Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 22, 2026

Pinway is an iOS app and website that turns links you share — social posts, map links, web pages — into saved places. Pinway is operated by Optimize Inc. (“Optimize”, “we”, “us”). This policy explains what we collect, why, and what we will never do with it. We’ve tried to write it the way we’d want to read it.

The short version

• We only read the links you choose to share into Pinway. We never connect to your social accounts.
• Your device location never leaves your phone — it’s used only to center the map.
• Your notes are private to you, even in shared lists.
• We don’t sell your data, don’t show ads, don’t send marketing email, and never post on your behalf.
• You can delete your account from inside the app at any time, and it takes your personal data with it (the few exceptions are listed below).

What we collect

Account information. Your name, email address and a username. How you sign in decides the rest:

• Email and password — the password is stored only as a secure hash; we can’t read it. We also record whether you’ve confirmed your email address.
• Sign in with Apple — the permanent account identifier Apple gives us, plus the name and email Apple passes along (which may be a private relay address). We also keep a token Apple issues so that we can tell Apple to disconnect Pinway from your Apple ID when you delete your account.
• Sign in with Google — the permanent account identifier Google gives us, plus the name and email address on that Google account.

Optionally, a profile photo you upload. We also note when your account was last active, so we can tell a live account from an abandoned one.

Content you share into Pinway. The links you share or paste, and the publicly available content behind them (captions, audio transcripts, images in a post, page text) — this is what Pinway reads to find places. We keep the places found and a reference to the source post so you can jump back to it.

Your saves and activity in the app. Your saved places, lists, favorites, booked status and dates, notes, and memberships of shared lists.

Invitations. When you invite someone to a list by email address, we store that address on the invitation and email them the invitation. If they don’t have a Pinway account yet, it’s waiting for them when they sign up with that address. Invitations stop working after 30 days.

Waitlist and contact submissions. If you join the waitlist we store your email address and use it only to let you know when Pinway is available to you: for iPhone, usually by adding you as a tester in Apple’s TestFlight, in which case Apple sends you the invitation; for Android, one email when it ships. If you use the contact form we store your name, email and message so we can reply. Ask us to remove either at any time.

Device and technical data. A push-notification token if you allow notifications, and standard server logs (IP address, the address requested, request time), kept for security and debugging. When an import fails we keep a record of what failed, which can include the link you shared, so we can fix it. We also record what each outside service we call for you costs us to run: which service and how much processing, attached to your account and to the share it was for. These records hold no captions, notes or images, but they do keep the words of a place search you run and the place names we looked up.

What we deliberately don’t collect

• Your social accounts. Pinway never logs into or reads your Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest or Facebook accounts. It can’t see your feed, your saved folders or your DMs — only the individual links you hand it.
• Your location. The app can use your device location to center the map near you; that lookup happens on your phone and is never sent to our servers. Place search sends only the words you type.
• Ad or tracking identifiers. There is no advertising or analytics SDK in Pinway. We never ask for tracking permission and never read your device’s advertising identifier.
• Your contacts, photos or browsing. Pinway doesn’t read your address book, your photo library (apart from a profile photo you pick) or anything you do outside the app.

Email we send

Only email that keeps your account and your lists working: a welcome email (with a link to confirm your address if you signed up with a password), password-reset codes you ask for, invitations when someone asks you onto a list, and word if this policy changes in a way that matters. If you joined the waitlist, the invitation to try Pinway (for iPhone, that comes from Apple’s TestFlight). No newsletters and no marketing. We keep a record of each email we try to send — which kind, to which address, when, and whether our mail service accepted it — but not its contents.

How place-finding works

When you share a link, our servers fetch the publicly available content behind it. For video posts we use SocialKit (socialkit.dev) to resolve the post and transcribe its audio. Anthropic’s AI (Claude) then reads the caption, transcript, page text and, when needed, the post’s images, and returns the places that were actually named. When you share a profile rather than a post, it may also run a few web searches to work out whether the profile is a place people can visit. We send these providers the content, not information about you. Both process it only to run the feature, and Anthropic does not use it to train its models under our API agreement.

Each place name is then matched against Google’s place database (Google Places, and sometimes Google’s Knowledge Graph) to fetch real details — address, coordinates, rating, hours, website, phone, photos. We send Google the place name and the area to search in, never who you are or which list it’s for. Those details are subject to Google’s terms. Google photos are fetched by our servers when you view a place and passed through to the app; we don’t keep copies of them, and the photographer’s credit is shown with every photo. Cover photos for destinations come from Wikipedia and Pexels; we keep a copy of those along with their credit.

Sharing between users

If you join a shared list, other members can see the places you add there and the posts they came from, along with your first name, username and profile photo. They can see whether a place is favorited, and whether it’s booked and for when. They can never see your private notes, your other lists or your email address.

Where your data lives

Your account, lists and places are stored in our own Postgres database on servers in the United States (DigitalOcean). Images — profile photos, pictures from shared posts, destination covers — are stored on Cloudflare R2. Cloudflare also serves this website and invitation links, and sends our email. The processors named above are based in the United States. We don’t sell or rent personal data to anyone. We share it only with the processors named above, and with Apple for push notifications, Sign in with Apple and TestFlight invitations, as needed to run the service, or if the law requires it.

Your rights

You can delete your account yourself at any time: open the Profile tab in the app, tap Delete account at the bottom, and confirm. For anything else — to see the data we hold about you, export it, correct it, or object to a use of it — use the contact form and we’ll confirm when it’s done. If you’re in the EU/EEA or UK, these are your GDPR rights and we honor them for everyone, everywhere.

Retention and deletion

We keep your data while your account exists. Deleting a place in the app archives it so you can restore it.

Deleting your account (Profile tab → Delete account) permanently removes, right away:

• your account and profile, your password or sign-in identifiers, and your profile photo;
• your places and everything you added to them — notes, favorites, bookings — your record of the links you shared, and the records of imports that failed. The public post behind a link stays in our shared catalog without any tie to you, and its images are deleted as described below;
• your push-notification tokens.

If you signed in with Apple, we also ask Apple to disconnect Pinway from your Apple ID. Two things are handled differently so other people don’t lose their work: a place you added to a list someone else can still see stays in that list, but without your name, notes, favorite or booking; and a shared list you own is handed to another member (the longest-standing editor, or if there is none, the longest-standing viewer) instead of being deleted. A list nobody else is in is deleted. Records of our operating costs are kept with your account removed from them; they can still contain the words of place searches you ran, but nothing that names you. Our record of emails we sent you is kept with your address removed.

Some things expire on their own: password-reset codes after 15 minutes and contact-form messages after 180 days. Invitations stop working after 30 days; the invitation record, with the address it was sent to, is kept until the list or either account is deleted. Images from a shared post are deleted 30 days after the last account that shared it is deleted.

Pinway is in beta. If we ever have to reset data during the beta, we’ll tell you first.

Children

Pinway isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we’ll update the date above and let you know. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: use the contact form and we’ll get back to you.