Privacy policy

Orbit lets you save places, organize them into lists, and choose exactly who sees each one. This page covers orbitplaces.com and the Orbit app for iPhone, and explains what we collect, why, and the control you have over it.

What we collect

• Your account. Your email address. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google. If you sign in with Apple, we receive your name and email address (or a private relay address, if you choose to hide yours).
• Your profile. Your handle, name, bio, home city and country, and links, if you add them.
• Your places. The places you save or import: names, coordinates, addresses, the lists they belong to, and the notes, labels and tips you add.
• Your photos. Photos you add to your places, to a trip’s shared album, or as your profile picture. Each photo is redrawn on your device before upload, which removes its location and camera data. For a place’s photos we keep the month it was taken, which others see two weeks later; for trip photos, the day.
• Your trips. The trips you make or join: their dates, the places and notes each person adds, votes, and who’s in them.
• Your connections. Who you follow, who follows you, who is in your Inner Orbit, and who you’ve blocked.
• Reports. When you report something, we keep your report and a copy of what you reported, even if it’s later deleted, so we can act on it. The person you report isn’t told who reported them.

Your location

The app uses your location only if you’ve allowed it: to show places near you first when you search, and when you drop a pin where you are. It sends that point, with what you typed, to Photon (below) to look up places. We don’t track your location or keep it; only the places you choose to save are kept.

Importing from Google Maps

When you import a Google Takeout file, your browser reads the file on your device. The file itself is not uploaded. We save only the places you choose to import, and we send their coordinates to our own server to look up the country and city.

When you paste the link to a shared Google Maps list, Orbit reads that list from Google: its name, whose it is, and its places with their addresses and notes. In the app your phone reads it; on the site our server does. We save only the places you choose to import, each with its Google Maps link.

If you keep an imported list in sync, the app reads the Google list again when you open it and once a day when you open the app; on the site, our server reads it when you open the list (at most once an hour) or choose Sync now. New places are added to your list; places the list’s owner removes come off it, and any that only came from that list and that you never added a note, photo or visit to are deleted from your Orbit. You can turn this off for any list.

Saving from TikTok and Instagram

When you paste a TikTok or Instagram link into Add, your phone opens that post the way a browser would and reads its caption, who posted it, its cover image and, on TikTok, its location tag. To find the places it names, the caption and location tag are sent to Groq (see AI features below), and each place is looked up with Google Maps search from your phone. On the site, our server opens the post once, and places are looked up with our map search. We save only the places you choose, with a note saying who posted them. We don’t store the post itself.

Google user data

We use the name, email address and profile picture Google shares only to sign you in and to prefill your profile. We don’t use it for advertising, we don’t sell it, and we don’t share it with anyone except the services listed below that run Orbit.

AI features

When you use Sorting Center, split a note in Notes, or save from a TikTok or Instagram post, we send the place’s name, city, neighborhood and nearby map details (or the words of your note, or the post’s caption and location tag) to Groq, which runs the AI model. Orbit asks before the first time, and you can change your answer in Settings › Privacy. Groq doesn’t receive your name, email or account, and we don’t use your data to train models.

Who can see your places

You choose who can see each list: everyone, your followers, your Inner Orbit, anyone with the link, or only you. A place is seen by whoever can see a list or guide it’s in, and you can make any place more private than its lists. Places you add and lists you import start as only you. New accounts start private: only followers you approve see what you share. Your profile’s name, handle, photo, bio, home city, links and counts (places, countries, followers, following) are visible to anyone, even on a private account. “Show you in Search” and “Show your followers and following” start off, and “Let followers ask to join your Inner Orbit” starts on. Follower lists are only shown to people signed in to Orbit (on a private account, only to your followers); change any of these in Settings › Privacy. Anything you make public can be seen by anyone, may appear in search engines, and can be shared as a link or image. Once someone saves a copy of a list you shared, we can’t take that copy back. Everything in a trip, its places, notes and album, is seen only by the people who have joined it.

How the app is used

The app records what you do in it, such as saving a place, importing a list, starting a trip or sharing a link, and which screens you open, so we can see which parts of Orbit are used and where people get stuck. Each record carries your account’s ID and a few details, like how many places were imported or which sharing a list has. It never includes your name, email, notes, place names, what you search for or what’s on your screen, and we don’t use your IP address to find where you are. We delete it when you delete your account (within a week). The app doesn’t record this at all for people in the EU, the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, or when your phone has no region set, and the website doesn’t record it for anyone.

Services we use

• Supabase stores your account and places.
• Vercel hosts the site.
• MapTiler serves the map on the site. Your browser requests map images for the area you’re viewing. In the app, maps come from Apple Maps.
• Photon (by Komoot) finds places when you search or drop a pin, and OpenStreetMap services (Overpass) look up neighborhoods and nearby details. They receive the search text or the point on the map, not who you are.
• PostHog receives the app activity described in How the app is used, with your account’s ID.
• Sentry receives a report when the app crashes or hits an error: what went wrong, where in the app, and the phone model, iOS version and app version. It doesn’t include your name, email, account, what you’ve searched for, or your IP address.
• Groq runs the AI features described above.
• Google and Apple handle sign-in, if you choose them.
• Google Maps, TikTok and Instagram are read when you paste one of their links, and Google Maps search finds places from those posts. They see a request from your phone, like any visit to their pages, not your Orbit account.
• Resend sends sign-in emails.

We don’t sell your data, show ads, or use advertising trackers. We use cookies only to keep you signed in. Your browser also keeps a few things on your device for the site to work smoothly, like the email you last asked for a sign-in link with; none of it is used to track you.

Keeping and deleting your data

We keep your data while your account exists. To get a copy of your data, use Download your data in Settings, in the app or on the site. To delete your account and everything in it, use Delete account in Settings, on the site or in the app; it happens right away. Reports other people made about your content are kept so we can keep Orbit safe. If you can’t sign in, email support@orbitplaces.com and we’ll do it within 30 days.

Children

Orbit isn’t for children under 13, or under 16 in the European Economic Area and the UK.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we’ll update the date above and tell signed-in users.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@orbitplaces.com.

Orbit Places is operated by Tape LLC, a New York limited liability company.