Privacy Notice
Last updated: October 12, 2026
This notice explains what personal data Wayfare collects when you use the website www.wayfare.online, Wayfare Web and the Wayfare app (together, "Wayfare"), why, who receives it, how long it is kept and what you can do about it. We have written it to describe what Wayfare actually does, not what it might do one day.
1. Who is responsible for your data
Wayfare is run by Alberto Tomasoni, Via Piave 2, 24040 Lallio (BG), Italy ("we", "us"). We are the data controller.
For anything about your data, write to privacy@wayfare.online. We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer; the address above reaches the person responsible.
2. The short version
We use your data to run Wayfare: your account, your profile, your trips, finding people going to the same place at the same time, chat requests and messages.
We do not sell your data, we do not show advertising and we do not use your data to profile you for advertising.
Other members see only what you put on your profile and your trips. You decide who can send you requests and which trips appear in searches.
Identity-check photos are seen by a person on our team and deleted as soon as the check is decided.
Analytics run only if you accept them in the cookie banner.
You can download your data and delete your account at any time from your settings.
3. What we collect
Data you give us
Account: email address, password (stored only as a one-way hash by our authentication provider; we never see it), date of birth (to confirm you are 18 or over), the language you use, and the date and version of the Terms and Privacy Notice you accepted.
Sign-in with Google: if you choose it, Google gives us your name, email address and profile picture.
Profile: what you choose to add, such as name, username, photos, bio, pronouns, languages, interests, home city, travel style and pace, dietary preferences, budget range, education, profile prompts, personality sliders and what you are looking for on a trip.
Trips: destinations, dates, notes, whether a trip appears in searches, itineraries and the shared expenses you record with other members.
Communications: chat requests, messages, ratings and reviews, reports, blocks, disputes and support tickets.
Identity check (optional): a selfie and photos of the front and back of an identity document.
Waitlist: your email address and language and, if you add them, your home city, the destination and month you have in mind and your interests.
Payments: if you buy a plan, the payment is handled by Stripe. We receive the plan, the billing period, the subscription status and a Stripe customer reference, never your full card number.
Some optional profile fields (for example pronouns or dietary preferences) can reveal sensitive information, such as your religion or gender identity. You do not have to fill them in. If you do, they are shown on your profile because you chose to show them, and you can remove them at any time.
Data collected automatically
Technical data: IP address, browser and device type, and the pages and features requested, in the logs of our hosting provider.
Security data: to stop abuse we count requests per IP address or account for a short time, and we keep a one-way hash (not the address itself) of the IP address used at sign-up and for referral and waitlist sign-ups.
Push notifications: if you turn them on, the address your browser gives us to deliver them.
Location: only when you ask for it (for example "who is coming to my city"). Your device's position is used to find the nearest city; we keep the city, not your coordinates.
Analytics, only with your consent: pages viewed, referring site, country and device type, through Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and does not follow you across other sites.
4. Why we use your data and on what legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Creating and running your account, profile, trips, matching, chat requests, messages and notifications | Performance of our contract with you (art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Showing compatible travellers and a compatibility score | Performance of the contract (art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Keeping Wayfare safe: confirming your email, age checks, rate limits, preventing fraud, spam and fake accounts, handling reports, blocks and disputes, moderating content | Our legitimate interest and yours in a safe service (art. 6(1)(f)); legal obligations, including the EU Digital Services Act (art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Identity check with selfie and document | Your consent, which you give by starting the check (art. 6(1)(a)); you can withdraw it until the check is decided |
| Optional sensitive profile fields | Your explicit consent, given by filling them in (art. 9(2)(a)); withdraw it by removing them |
| Paid plans, invoices and accounting | Contract (art. 6(1)(b)) and legal obligations under tax law (art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Service emails and push notifications | Contract (art. 6(1)(b)); push notifications only after you turn them on |
| Analytics | Your consent (art. 6(1)(a)), withdrawn at any time from "Cookie settings" |
| Waitlist | Your consent (art. 6(1)(a)), given when you join |
| Answering authorities and defending legal claims | Legal obligation (art. 6(1)(c)) and legitimate interest (art. 6(1)(f)) |
We do not sell personal data, we do not share it for advertising and we do not use it for advertising.
5. Automated decisions
Wayfare computes a compatibility score between travellers (destination, dates, interests, travel style and social preferences) and a trust score (for example, whether your email and identity are verified). They decide the order in which people appear and which badges are shown. They do not produce legal effects or similarly significant effects on you. Decisions on identity checks, reports and account restrictions are taken by a person.
6. Who receives your data
Other members: what you put on your profile, your trips that appear in searches, your ratings and the messages you send them. Someone you have blocked cannot see your profile. If you open someone's profile from one of their trips, a member on Atlas or Horizon can see that you did, for which trip and when (for 30 days); in discreet mode no trace is kept.
Our service providers, who process data only on our instructions:
Supabase: database, sign-in and file storage, in the European Union (Ireland).
Vercel: hosting of the website and the analytics described above; may process data in the United States and other countries.
Resend: delivery of our emails; United States.
Cloudflare: the anti-bot check (Turnstile) on the sign-up, waitlist and report forms; and, only if you have Horizon and tap "Translate", the translation of that message by an AI model, which does not use the text for training; United States and other countries.
Stripe: payments, for paid plans only; Stripe is also an independent controller for some payment data (see stripe.com/privacy).
Google: only if you sign in with Google.
OpenStreetMap Foundation: map tiles, loaded only when you open the map, which reveals your IP address to their servers.
GitHub: hosts an outline file of the world map that the globe loads; it sees your IP address.
Push services of your browser (for example Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft), only if you turn notifications on.
Apple and Google: when you download the app from their stores, under their own privacy policies.
Authorities: when the law requires it, or to protect someone's life or safety.
A buyer or successor of Wayfare, if the service is ever transferred, under this same notice.
7. Transfers outside the European Economic Area
Our database is in the European Union. Some providers listed above are based in, or may access data from, the United States or other countries. In those cases we rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, and otherwise on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and their UK and Swiss equivalents). You can ask us for a copy at privacy@wayfare.online.
8. How long we keep your data
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Account, profile, trips, messages you sent | Until you delete your account |
| Who viewed your trips | 30 days |
| Identity-check photos | Deleted as soon as the check is approved or rejected; we keep only the outcome, the date and who reviewed it |
| Reports, blocks and disputes | Until the account of the person concerned is deleted |
| Payment and accounting records | 10 years where Italian tax law requires it (paid plans only) |
| Rate-limit counters | A few minutes to a few hours |
| Server logs | A short period set by our hosting provider, normally a few days |
| Waitlist | Until 12 months after launch, unless you create an account or ask us to remove it earlier |
| Backups | Copies in our providers' backups are overwritten on their normal cycle, within 30 days |
When you delete your account we cancel any subscription that could still charge you, delete your photos and identity files, and delete your account and the data linked to it: profile, trips, messages you sent, ratings, reports and blocks. Your one-to-one conversations disappear for the other person too; in group chats, the other members' messages stay.
9. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
give you access to your data and a copy of it (also from Settings → Download my data);
correct inaccurate data (most of it you can edit yourself);
delete your data (Settings → Delete account);
restrict or object to processing based on legitimate interest, including the compatibility score;
send your data to you or to another service in a machine-readable format;
withdraw any consent you gave, without affecting what was done before.
Write to privacy@wayfare.online. We answer within one month (we may extend this by two months for complex requests, and we will tell you). We may ask you to confirm your identity first. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to a data protection authority: in Italy the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (garanteprivacy.it), or the authority where you live or work; in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
United States
If you live in a US state with a consumer privacy law (for example California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas or Oregon), you have the right to know what we collect, to access, correct and delete it, to get a portable copy, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal data, targeted advertising and significant profiling. We do not sell or share personal data and do not do targeted advertising; we treat a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser as an opt-out anyway. In the last 12 months we collected: identifiers (email, IP address), personal records (name), characteristics (date of birth), commercial information (plan purchased), internet activity (pages used on Wayfare), approximate geolocation (city), photos, and sensitive personal information (account login, identity documents if you choose the check, message contents). We use sensitive personal information only to provide the service and keep it safe. You will not be treated differently for exercising your rights. You may use an authorised agent. If we refuse a request, you can appeal by writing to privacy@wayfare.online and, if still unsatisfied, contact your state attorney general.
Other countries
If you live in Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, China or elsewhere, you have the rights your local law gives you (for example under PIPEDA, the LGPD, the Swiss FADP, the Australian Privacy Act, the APPI, PIPA, the DPDP Act or PIPL). Write to privacy@wayfare.online: that address is also our contact and grievance point for these laws.
10. Cookies and similar technologies
We use only what Wayfare needs to work, plus analytics if you accept them. Change your choice at any time with "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page.
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| sb-…-auth-token | Keeps you signed in (essential) | Until you sign out, up to 400 days; end of session if you untick "Remember this device" |
| wf-remember | Remembers whether to keep you signed in on this device (essential) | 400 days |
| NEXT_LOCALE | Remembers your language (essential) | 1 year |
| wf-cookie-consent | Remembers your cookie choice (essential) | 180 days |
| wf_consent, wf_birthdate | Carries your acceptance of the Terms and your date of birth through sign-up with Google (essential) | 10 minutes |
| Local storage: theme, dismissed install and notification prompts, guided tour seen | Remembers your display choices (essential) | Until you clear them |
| Vercel Web Analytics | Anonymous visit statistics, no cookies (only with consent) | Not stored on your device |
We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking pixels. When you open the map, tiles are loaded from OpenStreetMap; this sets no cookies of ours. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as a refusal of analytics.
11. Age
Wayfare is only for people aged 18 and over. We ask for your date of birth when you sign up and refuse anyone younger. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we delete it. If you think a minor is using Wayfare, write to support@wayfare.online.
12. Security
Connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are stored as hashes. Database rules make each record readable only by the people who should see it. Identity documents are kept in private storage that only the reviewing team can open. Access to production data is limited to the people who need it. No system is perfectly secure: if a breach puts your data at risk, we will notify the authority within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay when the law requires it.
13. Changes to this notice
When we change this notice in a way that matters, we update the date at the top and ask you to review it the next time you open Wayfare. Earlier versions are available on request.
14. Contact
Alberto Tomasoni, Via Piave 2, 24040 Lallio (BG), Italy
Privacy: privacy@wayfare.online
Everything else: support@wayfare.online