privacy

Maunoh is built around ephemerality. Blips disappear, conversations disappear, and we keep as little as we can for as short as we can. This policy explains exactly what that means.

the short version

• Your blips carry the location where you dropped them. They don't follow you.
• Other users never see who posted a blip or a reply.
• Blips and their replies are permanently deleted 24 hours after they expire.
• Flares travel over Bluetooth to phones nearby. They carry roughly where you sent them from, never your account.
• We don't sell your data, show ads, or track you across other apps.

what we collect

Account information. If you create an account, we store your email and a securely hashed password — we never see it in readable form. Without signing up you get an anonymous session with no email: you can browse, but not post or reply.

Location. When you drop a blip, we record the coordinates at that moment and attach them to the blip. It's a single snapshot, not ongoing tracking — the blip stays where you dropped it, and moving afterwards doesn't move it or reveal where you've gone. We use your location while the app is open to show nearby blips; that position makes the request and isn't stored. Replies carry no location at all.

Content. The text of your blips and replies, the mood and colours you choose, and how long you set a blip to last.

Usage counts. Running totals of blips posted, replies received, and blips gone dark. These appear in your profile.

Views. When someone opens one of your blips, we record that they viewed it, so we can show you how many people saw it. It's deleted along with the blip. Viewers are only ever shown to you as a number — never a list, never by name.

flares and bluetooth

What a flare is. A flare is a blip that can travel without signal. When you send one, your phone broadcasts a small Bluetooth message containing the location you sent it from (accurate to a few metres), the option you picked, when you sent it, how long it lasts, and your blip colours. It doesn't contain your account, email, or name, and there's no room in it for typed text.

How it travels. Phones nearby that are running Maunoh pick it up and pass it on. The first one with signal posts it to Maunoh, where it shows up like any other blip.

Bluetooth is open air. Any device close enough can receive a flare's Bluetooth message, not only phones running Maunoh. Only send one if you're comfortable with people nearby knowing roughly where you are.

Flares you carry for others. While Maunoh is running, your phone also picks up flares from people nearby, holds them, and may be the one that posts them. A flare posted this way is stored under your account and marked as carried for someone else: it's never shown as yours, and you can't delete it. When the person who sent it comes back online, their phone proves the flare is theirs and it moves to their account.

Proving a flare is yours. When you send a flare, your phone creates a random secret and keeps it to itself. Only a one-way fingerprint of that secret travels with the flare, so carrying phones can't claim it — and the server only learns it's yours when your own phone presents the secret.

Not an emergency service. Flares only reach Maunoh users nearby. They don't contact emergency services, and there's no guarantee anyone receives one. If you need urgent help, call your local emergency number.

what we don't collect

• We don't track you across other apps or websites.
• No advertising, ad networks, or ad identifiers.
• No third-party analytics that profile you.
• No background or app-closed location. Flares only use the location from the moment you send one.
• Bluetooth is used only to send and carry flares — never to identify, locate, or log the devices around you.
• We don't ask for your contacts, photos, mic, or camera.

how long we keep things

Blips and replies are deleted permanently 24 hours after the blip expires — an automatic job, hourly. After it runs the content is gone, not archived. The one exception is content someone has reported (see below).

A flare held on a phone is removed from it once it's posted or once it expires (at most 3 hours). After it's posted, it's deleted like any other blip. The secret for a flare you sent stays on your phone and goes with the flare.

View records are deleted with the blip. Usage counts are kept while your account exists, since they're totals rather than content. Your account exists until you delete it.

reporting and moderation

You can report a blip or reply that breaks our rules. When you do, we store the reported content, who reported it, and why — even if the blip would otherwise have expired, so we can review it.

Reports are kept as long as we need them to act and to recognise repeat behaviour. This is the one place content outlives the 24-hour deletion, and only for reported content.

Reporting is not anonymous to us — we can see who reported. We don't tell the reported person who reported them.

You can also block another user directly from a blip or reply, separately from reporting — no reason required. Blocking works the same way everything else in Maunoh does: we know who you've blocked, but you never see their identity, and they're never told they've been blocked. Once blocked, neither of you sees the other's blips or replies, and they can't reply to anything you post. This is mutual — it applies the same way in both directions.

Blocks aren't tied to a single blip or reply, so they don't expire with the 24-hour content deletion — they stay in place until you ask us to remove one.

who else is involved

Maunoh runs on services that process some data on our behalf: Supabase (database and sign-in), Mapbox (the map), and Resend (account emails). Each has its own privacy policy. Flares travel directly between phones over Bluetooth; no other service is involved in that part.

anonymity, and its limits

Other users can't see who posted a blip or reply — the server doesn't send authorship to other people's devices at all.

We can see it. Your blips are linked to your account in our database, because that's how we know which blip is yours to delete or edit. So anonymous here means anonymous to other users, not to us. We think that's worth being clear about.

your choices

Delete your account, and everything attached to it, from Settings. Revoke location permission in your device settings — Maunoh can't show nearby blips or let you post without it. Notifications are toggleable in the app and your device settings.

Turn off Bluetooth access for Maunoh in your device settings and your phone won't send or carry flares without signal; everything else keeps working. On Android, Maunoh shows a small persistent notification while it's listening for flares.

age

Maunoh is intended for people aged 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you believe someone under 18 has an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

changes

If we change this policy in a way that meaningfully affects what we collect or how long we keep it, we'll say so in the app rather than quietly updating this page.

contact

hello@maunoh.com