as required to respond to legal process or to recover from a disaster affecting all users.

Content that you have shared publicly and that has been cached or indexed by third parties (for example, search engines or archive services) is outside our control.

9. Your Privacy Rights

9.1 All Users

• Access:Request a copy of your data via Settings → Download My Data. We provide a JSON export.
• Correction: Update your profile information at any time in Settings.
• Deletion:Delete your account via Settings → Delete Account. Data is permanently removed after a 30-day grace period.
• Portability: Data exports are provided in machine-readable JSON format.
• Objection and restriction: Contact hello@towneapp.com to object to or restrict specific processing.

9.2 California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

California residents have the right to know what Personal Information we collect, how it is used, and with whom it is shared; request deletion; and opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of Personal Information. We do not sell or share Personal Information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We do not use sensitive Personal Information (as defined by CPRA) for purposes other than providing the Service.

To exercise your rights, contact hello@towneapp.com. We will respond within 45 days. You may designate an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf.

9.3 Other U.S. State Privacy Rights

Residents of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia may have rights similar to those described above. Contact hello@towneapp.com to exercise your rights.

9.4 EU and UK Residents (GDPR)

Our legal bases for processing are: (a) contractual necessity, to provide the Service you subscribed to; (b) legitimate interest, for fraud prevention and community moderation; and (c) consent, for optional features. You have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict processing, and data portability. You may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. Contact hello@towneapp.com. We will respond within 30 days.

10. International Data Transfers

Towne is operated from the United States. If you are located outside the United States, your Personal Information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have data protection laws different from those in your country. By using the Service, you consent to this transfer.

11. Children’s Privacy

Towne is not intended for use by children under 13. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13 (“COPPA” applies). In certain U.S. states (Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Maryland), you must be 18 or older to register.

If you are between 13 and 17 years of age, you may only use the Service with the consent of a parent or legal guardian, and by registering you represent that such consent has been obtained. Some jurisdictions (including California, Colorado, and Connecticut) impose additional protections on the personal information of minors; we do not sell or use minors’ information for targeted advertising under any circumstances.

If we become aware that we have collected Personal Information from a child in violation of these limits, we will delete it immediately. If you believe we may have collected such information, contact hello@towneapp.com.

12. Use of Artificial Intelligence

Towne does not currently use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine-learning (ML) features to process user content in any user-facing capacity.

• We do not train AI or ML models on your posts, comments, direct messages, photos, or any other Content you submit to the Service.
• We do not share your Content with third-party AI services or large language models for training, fine-tuning, or inference on their behalf.
• Content ranking and moderation on Towne are rule-based, not AI-driven. The political-flag system, post ranking, and auto-hide thresholds use transparent algorithms (time-decay, community voting ratios) that are not generative AI.

Forward-looking disclosure. If we introduce AI-powered features in the future (for example, automated spam detection, content moderation assistance, or recommendation systems), we will:

• Update this Privacy Policy to disclose the specific AI features and their purpose;
• Update the sub-processor table in Section 6.2 if any user Content is processed by a third-party AI vendor;
• Comply with applicable AI transparency obligations under laws such as the EU AI Act, the Colorado AI Act, California AB-2013, and any similar state or federal regulations;
• Where required by law, provide users with the ability to opt out of AI-driven decision-making that materially affects their account, content visibility, or access to the Service;
• Never silently train generative AI models on user Content without clear prior disclosure and, where required by law, affirmative consent.

13. Third-Party Links

The Service may contain links to third-party websites or services that are not operated by Towne. This Privacy Policy does not apply to those third parties, and we are not responsible for their content, practices, or policies. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party services you visit.

14. Do Not Track

Our systems do not currently respond to “Do Not Track” browser signals, as no industry-wide standard for handling them has been adopted. However, we do not engage in the cross-site tracking that DNT was designed to prevent.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes at least 30 days before they take effect via email and in-app notification. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

16. Contact

For privacy inquiries, data requests, or concerns:
hello@towneapp.com
Axiomic, LLC
24 Platt Court, Mill Valley, CA 94941