Privacy

How United World Couches handles your personal data, as required by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In short

The site only collects what it needs to work: your account, your profile, and what you post or send.
Your profile is only visible to verified members. Visitors see anonymous dots on the map.
Documents you upload for verification are deleted once a moderator has decided, and are never kept in backups.
No ads, no analytics services, and no trackers that follow you around the site or across other websites. I don’t sell your data or give it to anyone for their own marketing. I only use service providers that help me run the site, listed under “Who else handles your data”.
The site is only for people aged 18 or older.
You can download your data or delete your account at any time on the Account page.

Who is responsible

The site is a private, non-commercial project run by one person, with volunteer moderators from the community who review applications and reports. The person responsible for your data (the “controller”) is:

Levin Thomas
Habsburgerstraße 96
79104 Freiburg im Breisgau
Germany
Email: levinjazthomas@icloud.com

Write to this address with any question about your data or to use any of your rights below.

What the site collects, and why

Your account: Your email address, your password if you set one (stored as a one-way cryptographic hash, so the password itself can’t be read or recovered), and when you signed up and last signed in. These are needed to let you sign in and to send you sign-in codes.
Your profile: Your name, UWC college and class year, your city (and a second city if you add one), languages, whether you host or meet up and for how long, your bio, local tips, and an optional photo. Verified members see this so they can find and contact you. On the map your city is shown, never an address, and positions are rounded to about 10 km.
Contact details: Any email, phone number or social media you add on My profile or when you apply. They’re optional, and every verified member can see them, so someone could copy them. To make copying in bulk harder, the site counts how many times each member looks at public contact details (just a number per day, not whose details), and stops showing them to a member who looks too often in a day or a week. These counts are deleted after 7 days.
Verification: When you apply, the members you name as people who know you, their answer, and the moderator’s decision. If you upload a document instead, only moderators can open it, and it is deleted once they approve or decline your application. If you join with an invite link, the site notes who invited you.
Messages: Messages you send and receive. On the site, only you and the other person can see them. Moderators can’t read them, even when a conversation is reported. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted: they are stored encrypted on Supabase’s servers, but I, as the operator, could technically access them through the database. I don’t ordinarily access message contents. I would only do so where necessary to comply with a legal obligation, or to deal with a security incident or a technical fault. If the other person has turned on browser notifications, the start of each new message is shown in the notification on their device. Don’t send anything you’d need to keep fully secret.
Trips: Trips you post (city, dates, an optional note). Verified members can see upcoming trips, and members living within 50 km may get a notification about them.
Events: Events you post (a name, city, day, start time and an optional description). Verified members can see upcoming events and who organised them. Members living within 50 km may get a notification about a new event.
Recommendations: Places you recommend (the place’s name and exact spot on the map, what kind of place it is, your note and an optional link), and which recommendations you agreed with (“I recommend this too”). Verified members can see your recommendations with your name and college, and how many members agreed (not who). Visitors who aren’t verified only see how many places are recommended in each city. Your local tips are recommendations too. If you add them before you’re verified, only you and the moderators see them until you are.
“I know them”: When you press this on another member’s card, the site stores a record that you know them. It’s also added automatically when you vouch for someone or invite them. It exists so members can see how many people know a member, which helps them decide whom to host or meet. Members, including the person, only ever see a count (“Known by 6 members”), never who pressed it. Only you can see your own presses, and you can take one back at any time with “Undo”. Moderators can’t see these records (only I could, through the database), and they aren’t used to decide applications.
Reports: If you report a member or a problem with the site, your report, who it’s about and the moderator’s decision are kept, so moderators can keep the site safe.
Notifications: Your notification settings. If you turn on notifications on a device, the site stores the address your browser gives it for sending them to that device. If you turn on WhatsApp notifications, the site stores the WhatsApp number you give for them. It’s only used for notifications and isn’t shown to other members.
Technical data: When you open the site, the hosting service and the map service receive your IP address and browser type, as every website does. I don’t use them to track you.

Purposes and legal basis

The GDPR only allows using personal data for a stated purpose and on one of the legal grounds in its Article 6(1). Here is each use, why, and on which ground. Where the ground is “legitimate interest”, the interest is named.

Account and sign-in: To create your account and let you sign in. Ground: providing the service you signed up for (Art. 6(1)(b)).
Profile, photo, contact details, trips, events, recommendations, “I know them”: So members can find, contact and meet each other, which is what the site is for. Ground: providing the service (Art. 6(1)(b)).
Messages and email notifications about them: To let members write to each other and know when they have a new message. Ground: providing the service (Art. 6(1)(b)).
Verification (vouches, documents, invites): To check that members are really UWC alumni. Ground: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in keeping the community limited to alumni, so members can trust who they host or meet.
Reports, bans and moderation: To deal with abuse, fake profiles and problems with the site. Ground: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in protecting members and keeping the site safe.
Technical logs and map pictures: To deliver the website and map to your browser and to keep the site secure. Ground: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in running a working, secure website.
Limit on viewing contact details: To stop anyone copying the contact details members show to all verified members in bulk. Ground: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in protecting members from scraping, spam and stalking.
Notifications on your device: Only if you turn them on in your browser. Ground: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time by turning them off.
WhatsApp notifications: Only if you add a WhatsApp number under Account → Notifications. Ground: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time by pressing Turn off there, which deletes the number.
Backups: To restore the site if data is lost by mistake. Ground: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in not losing members’ data.
Keeping records when needed for legal reasons: For example keeping a report as evidence of abuse. Ground: legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)) or legitimate interest in defending legal claims (Art. 6(1)(f)).

Where the ground is legitimate interest, you can object at any time for reasons relating to your situation (Article 21). Write to me at the address above.

Who else handles your data

I use these services to run the site. They only handle data on my behalf and as I instruct:

Supabase (Supabase Inc., USA): the site’s database, sign-in and file storage. It stores your account, profile and photo, contact details, verification applications and documents (until a moderator decides), messages, trips, events, recommendations, “I know them”, reports, notification settings and device addresses. For security, its sign-in service also logs your IP address and browser when you sign in.
Vercel (Vercel Inc., USA): hosts the website and runs its server code. Every page you open passes through Vercel’s servers, including the data shown on it, but Vercel doesn’t keep it. It keeps short-lived technical logs of each visit (your IP address, browser, the page address and time).
Resend (Plus Five Five Inc., USA): sends the site’s emails, so it receives your email address and the email’s text. These are sign-in codes and links, the result of your application, requests to vouch for someone, a note that you have a new message (with the sender’s name, never the message itself) and, if you leave them on, alerts about trips and events near you and the odd news email from the moderators.
OpenFreeMap: provides the map pictures. Your browser loads them directly from OpenFreeMap, which receives your IP address and which part of the map you’re looking at. It doesn’t receive anything about your account.
Photon (komoot GmbH, Germany), a place search built on OpenStreetMap: when you type a town that the site’s own list doesn’t have, the site’s server asks Photon for matching towns. When you search for a place to recommend, it asks Photon for matching places in the part of the map you’re looking at. Photon only receives the letters you typed (and that map position), sent from the site’s server, so it doesn’t get your IP address or anything about your account.
Push services (Apple, Google or Mozilla, depending on your browser): deliver notifications to your device if you turn them on. They receive your device’s notification address and the notification in encrypted form, which they can’t read.
Meta (WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta Platforms, USA, and its group companies): sends WhatsApp notifications if you turn them on. It receives your WhatsApp number and the notification’s text, which is always the same short note that you have a new message, without who wrote or what they wrote. Meta can read these sentences, keeps them for up to 30 days, and says it doesn’t use them to choose the ads you see. If you reply on WhatsApp, Meta receives your reply too; replies aren’t read.

Data handled outside the EU

Supabase, Vercel, Resend and Meta are US companies, so your data may be handled outside the European Economic Area. Where this happens, each one is bound by a legally recognised safeguard that requires it to protect your data to EU standards:

Supabase: the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (contract terms approved by the European Commission), in its data processing agreement.
Vercel: the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which Vercel is certified under, and the Standard Contractual Clauses where required.
Resend: the Standard Contractual Clauses in its data processing agreement, with the EU-US Data Privacy Framework as an additional safeguard.
Meta: the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which Meta is certified under, and the Standard Contractual Clauses in Meta’s data processing terms for the WhatsApp Business Platform.

OpenFreeMap and the push services are contacted directly by your browser, not by the site. The site’s font is served from the site’s own server, not from Google.

Cookies and storage in your browser

The site only uses what it needs to work, so it doesn’t ask for consent: a sign-in cookie that keeps you signed in, a cookie that remembers you’ve seen the welcome page, a cookie that remembers an invite link for 30 days, and a note in your browser when you press “Not now” on the notification prompt. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

How long it’s kept

“Deleted” below means removed from the live site. Backup copies are covered in the last point.

Your account, profile, photo, contact details and settings: until you delete your account.
When you signed up and last signed in: until you delete your account. Sign-in logs with your IP address and browser: deleted automatically after 90 days.
Verification documents: deleted from the site’s file storage once a moderator decides on your application, or when you delete your account if no decision was made yet. Documents are never included in backups.
Other verification records (which members vouched, the decision, who invited you): until you delete your account.
Messages: until you or the other person deletes their account. Deleting your account also deletes the conversations you were in.
Trips: until you delete them on My trips, or delete your account.
Recommendations and “I recommend this too”: until you delete them (or press “Undo”), or delete your account. Reports about a recommendation: until a moderator deals with them.
Events: deleted automatically 30 days after the event’s day, sooner if you delete the event or your account.
“I know them” records: until you press “Undo”, or until you or the other member deletes their account.
The daily count of how often you looked at public contact details: deleted automatically after 7 days.
Reports about members and about site problems: deleted automatically 2 years after a moderator has dealt with them, sooner if the reporter or the reported member deletes their account. Open reports are kept until they are dealt with. A report may be kept longer only if it’s needed for a legal dispute or a legal obligation.
Notification device addresses: until you turn notifications off on that device, or your browser tells the site the address no longer works.
Your WhatsApp number for notifications: until you turn WhatsApp notifications off or delete your account. Meta keeps each WhatsApp notification for up to 30 days.
Vercel’s technical logs of visits: kept by Vercel for a short time, a few days at most.
Backups: encrypted copies of the database are kept for a few weeks and then deleted. Data you deleted can remain in a backup until it expires, but it isn’t used unless the site has to be restored after data loss.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

See and get a copy of your data. Use “Download my data” on the Account page, or write to me.
Correct it. Edit your details on My profile.
Delete it. Use “Delete my account” on the Account page. This removes your account, profile, photo, contacts, trips, events, recommendations, messages and documents from the live site straight away. Backup copies expire within a few weeks.
Restrict or object to how it’s used, and take it to another service.
Withdraw consent at any time, for example by turning notifications off.
Complain to a data protection authority (Article 77). The one responsible for this site is the Landesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit Baden-Württemberg, which explains how to complain on its complaints page. You can also contact the authority where you live or work.

No decisions about you are made automatically. Applications and reports are always decided by a person.

Changes

If I change how data is handled, I’ll update this page. Last changed: 11 October 2026. See also the Impressum.