Privacy Policy

01Who we are

Roadbuds is operated by MindMarvelous LLC ("we", "us"). This policy covers the Roadbuds mobile app and roadbuds.app. By using Roadbuds you agree to the handling of information described here.

02What we collect

Information you give us

• Account — email address, username, and password.
• Profile — display name, city and bio, if you choose to add them. All three are optional.
• Vehicle — the make, model, year, colour and type of the car you drive, plus any photos you submit to verify it.
• Messages — the text of messages you send to other drivers. Roadbuds messaging is plain text only; you cannot send photos or share your location in a message.
• Reports — if you report a user, a vehicle or a conversation, we keep what you submitted and the reason you gave.

Information created by using the app

• Location — see section 3. This is the most sensitive thing we hold and it gets its own section.
• Encounters — a record of which other Roadbuds drivers you have passed, and when.
• Gameplay — XP, medals, streaks, daily check-ins, and which CarDex entries you have unlocked.
• Social graph — who you have added, who has added you, and who you have blocked.
• Invites — your invite code and, if you joined through one, which account invited you.

Information from your device

• Push token — an anonymous identifier issued by Apple or Google that lets us send you a notification, plus which of the two platforms you are on. Only stored if you turn notifications on.

03Location, in detail

Roadbuds needs your location to do the one thing it does: notice that you and another driver were on the same stretch of road. Here is precisely how that works.

We only record you while you are moving

Your device reports its position and speed to us while the app determines you are driving. When your speed drops below the driving threshold, we stop advancing your stored position. Your last recorded position stays frozen at wherever you were while still moving, and that frozen point — not your live position — is what any map view is built from. Arriving somewhere and parking does not write your destination to our servers.

Sharing is off until you switch it on

Every new account starts with map sharing set to off. Nobody can see your position at all. If you turn it on, you choose between sharing with all of your friends or with a list of friends you select individually. You can change this or switch it back off at any time in Settings.

Private zones

You can define circular private zones anywhere on the map, each with its own label and radius. While your frozen position falls inside one of your zones, you are removed from other people's maps entirely — not approximated, not offset, simply absent.

Distance floors for people who are not your friends

Drivers who are not your friends are subject to a minimum distance before you appear to them at all. A friend-of-a-friend must be at least 50 miles away, and anyone in the wider network at least 200 miles. This is deliberately inverted from a normal proximity feature: the further someone is from you, the more likely they are to see you. The effect is that people outside your friends can see that Roadbuds is being played elsewhere in the country, and can never use the map to work out where you are.

Appearing to the wider network at all is a separate setting, and it is off by default.

04How we use it

• To detect that you passed another driver, and to award the resulting unlock and XP.
• To run the game — CarDex progress, streaks, medals and levels.
• To show you on the map to the people you have chosen to share with.
• To deliver messages between you and drivers you have both added.
• To send push notifications you have enabled, for messages, friend activity and CarDex unlocks. Each of the three can be turned off separately.
• To keep the service safe — reviewing reports, enforcing our Terms, and preventing abuse.
• To fix problems, and to understand and improve how the app performs.

05What other people can see

Other Roadbuds users can see:

• Your username, display name, city, bio and profile picture, if you set them.
• Your active vehicle, including any verification photo attached to it.
• Your level, XP, medals and CarDex progress.
• Your frozen map position — but only if you have turned map sharing on, only if they fall within the audience you chose, and never inside one of your private zones.

Other users never see your email address, your password, your live position, your precise speed, the boundaries of your private zones, or your conversations with anyone else.

06Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers to run the app, and they only receive what they need to perform their function:

• Railway — hosts our servers and database in the United States. All of the data described in this policy is stored there.
• Expo — delivers push notifications to your device and distributes app updates. Receives your push token and the notification content.
• Cloudinary — hosts the reference images used in the CarDex catalogue, and images uploaded through the app.
• Apple and Google — operate the push notification services your device receives notifications through, and distribute the app itself.

We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or where it is necessary to protect the safety of a person or the integrity of the service.

07What we do not do

This section is here because it is easier to verify than a promise. As of the effective date above, the Roadbuds app contains:

• No third-party analytics SDK.
• No advertising SDK, and no advertising identifiers.
• No cross-app or cross-site tracking.
• No sale or rental of personal information to anyone, for any purpose.
• No data broker relationships.

If this changes, we will update this section and tell you before the change takes effect.

08How long we keep it

• Account and profile — for as long as your account exists.
• Location — we store one current position and one frozen position per account, each overwritten by the next update. We do not build a location history, and there is no stored trail of where you have driven.
• Encounters — kept as part of your CarDex record, since your collection is a record of what you passed.
• Messages — kept until you or the other person deletes the conversation, or the account is deleted.
• Reports and blocks — kept after the fact so that a blocked person stays blocked and repeat reports can be identified.

09Your rights and controls

In the app you can, at any time:

• Edit or clear your display name, city, bio and vehicle.
• Turn map sharing off entirely, or change who it is shared with.
• Add, edit or remove private zones.
• Turn off each category of push notification.
• Block another user, which removes you from each other's app.
• Delete your account.

Deleting your account removes your profile from other users and stops all collection of new information about you. Contact us at hello@roadbuds.app to request a copy of your data or its permanent erasure, and we will respond within 30 days.

Depending on where you live you may have additional rights — including access, correction, deletion, portability, and the right to object to certain processing. We apply the rights described in this section to everyone regardless of location. Residents of the EEA and UK may also lodge a complaint with their local data protection authority.

10Security

Passwords are hashed with bcrypt before they are stored; we cannot read your password and cannot recover it for you. Traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit. Access to the production database is restricted to the operator of the service.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you and any regulator we are required to notify.

11Children

Roadbuds is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us at hello@roadbuds.app and we will delete it.

12Changes and contact

If we change this policy we will update the effective date at the top, and for any material change we will notify you in the app before it takes effect.

Questions, requests or complaints about privacy:
hello@roadbuds.app
MindMarvelous LLC