Privacy

Last updated: October 11, 2026

SparkMates (“we”) sets out this Privacy Policy regarding the handling of user information in the iOS app “cRawl” (the “App”) as follows.

1. Information we collect

(1) Account information

The App creates your account using Sign in with Apple. In doing so, we obtain an identifier used for authentication (a user ID) and, if you allow it to be shared, your name. We do not obtain your email address. Your name is stored as your display name in the App and can be changed at any time. In addition, we store the profile image, self-introduction and links to external social accounts that you choose to set.

We may grant a verification badge to certain accounts at our discretion. Only we can change whether a badge is present.

(2) Content you create and post (UGC)

The following information is stored on our servers.

• The contents of lists (title, description, cover image and style, the information of the places included, and the area information assigned automatically from addresses)
• The state of having saved an Open list, participation as a co-editor, and the state of friendships (mutually approved relationships) and friend requests
• The text, photos, date and time of posting, and the place of logs you have made public. The five-item rating (the pentagon) is stored together with the log, but it is not shown to other users, whether the log is public or private.
• Comments on places, lists and logs
• Aggregate information about lists (the number of places included, and the number of people who have saved the list)
• The content of reports, and your settings for hiding or blocking other users

(3) Photos

The photos you take are stored in the App’s own area on your device. In addition, while the setting is enabled, they are also saved to the iPhone Photos app (the cRawl album).

(3-2) Saving photos to iCloud

So that your photos are not lost when you change devices or reinstall the App, the photos in your logs are also saved to your own iCloud (a service of Apple). They are stored in a private area within your iCloud account (the CloudKit private database), and we cannot view or retrieve these photos. They are not made visible to other users either.

• This saving is enabled by default. You can turn it off at any time from “Settings > Photo backup” in the App. Once it is off, photos taken thereafter are no longer saved to iCloud (photos already saved are not deleted).
• When you delete a photo in the App, the corresponding photo saved in iCloud is deleted as well.
• The storage used is taken from your own iCloud storage. If you are not signed in to iCloud, or if there is not enough free space, this saving does not take place (the photos remain on your device).

(4) Location information

Location information is used for the following four purposes.
(i) Showing nearby places on the map
(ii) Grouping the photos you take into a single meal (based on the time and the position at which they were taken)
(iii) Suggesting candidate names of the place to attach to a log or an event
(iv) Only when “Nearby Alerts” is enabled, detecting that you have entered a registered point
Detection under (iv) uses region monitoring (geofencing) while the App is not open. When “Nearby Alerts” is disabled, we do not collect location information for (iv).

We do not transmit or record a continuous stream of your device’s coordinates on our servers. What remains on the server is the record of which place you visited and when, which amounts to coarse location information.

The only locations stored with an event (section 1 (10)) are the location of the place you chose, the center of the area you chose on the map with “Decide together”, and the locations of suggested places. The center of the area is rounded to about 100 m or moved to the location of the area name you chose. Your device’s current location is never stored with an event.

(5) Device and usage information

• The device token used for push notifications
• A record of notifications for you, shown in Notifications (for example, who reacted to or commented on your post, and event updates: the IDs of the people involved, the item concerned, the time, and the names of people, places or lists used for display). Only you can read it, and it is deleted automatically after 60 days.
• Usage statistics (such as screen views and counts of principal actions). These do not include free-text input, location coordinates or user IDs. These statistics are sent to Firebase Analytics and PostHog and are not linked to your account.
• Crash logs and performance information used to analyse defects

The App displays no advertising, does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA), and does not track you across the apps or websites of other companies.

(6) Purchase information

We store the status of your Premium subscription (whether you are subscribed, and the source of that subscription). Payment information such as credit card numbers is handled by Apple and is never received by us.

(7) Entries to topics (BOARD)

If you submit an entry to a topic, the content of the entry (the name of the place, your comment, the photo and the area shown) and an ID identifying you are stored on our servers, and the entry is listed on the page for that topic and in the “JUST IN” section of BOARD. Your icon and display name are shown on the sticker of your entry. Your display name and icon are not copied into the entry data; they are read from your profile each time the entry is shown. The icon of a user with a private account is also shown. Users who have blocked each other, in either direction, are not shown each other’s icons on entries or in the JUST IN section. Entries submitted before the JUST IN section was introduced store no identifier of the user and show no icon or display name.

In addition, in order to prevent duplicate entries, to confirm eligibility to enter (that there is a record of your having visited that place during the period concerned) and to respond to reports, we separately keep a record linking each entry to the user who submitted it, in a form that users cannot access. Only we can view this record, and it is not disclosed to other users.

(8) Place attributes, and notes on saved places

When you save a place to a list or as “Want to go / Visited”, record it in a log, or add a comment, note or tag about a place, we extract attributes of the place (type of food, price range, occasion, atmosphere, facilities, drinks, mealtime and so on) from the place’s name, the category name given by the import source, your comments and notes (including comments on logs), the tags and meal types you have given, and similar content, and store them in your account. For places imported from Google Maps, Apple Maps and similar sources, we also store the category name given by the import source (for example, “Sichuan restaurant” or “Café”).

Attributes are extracted on your device (section 2). The attribute record stores only the results (attributes and category names) and an identifier of the place (including the place ID assigned by Apple); it does not include the text of comments, notes or post captions. Category names from import sources are stored only in your account and are not shared with other users. These attributes are used for search and map filtering in the App and are not displayed as a list on screen.

In addition, the notes and links you add to saved places, and the comments you keep when importing a place (including key points extracted from the post), are stored in a place on our servers that only you can read and write, so that you can keep using them after changing devices or reinstalling the App. The text of these notes and comments itself is not shown to other users and is not used in the aggregation described in section 3 (only the attributes extracted on your device, as described above, are used).

(9) Place register (store master)

Because the same place can be saved as separate records by different users, we keep an operator-side register in which each place that appears in users’ records in the App (lists, saved places, logs and so on) is entered once (the “place register”). The place register stores an ID identifying the place, the place’s name and location (copies of the name, coordinates and address found in users’ records), the place ID assigned by Apple, which records refer to the same place, which kinds of records the place appears in (lists, saves, logs, posts, entries to BOARD and so on), and the number of people who have recorded the place.

• The place register does not contain which users saved or recorded a place (no user IDs or display names).
• We do not store Google Maps place IDs, or the names and addresses of places as shown on Apple’s maps, in the place register (we store only the place ID assigned by Apple).
• The place register itself cannot be read from users’ devices. What we distribute to devices is a table of “groups of IDs that refer to the same place” (place IDs only, without the place’s name, location or any user information).
• Only for places that appear in records shown to other users (Open lists, published logs and entries to BOARD) (“places that meet the publication conditions”), we may place in a public copy, separate from the place register, only the facts of the place (name, location, address and type of place — the App’s own classification and the category types of Apple’s maps) and search labels taken from the attributes in (8) after the aggregation described in section 3, and use them for search and display for all signed-in users. The public copy can only be read one place at a time by specifying the place’s ID; it cannot be retrieved as a list. The public copy does not include which users recorded the place, how many people recorded it, or which kinds of records (saves, logs and so on) it appears in, and does not include category names from import sources (such as Google Maps). When a place no longer meets the publication conditions, we erase its public copy.

(10) Events

When you create an “event” to invite friends out to eat, we store on our servers the place (name, location, address and the place ID assigned by Apple), the date and time, the number of people (a maximum or a guide), the deadline and the friends you are inviting, and show the event to those friends. If you create it with “Decide together” instead of choosing a place, we store, in place of the place, the area you chose on the map (its center and radius), the name of that area and the type of cuisine, and show them to those friends. We also store the replies of invited friends (“Join”, “Interested”, “Can’t go” or “Join waitlist”). In events created with newer versions of the App, the number of people is only a guide: anyone invited can still join, and there is no waitlist. We also store the short note you can add when creating an event (optional) and show it to those friends. The note cannot be changed after the event is created. The name of the place is taken as is from the place you chose.

• The host sees the names of people who pressed “Join”, “Interested” or “Can’t go”. The names and number of people who pressed “Can’t go” are not shown to anyone other than the host. The names of people who have not replied are not shown.
• People who pressed “Join” see each other’s names, even if they are not friends with each other (they are all friends of the host who were invited to the same event). People who have not pressed “Join” (before replying, or after pressing “Interested”, “Can’t go” or “Join waitlist”) see only the number of people going, the host’s name and the names of those going who are their own friends.
• However, if either person has blocked the other, neither name is shown to the other, and an event is never delivered to someone in a blocking relationship with the host. For this purpose, your list of blocked users is also stored on our servers. This list is used only by our own processing and is not shown to other users.
• Invited friends see how many people were invited (or “All friends”); who was invited is not shown to anyone other than the host.
• The host and invited friends can add comments (text) and reactions (emoji) to an event. Comments and reactions are stored with the display name of the person who wrote them and shown to the host and to every friend the event reached, including people who are not friends with the writer. Comments cannot be edited (the writer and the host can delete them). Comments from people you have blocked are not shown on your screen.
• In a “Decide together” event, people who pressed “Join” can suggest places and vote on them. The name, location and address of each suggested place and its number of votes are shown to every invited friend, including those who have not joined. Who voted for which place is not shown to other users, including the host (you see only your own votes). However, because vote counts are visible, when only a few people have joined, others may be able to work out someone’s votes from the counts and their own votes. Also, when someone stops going, their votes are removed from the counts at that moment, so others may be able to tell how that person voted from who left the name list and which counts went down. Who suggested a place is shown only to people who have pressed “Join” (never to someone in a blocking relationship with that person, and no name is shown for places suggested by someone who is no longer going).
• To keep vote counts accurate, we store a record of who voted for which place and who suggested which place. To handle reports and to delete data when an account is deleted, we also keep a record of who suggested which place. Apart from each person being able to read their own entries, only our administrators can read these records; they are not shown to other users, including the host.
• If no place has been chosen for a “Decide together” event 3 hours before its start time, the event is canceled automatically. The host is notified 30 minutes beforehand, and people who pressed “Join”, “Interested” or “Join waitlist” are notified when it is canceled. Events created with newer versions of the App are not canceled automatically: the deadline can be as late as the start time, and the host can choose the place until 3 hours after the start time.
• The host can change the place and the date and time of an event later. People who pressed “Join”, “Interested” or “Join waitlist” are notified of the change. When the date or time changes, people who pressed “Can’t go” are notified too. To keep notifications from piling up, an event can be changed at most 6 times in 10 minutes.
• Push notifications about events include the display name of the host or of the person who replied, commented or reacted. They do not include the name of the place, the date and time, the note or the text of a comment. Notifications about comments and reactions go to the host and to the person being replied to, and are not sent between people in a blocking relationship. You can turn them off with “Reactions & comments” in the App’s notification settings.
• So that your friends can tell whether you can receive events, we store a version number showing whether your copy of the App supports events, and make it readable by your friends’ apps.
• If an event or a suggested place is reported, the name of the place (for a reported suggestion, the name of the suggested place; nothing, if the event itself is reported before a place has been chosen) and the start time of the event are kept in the report record, so that we can still handle the report after the event has been deleted. When the event itself is reported, the first 200 characters of its note are also kept.
• An event is deleted 6 hours after its start time, together with its note, comments, reactions, replies, name lists, suggested places and votes, the records of who voted for and suggested which place, and the copies delivered to friends. A canceled event is deleted within 12 hours of cancellation, and an event canceled (withdrawn) before anyone other than the host has replied is deleted immediately. If you stop being friends with someone, your replies to their events and the events they sent you are removed (comments and reactions you added to those events remain until the event is deleted).

2. Features processed only on your device

On supported devices, the following features are processed only on your device, and, except as noted in each item, the content they process is never sent to our servers or to those of any third party.

• Translation: translation of comments and similar text. The translated text is used only for display at that moment; it is neither stored nor transmitted.
• Extracting place names, estimating genres and assisting search: these use Apple’s on-device models.
• Import from images: text recognition from screenshots or from photographs of printed pages. The images themselves are never sent to our servers.
• Saving how imported posts look (optional): only if you turn this on in Settings, the App loads the official embed of a post you import from social media on your device and saves one image of how it looks only on your device. This image is never sent to our servers or to those of any third party, and it is erased when you sign out, delete your account or delete it in Settings.
• Saving the text of imported posts: when you save a place by importing a post from social media, the App saves the post’s text (its caption, up to 600 characters per place) only on your device, to use as material for suggestions on the map. This text is never sent to our servers or to those of any third party.
• Fuzzy search: computing how close words are in meaning.
• Extracting place attributes and interpreting pin searches: judging the type of food, price range, occasion and so on from comments, notes, captions and similar text (section 1 (8)), and turning the words you enter in the map’s pin search (the search for your own and your friends’ places) into conditions (area, food, price range and so on). On supported devices, Apple’s on-device model (Apple Intelligence) may be used to assist. For this processing, comments, notes and search words are not sent to our servers or to those of any third party. However, when the words you enter in a pin search include a place name that is not in the App’s built-in dictionary of place names, only that place name may be sent to Apple to look up its location (section 4). The storing of the results (attributes) and of notes on saved places is as described in section 1 (8). Map searches for finding new places are sent to Apple as described in section 4.
• Registration with iPhone search (Spotlight): only your own lists and places are registered; the data of other users is not. The index exists only on your device, and is erased when you sign out or delete your account.

On devices that do not support them, these features are either not shown or operate in the conventional way.

3. Purposes of use

We use the information we collect to provide the functions of the App (account management; creating, sharing and saving lists; managing friendships; displaying logs and comments; listing entries to topics; creating events and notifying friends of them; notifications; statistics; and providing Premium features), to prevent misuse, to respond to reports, and to analyse defects and improve the service. We do not use it for any purpose other than these.

Of the place attributes (section 1 (8)), the categories of the App’s own classification (type of food, price range, occasion, atmosphere, facilities and so on) are used, as an aggregation that contains no information identifying users (for each place, counts per category and the number of attribute records), to improve place information for all users (estimating the type and price range of places, and improving search accuracy). This aggregation is used for estimation and search on the devices of other signed-in users. It includes, with their counts, attributes given by only one user, but does not include who gave them. Category names from import sources, and the text of notes and comments on saved places, are not used in the aggregation and are not shared with other users.

The place register (section 1 (9)) is used to combine records of the same place for display and aggregation (map pins, match lists, trends, place details and so on). This combining takes place at the display and aggregation stage; we never rewrite the contents of the lists, places or logs you have saved.

4. Provision to third parties and external services

Except where required by law, we do not sell or provide user information to third parties. The App uses the following external services.

• Firebase (Google LLC) — Authentication / Cloud Firestore / Cloud Storage / Cloud Messaging / Analytics / Crashlytics. The information described in section 1 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9) and (10) is stored there. Its handling is governed by Google’s privacy policy.
• PostHog (PostHog, Inc.) — product analytics. It receives the usage statistics described in section 1 (5) (the same content as above) and an anonymous per-device identifier. These are not linked to your account, and no free-text input, location coordinates or user IDs are sent. Its handling is governed by PostHog’s privacy policy.
• Apple Inc. — Sign in with Apple, the App Store (Premium subscription), map display and place search (MapKit), and the saving of photos (iCloud / CloudKit). Search terms you use to look for a place on the map, and place names looked up in a pin search because they are not in the App’s dictionary (section 2), are sent to Apple. Photos saved to iCloud are placed in a private area within your own iCloud account, which we cannot view or retrieve (section 1 (3-2)).
• The server that parses imports from social services (operated by us on Cloudflare Workers) — only when you run an import from an Instagram / X / TikTok post, only the URL of that post is sent, and candidate place names are extracted from publicly available information. No account information or login information is sent.
• Reading shared pages — when a link such as Google Maps or Tabelog is imported, we read the public information on that page.

5. Visibility, and its limits

There are only two visibility settings for a list.
・Private … only the owner and the co-editors the owner has invited can view it.
・Open … in addition to the above, the owner’s friends (users who have mutually approved each other) can view it.
There is no setting that publishes a list to the general public, and no visibility limited to followers.
A log (a record of a visit) has two visibility settings, public or private, and a log you make public reaches your friends only.
An event (section 1 (10)) reaches only the friends the host chose (or all of the host’s friends) and is never made public. If you press “Join”, your name is shown to the others going to the same event, including people who are not your friends. Comments and reactions you add to an event are shown with your name to its host and to every friend it reached, including people who are not your friends.
Invitation links, QR codes, profile links and place-sharing links can be opened by anyone who knows the link. However, if someone who is not a friend of the owner opens a list invitation link or QR code, they are taken to the friend-request screen rather than to viewing or joining the list.

Friend lists and name search
・Your friend list (your friends’ names, profile pictures, verification badges and whether each has a private account) is shown to signed-in users who open your profile, and they can send friend requests from it.
・If you use a private account, the contents of your profile, including your friend list, are shown only to you and your friends. People who are not your friends see only your name, profile picture and verification badge, and that your account is private.
・Whether or not your account is private, you may appear in other users’ friend lists and in name search results, and you may receive friend requests.
・Signed-in users can search for other users by the first characters (2 or more) of their display name. Search results show only the name, profile picture, verification badge and whether the account is private. For this search, we store on our servers a search form of your display name (with upper and lower case, full-width and half-width characters, and katakana and hiragana unified, and spaces removed). Users who have not set a name (who still have the default name) do not appear in search results.
・Between users in a blocking relationship (whoever blocked whom), we do not show each other’s friend lists, and we do not show them to each other in search results or friend lists.
・We suggest friends of your friends, ordered by how many friends you have in common (showing the name, profile picture, verification badge, whether the account is private, and the number and names of mutual friends). You can choose in Settings not to appear in other users’ suggestions, and users in a blocking relationship never appear in each other’s suggestions. For these suggestions, we store on our servers a record of the users you removed with × (yours only, up to 500; they are not suggested to you again) and a temporary copy of the friends-of-friends count (kept for 10 minutes).
・To prevent overuse of friend lists and search, we record how many times each user has used them (only counts and times; we do not store the words searched).
・Signed-in users see your ID (3–20 lowercase letters, numbers and _; an ID is assigned automatically at first and you can change it in Settings) together with your name, and can find you by entering your exact ID in search. When you change your ID, your previous ID is held for 14 days so that only you can take it back; after that, other users can use it.

Please note the following.

• Content you make public can be viewed, saved and screenshotted by other users. Withdrawing it from publication cannot undo what other users saved before that point.
• When you switch a log to private, that post is removed from your friends’ timelines, and the photos that had been uploaded for publication are also deleted from our servers. However, content that other users viewed, saved or screenshotted while it was public cannot be undone (this is the same as the previous bullet). If you make a log public again after having made it private, it appears in the timeline as a new post. The reactions and replies it previously received are not carried over.
• People you invite as co-editors can add and edit places in that list.
• In a match list, only the places that both parties have added are shown to the two of them.
• If a place you have only saved, a place that exists only in a Private list or an ended list, a place that exists only in your logs, or a place you registered manually is entered in the place register, this does not cause it to be shown to other users. What reaches other users is the table described in section 1 (9) of groups of IDs referring to the same place (place IDs only). Other users can read the facts of a place held in the place register (name, location, address and type of place) only through the public copy of a place that meets the publication conditions described in section 1 (9), and even then this does not include who recorded it or how many people did. Aggregated place attributes (type of food, price range and so on) are shared as described in section 3 (including the count for each label and the number of attribute records), in a form that does not include who gave them, separately from the publication conditions of the place register (the attributes of places that do not meet the publication conditions are also included in this aggregation). Because the count for each label is shared, for a place recorded by only a few users it may be possible to infer whose records an attribute came from.

6. Retention and deletion of data

Account information and usage data are retained for as long as the account exists. You can delete your account at any time from “My Page > Settings” in the App.

When you delete your account, the profile on the server, the lists you created, the logs you had made public and their photos, comments, friendships and friend requests, and the search form of your name the record of your search counts, and your ID records (any ID you used is held for 14 days so that no one can use it, and then released) are deleted. The photos saved to iCloud under section 1 (3-2) are deleted as well. The logs and photos stored on your device are erased by deleting the App. Copies saved in the Photos app (the cRawl album) remain, so please delete them from the Photos app if you wish.

In addition, the place attribute records described in section 1 (8) and your notes, links and import comments on saved places are deleted, and your share is subtracted from the aggregation described in section 3.

As for the events described in section 1 (10), the events you created are canceled and deleted (people who had replied are told of the cancellation without your name). Your replies, votes, comments and reactions on other people’s events, the records of the places you voted for and suggested, the events delivered to you and your list of blocked users are also deleted, and you are removed from other users’ lists of blocked users.

Because the place register (section 1 (9)) contains no user IDs, the entry for a place in the register remains even after you delete your account. However, for a place that does not meet the publication conditions (section 1 (9)) and is no longer referred to by any user’s record, we erase its name, location and address from the place register, keeping only its IDs (including the place ID assigned by Apple) and its correspondence to the same place.

Records of reports and records that we are required by law to retain may be kept after account deletion, limited to the extent and period necessary.

7. Transfers outside Japan

As a result of our use of the external services described in section 4, user information may be stored and processed on servers located outside Japan, including in the United States.

8. Your rights

You may request the disclosure, correction, suspension of use or deletion of the information we hold about you. Please send such requests to the contact details in section 10. We will respond in accordance with applicable law once we have been able to verify your identity.

9. Children’s privacy

The App is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect the personal information of children under 13.

10. Changes to this policy and contact

This policy may be changed as necessary. If there is a material change, we will give notice by reasonable means, such as a notice within the App. The latest version of this policy is published within the App and on this site (/en/privacy, Japanese original: /privacy).

Please direct any enquiries regarding this policy to the following.

• Operator: SparkMates
• Email: sparkmates.dev@gmail.com