Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Pulse is operated by John Park, doing business as Pulse. You can contact us about privacy, safety, support, or account requests at pulse-support@pulsegroups.app.

Information We Collect

Depending on how you use Pulse, we collect:

• Account and authentication data, including your phone number through Firebase authentication.
• Profile data, including name, username, bio, neighborhood, gender, date of birth, photos, tags, training status, social links, and profile songs.
• Activity data, including activity title, sport, description, date and time, host, participant list, RSVP history, invite/share links, route details, and meetup coordinates.
• Content you provide, including photos, videos, messages, reports, support emails, and community interactions.
• Contact information you choose to share for friend discovery. If you use Find Friends, phone numbers from your device's contacts are sent to us solely to check whether they match existing Pulse accounts. We do not store your contacts, we do not build profiles of people who are not Pulse users, and we do not use this information for any other purpose.
• Device and notification data, including push tokens, platform, app settings, and notification preferences.
• Location-related data, including foreground device location used for nearby activity filters and locations you choose for activities.
• Integration data from services you connect, including Strava routes, workouts, athlete ID, encrypted access tokens, and Spotify catalog selections.
• Race results you enter or import from public results providers such as Athlinks and UltraSignup, including event, date, distance, and finish time.
• Usage, diagnostics, and security data, including server logs, crash reports, request metadata, and anti-abuse signals.

How We Use Information

We use information to operate Pulse, including to:

• Create accounts, authenticate users, and prevent fraud or abuse.
• Show profiles, activities, RSVPs, messages, notifications, and share links.
• Help users discover nearby activities and open map directions.
• Match contacts you choose to share against existing accounts so you can find people you already know, and let you invite people who are not yet on Pulse.
• Process reports, enforce our Terms and Community Guidelines, and respond to safety issues.
• Maintain, debug, secure, and improve the app and web service.
• Provide customer support and respond to legal or privacy requests.

How We Share Information

We do not sell personal information. We share information with service providers that help us run Pulse, with other users as needed for the product, and when required for safety, legal compliance, or a business transfer.

Current service providers and integrations may include Firebase, Cloudinary, Mapbox, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Railway, Neon, Sentry, Expo push notifications, Strava, Spotify, Apple, Google, and race-result providers such as Athlinks and UltraSignup.

Cookies and Local Storage

The Pulse website uses browser storage for essential functionality only: when you sign in on the web, Firebase keeps your login session in local storage so you stay signed in. We do not use advertising cookies or third-party analytics trackers.

Public and Shared Content

Profile information, activity details, photos, activity chats, direct messages, RSVPs, and share-link previews may be visible to other users depending on the feature, your settings, and the activity audience. Non-public activity share pages use a reduced preview for logged-out viewers and withhold exact time, location, description, and participant identities until an authorized RSVP.

Retention and Deletion

We keep your information while your account is active and as needed to run the service. Server logs, diagnostics, and backups age out on a rolling basis.

Contacts you share for friend discovery are not retained at all. They are checked for matches and discarded as part of the same request, so we hold no record of your address book and no record of people in it who are not Pulse users.

You can delete your account in the app. Deletion removes or scrubs your profile, photos and videos, devices, notification preferences, blocks, connected-service data, and the identifier used for phone-number discovery, and deletes your sign-in record so your phone number can be used again.

Some historical activity and message context may remain for other participants, but the deleted account is anonymized as "Deleted user". Media and account cleanup with our providers can take a short time to fully complete.

Your Choices and Rights

You can edit profile fields, disconnect Strava, change notification settings, block users, leave activities, delete messages where the app permits it, and delete your account. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to request access, deletion, correction, limitation, or information about how your personal information is used. Contact pulse-support@pulsegroups.app to make a request.

Contact matching only runs when you start it, and being findable by phone number is off unless you turn it on in your privacy settings, and you can turn it back off at any time. You can also revoke Pulse's access to your contacts in your device settings.

Children

Pulse is not directed to children and is not available to anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has created an account, contact pulse-support@pulsegroups.app so we can review and remove the account where appropriate.

Security

Pulse uses technical and organizational safeguards such as HTTPS, authentication, rate limits, encrypted third-party tokens, provider access controls, and server monitoring. Where phone numbers are used for friend discovery, we store only a one-way keyed fingerprint of the number rather than the number itself. No system is perfectly secure, so please report suspected security issues to pulse-support@pulsegroups.app.

Where Data Is Processed

Pulse is operated from the United States, and your information is processed and stored on servers located there.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as Pulse changes. We will post updates here with a new "Last updated" date and, for material changes, notify you in the app.