Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Mara (withmara.app) is responsible for the personal information it handles. Our Privacy Officer, the person in charge of the protection of personal information under Quebec's Law 25, can be reached at [email protected]. That address is also where to send any question or request described in this policy.

2. What We Collect

• Account: your name, email address, hashed password, and optional profile photo. If you sign in with Google, Facebook, or Apple, we store the sign-in tokens that provider issues.
• Trackers & trips: the destinations, dates, traveler counts, and budget thresholds you set, plus the names and notes you give them, and the places you add to a trip itinerary. If you tap Locate me on a trip map, your approximate location is used to centre the map and is never stored.
• Journal: the stamps you make (a place name, dates, the memory you write, and its illustration), what you write for each Day, where you say you were each Day, and the photos and videos you add, with their captions. Before we store a photo we re-encode it, which removes its embedded metadata; we keep the date and time it was taken, to place it on the right Day. Where a photo or video was taken is kept only if you choose it for that stamp: your device then reads the location saved in the file before uploading and sends us only that point, rounded to about 100 metres. If you don't, the location never leaves your device, and our servers never read one from your files. A video is re-encoded the same way, on our servers: we keep our own copy (at most 720p, with its sound), the date and time it was shot and, if you chose it, that rounded point, and we delete the file you uploaded once that copy is made, or within a day if it can't be. You can also place a photo on its stamp's map yourself, and remove one photo's place, or every place read from your photos, at any time. Photos and videos are stored privately: you see them, and so does anyone who opens a share link you create. If you make a trip reel, we make a video from your stamp's photos, videos and words on our servers and keep it until you make another or delete the stamp. Deleting a photo or video it shows deletes the reel too. A reel is only ever yours to download: it is never shared, and nothing in it is sent to Google, an AI provider or anyone else. To put a stamp on your Journal map, or a Day on a stamp's map, we look up the place name you type in our own list of the world's places, on our servers, and keep the spot it matches; nothing is sent to Google or any other map service to do it. Once a stamp's map has loaded, the box for a Day's place also suggests places from Google as you type, as a trip itinerary does, so what you type there goes to Google. If you pick one of its suggestions, we keep its name, its spot and Google's ID for it, and when a share link shows that spot we look it up again from Google at least every 30 days. If you place a stamp on the map yourself, we keep that spot with the stamp, to about a kilometre.
• Ask Mara: your chat messages and conversation history. If you use voice input, the short audio clip you record is sent for transcription and then discarded; only the text stays in your chat. In hands-free voice mode, your microphone stays open only while the voice screen is open; your device detects when you speak, and each phrase is sent as a short clip for transcription and then discarded the same way. Voice mode can also show a live caption while you speak using your browser's built-in speech recognition (Chrome and Safari); depending on your browser, that may send audio to the browser vendor (for example, Google) under its own privacy policy. The caption is cosmetic: Mara only acts on the transcript from our transcription provider.
• Calendar (optional): if you connect Google Calendar, we store the connection's access tokens (encrypted) and only your free/busy times (never event names, details, locations, or guests), and use them solely to fit travel-date suggestions around your schedule. This use of Google user data complies with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. Disconnecting (in Settings) deletes the stored times and tokens immediately, and deleting your account removes them with it. See Google User Data below for the full detail.
• Security metadata: when you sign in we record your IP address (IPv6 addresses are truncated to their network prefix) and browser user-agent string, both visible to you in your session settings. Short-lived abuse-prevention records are keyed by IP.
• Support requests: your name, email, account ID, and message, delivered to our support mailbox.
• Payment method (optional): if you save one, we store the cardholder name, card brand, last four digits, and expiry date, never the full card number. No payment processor is integrated yet; one will be named in this policy before paid billing launches.
• Demo: trying Ask Mara without an account creates a temporary anonymous identity with the same security metadata, protected by a Cloudflare bot check.

3. How We Use It

We collect publicly available pricing data from third-party travel providers for the searches you set up, and we use your information to:

• Run your trackers and send price alerts by email and in-app notification
• Power Ask Mara, a chat assistant that answers questions grounded in your own tracked price data, including voice transcription and read-aloud audio if you use them
• Keep your Journal: store your stamps, photos and videos, place your stamps on your Journal map, and draw a stamp's illustration when you ask Mara to
• Keep accounts secure and prevent abuse
• Send transactional email such as password resets
• Improve the service and communicate service updates and changes

We also derive anonymous market statistics (typical package prices by destination and month) from tracked prices across users. They are blurred to the month, rounded to the nearest $25, suppressed when too few users contribute, and never identify you or your searches.

5. Where Your Data Goes

Some of these providers process personal information in the United States and other countries. While your information is outside Canada, it is subject to the laws of those countries and may be accessible to their courts, law enforcement, and national-security authorities. We use contractual safeguards with every provider, but no safeguard overrides foreign law.

7. Share Links

If you create a share link, what it shows becomes visible to anyone who has the URL. Share links are excluded from search-engine indexing and do not expire; you can revoke one at any time from the app, which makes the URL stop working.

When you share a trip, the link shows the itinerary and its Stops only (never notes, costs, or reservations); its map, and a cover photo of where you stay, load from Google Maps under Google's Privacy Policy only when the viewer's cookie choices allow maps or they click Show map. Turning the link's travel dates off, or revoking it, takes effect on the next visit.

When you share a stamp, the link shows the stamp, what you wrote, your photos and videos (with their sound) and their captions, and your first name; never your Trip's plan, the exact time a photo was taken, or your account details. Your Journal map and where your stamps sit on it are never shared. A photo on a Day with a date shows that date. The page stays current: what you add to the stamp later appears there too. Revoking the link stops the page and its photos at once.

A shared stamp also shows its map unless you turn that off in its share settings: each Day's place and roughly where its photos and videos were taken, rounded to about a kilometre. Never for photos kept with the whole trip, and never places from your Trip's plan. That map loads from Google Maps only when the viewer's cookie choices allow maps or they click Show map.

8. How Long We Keep Things

Deleted data may also persist in encrypted backups for up to 30 days after deletion; such backups are excluded from any restore. If a shared page is reported, or the law requires us to preserve content, we may keep the Journal photos, videos and drawings of the account involved past these periods until the matter is resolved. If you sign up during a demo, the demo conversation and any draft trip plan move to your new account instead of being deleted.

9. Your Rights & Choices

You can access, update, or delete your personal data from your account settings, including deleting your account entirely. You can also email us for a full export of your data (Quebec residents may ask for computerized personal information in a structured, commonly used technological format) or for help with any request you cannot complete from settings. Cookie consent can be withdrawn at any time from the preference centre, and every price-alert email has an unsubscribe link (we do not send marketing email). If you are unhappy with our answer to a privacy request, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.

10. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures including encrypted connections (TLS), hashed passwords, and secure session management to protect your data.

11. Children

Mara is not directed to children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children; if we learn that we have, we will delete it.

13. Changes & Contact

Material changes to this policy will be announced by email or in-app notification before they take effect, and the date above will be updated. For privacy questions or requests, contact our Privacy Officer at [email protected].