LavenderBook is a map and directory of LGBTQ+ places - community centres, clinics, shelters, support groups, queer-owned businesses - with reviews from the people who visit them. It is made by One Among Us.
This page says what LavenderBook collects, who can see it, and what you can do about it.
The short version
You can use the map, the directory and every review without an account.
Your location is optional, and your exact position never leaves your device.
If you sign in, you sign in with Google, and nobody else ever sees your Google name or email. Other people see a made-up name, and by default a different one at every place you review.
No ads, no analytics, no tracking, and we never sell or share your information for marketing.
Who we are
LavenderBook is run by One Among Us, a community organisation in Toronto. Questions, requests and complaints about your information go to Estelle, LavenderBook's Lead Developer, at estelle@oneamongus.ca.
Using LavenderBook without an account
You can read the map, the directory and everyone's reviews without signing in. Nothing you look at is linked to you or to an account, and we keep no record of what you search for or which places you open. Like any website, our server's technical logs briefly record requests and the internet address they came from, to keep it running.
Signing in
You need an account only to post reviews, answer a place's questions, or report a review. Accounts are created by signing in with Google. There is no password with us.
What we receive from Google: your Google account ID, your email address, your name and your profile picture, as Google sends them. We use them only to sign you in and to tell your account apart from others. They are never shown to anyone in the app, including the people who moderate it.
Your public name: when you sign in for the first time, LavenderBook gives your account a random name. It has nothing to do with your Google name.
What other people can see
When you post a review, everyone can read:
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your stars, your words, and your answers to the place's questions;
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a name: by default each review gets a name of its own, different at every place, so your reviews cannot be lined up by name. You can turn this off in your account settings; your account's random name is then used instead for later reviews;
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roughly when you posted ("a few weeks ago"), counted in whole weeks. If you choose to show dates, readers see the day instead. Nobody else ever sees the exact time.
Reviews go through a word filter. A review using certain words waits for a moderator before anyone else can see it; you can still see it yourself. If someone reports a review, the author is not told who reported it.
Your location
Location is optional. You choose one of three:
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Near me: the map follows your device. Only this choice asks your device for permission.
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General area: worked out from your device's time zone. Nothing is sent to do it.
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A city you pick.
Your choice is stored on your device only, never on your account.
Your exact position never leaves your device. To load the places around you, the app sends the centre of the 250-metre square you are in. To help a search, it sends your position rounded to about 11 km. Both are sent without your account attached, so they cannot be linked to you. Distances are worked out on your device.
We never look up where you are from your internet address, and nothing in the app tries to tell which country you are in.
What is stored on your device
The app remembers, on your device only:
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that you have read the safety notice;
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your location choice, the look you picked, and the search distance;
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if you are signed in, the sign-in session.
Leave now, on the safety notice and on the website, erases all of this at once, ends your session, and takes you to an everyday website.
What we store on our server
For each account:
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your Google account ID, email address, name and profile picture, from Google;
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your random account name, and your settings (names per place, showing dates);
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your reviews and answers, and the names and dates shown with them;
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the reviews you report, and why;
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places you add by reviewing them: their name and position, which are public.
To keep the service working and safe, we also keep the word filter's results, the moderators' decisions, and whether an account has been banned.
The database runs on a server One Among Us rents from Contabo, a hosting company, in a data centre in Canada. Cloudflare sits in front of it and passes traffic through. The database is backed up every night, and each backup is deleted after 14 days.
Who can see what, inside LavenderBook
Moderators are a small group of people at One Among Us. In the admin panel they can see every review (including ones waiting for a decision), the exact time each was posted, which account wrote it, its account name next to its review name, and who reported what. They can publish, hide, edit or remove reviews, and ban accounts. The admin panel does not show your email address or your Google name.
The people who run the server can technically reach everything stored on it. They only do so to keep the service running, or when the law requires it.
Services we rely on
When your device talks to these services directly, they see your internet address, as any website would:
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Google: sign-in; the map on Android and on the website. Place searches go through our server, so Google sees our server, not your device, with the search words and the rounded position.
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Apple Maps: the map on iPhone.
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Cloudflare: delivers the website and our server's traffic.
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Expo: checks for app updates when the app opens.
Each of these has its own privacy policy. We send none of them your account, your reviews or your location beyond what is described above.
What we do not do
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No ads, and no advertising or analytics code in the app.
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No selling, renting or trading your information.
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No location history, and no tracking across apps or websites.
Your choices and rights
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Delete a review: from your account page, at any time.
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Change how you appear: names per place and showing dates are in your account settings.
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See, correct or delete everything about you: email estelle@oneamongus.ca from the address you sign in with. Deleting your account removes your reviews and answers too, and backups containing it are gone within 14 days. We answer within 30 days. A button to delete your account in the app itself is on the way.
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Complaints: write to us first. You can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. In Ontario, the federal privacy law (PIPEDA) covers organisations like ours.
Age
LavenderBook is for everyone, and there is no minimum age to use the map, the directory or the reviews: they list places and what visitors said about them. Posting needs a Google account, so Google's own age rules apply to signing in.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the new version appears here with a new date. If a change affects what we collect or who sees it, we will say so in the app before it takes effect.