SideQuest
Last updated 2 October 2026 · Applies to the SideQuest iPhone app
SideQuest is an app for exploring the city you live in and meeting people while you do it. Exploring means your phone has to know where you are, and meeting people means some of what you do is visible to others. This page explains exactly which is which.
SideQuest is run by Thomas Quiroz, an individual rather than a company, contactable at TODO: contact email. We are the data controller for the information described here.
| What | Why | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Your email address, and a password we never store in readable form. If you use Sign in with Apple instead, Apple sends us your name and either your email or a private relay address — your choice, made in Apple's own sheet. | To create your account and let you sign back in. | Only you and us. |
| Your profile: display name, bio, profile photo, and the "about me" tags you pick (vibes, interests, social style, group size, home neighbourhoods). | So people deciding whether to join your quest know who they would be meeting. | Your name and photo: any signed-in SideQuest user. Your bio and "about me" tags: your choice in Settings → Who can see… — Public (any signed-in user), Friends, or Private (only you). Both start at Friends. |
| Your precise location, while the app is open and — only if you allow it — while it is in your pocket. | To clear the fog over streets you walk, show quests near you, and mark a place visited once you have spent a few minutes there. | Only you. See the next section. |
| Places you save and places you visit. | To build your map and let you plan around somewhere a friend already likes. | Your choice (Public, Friends or Private), starting at Friends. Whoever can see them sees that you have been somewhere, never when — the time is deliberately never sent. |
| Your favourite spots — the one place you crown in each category. | To show the places you would recommend, and keep them when you change phones. | Your choice (Public, Friends or Private), starting at Friends. |
| Quests you create or join: title, description, place, time, size, and cover photo. | To show the quest to people who might come. | Anyone who can see the quest — for a public quest, any signed-in user. |
| Your journal: the note and photo you keep after a quest. | Your own record of the city, kept on your account so it survives a new phone. If your journal is shared, an entry also shows on the place's page and your profile. | One setting covers all your journal entries, in Settings → Who can see…: Public (any signed-in user), Friends (people you have accepted as friends), or Private (only you). It starts at Friends. Change it and every entry, old and new, follows at once. Entries you wrote before the journal was saved to your account stay private until you save them again. People you have blocked, and people who have blocked you, never see each other's entries. |
| Vibe words from your journal notes — a fixed list of words such as "cozy" or "lively", picked out on your phone. Your note itself is not part of this. | To describe a place by what the people who went there wrote. | Nobody, individually. A word appears on a place's page only as a total, once three or more people's notes agree, never with a name. Turn it off in Settings and what you shared is withdrawn at once. |
| A TikTok or Instagram link you add to a place's page — the link, the place, and that you added it. Not the video, its caption or its picture. | So a place's page can point to videos about it. | Once we have approved it, any signed-in user sees the video on that place's page — without your name. Who added it is visible only to us. |
| Messages you send in a quest. | So the people going can sort out the details. | The other people on that quest. |
| Whether you turned up to quests you joined, and the commitment percentage worked out from it. | So people can see who reliably shows up. Explained in full below. | The percentage is on your profile and visible to other users. The individual records behind it are visible only to you. |
| Your friends and invite codes. | To connect accounts and let someone join through a link. | You and the person on the other end. |
| A push notification token for your device, if you allow notifications. | To tell you about invitations and replies. | Only us and Apple's push service. |
The fog-of-war map is the most sensitive thing in this app, so it gets its own section.
When you walk with SideQuest running, it records the route and turns it into the cleared areas on your map. Those cleared areas, and the route data behind them, are stored on our server and locked to your account — that is what lets your map come back when you sign in on a new phone. They are not shared with other users, and the features that do share things with friends are built so that they cannot reach this data at all.
The distinction we drew deliberately: saving or visiting a place is something you choose to do, so friends can see it. The fog records every street you walk down whether you stopped or not, and you never press anything — so it stays yours.
If you allow background ("Always") location, this keeps working while the app is in your pocket. You can turn that off at any time in iOS Settings, or decline it entirely, and the rest of the app still works — you just have to have SideQuest open for the fog to clear.
Five parts of your profile each have one setting, in Settings → Who can see…: your bio, your "about me" tags, your places, your favourite spots, and your journal. Each can be Public (anyone signed in to SideQuest), Friends (people you have accepted as friends), or Private (only you), and each starts at Friends. These are enforced by our database, not just hidden by the app.
Three things have no setting, on purpose: your name and photo are always shown, because a quest with anonymous people is not safe; your show-up percentage is always shown, because it is how people decide whether to meet a stranger; and the map of where you have walked is never shown to anyone.
If you block someone, or someone blocks you, neither of you sees the other's profile, places, favourites or journal, whatever these settings say.
Profile photos and quest cover photos are stored in public buckets, which means anyone holding the photo's web address can open it without signing in. The addresses are long and not listed anywhere, but they are not secret. Please don't use a photo you would not be comfortable being seen outside the app.
Journal photos are different. They are stored privately, and the app can only show one to someone your journal is shared with, through a link that stops working after an hour.
You can give SideQuest a link to a TikTok or an Instagram post to save the place it is about. When you do, our server asks TikTok or Instagram about that link, so that we can suggest the place from the video's caption. They see a request from our server, not from your phone, and we do not tell them who you are. We use the answer to make the suggestion and keep a copy for about a day, with nothing recording who asked. A link you only use to save a place is not kept on your account.
If you also choose to add the video to the place's page — a box that starts unticked — we store the link with your account, together with the place. We look at it first. Once approved, everyone signed in can see the video on that place's page, shown without your name. You can remove it at any time from the place's page, and deleting your account removes it too. We store the link only: never the video, its caption or its picture.
Where SideQuest shows a TikTok video's picture, it is loaded from TikTok, so TikTok's servers see your phone ask for it. Tapping a video opens it in TikTok or Instagram, and from there their privacy policies apply, not this one. SideQuest does not play videos or run their code inside the app.
When you join a quest, we record whether you turned up. We work that out in the least intrusive way available, in this order:
Those records are combined into a single percentage on your profile, weighted so that recent quests matter more than old ones. Other users see the percentage. They do not see which quests it came from, who said what about you, or what you said about anyone else.
Sentry receives crash and error reports, so we can fix what breaks. A report says what went wrong in the app and on what kind of device and iOS version; it is not used to advertise to you or to follow you across other apps. We do not use any analytics or advertising service.
We keep your data for as long as your account exists. Attendance records are kept so that your commitment percentage means something over time.
When you delete a journal entry, or your account, the entry goes at once and its photo within two days. The one exception is something that has been reported to us: we keep the reported photo while the report is open, and for up to 180 days after a report is resolved, so that we can act on it — and, where the law requires, pass it on. The report itself keeps a copy of what the entry said. Everything else is kept until you delete it or delete your account; we do not set a shorter fixed period.
A video link you added to a place's page goes when you remove it or delete your account. If it was reported, the report keeps a copy of the link.
In the app: Settings → Danger zone → Delete account. This runs on our server, not just on your phone. It removes your profile, saved and visited places, your exploration zones and route data, your friends, the quests you host, your quest messages, your journal entries, any video links you added to places, and your sign-in itself. Journal photos follow within two days, apart from any held under a report as described above. If you signed in with Apple, we also tell Apple to revoke the connection.
It is immediate and cannot be undone. Your messages may remain visible to other people on a quest as text already sent, no longer attached to a profile.
You can see and change your profile in the app, turn location and notification permissions off in iOS Settings, and delete everything as above. Depending on where you live you may also have the right to a copy of your data, to correct it, or to object to how we use it. Email us and we will sort it out.
SideQuest arranges for people to meet in person, so it is for adults. It is not directed at anyone under 18, we do not knowingly collect information from them, and you must be at least 18 to hold an account.
If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we delete the account and the data behind it — profile, saved places, visit history, walked routes, quests and messages — rather than merely closing it. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has an account, write to TODO: contact email and we will remove it.
If we change how we handle your data we will update this page and change the date at the top. Significant changes will be flagged in the app.
TODO: contact email