Privacy and your data

Cloudflare protection

Cloudflare processes network addresses and approximate geography to deliver and protect this website. Our owner console shows aggregate country traffic and recent provider security events. Network addresses are masked by default; revealing one requires a reason and creates an access audit. Provider records may be sampled and their availability follows the Cloudflare plan.

Account and profile

Optional profile details include gender, a private date of birth, and an age you choose to show. Profile photos are visible only to eligible signed-in members and follow profile visibility and block settings. Uploaded photos are resized and metadata is removed. Closing your profile revokes other members’ photo access immediately; any remaining photo files are queued for hourly removal.

Conversation updates use a private live connection. A short-lived typing flag and presence status are shared only with the other participant in the active conversation. Draft text is never sent by the optional typing helper; its suggestions run on your device.

Your sign-in provider authenticates your account. Staywith Locals stores an account identifier, your profile, trips, stay requests, and conversations. Your sign-in email is not listed in the directory.

Visibility

Only signed-in members can browse profiles. Turning off directory visibility hides your profile and public trip legs from searches. Private legs are visible only to you. Existing conversation history remains available to participants.

Friends

Friend requests and their status are stored for your account. Only the two participants can see their relationship. Friendship is optional for messaging and does not override visibility or blocks. Blocking removes a pending or accepted connection. Account export includes your connections; closing your profile deletes them.

Saved hosts, drafts and photo messages

Saved-host collections are private to their owner. Use Save draft to store a conversation draft across devices for up to 30 days; unsaved text stays in this tab. In-app updates and their read markers cover the last 90 days. Message photos are resized, stripped of location metadata and available only to eligible conversation participants for up to 90 days. Blocking revokes shared photo delivery; closing a profile deletes its authored photo messages. An account export lists your saved hosts, drafts and authenticated download links for your own unexpired photo messages. Expired drafts, photos and read markers are deleted hourly; encrypted backups can retain them for up to 14 additional days.

Messages and reports

Messages are stored online and are not end-to-end encrypted. Reported message text is copied into a report visible to the community owner. Administrators with database access can access stored records.

Account controls

Use Account settings to export your data, manage blocks, review reports, or permanently close your profile. Closure removes profile details and trips, redacts authored messages and request introductions, and cancels active stays. Other participants’ messages and limited moderation records remain. Your sign-in provider account is managed separately.

Availability and reviews

Hosts can publish nightly guest capacity. Calendars show remaining space to signed-in members without revealing guest identities. Both participants must confirm a past stay before publishing a review. Reviews are visible on accessible member profiles and may be hidden by moderators with a recorded reason. Closing a profile removes its calendar and authored review text.

Email notifications

Resend sends transactional email links for messages, stay updates and support replies. Emails do not contain private message text. You can disable each category in Account settings. Delivery attempts are kept for 30 days; suppression records remain while your account exists to prevent repeated delivery to an address that bounced or complained.

Location search

As you type a destination, Google Maps processes the search text to suggest areas. A selected area can be previewed on a Google map. You may choose to share an approximate area pin on your profile or trip. Shared coordinates are rounded to two decimal places and follow profile and trip visibility. You can remove the pin by turning off the sharing option. We do not collect exact host addresses or device location for this feature. Google handles this data under its Privacy Policy.

Browser storage

Community records are stored on the server. Supabase mode stores sign-in session tokens in this browser to keep you signed in; signing out clears the local session. Unsent form drafts remain in memory until this tab is closed, unless you explicitly use Save draft in a conversation.

Support conversations

Support requests and replies are accessible to the requester and authorized support staff. Staff-only notes are excluded from member views and data exports. Inactive support conversations are removed after 180 days; encrypted backups may retain them for up to 14 additional days. Closing your profile clears the text of existing support conversations. Limited administrative decision records are retained for accountability. Do not submit passwords, verification codes or payment card details.

Service reliability

We use Sentry to diagnose server failures and sample server response times. Reports contain a request identifier, HTTP status, software release and route template. They exclude account details, IP addresses, passwords, verification codes, private messages, form contents and URL query strings. Session replay is off. This technical monitoring operates separately from optional website analytics.

Network security

To investigate abuse and access problems, our server records IP addresses, timestamps, request identifiers, HTTP methods and statuses, and route templates for rejected API authentication, denied access, rate limits, admin requests and profile/account security actions. These records are not linked to member accounts and contain no messages, form contents, query strings or ordinary browsing history. Only community owners can view the security report; addresses are masked until an owner selects an investigation reason. Viewing and revealing records is audited. Records become inaccessible after 30 days and expired records are deleted hourly; encrypted backups may retain them for up to 14 additional days, including after profile closure. Collection is limited to 20,000 events per UTC day and may be incomplete during outages. Our hosting and authentication providers also process network information for security under their own retention rules. These essential security logs are separate from optional analytics; declining analytics does not disable them.

Optional website analytics

If you allow analytics, we store a random browser identifier for up to 90 days and measure page visits, foreground active time, scroll depth, selected interactions, coarse device and country information, referring domains, campaign tags and page performance. We do not collect private messages, form values, raw IP addresses, precise location, email addresses or account-linked browsing histories. Live measurements are kept for up to 90 days. Encrypted disaster-recovery backups can retain removed records for up to 14 additional days. Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track disable this optional collection.

With analytics consent, we also measure recognized destination categories, travel month, group size, interface language and signup or login outcome categories. We never store raw searches, exact travel dates, passwords, verification codes or error messages in these measurements.

Optional experiments assign consenting browsers to comparison groups and measure later interactions. Some tests compare the same experience; others compare approved button wording. Assignments use the same random browser identifier, have the same retention period, and are removed when you delete browser analytics history. Experiment data is not linked to your account.

Operational reports measure host response times and email delivery events. Delivery records contain message and event identifiers, event type and timestamps, without recipient addresses, subjects or email content. Response samples and delivery events are kept for up to 90 days.

Use Privacy preferences in the footer to change your choice or delete the measurements associated with this browser. Declining analytics does not affect your account or use of the service. Clearing browser storage removes the local deletion token; the server retention window still applies.