Privacy Policy

Summary of key points

• Chainlink processes your data. We collect and process the information described below, including your precise location, to run the Services.
• We share Patron information with Venues, and this may be a "sale." Venues that use Chainlink, including Venues that pay us for a subscription, receive information about Patrons who interact with them. This includes your name, profile photo, visits and check-ins, drinks logged, rewards activity, Wall posts, and purchases linked to you. Some U.S. state laws treat this as a "sale" of personal information. You choose whether to allow it when you sign up, and you can change your choice at any time in the App. In states that require your consent first, it is off unless you turn it on. See Section 3 and Section 11.
• Sensitive information. We process precise geolocation and, when you use those features, your phone contacts and private messages. Some laws treat this as "sensitive." We collect precise location only with your device permission. See Section 1.
• No third-party advertising. We do not show third-party ads, do not use advertising identifiers, and do not share your information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• 21+ only. The App is only for people aged 21 or older.
• Your controls. You can delete your account in the App, opt out of sale, and turn off location, contacts, camera and notification access in your device settings. See Section 7.

1. Information we collect

A. Information you give us

• Account and identity. Name, username, email address, password (stored by our authentication provider in hashed form, never readable by us), phone number (verified by text message), date of birth, gender, bio and profile photo.
• Onboarding and preferences. Your answers to our "vibe" questionnaire, the vibe you pick for the night, the Venues you follow, and your notification and visibility choices (for example, "Go public tonight").
• Plans and activity. Where you say you are heading, outings and "chains" you create or join (including any age range or gender preference you set for an outing), invitations, reminders, and your answers to in-app questions such as why you came to a Venue.
• Content. Photos, videos, captions, comments, Wall posts, moments, chat messages, reactions and other content you create, upload or send ("User Content"). Photos and videos you take with the in-app camera may include anything or anyone in the frame.
• Drink and tab information. Drinks you log on your personal tab (name, photo, Venue and time) and drinks logged when you scan a Venue's drink QR code.
• Purchases. When you buy in-app items ("Cheers"), the app store (Apple or Google) processes the payment. We receive a record of the purchase (product, time and transaction identifiers) through RevenueCat. We do not receive your full card number.
• Communications. Messages you send to our support team, feedback, reports of other users or content, contact-form submissions, and waitlist sign-ups.
• Venue account information. If you act for a Venue: your business email, name, username and photo, your phone number (verified by text message), and any document you upload to prove that you own or manage the Venue. Business information you provide includes events, deals, menus, rewards, photos and settings. If you connect a point-of-sale system such as Square, this also includes your merchant profile, catalog, payments and orders data from that system.

B. Information collected automatically

• Precise geolocation. With your permission, the App collects your device's GPS location while the App is open and in use. It does this when you open or return to the App and about every 3 to 5 minutes while the App stays open.
  • We store your most recent location (coordinates and the city, state or country derived from it). We also store your location at the moment you choose where you are heading.
  • We use your location to determine when you arrive at, stay at and leave a Venue. We record those visits (which Venue, when, and for how long) as your visit history.
  • The App requires location access to function. We do not currently collect location while the App is closed or running in the background.
• Device and usage information. Device type, operating system, app version, language, IP address, unique app and push-notification identifiers, crash and performance information, and how you use the Services (for example, screens viewed, features used, session length and retention). Firebase Analytics collects usage information. If the App crashes or hits an error, Firebase Crashlytics collects a crash report: what went wrong in the code, your device model, operating system and app version, and your account ID, so we can find and fix the problem. We associate this information with your account ID.
• Link and referral information. When you open or share an invite or share link, our link provider (Branch) collects information about the device and link to route you to the right place. This includes who invited you, if anyone.

C. Information from your phone contacts

If you choose to use "Add Friends" and grant contacts permission:

• The App reads your address book on your device.
• The App sends the phone numbers from your contacts to our servers to check which of them belong to Chainlink users with a verified phone number. We return the matching users' names, usernames and photos to you.
• Contact names and email addresses stay on your device.
• We do not store the phone numbers we receive for matching after the match is complete, and we do not use them for any other purpose.
• If you invite a contact by text message, the message is sent from your own device.

The phone numbers in your contacts belong to other people. By using this feature you confirm that you are permitted to share them with us for this purpose.

D. Information from third parties

• Sign in with Google. Name, email address and profile photo. During sign-up, with your permission, we also receive your birthday and gender from your Google account. We use these only to prefill your profile and check your age. Our use of information received from Google APIs complies with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.
• Sign in with Apple. Name and email address (or an Apple private relay address).
• Venues and point-of-sale providers. If a Venue connects a supported point-of-sale system (currently Square), we receive that Venue's card payment records. These include the amount, items purchased, payment type and a card "fingerprint," which identifies the same card across purchases without revealing the card number. If those records are linked to you, they become part of your information (see Section 3).
• Other users. Information other users provide about you. Examples: tagging you, inviting you, adding you to an outing or chain, appearing with you in a photo, reporting you, or sharing your phone number through contact matching.
• Google Maps Platform. Venue names, addresses, locations, photos and hours.

E. Sensitive information

Some of the information above is considered "sensitive" under certain laws. This includes precise geolocation, account log-in credentials, the contents of your private messages, and (in some states) information about your alcohol consumption. We collect precise geolocation only after you grant location permission on your device. We do not collect biometric identifiers, government ID numbers, or financial account or card numbers.

2. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• Provide the Services:
  • create and manage accounts; verify phone numbers and age eligibility;
  • show nearby Venues; track where you're heading, your check-ins, visits and time at Venues;
  • run outings, chains, chats, the Wall, moments, friend matching, leaderboards, badges, rewards, bounties and Cheers;
  • send push notifications.
• Operate rewards and drink tracking. Award and track loyalty points, badges and rewards at Venues; log drinks; and link Venue purchases to your account (see Section 3).
• Provide the Venue Platform. Give Venues the dashboards, analytics, rewards tools, Wall moderation and patron information described in Section 3.
• Safety, security and integrity. Moderate content; investigate reports; enforce our Terms; prevent fraud, spam, underage use and abuse; rate-limit requests; and protect our users, Venues, us and the public.
• Improve and develop the Services. Analyze usage, fix bugs, measure feature performance and develop new features. We may use aggregated or de-identified information for any lawful purpose. When we do, we will not attempt to re-identify it, except as permitted by law.
• Communicate with you. Respond to requests and send service, account and security messages. With your permission where required, we also send promotional messages about Chainlink and Venues you follow.
• Legal and business purposes. Comply with law and legal process; establish, exercise or defend legal claims; keep records; and carry out a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets.

We do not use automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects about you.

3. Information we share with venues (and may sell)

In short: Venues that use Chainlink can see information about the Patrons who interact with them. Venues may pay us for access to these features, so this may be a "sale" of personal information under some state laws. You can opt out.

Chainlink is a platform that connects Patrons with Venues. When you interact with a Venue through Chainlink, we disclose information about you to that Venue and to the people who manage its account. Interacting includes following a Venue, heading to or checking in at it, scanning its QR codes, logging drinks there, earning or redeeming its rewards, claiming its bounties, or posting on its Wall. The information may include:

• Identity: your name, username and profile photo;
• Visits and location-based activity at that Venue: whether you are heading there or checked in, your visit history and frequency, first and last visit, and how long you stayed;
• Demographics: your age range and gender, usually in aggregated form (for example, an age-bracket breakdown of the Venue's visitors);
• Engagement: whether and when you followed the Venue, events and deals you viewed or attended, outings you brought to the Venue and their size, Wall posts and comments, and your friend count;
• Drinks and spending at that Venue: drinks logged, most common drinks, and purchase amounts and items linked to you (see below);
• Rewards: points, levels, leaderboard rank, badges, bounty claims and reward redemptions at that Venue.

Venues use this information to understand and market to their customers, run loyalty and rewards programs, moderate their Wall, and plan staffing and events.

Venues are independent businesses. Once a Venue receives information, its own privacy practices also apply to that information. Our Venue Terms require Venues to:

• use Patron information only for those purposes;
• comply with applicable privacy laws;
• protect the information; and
• not resell it or try to re-identify de-identified information.

We are not responsible for a Venue's independent use of information it receives.

Why this may be a "sale"

Some U.S. state privacy laws define "sale" broadly to include making personal information available to another business in exchange for money or other valuable consideration. Venues may pay us subscription fees for features that include Patron information. For that reason, we treat our disclosure of identifiable Patron information to Venues as a "sale" of personal information under those laws.

Your choice. We only share information that identifies you with Venues if the "Share my activity with venues" setting is on.

• You make this choice when you create your account.
• Where state law allows sharing on an opt-out basis, the box starts checked and you can uncheck it.
• In states that require your consent before sensitive information such as precise location is sold or shared, and outside the United States, it starts unchecked and nothing is shared unless you turn it on.
• You can change it at any time in the App under Settings → Advanced Settings → "Share my activity with venues," or by contacting us as described in Section 7.

If the setting is off (including if you opt out later):

• we will stop disclosing information that identifies you to Venues, except as needed to provide a feature you directly request from that Venue. For example, redeeming a reward requires the Venue to verify the redemption, and a Wall post you choose to publish shows your name.
• when you opt out, we also remove your name and photo from the Venue-visible records we already created about you, and remove any payment-card link (see below).
• Venues may still receive aggregated or de-identified statistics that do not identify you.

We do not sell personal information that we know belongs to anyone under 21, and the Services are not intended for them.

Purchase matching (point-of-sale integrations)

Some Venues connect their point-of-sale system (currently Square) to Chainlink. If your "Share my activity with venues" setting is on, then at those Venues, when you scan the Venue's drink QR code:

• we look for a card payment made at that Venue shortly before or after your scan. If we find one, we link that card's fingerprint to your Chainlink account at that Venue.
• From then on, payments at that Venue made with the same card may be automatically attributed to you. This earns you rewards points and creates drink and purchase records (amount and items) that the Venue can see.

We never receive or store your full card number. You can ask us to remove a card link at any time by contacting us. If someone else pays with a card linked to you, those purchases may be attributed to you.

4. What other users and the public can see

• Other users can see your profile (name, username, photo, bio, general location such as city or state, badges and rank), your public moments, and your activity on leaderboards.
• Friends. They can also see your tab drinks and the related posts.
• Chats and outings. Members of a chat, outing or chain can see the messages and content shared in it and the members' arrival status.
• "Go public tonight." If you turn this on, other users who are also public tonight, including people you don't know, can see where you are heading or checked in.
• The public. Wall posts and comments, including your name and photo, appear on Venue pages and may be visible to anyone, including people without an account and search engines.

Think carefully before sharing your location, plans or content. Once shared, others may copy, screenshot or reshare it, and we cannot control that.

5. Other disclosures

In addition to Venues and other users, we disclose personal information to:

• Service providers that process information on our behalf under contracts that restrict their use of it, including:
  • Google Firebase and Google Cloud: hosting, database, file storage, authentication, phone verification, cloud functions, push notifications, analytics, crash reporting and remote configuration;
  • Google Maps Platform: maps, places and geocoding;
  • Google reCAPTCHA: spam prevention on web forms;
  • Branch Metrics: deep links and invite links;
  • RevenueCat: in-app purchase management;
  • Apple and Google: app distribution, sign-in and payments;
  • point-of-sale providers that Venues choose to connect (currently Block, Inc. (Square)): Venue point-of-sale integration;
  • Netlify: website hosting.
• Our staff and contractors, who access information only as needed to operate, support, secure and moderate the Services. Administrative access to account details is logged.
• Legal and safety. Government authorities, law enforcement, courts or other parties. We disclose information to them when we believe in good faith that it is required by law or legal process, or necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Chainlink, our users, Venues or others. This includes reporting suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
• Business transfers. A buyer, successor or financing party in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy or sale of all or part of our business or assets. Personal information may be one of the transferred assets.
• With your direction or consent. For example, when you share a link or content outside the App.

6. Analytics, cookies and tracking

• No ad tracking. We do not use third-party advertising networks, advertising pixels or advertising identifiers (IDFA/GAID). We do not "track" you across other companies' apps and websites as Apple defines that term.
• Analytics. The App and the Venue Platform use Google Analytics for Firebase to understand usage and performance. This includes screens viewed, features used, sessions, device and app information, and approximate location derived from your IP address. When you are signed in, we associate it with your account ID. We have turned off advertising-ID collection, ad-personalization signals and Google signals. On the Venue Platform, Google Analytics uses first-party cookies or similar browser storage. You can learn how Google uses this data at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
• Website. Our website and Venue Platform also use browser storage (such as local storage, session storage and IndexedDB) for sign-in and basic site functions. They load Google Fonts, and load Google reCAPTCHA when you submit certain forms. These providers may receive your IP address and browser information. We do not use advertising cookies.
• Opt-out signals. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser as a request to opt out of sale for that browser and, if you are signed in, for your account. Because there is no common standard for "Do Not Track" signals, we do not respond to them.

7. Your choices and controls

• Opt out of sale (or opt in). In the App, go to Settings → Advanced Settings and turn "Share my activity with venues" off or on. You can also email info@thechainlinkapp.com with the subject line "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information." You do not need to verify your identity to opt out, but we need enough information to find your account.
• Delete your account. In the App, go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Delete Account. You can also email us.
• Device permissions. You can turn off location, contacts, camera, microphone, photos and notifications in your device settings at any time. Some features, including the App's core features, will not work without location.
• Visibility. You can turn "Go public tonight" on or off, block users, and delete your own content.
• Remove a card link. Contact us to unlink a payment card from your account.
• Marketing. Unsubscribe using the link in any marketing email, or turn off notifications. We may still send service and account messages.

8. How long we keep information

We keep personal information for as long as your account is active and as long as needed for the purposes described in this policy. Specifically:

• Notifications: deleted automatically after about 30 days.
• Contact-matching phone numbers: not stored after matching.
• After you delete your account: deletion in the App starts immediately. We delete your profile and account, your private information, social connections, chats and messages you wrote, outings, chains, Wall posts, comments, likes, moments, support conversations, reports you filed, and the photos and videos you uploaded. We also delete the records Venues can see about you (drink logs, points, leaderboard entries, bounty claims, redemptions and card links). Venues' own sales records are kept, but with any link to you removed. If any step fails, we retry it, and we generally complete deletion within 30 days of your request.
• Exceptions: residual copies may remain in backups for a limited period before they are overwritten. We may also retain information when required or permitted by law, including:
  • records of purchases and transactions for tax and accounting purposes;
  • reports, moderation and audit records needed to enforce our Terms or address safety concerns;
  • information relevant to a legal claim or investigation.
• Information Venues already received. Information a Venue copied or exported before your deletion request is subject to that Venue's own practices.

9. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information. These include encryption in transit, access controls, and logging of administrative access. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of your information. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for the security of your device. If we learn of a security breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by law.

10. Age requirement

The App is only for people aged 21 or older, and the Venue Platform is only for adults acting for a business. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 21. If we learn that we have, we will deactivate the account and delete the information. If you believe someone under 21 is using Chainlink, please report it in the App or email us.

11. U.S. state privacy rights

Residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and other states with consumer privacy laws may have some or all of the following rights. These rights apply to the extent the law applies to us and to you, and are subject to legal exceptions:

• Know and access. Confirm whether we process your personal information and get a copy of it in a portable format.
• Lists of recipients. Request the categories of information we collected, the sources, our purposes, and the categories of third parties (or, where required, the specific third parties) to which we disclosed it.
• Correction. Correct inaccurate personal information.
• Deletion. Delete personal information we collected from or about you.
• Opt out of sale. Opt out of the sale of your personal information. You can also opt out of targeted advertising and profiling, although we do not engage in either.
• Sensitive information. Limit our use and disclosure of sensitive personal information, or, where required, withdraw consent to its processing.
• Non-discrimination. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. If you opt out of sale, you can still use the App. Some Venue-specific features, such as rewards that depend on Venue verification, may work differently.

Categories of personal information (last 12 months)

We do not collect biometric information, professional or employment information, or education information from Patrons. The sources of each category, our purposes, and our retention periods are described in Sections 1, 2 and 8. We have not "shared" personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Sensitive personal information. We use and disclose sensitive personal information to provide the Services you request and for the other purposes permitted by law, and we disclose Venue-specific visit information to Venues as described in Section 3. You can limit that disclosure by opting out of sale as described in Section 7.

How to exercise your rights

• How to submit a request: email info@thechainlinkapp.com from the email address on your account, or use the in-app options described in Section 7.
• Verification: we will verify your identity by matching information you provide against what we already have. We may ask for more information if needed.
• Authorized agents: an agent may submit a request on your behalf with your signed written permission. We may ask you to verify your identity directly.
• Response time: we respond within the time required by law, generally 45 days, which may be extended as allowed by law.

Appeals

If we decline to act on your request, you may appeal by emailing info@thechainlinkapp.com with the subject line "Privacy Request Appeal." We will respond in writing within the time required by law. If we deny your appeal, you may contact your state attorney general.

12. Additional state notices

Texas. NOTICE: We may sell your sensitive personal data.

California "Shine the Light." We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, except to Venues as described in Section 3, which you can opt out of. California residents may ask for information about these disclosures once a year by contacting us.

California notice at collection. Sections 1, 2, 3, 8 and 11 of this policy serve as our notice at collection.

Nevada. Nevada residents may submit an opt-out of sale request using the methods in Section 7.

Washington and Nevada consumer health data. We do not intend to collect "consumer health data." To the extent information about drinks you log is considered consumer health data under Washington's My Health My Data Act or Nevada law, we collect and share it only with your consent, as described in this policy, to provide the drink-tracking and rewards features you choose to use. You can withdraw consent by deleting your drink logs or your account.

13. Users outside the United States

The Services are operated from and intended for use in the United States. If you use them from elsewhere, your information will be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those in your country.

If the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation applies to you, we process your information on these legal bases:

• to perform our contract with you;
• for our legitimate interests in operating, securing and improving the Services;
• with your consent, for location, contacts and disclosure to Venues; and
• to comply with legal obligations.

You may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to and port your information, and to complain to your local data protection authority.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the updated version with a new "Last updated" date. If we make material changes, we will notify you in the App or by email before the change takes effect, and we will ask for your consent where the law requires it. We will not use previously collected personal information in a materially different way without notice and any legally required consent.

15. Contact us

Leadman Properties & Services LLC (d/b/a Chainlink)
c/o Registered Agents Inc
5534 Saint Joe Road
Fort Wayne, IN 46835
United States
info@thechainlinkapp.com