How your information is handled.

If you don’t create an account

Planning a date, Quick Pick and the Places list all work without signing in. Your preferences and saved dates stay only in your browser’s local storage on your device. The site still records the basic anonymous usage counts described below, and your browser asks Open-Meteo for the weather (described below). The site’s fonts are served from the site itself.

If you create an account

Signing in is optional and only needed to sync your saved dates, profile preferences, and Passport progress across devices. We store your email address (via Supabase Authentication) and the plans, preferences, and finished-date history tied to that account.

Gifts

If you buy a gift, we keep the email address Stripe gives us next to the gift code so we can find your code if you lose it, and we never see your card details.

Anonymous usage

We record basic anonymous usage events, like which recommendations were shown or which stage of planning someone reached, to understand what’s actually useful. They carry a random ID stored in your browser, not your name or email. When you are signed in, a few of them (a plan opened, saved or finished, and reminder switches) also carry a scrambled code made from your account, and from your partner link if you have one, so the two phones of one couple count once; it cannot be turned back into your account, and no names or emails are stored. To learn which post or link brought a visit, the first source is kept in your browser for 30 days (the short utm label on a link, the name of the site or app that sent you, and whether you used a phone, tablet or computer) and goes with those events, never your name, email, location or answers. If the site breaks in your browser, it can send a short error report: what went wrong, where in the code, and the page name, never the full web address. A scan of a printed QR code adds one to a count and records nothing else. We also use Vercel Web Analytics for aggregate visit counts, pages, referrers, and rough device, browser, and country information; it doesn’t use cookies or follow you across other sites.

Date ratings

If you rate a finished date, the stars and reasons are saved with your account and used only to shape your own suggestions. We also keep one anonymous copy per date, with the date, the stars and the reasons but no name, email or account ID (the row carries a scrambled code so it can be removed with your account), so we can show an average once at least five people have rated it. Clearing your ratings in Settings removes both.

Photos and your partner

Photos you add to your keepsakes are stored privately in your account and shown only to you. If you link Passports with a partner, your finished dates and progress are combined with theirs, and either of you can unlink at any time.

Weather forecast

When you open a plan for a date in the next two weeks, your browser asks Open-Meteo (a free weather service) for Kansas City’s forecast for that date. Only the date is sent, along with the ordinary details every web request carries, including your IP address, which Open-Meteo can see.

Feedback you send

If you send beta feedback, we store your message, your rating, the page you were on, and your screen size. There’s no name or email unless you put one in the message yourself. If you report a closure, price or other problem with a place, we store the place, the kind of problem, your note and the page you were on, with the same rule about names and email.

Texting your partner

The “Text them” buttons open your own messaging app with the message and link already written. The text is sent by you, from your phone; we never see or store the phone number.

Ticketmaster links

Links to Ticketmaster events go straight to Ticketmaster, and links to other ticket sellers, such as AXS, work the same way. The ticket purchase happens entirely on the seller’s site, under its own privacy policy; we never see your payment details.

Where it lives

Account data is stored in a managed Postgres database (Supabase); the site itself is hosted on Vercel. We don’t sell your information. Vercel Web Analytics is the only analytics service on the site; it is not an advertising network and does not get your name or email. The forecast comes from Open-Meteo, which can see your IP address when your browser asks for it. The site’s fonts are served from the site itself, so no font company sees your visit. If you sign in with Google, Google handles that sign-in.

Support the site

The Support the site link goes to Ko-fi. If you leave a tip there, Ko-fi and its payment provider handle it under their own privacy policy. We never see your card details, and we are not told who tipped unless you say so.

The phone app

The Explore KC Together phone app follows this same policy. Some things stay on your phone and are never sent: your location, read only when you tap Near me or check in at a board stop, compared with places on the phone and never saved; photos you take or choose for a night in, which stay in the app’s own folder and are never uploaded (unlike keepsake photos on the website); postcards, which leave the phone only when you tap share; and reminders, which your phone schedules itself.

What the app sends: anonymous usage events, like the app opening, a plan opened or saved, or a tap out to a place. Each carries a random ID made on the phone, the screen name, phone or tablet, and whether someone is signed in, never your name, email, account ID or location. When you are signed in, the same few events as on the website also carry the scrambled account and couple code, so one couple on two phones counts once. If you sign in, your saved dates, ratings, notes, Trails and Passport progress sync with your account, the same as on the website. If you sign in with Apple or Google, the name they give us is saved on your account. If you fill in the optional email card and tap the button, that email goes to Buttondown, the service that sends our newsletter.

To delete your account from the app, tap Delete my account on the You tab, or use Settings on the website. It removes the same things listed below.

Deleting your data

In Settings you can download your data, clear your ratings, clear this device, or delete your account. The steps, including for the phone app and if you cannot sign in, are on Delete your account. Deleting your account removes your profile, saved dates, keepsakes, ratings, Passport progress, partner link, the Plan Together sessions you started and every photo you uploaded. It also removes the usage counts and feedback that the device you delete it from has sent, and the usage counts that carry your account’s scrambled code. Our database provider keeps backups, and deleted data can remain in them for a short time.

Your sign-in record (your email address) is removed with the account. On the rare days when the site cannot remove it by itself, the Delete screen says so before you confirm, everything else is still deleted at once, and the site owner removes the sign-in record by hand within 7 days. If you pay for Together Plus, deleting your account cancels the subscription first; if that cannot be done, nothing is deleted. Our payment provider, Stripe, keeps the payment records it is required to keep.

A Plan Together you started is deleted with your account, so a partner who has not finished it loses it. Other usage counts and feedback are not tied to your account, so anything sent signed out from other devices or browsers cannot be found and removed one by one.

Cookies

Just what’s needed to keep you signed in. After you make a new account we also keep one small marker, called ekt_signup, for two minutes. It holds only the word “email” or “google”, so we can count finished sign-ups. It holds nothing about you, and the site removes it as soon as it has counted. We don’t run display or social advertising. Your browser’s local storage also holds things like your saved dates, planner answers, light/dark choice, and the anonymous ID above, so the site can remember you on this device.

Age

Accounts are for people 18 and older. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think a younger person has an account, write to ExploreKCtogether@gmail.com and we’ll delete it.

Questions

This is a small, independently run project. If anything about how data is handled changes in a meaningful way, this page will be updated. Reach out any time via ExploreKCtogether@gmail.com.