Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 6, 2026

Panoui! is built to respect your privacy. You can use most of the app without an account, and if you choose to create one, you stay in control of your data and can delete it at any time. This policy explains what we collect, why, and for how long. It reflects what the app actually does today, and it will be updated if that changes.

Using the app without an account

No sign-up is required to browse the map. Settings you set while signed out, like your permit zones, watched spots, parked car and chosen language, are stored only on your device. If you send a report or feedback without an account, see "Reports and feedback" below.

Accounts and how you sign in

Accounts are optional and add cross-device sync, saved spots and the community features. We use a sign-in service (better-auth) and you can sign in with an e-mail magic link or one-time code or an e-mail and password. On the web and on Android you can also sign in with Google. We store your e-mail address, a password only if you set one (hashed, never in plain text), and, if you use Google, the basic profile Google shares (your name and e-mail address). You also get a nickname you can change, and your language preference is stored on your account so it follows you between devices.

Your synced profile

If you're signed in, your profile is synced to our server so it follows you between devices. It contains: your vehicles (including licence plates and fuel type, gas or electric, only for the details you choose to fill in), your permit zones, your saved and watched spots, your recent search results (the last six places you picked from search), your parked-car location, an optional note and an optional photo (the photo is kept only for the current parking session and is discarded when the session ends), and your app settings. You choose what to put in here; you can leave plates, fuel type, notes and photos out.

Disabled-parking permit. If you tell the app that a vehicle carries a disabled-parking permit, the app counts reserved accessible spaces as places you can park. This setting stays on your device only; it is never sent to our server. If you use the app on another device, turn it on there too.

Live presence (drivers nearby)

Live presence is optional and off until you turn it on. The first time you open the map signed in, we ask whether you want to share; you can change your choice anytime in Profile ("Share my live position"). Sharing is mutual: you see other drivers only while you share too. When you have sharing on and the app is open, it sends your live position and heading to our server so other members can see that drivers are around. To others you appear as an anonymous car marker in the skin you picked, with no name or identity attached, and the position they see is coarsened to about 100 m so nobody can follow one specific car. Our server keeps only your latest position, with your account, and no movement history: the row is deleted within about ten minutes of your last update, including if you close the app or go offline. While sharing, you can additionally turn "Show me to others" off in Profile: your car is then hidden from other members' maps, but you're still counted anonymously in the "drivers nearby" totals. The counts you see ("N drivers nearby", "parked here today") are aggregate numbers, not people, and appear whether or not you share.

Driving distance and drive points

Drive points ride on live presence, so they also apply only if you have turned sharing on. While sharing is on, the app is open and you are signed in, the server compares your consecutive location updates to work out how far you have driven that day, so it can award drive points once you cross a distance threshold. Only a running daily-distance total and your latest position are kept for this; we never build or store a route or trajectory of where you have been. Like the rest of your live presence, this is deleted within minutes of you going offline, and the daily total resets each day.

Community check-ins

When you park with the app or mark a spot freed, we store the spot's coordinates (rounded to about 1 m) with your account. These power the freed-spot signals and the aggregate counts other members see; we never store your route or movement between spots.

Points and leaderboard

We keep a ledger of the points you earn from contributions (parking, marking spots freed, driving with the app live, reports, and approved sign scans). Your nickname and total points are visible to other members on the leaderboard. Your e-mail and identity are not shown there. You can leave the leaderboard in Profile without losing your points. Points and levels are a deterministic scoring system based on your own contributions; see "No automated decisions" below.

No automated decisions

The app does not make automated decisions that produce legal or otherwise significant effects about you. Points, levels, and leaderboard rank are simple, deterministic gamification, not profiling: they are computed directly from actions you took, and nothing about your account or access is decided by an algorithm without a person able to review it.

Reports and feedback

You can tell us about a problem on the map or send feedback, with or without an account. A report contains what you write, its type, the map location you chose, up to three photos if you add them, and a short technical note of what the app was showing at the time (for example which curb and rule were on screen), so we can check it. If you're signed in, the report is linked to your account and we can reply to your e-mail. If you're not, you can leave an e-mail address so we can reply, or leave it blank. Photos are stored on our storage provider, Cloudflare. Reports are read by our staff to fix the map and answer you; they are never shown to other members. If you delete your account, your reports are anonymized as described under "Delete your account".

AI sign scan

When you photograph a parking sign for a reading, the photo is sent to a third-party AI provider, Google, to read it, along with the map coordinate of where you placed the sign (used only as locality context). Before your first scan, the app asks for your permission and you can say no; the rest of the app works without it. We do not store the image ourselves. Google may use the photos and prompts you submit to improve its own services, under its own terms rather than ours. Please photograph the sign only, and keep people, licence plates, and home windows out of the frame. We record only the AI usage needed for cost tracking (the amount of processing used, linked to your account), with no image or text content. If a staff member captures a reading for map corrections, the reading (its text and coordinates, not the image) goes into an internal review queue and may be approved into a map correction. You can withdraw your permission in Profile, Settings.

Location

If you allow it, your device's location centres the map, finds nearby parking, and powers live presence and drive points as described above. Location used only to centre the map stays on your device. When you park with the app, mark a spot freed, or submit a report, the coordinates of that specific spot are sent as described above. The app uses location only while it is open, never in the background.

Address search

When you search for an address, what you type is sent directly from your device to an open geocoding service (Photon, run by Komoot) to find matching places; it is not sent to us. When you pick a result, the app saves it in your recent searches, which sync with your account if you're signed in. To show the street address of your parked car, the app sends its coordinates to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service. You can clear your recent searches at any time from the search screen.

Usage analytics

To understand which features are used and to improve the app, we log minimal usage events: a feature or event name, a timestamp, your app version (build number), and a coarse platform (for example iOS app, Android app, or web). Some events also carry a single number, such as how many milliseconds the map took to load, or name a technical error (for example that a notification could not be scheduled), so we can find and fix problems. No location and no personal content travel in these events. They are tied to your account while signed in, and used only to guide product decisions and fix problems, never for advertising. We keep the raw events for 90 days, then keep only daily aggregate counts. If you're signed out, the same events are recorded without being tied to any account or persistent identifier.

Notifications and parking timers

When you're signed in and set a parking timer, we keep its end time and your alert preference on our server, so your timer follows you between devices and alerts can be sent when the app is closed. In the iPhone and Android apps, alerts are scheduled on your device. On the web, if you enable background alerts, we also store your browser's push subscription. Expired parking timers are cleared from our server within 24 hours.

Devices and sessions

We track up to three devices per account, each with a random identifier created on that device and a name and platform derived from your browser's or app's user-agent, so you can stay signed in on your devices and so an admin can see and, if needed, block a device. When you sign in, we also keep the IP address and user-agent of that sign-in session, for security (for example to spot a session that is not yours and to limit abuse). These are kept for as long as the session lasts and are deleted with it, or with your account.

Referrals and invitations

If you invite a friend, we store the e-mail address you invite, tagged with the fact that you invited them, so we can send the invitation and let you manage it. Anyone you invite can write to privacy@panoui.com to have their e-mail address removed from our records.

E-mails

We send only the e-mails you need to use Panoui!: sign-in links and codes, a welcome note when you create an account, password and e-mail address changes, replies to your reports, account deletion confirmations, and, when needed, a short factual notice about an important change to the app or to this policy. We do not send marketing e-mails. If that ever changes, we will ask for your permission first and every such e-mail will have an unsubscribe link. E-mails go out through our provider Resend.

Where your data is stored

Panoui! runs on Cloudflare's global infrastructure. Depending on the service, your data may be stored and processed on servers located outside Quebec and Canada, including in the United States or the European Union. By using the app, you acknowledge this cross-border storage and processing. Wherever your data is held, it travels encrypted in transit, is encrypted at rest, and is protected by access controls that limit who can reach it, and it remains subject to this policy regardless of where it is processed.

Our providers process data in several places: Cloudflare on its global network, and Google and Resend mainly in the United States. If you live outside Canada, for example if you are visiting Montreal from the United States, the same rules apply to you: your data is stored and processed as described here, this policy and Quebec and Canadian privacy law govern it, and you can exercise your rights the same way, by writing to privacy@panoui.com.

Service providers

We use trusted providers to run Panoui!: Cloudflare (hosting, database, and storage, including nightly database backups kept about 30 days), Resend (e-mail), Google (Google sign-in on the web and Android, and a third-party AI service for sign scans), Komoot's Photon and OpenStreetMap's Nominatim (address search and street addresses), and open map providers for map tiles (OpenFreeMap, CARTO and Esri). Requests to these providers include your IP address and are handled under their own privacy policies. We also display Environment Canada and City of Montreal open data in the app; that is public information, not your personal data. Staff actions in our admin tools are logged for accountability. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use ad trackers or advertising cookies; the only cookie we set is the one that keeps you signed in.

Aggregated and published statistics

If we ever publish or make commercial use of usage or parking-demand insights (for example, general patterns of where and when spots free up), those statistics will be irreversibly anonymized in accordance with applicable regulations, computed only in aggregate, and will never identify you or any other individual.

How long we keep it

Account data is kept while your account exists. Live-presence rows and daily driving-distance totals are deleted within about 10 minutes of your last update. Raw usage events are kept 90 days, then only as daily aggregates. Sign-in session records, including their IP address and user-agent, are deleted when the session ends. Nightly database backups are kept about 30 days. Expired parking timers are cleared from our server within 24 hours. Reports sent without an account are kept as long as they are useful for the map, and you can ask us to delete one at privacy@panoui.com.

Delete your account

You can delete your account from within the app: Profile, Account, "Delete my account and data". For safety, we e-mail a confirmation link to your own address, and the account is erased only when you confirm it. Deleting your account permanently removes your account, sessions, and synced profile, including vehicles and plates, permits, saved spots, recent searches, park history, and settings, along with your points ledger, registered devices, push subscriptions, and parking timers. Your reports are anonymized rather than deleted outright: your e-mail and identity are removed from them, but the report text, location, and any photos may be retained in anonymized form so the map data they contributed to stays accurate. You can also remove your parked car and other locally stored data from the map at any time, whether or not you have an account.

Your rights (Quebec, Law 25)

You may access, correct, or delete your personal information, and withdraw consent, at any time; deleting your account does this for the data described above. You can also request a copy of your personal information in a structured, commonly used format. Until self-serve export is available in the app, write to our privacy officer, Igal Taflev, at privacy@panoui.com, and we will provide it. Use the same address to exercise any of your rights or to ask a question. You may also complain to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.

Your rights outside Quebec

If you use Panoui! from elsewhere in Canada, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) gives you the same core rights as above: to know what personal information we hold about you, to access and correct it, and to withdraw consent, subject to the exceptions PIPEDA allows. Write to privacy@panoui.com to exercise them. You may also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Your rights in the United States

Notice at collection: the categories of personal information described throughout this policy, including identifiers such as your e-mail address, account and profile information, precise location when you allow it, and usage data, are collected for the purposes described above and kept for the periods described under "How long we keep it". We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use targeting or tracking cookies, so there is no sale or sharing to opt out of. If you are a California resident, the CCPA/CPRA gives you the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to access a copy of it, to correct it, and to delete it, subject to the exceptions the law allows. Residents of other US states with similar privacy laws have the equivalent core rights. Your data is processed in Canada and, through the providers described above (Cloudflare, Google, Resend), also in the United States; these Terms and this policy are governed by the laws of Quebec, Canada. Write to privacy@panoui.com to exercise any of these rights; we will not discriminate against you for doing so.

Age

Panoui! is intended for licensed drivers and is not directed at children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account; under Quebec law, anyone under 14 additionally needs a parent or guardian's consent before we can collect their personal information, and we do not knowingly collect it from a child that age without it.