Privacy Policy

• You can browse all of Neighbourhood without an account.
• Most of what we learn about your taste stays on your own device.
• We do not sell personal information and we run no advertising or tracking SDKs.
• Precise location is used only while you are using a screen that needs it.
• You can export or delete your information from Privacy & Data at any time.

Neighbourhood is operated by Common Ground Tech Limited, a company incorporated in New Zealand. We are the agency responsible for the personal information described in this policy under the Privacy Act 2020.

• Registered address: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — registered address]
• Privacy Officer: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — Privacy Officer name]
• Privacy email: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — privacy email]

These details are shown as clearly labelled placeholders because they have not yet been supplied to us for publication. Until they are, please use the request form in Privacy & Data inside the app, which reaches us directly.

The lists below come from our internal data inventory, which records every field the application actually writes today. Where something is planned but not yet collected, it is not listed here.

Information you provide

Your profile details and anything you type into Neighbourhood.

• account id

  Identify the profile so saves, plans and bookings belong to the right person

  Required · Authentication service · Kept while the profile exists; erased on account deletion

• name

  Greet the person and show who they are inside shared plans

  Required · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• email

  Sign-in, password recovery and booking confirmations

  Required · On your device · Kept while the profile exists; erased on account deletion

Information generated through use of Neighbourhood

Signals created as you browse — the places you open, save, plan or book, and the preferences you set.

• interests

  Shape the first set of suggestions

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• cuisine preferences

  Explainable personalisation of recommendations

  Optional · On your device · Signals decay after 30 days; capped at 200 signals

• occasion preferences

  Match occasions (date night, whānau, celebration) to venues

  Optional · On your device · Signals decay after 30 days

• atmosphere preferences

  Match atmosphere (quiet, lively, cosy) to venues

  Optional · On your device · Signals decay after 30 days

• practical preferences

  Filter for practical fit — whānau, pets, accessibility questions asked openly

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• saved venues

  Keep a personal shortlist

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• searches

  Return results for the current query

  Optional · Not stored · Not retained — queries are handled in the session and discarded

• venue views

  Understand taste so recommendations can be explained

  Optional · On your device · Signal log capped at 200 entries, decays after 30 days

• recommendation interactions

  Improve the ordering of suggestions for that person

  Optional · On your device · Signals decay after 30 days

• booking referrals

  Send the person to the venue to complete the booking

  Optional · On your device · Local booking list only; no referral log kept

• rewards activity

  Run the rewards balance

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• notification preferences

  Only send what they asked for

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• support communications

  Answer the question and evidence the response

  Optional · Neighbourhood database · Two years from resolution

Location information

• selected city

  Show the right market's venues, events and transport

  Required · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• selected neighbourhood

  Order suggestions by walking distance from where they usually are

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• approximate location

  Distance and transport estimates without needing device location

  Optional · On your device · Held on the device until the person clears it or deletes their profile; no server copy.

• precise location

  Order 'near me' results and live departures for the closest stops

  Optional · Not stored · Used for the current session only. Coordinates are never written to the database.

Technical and device information

• device information

  Render the right layout and keep the service secure

  Required · Not stored · Not retained by Neighbourhood beyond the hosting request log

• diagnostic information

  Find and fix faults

  Required · Not stored · Kept only as long as needed to diagnose the fault

Information received from third parties

If you sign in with a third-party identity provider, we receive the email address and name from that account. We also receive place, imagery and transport data from the open sources listed under Publicly available information. We do not buy personal information, and we do not receive advertising or attribution data from anyone.

Business account information

When someone claims a venue on behalf of a business, we collect the details needed to verify that claim and to record who confirmed each fact or image right.

• business account information

  Verify who may edit a venue and record confirmed facts

  Required · Neighbourhood database · Kept while the claim stands; rights confirmations kept as an audit record

Publicly sourced information

Venue listings are built from public sources. See Publicly available information below.

• To provide Neighbourhood and show the right city, venues and opening hours.
• To create and manage your profile, and to keep you signed in.
• To support local discovery, search and map browsing.
• To personalise and explain recommendations, when you have personalisation turned on.
• To remember your saved places and shared plans.
• To let you request a table inside Neighbourhood and to track your rewards points.
• To send only the communications you have switched on.
• To keep the service secure and to diagnose faults.
• To improve the product by reviewing how features perform overall.
• To meet legal obligations, including our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020.

We do not currently run an analytics SDK, and no subscription or payment processing is connected, so we hold no analytics profiles and no billing or card information. If that changes, this policy and the data inventory will be updated first.

Location is never taken silently. You choose one of three modes in Privacy & Data: off, suburb only, or precise while using the app.

• Off — you pick a city and browse. No location is read from your device.
• Suburb only — we use the approximate suburb you select. This is stored on your device.
• Precise while using — after your browser or device permission prompt, we read your coordinates for the screen you are on: distance and walking time, nearby results, and closest transport stops.

Precise coordinates are held in memory for that session and are not written to our database, so we do not build a location history. Your chosen city and suburb are saved on your device so you do not have to pick them again. Before a weather lookup, coordinates are rounded so the request does not identify a street address.

You can change or switch off location at any time in Privacy & Data, and separately in your browser or device settings. Neighbourhood remains fully usable with location off.

When personalisation is on, Neighbourhood orders and explains suggestions using signals such as the interests you chose, the places you save, what you search for, the venues you open, and how you respond to earlier recommendations.

These signals are stored on your device, decay after 30 days and are capped at the 200 most recent. We only use what you have actually done in the app — we do not infer sensitive characteristics, and we do not claim to know facts about you that you have not given us or shown us through use.

You can switch personalisation off, stop new signals being recorded, or clear the signals entirely in Privacy & Data. With personalisation off, results are ordered by openness, distance and editorial merit only.

We use a small number of service providers, and only as processors acting on our instructions. We do not sell personal information. The list below is the register of providers the application actually uses today.

• Application backend and authentication (Lovable Cloud / Postgres)

  Store the venue register, business claims, privacy events and privacy requests

  Information sent: account id, business account information, privacy events, privacy requests, venue and rights records

• Open-Meteo

  Weather forecast used in the greeting and weather-aware suggestions

  Information sent: coarse latitude and longitude of the selected city or rounded device location

• OpenStreetMap / Nominatim

  Discover venues and reverse-geocode addresses during ingestion

  Information sent: venue coordinates and search terms from back-office jobs only

• Wikimedia Commons

  Openly licensed venue imagery

  Information sent: venue name and suburb search terms from back-office jobs only

• Lovable AI Gateway

  Generate the plain-language sentences that explain a recommendation

  Information sent: venue facts, the current context sentence (time, weather, chosen mood), inferred preference labels

• Error reporting (development platform)

  Report runtime faults so they can be fixed

  Information sent: error message, stack trace, route path, browser user agent

Not connected today, and therefore receiving nothing: Metlink (Greater Wellington Regional Council); Auckland Transport; Google Places; Google Sign-In. There is no analytics provider, no payment processor, no advertising network and no third-party booking provider connected. If you download the app from the App Store, Apple handles that distribution under its own privacy policy; we receive no personal information from Apple beyond what any developer receives.

Signed data-processing terms for each provider: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — processor agreements on file].

Booking requests are completed inside Neighbourhood. When you request a table, the details — the venue, time and party size — are recorded against your own profile on your device so you can see and manage them.

Neighbourhood is not currently connected to any external reservation platform, so we do not hand your details to a third-party booking provider, and there is no booking attribution or conversion tracking of any kind. If we later add an external provider, we will name it here and explain exactly what is sent before that feature goes live.

Neighbourhood runs on managed cloud infrastructure, and the application database, authentication service, hosting, error reporting and AI text generation are provided by overseas providers. This means personal information may be stored on, or accessed from, servers outside New Zealand.

Where an overseas provider holds information as our processor and only acts on our instructions, the Privacy Act 2020 treats that as our own holding rather than a disclosure. Where information is genuinely disclosed to an overseas agency, we will only do so where IPP12 allows it — in practice, where the recipient is required to protect the information with safeguards comparable to those in the Privacy Act.

Confirmed hosting and database regions for each provider: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — confirmed hosting regions]. We will name the countries in this section once those regions are confirmed in writing.

Neighbourhood is a register of places, so much of our venue content comes from public sources rather than from the person or business it relates to (IPP3A). Being publicly available does not make information exempt from the Privacy Act, so we record where every value came from, how confident we are in it, and when it was last checked.

• Venue and operator details

  Source: OpenStreetMap, the NZ Business Register, official venue websites

  Public business information only. Field-level provenance, confidence and review status are recorded for every value.

• Venue imagery

  Source: Wikimedia Commons, business uploads, recorded permissions

  No image is displayed without a recorded rights basis. Photographer credit is retained where the licence requires it.

• Operator contact details on a listing

  Source: Published business contact information

  Used only to reach the business about its listing. Operators can correct or ask for removal at any time.

Most of this concerns a business, not a person. Where a value identifies an individual — a sole trader's name, a personal phone number used as a venue contact, or a photographer credit — we treat it as personal information and assess it under IPP3A before it is published, including whether it is reasonable to collect it without telling that person first. If a listing includes information about you as an individual, ask us and we will correct or remove it.

We keep personal information only for as long as it is reasonably required for the purposes set out in this policy, or for as long as a legal obligation requires. Retention periods are configured in our data inventory rather than written into prose, so what the app does and what this policy says stay aligned.

• Anything held on your device (profile basics, saves, plans, preferences)

  No fixed period — kept only while the purpose lasts. Deleted when you clear it, delete your profile, or clear browser storage.

  Why: Only needed while you are using Neighbourhood on that device

• Taste signals used for personalisation

  30 days, capped at the 200 most recent signals. Older signals are discarded automatically.

  Why: Recent behaviour is all that is useful for recommendations

• Account and authentication records

  No fixed period — kept only while the purpose lasts. Removed when the account is deleted.

  Why: Needed to give you access to your own account

• Privacy events and privacy requests

  2 years from resolution. Deleted after the period ends.

  Why: Evidence that we handled the request properly · pending operator sign-off

• Business claims, verification and image rights confirmations

  No fixed period — kept only while the purpose lasts. Kept while the listing stands, then archived as an audit record.

  Why: Shows we had a lawful basis to publish a listing or an image · pending operator sign-off

• Error reports and hosting request logs

  Short-term only. Held by the hosting and error-reporting providers under their own schedules.

  Why: Fault diagnosis and service security · pending operator sign-off

Sign-off on these periods: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — retention sign-off].

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect personal information. Access to our database is controlled by row-level security, so a signed-in person can only reach their own records. Consumer information is kept separate from public venue information, privileged operations run server-side only, and administrative functions are restricted to named roles held in a separate roles table. Traffic to and from the app uses HTTPS.

No system can be guaranteed completely secure, and we do not promise that. If something goes wrong, we would rather tell you than pretend otherwise.

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you (IPP6) and ask us to correct it (IPP7). There is no charge for a routine request.

The quickest route is Privacy & Data in the app: it gives you an immediate export of everything held for you, and a request form for access, correction or a complaint. You can also write to us at the address in Contact. We aim to respond within 20 working days, which is the statutory maximum.

You can delete your Neighbourhood account yourself: Privacy & Data → Delete Account. No email, phone call or explanation is required.

Deletion removes your profile, saved places, plans, preferences, taste signals and rewards balance from your device, and removes or de-identifies the records held for you in our database.

We keep only what we are reasonably or legally required to keep: a record that a deletion request was made and actioned, records of privacy requests for the period set out above, and — where a business claim was made — the audit trail showing who confirmed a venue fact or an image right, since a published listing must remain accountable. Those records are not used to re-identify you or to rebuild a profile.

Everything is reversible, in one place, without having to ask us.

• Location: Privacy & Data → Location, or your browser or device settings.
• Notifications: Privacy & Data → Communications, each type separately, plus your device notification settings.
• Personalisation: Privacy & Data → Personalisation, including clearing signals.
• Your data: download a copy or clear it from this device at any time.

We keep an internal register of privacy incidents and assess each one. If a privacy breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the affected people as soon as practicable, as the Privacy Act 2020 requires. Not every security incident is a notifiable privacy breach, so we do not promise to notify you of every event — we promise to assess every one properly and to notify where the law requires it or where telling you is the right thing to do.

Owner of the breach assessment process: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — breach process owner].

Neighbourhood is intended for adults. Many listed venues are licensed premises, and accounts are not designed for or directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children and we do not build behavioural profiles of children.

Whether a venue suits whānau or tamariki is a fact about the venue, confirmed by the business or by verified evidence — it is never inferred from anything about you or your family. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.

We record a version, an effective date and a publication date for every release of this policy, shown at the top of this page. Minor clarifications are published with an updated date. If we make a material change — for example, collecting a new category of information, or connecting a new provider — we will tell you in the app before it takes effect and ask you to acknowledge the new version in Privacy & Data.

• Privacy Officer: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — Privacy Officer name]
• Common Ground Tech Limited, New Zealand
• Privacy email: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — privacy email]
• Postal address: [ADMIN ACTION REQUIRED — postal address]

Until those details are published, the request form in Privacy & Data reaches us and is the fastest way to be heard.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your privacy, you can raise it with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand at privacy.org.nz, or by phoning their enquiries line. You can complain to them whether or not you have come to us first, though we would like the chance to put it right.

See also our Terms of Use and Licences & Attributions.

This policy is complete and accurate about what the application does. The following organisational details must be supplied by Common Ground Tech Limited before it is published to the App Store or a public website.

• Registered company address

  IPP3 requires the collecting agency's address to be identified in the collection notice.

• Name of the Privacy Officer

  The Privacy Act 2020 requires every agency to appoint and identify a Privacy Officer.

• Monitored privacy email address

  Access and correction requests must reach a mailbox that is actually monitored.

• Postal address for privacy correspondence

  People must be able to make a request in writing.

• Confirmed hosting and database regions for each provider

  IPP12 disclosure wording depends on where information is actually held.

• Signed data-processing terms for each provider

  Overseas disclosure under IPP12 relies on comparable-safeguard assurances.

• Sign-off on the retention periods in the data inventory

  Retention must be no longer than reasonably required for the stated purpose.

• Named owner of the privacy breach assessment process

  Notifiable breaches must be assessed and reported without undue delay.