Privacy Policy

Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create an account, we collect your email address and password. Your password is hashed using industry-standard encryption and is never stored in plain text.

Family Profile Information

When you build your family profile, you may provide:

• Family name and parent/guardian names
• City, state, and ZIP code
• A family bio or description
• A profile photo
• Your Christian denomination and any additional detail
• Homeschool style(s) and years of experience
• Family values and what you’re looking for in a community
• Search radius preference
• Cultural heritage and ancestry information
• Languages spoken at home
• Family traditions
• Lifestyle preference (“crunchy meter”) score and description

Children’s Information

For each child in your family, you may provide their first name, birth year, gender, and interests or hobbies. This information is used solely for matching with other families who have children of similar ages and interests.

Location Data

We collect your ZIP code and convert it to approximate geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) for distance-based matching. We do not collect your precise address or GPS location.

Messages and Connections

When you send connection requests or messages to other families, we store that content to deliver it to the intended recipient. Messages are only visible to the families involved in the connection.

Notification Preferences

We store your preferences for how and when you receive email notifications (instant, daily digest, weekly digest, or off).

Push Notification Token

If you install the Kindred mobile app and grant permission for push notifications, your device provides us with a push token issued by Apple (APNs). This token is an opaque identifier that lets us send notifications such as new messages and connection requests to your device. The token is tied to your account and your device. You can revoke push permission at any time in your device Settings, which will stop new notifications from being delivered.

Device and Diagnostic Information

When you use the mobile app, we receive basic technical information such as your device type (e.g., iPhone), operating system version, app version, and anonymized crash or performance diagnostics. This information is used to keep the app running reliably and is not linked to advertising identifiers.

How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

• Create and maintain your account
• Display your family profile to other authenticated Kindred users for discovery and matching
• Calculate compatibility scores between families based on shared faith, values, homeschool approach, children’s ages, proximity, and other profile attributes
• Facilitate connection requests and messaging between families
• Send transactional emails (connection requests, accepted connections, new messages, and digest summaries)
• Improve and maintain the application

We do not sell your information. We do not use your information for advertising. We do not share your information with data brokers.

How Matching Works

Kindred uses a scoring algorithm that compares your family profile with other families based on denomination, homeschool style, values, children’s ages, cultural heritage, lifestyle preferences, and geographic distance. This matching is performed within the application and your data is not sent to any external service for this purpose.

Third-Party Services

We use a limited number of third-party services to operate Kindred:

Supabasehosts our database and authentication system. Your account information, profile data, connections, and messages are stored in Supabase’s infrastructure.

Resend delivers transactional and digest emails on our behalf. When we send you an email, Resend receives your email address, family name, and relevant notification content (such as the name of a family requesting to connect, or a preview of a new message).

Zippopotam.us converts your ZIP code to geographic coordinates for distance calculations. Only your ZIP code is sent to this service.

Vercel hosts the Kindred application. Vercel may collect standard server logs (IP addresses, request timestamps) as part of normal web hosting operations.

Apple Push Notification service (APNs) delivers push notifications to the Kindred iOS app. Apple receives the push token for your device (an opaque identifier) and the notification payload we send (e.g., the sender’s family name and a short message preview).

We do not use any analytics, tracking, or advertising services.

Cookies

Kindred uses essential cookies only. These are session cookies managed by our authentication system to keep you logged in. We do not use advertising cookies, tracking cookies, or third-party analytics cookies.

Data Visibility

Your family profile (including your family name, location, denomination, homeschool style, values, children’s names and ages, and other profile information) is visible to all authenticated Kindred users through the discovery feature. This is core to how Kindred works: families need to see each other’s profiles to find compatible matches.

Message content is only visible to the two families involved in an accepted connection.

Your email address is not displayed to other users.

Children’s Privacy

Kindred is designed for use by parents and guardians, not by children directly. The children’s information you provide (names, birth years, gender, and interests) is displayed as part of your family profile to other authenticated users for matching purposes. We do not knowingly collect information directly from children under 13. If you believe a child has created an account, please contact us immediately.

Your Choices and Rights

Access and update your data. You can view and edit your family profile, children’s information, and notification preferences at any time through the app.

Delete your account. You can delete your account through the Settings page. When you delete your account, all of your data is permanently removed, including your family profile, children’s records, connections, messages, notification preferences, queued notifications, and profile photos. This action cannot be undone.

Email notifications. You can control notification frequency (instant, daily digest, weekly digest, or off) for connection requests, accepted connections, and new messages in your notification settings.

Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, all associated data is permanently deleted within 30 days. We do not retain your data after account deletion, except for limited records we are required to keep for legal, accounting, or abuse-prevention reasons (such as transactional server logs, which are retained for up to 90 days).

Your Rights Under State and International Law

California residents (CCPA/CPRA). You have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it (described above), to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to not be discriminated against for exercising your rights. We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

EEA, UK, and other GDPR-applicable residents. You have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection regarding your personal data. Our lawful bases for processing are consent (for optional data such as profile photos) and performance of our service agreement with you (to operate the app). You may lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. To exercise any of these rights, email hello@kindredfamilies.app.

International Users

Kindred is operated from the United States. If you use Kindred from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than your country. By using Kindred, you consent to this transfer.

Business Transfers

If Kindred is ever acquired, merged, or reorganized, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you through the app or by email and give you a reasonable opportunity to delete your account before any transfer takes effect.

Data Security

We use industry-standard security measures to protect your data, including encrypted passwords, row-level security policies on our database (ensuring users can only access data they’re authorized to see), and secure HTTPS connections. However, no method of electronic storage or transmission is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the app. The “Last Updated” date at the top of this policy reflects the most recent revision.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, please contact us at hello@kindredfamilies.app.