Open Seat

Open Seat

Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 14, 2026

Open Seat helps adults find public restaurant plans nearby. This policy explains what Open Seat collects, why it is collected, who it is shared with, and how people can delete their accounts.

This policy should be reviewed by counsel before public launch and published at a public web address before store submission.

Contact

Open Seat is operated by OpenSeat LLC.

Privacy contact: cyrus19901@gmail.com

Information We Collect

Account and profile information:

  • How the user signs in: a phone number, or the email address and name shared by Google or Apple when the user chooses one of them. Apple may share a private relay email address instead of the real one.
  • Display name, birthdate, neighborhood, bio, food preferences, restaurant vibes, availability, profile prompts, and selected social intents.
  • Profile photos users choose to upload.
  • Trusted contact name and phone number, if a user adds one. Open Seat does not contact that person directly.

Location and restaurant information:

  • Device location while using the app, if permission is granted, to show nearby restaurants and tables. Location is used for those requests; Open Seat does not keep a history of where users have been.
  • Chosen search areas and restaurant selections.
  • For meal invites, Open Seat stores a snapped approximate search point and neighborhood. Exact restaurant details for private one-on-one plans are shown only to the approved participants.
  • Arrival status such as "nearby" or "arrived" may be stored around the meal time. Exact coordinates are not shared with other users.

Meal and social activity:

  • Tables created, join requests, approvals or declines, table chat messages, place poll votes, confirmed plans, cancellations, check-ins, meal feedback, restaurant ratings, member ratings, reports, blocks, and direct messages opened after mutual post-meal interest.

Verification and trust information:

  • Phone verification status, for users who sign in with a phone.
  • Photo check status, pose instruction, submitted selfie path, review status, and decision timestamp. Verification selfies are not shown on profiles.
  • Optional Stripe Identity status and Stripe verification session reference. Open Seat stores the result of the check, not the ID document image or ID number.
  • Safety signals such as no-show counts, reports, and moderation decisions.

Device and diagnostics:

  • Push notification tokens, platform, and app version.
  • Limited client error reports containing the app area, platform, version, and a short error message.

How We Use Information

Open Seat uses this information to:

  • Create and manage accounts.
  • Show nearby restaurants and tables.
  • Let users create, join, confirm, chat about, and complete restaurant plans.
  • Support trust and safety features including public-place defaults, verification badges, reports, blocks, no-show handling, check-ins, and account deletion.
  • Send account, table, chat, check-in, and safety notifications.
  • Improve reliability by diagnosing crashes and failed actions.
  • Prevent abuse, spam, fraud, and unsafe behavior.

Open Seat does not sell personal information and does not use personal information for third-party advertising.

Sharing

Other Open Seat users:

  • Public profile fields, profile photos, food preferences, prompts, verification badges, completed-meal count, public group table details, and chat messages may be visible to other users depending on app visibility rules.
  • Exact restaurant information for one-on-one plans is limited to the host and approved guest.
  • Reports, private ratings, phone numbers, email addresses, trusted contacts, verification selfies, and ID check details are not shown publicly.

Service providers:

  • Supabase provides authentication, database, storage, realtime, edge functions, and push-related backend infrastructure.
  • Twilio or another SMS provider sends phone sign-in codes.
  • Google and Apple provide optional sign-in. When a user chooses one, it confirms the account and shares the email address and name with Open Seat, under its own privacy policy.
  • Stripe Identity provides optional government ID verification. Stripe processes the ID document and selfie under its own privacy policy; Open Seat receives only whether the check passed and a session reference.
  • Expo provides push notification delivery tooling.
  • Google Maps (on Android) and Apple Maps (on iOS) display the in-app map and receive the map area being viewed, under their own terms.
  • Photon (by Komoot) and Nominatim (OpenStreetMap) receive location search text to suggest and look up places.
  • OpenStreetMap data and OpenFreeMap provide restaurant and map information.

Legal and safety:

  • Information may be disclosed if required by law, to protect users, to investigate abuse, or to enforce policies.

Retention and Deletion

Users can delete their account from the app (Profile → Your account → Delete my account). Deletion removes the sign-in account with its phone number or email address, the profile and profile photos, verification selfies and verification records, the trusted contact, private settings, push tokens, direct messages, ratings the user gave, the user's seats on other people's plans, and plans the user hosted. Upcoming hosted plans are cancelled first so nobody arrives at a table that no longer exists.

Some information is kept after deletion, with no name, phone number, email address, or photos attached:

  • Messages the user sent in group table chats stay visible to the other people at that table, shown without the user's name.
  • Reports filed about the user, including the written description the reporter gave, and reports the user filed about others. These are kept so that deleting and recreating an account cannot erase a history of complaints.
  • A closed-account safety record: the former account identifier, the number of reports received and acted on, no-shows, blocks received, completed meals, and the date the account was closed.
  • Error reports the app sent, with the link to the account removed.

Users can also request account deletion or privacy help at cyrus19901@gmail.com.

Security

Open Seat uses row-level access controls, private storage buckets, signed verification webhooks, server-side rate limits, and limited push-notification content. No system is perfectly secure, but Open Seat is designed to reduce unnecessary exposure of sensitive data.

Children

Open Seat is intended for adults. Users must provide an adult birthdate before using social features. Open Seat is not intended for children.

Changes

Open Seat may update this policy as the app changes. The effective date will be updated when material changes are made.