Privacy statement

Version 1 · Roamsters · info@roamsters.nl

Your trips, your location and your photos are personal. This explains exactly what Roamsters does with them, why, who they are shared with and how long we keep them. In short: we sell nothing, show no ads and do not track you across other websites.

1. Who is responsible

Roamsters is the controller for the website (roamsters.nl, roamsters.com) and the app. Privacy questions: info@roamsters.nl.

2. What data we process

• Account: name, email address, password (stored only in hashed form), language, subscription, and, if you turn it on, your two-step verification key.
• Profile: @handle, bio, profile photo, who you follow and who follows you, blocks.
• Trips: titles, texts, stops with place and time, tips, co-travellers.
• Photos and videos: the file, and for photos the original with your camera's metadata (such as GPS and capture time). Others only see a version without metadata; only you see the original. For videos we only keep a converted version without metadata.
• Route (app): if you turn on "track route" in the app, GPS points (place, time, accuracy). This only happens for the trip you choose and stops when you turn it off; a permanent notification on your phone shows it is on.
• Messages and groups: private messages and group chats (text and photos), who is a member, and when you read them. The people you chat with see on their latest message whether you've read it; you can turn this off in your profile settings (then you won't see it for them either). While you type, they get a "typing…" signal; we don't store it.
• Comments, likes and notifications you post or receive.
• Reports and moderation: what you report, what is reported about your content, and the decisions on it.
• Payments: subscription, amount, country (for VAT), name and email on the invoice, the status at Mollie. We never receive your bank or card details; Mollie processes those. For a printed travel book also the delivery address and the print files.
• Travel documents: tickets, bookings or a passport copy you keep with a trip are stored encrypted. Only you see them, unless you share a document with your co-travellers. They are deleted when you delete them, with the trip or with your account.
• Lists: packing lists and checklists are only visible to you and your co-travellers.
• Budget, voice memos: expenses you track for a trip (who paid, how much, the split) are only visible to you and your co-travellers; if you delete your account they remain for your co-travellers without a link to you, so their balances stay correct. Voice memos are stored without metadata and are as visible as the trip.
• Live link: if a traveller shares a live link, people at home can leave their email address without an account to get an email on "arrived safely" (only after confirming). We use that address for nothing else; it is deleted when they unsubscribe, when the traveller removes it or revokes the link, and with the trip. "Arrived safely" check-ins (time, place, message) belong to the trip.
• Technical: IP address and browser in our log files and error reports, a device token for push notifications (app), and functional cookies: login, language, appearance (light or dark, if you choose one), protection against forged forms. No tracking or advertising cookies.

3. Purposes and legal bases

• Providing the service (contract): your travel journal, sharing with whoever you choose, messages, groups, subscriptions. This includes "on this day" memories (a notification and an email on days you were travelling before); you can turn the email off in your profile settings or with the link in the email.
• Security and preventing abuse (legitimate interest): bot checks at sign-up, login protection, error reports, checking and moderating content, stopping abuse.
• Legal obligations: keeping invoices and payments for 7 years (tax law), reports and decisions under the Digital Services Act, and complying with valid orders from authorities.
• Your choice: your phone asks separately for location in the app and for push notifications; you can turn them off at any time. You decide per trip what is public.

4. Automated checks of photos and videos

New photos, videos and photos in messages are checked automatically for nudity or sexual content, using an image recognition model that runs on our own server (images are not sent to an external service). Until the check is done, only you can see them. If the model flags something, we hide it and a person reviews it; you are notified and can appeal. We do not build advertising profiles.

5. Your location and your home

With privacy zones (Settings) you shield places such as your home. Stops and routes inside a zone are shifted for others to an area of about 11 km and shown without a place name; this happens on our server, so the real coordinates never leave it. Your zones also apply to the route film, the travel book and any video you share.

6. Who we share data with

Only what is necessary, with parties that may not use it for anything else (data processing agreement):

• Our own servers in the Netherlands: website, database, storage of photos and videos, and the realtime service for messages (which only gets a "something new" signal, never the content).
• Brevo (EU): sending emails.
• Mollie (Netherlands): payments.
• Cloudflare: only during an attack on the website (DDoS) does traffic temporarily pass through Cloudflare to keep the site reachable. Cloudflare may process your IP address in the US (EU-US Data Privacy Framework).
• Skubber (our own service for instant notifications): makes new messages and notifications appear immediately. Skubber only receives a signal that something new is there, never the content.
• Peecho B.V. (Netherlands, support@peecho.com): only when you order a printed travel book. They receive the print files (inside pages and cover), your name, delivery address and email address, and pass the order on to the print shop that makes and ships the book.
• Maps and place names: your browser loads map images from the map service (which sees your IP address and the map area). We look up place names using only the coordinates, not who you are.
• Translation (when you tap 🌐): the text you want translated goes to the translation service (DeepL in the EU, or our own translation server). We keep translations for 30 days.
• Authorities: only on a valid legal order, after our own review and no more than requested. If we suspect child sexual abuse, we report it to Offlimits (the Dutch hotline) and, where needed, the police, and preserve the data as evidence.
• Other users: what you share yourself, according to the visibility you choose.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account, trips, photos and messages: until you delete them or your account. We then delete the files immediately and the data from the database; they disappear from backups within 30 days.
• Invoices, credit notes and payments: 7 years (legal requirement), separate from your account.
• Reports and moderation decisions: kept for accountability and the transparency report, without your name once your account is gone.
• Log files: 30 days. Translations: 30 days.
• If a legal preservation obligation applies (an order from an authority, or evidence of a criminal offence), deletion is postponed until it ends.

8. Security

Connections are encrypted (https), passwords are hashed, two-step verification is available (and mandatory for staff), photos and videos are only reachable through temporary signed links after we checked your access, and evidence for authorities is stored encrypted. Staff only see what they need for their task, and every action around requests from authorities is logged.

9. Your rights

You can access your data and export it for free (everything, including original photos and your route), correct it, delete it, object to processing or have it restricted. You delete your account yourself in Settings. For other requests: info@roamsters.nl; we respond within a month. If you disagree with how we handle your data, you can file a complaint with your data protection authority (in the Netherlands: the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

10. Age and changes

Roamsters is for people aged 16 and over. If this statement changes materially, we will let you know in advance.