what we collect

when you join the waitlist we store your email address, whether you're a student, alum or faculty, your school (or, if you're not at The New School, which school or city you're in), what you do, how you found us (a tag in the link you came from, like "ig", or the website that sent you, or just "direct"), and, if you joined through someone's invite link, who invited you.

we use privacy-friendly analytics (no cookies) to count visits and see how people find stitch.

why

to email you when stitch opens for your school, to understand who's interested so we build the right thing, and to understand how people find stitch.

how long

until stitch launches plus 12 months, or until you ask us to delete it.

how it's protected

your details are stored securely with our database provider, and only the founders can access them. we never sell them or share them with anyone.

asking us to delete your details

email contact@joinstitch.app from the address you joined with and we'll remove you within a few days.

what we collect

when you use the stitch app we store your email, your name, your photo, where you are (your school at The New School, another school, or your city), what you do and your skills, when you're usually free, the work you share, the projects you post or join, your requests and invites, your team chat messages, the recommendations you write and receive, and any reports or blocks you make. if you signed in with a newschool.edu email we mark your profile as verified. if you verify your school with a separate school email, we store that address only to confirm it; nobody sees it.

after a project, each team member answers "would you work with them again?". those answers are private: nobody sees them, including the people they're about. we use them only to run stitch.

you can follow people and stitch, comment on, restitch and save posts. who you follow, who follows you, your stitches, comments and restitches are visible to other members; the posts you save are visible only to you.

you can message any member directly. we store those messages and whether they've been read. a message from someone you don't follow arrives as a request: until you accept it, they can't see that you've read it, and you can delete it or block them. you can choose to get messages only from people you follow (settings → who can message me). if you turn off read receipts (settings → read receipts), people don't see when you've read their messages, and you don't see when they've read yours.

if you unsend or edit a message, the people in the chat no longer see the original, but we keep a private copy for 30 days so we can look into reports; after that it's deleted for good. a message that's been reported is kept with the report.

when you paste a link into a message, your phone loads that page's title and preview picture from the site to show a card under it, and the people who see the card load the picture from that site.

if you change your username, your old one stays reserved for you for 30 days, and joinstitch.app/your-old-name sends people to your page during that time. you can change it once every 14 days.

you can mute someone (their posts leave your feed, and you still follow them), mute a chat (no notifications from it), or remove someone who follows you. nobody is told when you do.

if you allow location, your phone's position, rounded to about 100 metres, is used to show how far projects are from you. we don't store it. a project's neighbourhood and its map point are saved with the project and shown to members; an exact address added to a project is shown only to its accepted team. when you search for a place, what you type is sent to the place search service (below).

if you sign in with Apple, Apple gives us your name and email. if you choose Apple's "hide my email", we get a private relay address that forwards to you, and we never see your real email. we record whether each account was made with Apple or with an email code.

if you add your phone number (it's optional, in settings), we keep only a scrambled code made from it (a one-way hash that can't be turned back into the number) and its last two digits, so friends who have your number can find you. we never store the number itself.

if you use "find friends from contacts", your phone turns the email addresses and phone numbers in your contacts into the same kind of scrambled codes and sends us only those codes. we use them to show you which of your contacts are on stitch, and to tell you when one of them joins later. names and contact details never leave your phone. "forget my contacts" in settings deletes the codes, and so does deleting your account.

if your email matches one of the first 200 waitlist signups, we show your founding member number on your profile.

photos are stored at public links: anyone who has the exact link can open the picture. blocking someone hides your profile from them, not the picture file.

when a project is finished it gets a public credits page (its title, final photos, the team's names and roles, and the recommendations written on it) that anyone with the link can open, so you can share your work.

why

to show your profile and work to other members, to match you with projects that need your role, to run team chats and credits, to keep people safe, and to email you login codes and things that involve you (someone accepts or invites you, a new project needs your role, your team writes). no marketing.

who handles it

our database and files are hosted by Supabase; login codes, school-verification codes and our safety alerts are emailed through Resend; push notifications go through Expo and Apple; Sign in with Apple goes through Apple; place search uses Photon (OpenStreetMap data, run by komoot), which receives the words you type and the area you're searching near. none of them use your details for anything else. we never sell your details or share them with anyone else.

how long, and deleting your account

we keep your details while your account exists. you can delete your account in the app (settings → delete my account): that removes your profile, photos, work, open projects, requests, invites and messages right away. finished projects you were part of keep a role credit with "former member" in place of your name, and the final photos of finished projects you led stay on their credits page, so your teammates keep their credits. reports you sent are kept without your name, and reports about content are kept with what we did about them, to keep people safe. you can also email us and we'll delete your account for you. you can download a copy of your details at any time (settings → download my data).