Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 4, 2026

Introduction

Gather ("we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our mobile application.

Information We Collect

We collect information that you provide directly to us when you create an account, including your name, email address, and Apple ID. You may also optionally add a phone number to your profile so friends can find you (see Phone Number and Contacts below). We also collect information about your use of the app, including events you create, friendships you establish, and availability windows you set.

If you choose to connect a third-party calendar (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, or Apple Calendar), we collect the minimum calendar data necessary to determine your availability — specifically, calendar names and event start/end times with free/busy status. See the calendar sections below for full details.

Phone Number and Contacts

Adding a phone number is optional. If you add one, we store it with your account so that friends who already have your number in their contacts can find you on Gather, and so that invites sent to your number are connected to your account when you sign up. Your phone number is never displayed to other users — it is used only for matching. You can remove it at any time by clearing the phone field in your profile, which deletes it from our servers.

If you use the "Find Friends from Contacts" feature, the app asks for permission to access your device contacts and sends only the phone numbers from your address book (not names or any other contact details) to our servers. We compare those numbers against the phone numbers of Gather users who have chosen to add one, return any matches, and then discard them — we do not store your contacts' phone numbers or keep any copy of your address book.

If you choose to invite a specific contact who is not yet on Gather, we store the phone number of that contact alongside your invite so that, if they later join Gather with that number, the invite can be connected to their new account. The invitation message itself is sent from your own device as a text message — Gather never contacts your contacts directly. Pending invites you have created, including the invitee phone numbers they contain, are deleted when you delete your account.

You can revoke contacts access at any time in your iOS Settings under Privacy & Security → Contacts. Gather works fully without contacts access — you can always add friends with an invite link instead.

Location Information

With your permission, we may collect your device's location to provide location-based search results when creating events. This information is used only to improve search relevance and is not stored on our servers.

Push Notifications

With your consent, we send push notifications to keep you informed about event invitations, friend requests, and updates to your plans. You can manage your notification preferences in the app settings at any time.

How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

Google Calendar Integration

Gather offers an optional integration with Google Calendar. If you choose to connect your Google account, we request the following OAuth scopes for calendar availability:

Using these scopes, we read your calendar names and colors (so you can select which to include) and free/busy time intervals (to show your availability to friends). We do not read or store event titles, descriptions, locations, or attendees.

If you additionally enable the optional Google Calendar export feature, we also request:

When export is enabled, Gather writes your Gather event details — including title, date and time, location, notes, and the names of other attendees — into your "Gather" Google calendar. This data is written solely to keep your Google calendar in sync with your Gather events. We do not read events from your existing Google calendars beyond the free/busy data described above.

Our use of Google Calendar data is strictly limited to providing these calendar features. Specifically:

Our use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Outlook Calendar Integration

Gather offers an optional integration with Microsoft Outlook Calendar. If you choose to connect your Outlook account for calendar availability, we request the following OAuth scopes:

Using these scopes, we read your Microsoft account name and email address (to identify which account is connected), your calendar names and colors (so you can select which to include), and event start/end times and free/busy status (to show your availability). We do not read or store event titles, descriptions, locations, or attendees.

If you additionally enable the optional Outlook Calendar export feature, we request Calendars.ReadWrite instead of Calendars.Read. This allows Gather to create a dedicated secondary calendar named "Gather" in your Outlook account, and to create, update, and delete events within that calendar.

When export is enabled, Gather writes your Gather event details — including title, date and time, location, notes, and the names of other attendees — into your "Gather" Outlook calendar. This data is written solely to keep your Outlook calendar in sync with your Gather events.

Our use of Outlook Calendar data is strictly limited to providing these calendar features. Specifically:

Apple Calendar Integration

Gather offers an optional integration with Apple Calendar on your iOS device. This integration uses native iOS calendar permissions — no OAuth flow or third-party account connection is required.

If you grant calendar access, we read from your device:

If you enable the optional Apple Calendar export feature, Gather will create a dedicated calendar named "Gather" on your device and automatically sync your Gather events into it. Events written to this calendar include the event title, date and time, location, notes, and the names of other attendees. This sync runs automatically in the background whenever your events change. You can disable export at any time from the calendar settings screen, which will delete the "Gather" calendar and all its events from your device.

You can revoke Apple Calendar access entirely at any time in your iOS Settings under Privacy & Security → Calendars.

Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We share your information only with other Gather users as part of the app's core functionality (e.g., your name and availability with friends you've connected with). Your phone number is never shown to other users — it is used only to match you with friends who already have your number. Calendar data imported from your connected calendars is used only to compute your free/busy availability — individual event details from your external calendars are never shared with other users.

If you enable calendar export, your Gather event details (title, time, location, notes, and attendee names) are written to your connected calendar account. This data is sent to Google or Microsoft solely on your behalf to populate your personal calendar — it is not shared with any other third party.

Data Retention and Deletion

We retain your information for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account at any time from the Profile screen, which will permanently remove all your data from our servers, including your phone number and any pending invites you have sent. Removing your phone number from your profile deletes it immediately. Disconnecting a calendar integration immediately deletes all cached calendar data and OAuth tokens associated with that connection.

Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information. Account creation and authentication is handled through Apple Sign In. Optional Google and Outlook calendar integrations use OAuth 2.0 — authorization codes are exchanged server-side and access tokens are stored securely in our database. All data is transmitted over encrypted connections.

Children's Privacy

Gather is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected information from a child under 13, we will delete that information promptly.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this policy.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@gather.app.