Privacy Policy

Who is responsible for your data

WATHub is run by Victor Dimitrov, an individual based in Bulgaria. He is responsible for your personal data (the "data controller"). You can contact him about anything in this policy at support@wathub.app.

Information you give us

• Account: your email address and password (passwords are stored encrypted by our login provider; we never see them). If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the name and email address you choose to share (Apple lets you hide your real email).

• Profile: name, profile photo (optional), home country, current city and state, first or returning season, previous seasons (year, place, employer, position, industry, housing), bio and interests.

• Content: posts, questions, comments, votes, events, trips and messages.

• Finance tools: jobs, shifts, tips, paychecks and expenses you choose to log.

• Ratings: your ratings and reviews of the cities and jobs of your past seasons.

• Flight route: if you choose to add it, your departure date and the airports on your way to the US. We never ask for your airline, flight number, times or booking details.

• Safety: reports you send and people you block.

• Agreement: that you confirmed you are 18 or older and accepted these policies, and when.

Information from your phone

• Notifications: if you allow notifications, we store a notification token for your phone (an anonymous address that lets us deliver notifications to it) and your notification settings. You can turn notifications off at any time in the app or in your phone's settings.

• Camera and photos: only used when you choose to take or pick a profile photo. We only upload the photo you choose.

• Crash reports: if the app crashes or hits an error, a technical report (for example device model, iOS version, app version and what went wrong) is sent to our error-tracking service so we can fix it. It does not include your messages, posts or password.

We do not track your location, and we do not use advertising or tracking tools.

Who can see what

• Other signed-in members can see your profile (including your photo), posts, comments, events, trips and which events or trips you joined. Profile photos are stored as files with a long, hard-to-guess web address so the app can show them quickly; anyone who has that exact address could open the photo, but the addresses are only shown inside the app.

• Messages can only be seen by the people in that chat.

• Ratings and reviews: for now, only you can see them. We plan to show them to other members later, as averages and as individual reviews linked to the city, employer, position and year, without your name or photo.

• Employer names you enter may be suggested to other members when they type an employer, so everyone uses the same spelling.

• Flight route: only shown if you turn on "Show my route to others". Then signed-in members who look for students flying around a date and airport (for example, to find people on the same flight) can see your name, home country, city, whether it is your first or a returning season, departure date and airports. If you hide your city in the app, it is not shown here either. You can hide or delete your route at any time.

• Your finance data (jobs, shifts, tips, paychecks, expenses) is private. Only you can see it.

• Reports and blocks are private. The person you report or block is not told. Our moderators can see reports so they can review them.

How we use your information

We use it only to run WATHub: to show your profile and content to other members, deliver messages, send the notifications you allow, calculate your finance summaries, keep the community safe, and send you account emails such as verification codes and a welcome email. We do not sell your information and we do not show ads.

Why we are allowed to use your information

Under data protection law (such as the EU's GDPR), we need a legal reason for each use of your information:

• To provide the app you signed up for: your account, profile, posts, messages, events, trips, ratings, flight matching and finance tools. This is necessary to provide the service under our Terms.

• Your consent: for optional things, such as notifications, your profile photo and showing your flight route to others. You can withdraw your consent at any time in the app, without affecting what happened before.

• Our legitimate interests: to keep the community safe (reports, blocking, moderation, spam limits) and to find and fix errors (crash reports).

• Legal obligations: when the law requires us to keep or share information.

Service providers

WATHub is hosted on Supabase, which stores our database and photos and handles sign-in. Notifications are delivered through Expo's push notification service and Apple. Account emails (like verification codes and the welcome email) are sent through Brevo, an email service based in the EU (France). Crash reports are processed by Sentry. When you sign up, sign in or reset your password with email, Cloudflare Turnstile briefly checks that you are a person and not a bot, using technical information about your device and connection (such as your IP address). It is not used for advertising. If you sign in with Apple or Google, they handle that sign-in. These providers process data only to run the service for us. Our database and photos are stored in the European Union (Paris, France), and crash reports are processed in the EU. Some providers, such as Expo, Apple and Google, may process data in other countries, including the United States. When that happens, we rely on the safeguards these providers offer, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

Keeping and deleting your information

We keep your information while your account exists. You can delete your account at any time in Profile → Delete account. This permanently removes your profile, photo, posts, comments, messages, events, trips, ratings, flight route, finance data and notification token. If you reported someone, or someone reported content of yours, a short copy of the reported content may be kept for as long as needed to handle the report and prevent repeated abuse. Our hosting provider keeps encrypted backups for a limited time (usually up to 30 days); deleted information disappears from them when they expire.

Your rights

You can see and edit your profile in the app, and delete your account at any time in Profile → Delete account. You also have the right to:

• get a copy of your information, including in a format you can take elsewhere

• correct information that is wrong

• have your information deleted

• restrict or object to how we use it

• withdraw your consent at any time

To use any of these rights, email support@wathub.app. We will reply within one month.

If you think we handle your data unlawfully, you can complain to the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection (www.cpdp.bg) or to the data protection authority where you live.

Age

WATHub is only for people aged 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If the changes are important, we will tell you in the app.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? Email us at support@wathub.app.