Carpool-Q ("we," "us," or "our") is operated by Digital-X LLC. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, and protect your personal information when you use our application and website.
Information We Collect
Account information: When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and password. You may optionally provide a phone number and profile photo.
Carpool data: We store the carpools you create: the name, destination, days and times, drivers, riders and schedule.
Your children and other family members: For each person you add, we store their first and last name, their relationship to you (child, spouse, parent, sibling or other) and their role in your carpools (passenger, driver, backup driver or emergency contact). Age is optional, and we store it only if you enter it. If you write a note about a passenger, or a reason someone is skipping a ride, we store that note as you typed it. If you link a child's own Carpool-Q account, we also store that account's email address.
We never ask for a child's birthday, home address or phone number. Family members you add have no photo; a child with their own linked account can add a profile photo to it, like any account holder. The app does not use your location. A school name appears only if you type one in as a carpool's destination.
Subscription data: If you subscribe on our website or in the Android app, our payment processor (Stripe) handles your payment information. If you subscribe in the iPhone app, Apple handles the payment through the App Store, and RevenueCat tells us whether your subscription is active. We store your subscription status but never see or store your credit card number.
How you found us: When you sign up, you can choose to answer "How did you hear about Carpool-Q?" We store your answer with your account. Alongside it we store the campaign tag on the link that brought you, if it had one; the name of the website that sent you (the site only, never the full address); whether you joined with an invite code; and whether you signed up on the web, iPhone or Android. We use this only to learn which of our marketing works.
Device information: We collect push notification tokens (for sending you alerts) and basic browser information for troubleshooting.
Bug reports and feedback: If you submit a bug report or feature suggestion, we collect the information you provide along with your browser type for debugging purposes.
How We Use Your Information
- To provide and operate the Carpool-Q service
- To send push notifications (driver reminders, shortage alerts, daily summaries)
- To send email invitations on your behalf to other families
- To tell you before your free trial ends, by email to your account's address and by push notification to your registered devices
- To process subscription payments through Stripe (website and Android) or Apple (iPhone)
- To learn which of our marketing brings families to Carpool-Q, using how you found us
- To respond to bug reports and support requests
- To improve the app based on feature voting and usage patterns
Information Sharing
With your carpool members: Your name, profile photo, and driver/passenger status are visible to other members of your carpools. This is essential for the service to function.
With service providers: We use Firebase (Google Cloud) for hosting and data storage, Stripe for payments on our website and in the Android app, and RevenueCat to check the status of subscriptions bought in the iPhone app. These providers have their own privacy policies and process data on our behalf. Apple processes iPhone payments under its own privacy policy.
We never sell your data. We do not sell or rent your personal information. We do use analytics and advertising-measurement services (Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel) on our website and web app, which receive limited usage data as described in Cookies and Tracking below. Automatic Advanced Matching is disabled, so these services do not receive your name, email address, or phone number.
Data Storage and Security
Your data is stored on Firebase (powered by Google Cloud Platform) with encryption in transit and at rest. Access to your carpool data is restricted to authenticated members of that carpool through security rules enforced at the database level.
Subscription data is protected by Firestore security rules that prevent client-side modification. Only our server-side functions can update subscription status.
Your Rights
- Access: You can view all your data within the app at any time.
- Edit: You can update your profile information, family members, and carpool details.
- Delete: You can delete your account yourself in the app. Open Settings, scroll down to Danger Zone, tap Delete Account and confirm with your password. Deletion happens right away and is permanent; we cannot bring the account back afterward. If you no longer have the app or cannot sign in, email support@carpoolq.com from the address on your account and we will delete it for you within 30 days. What deletion removes, and what it does not, is listed below.
- Export: You can request a copy of your data by contacting us.
Deleting Your Account
Deleting your account removes:
- Your sign-in and your profile, including your phone number and the family members you added.
- Every carpool you created, along with its whole schedule.
- Your place in carpools other people created. You come off their member, driver and passenger lists, and your name is taken off the schedule days you were set to drive.
- Your devices' registrations for push notifications.
- Your subscription record with us, and how you found us. A subscription you pay for through Stripe (on our website or in the Android app) is canceled automatically, including one still in its free trial or one with a failed payment.
It does not remove the following. Email support@carpoolq.com and we will remove any of them by hand within 30 days.
- App Store subscriptions. Apple handles that billing, so we cannot cancel it for you. Cancel it in your iPhone's Settings app, under your name, then Subscriptions. The app reminds you of this when you delete.
- Profile photos. Photos you uploaded stay in our file storage until we delete them.
- Your children in other families' carpools. If another family added your children as passengers, their names, and any ages or ride notes, stay on that family's carpool.
- Same-name schedules. If someone still in a carpool has the same name as you, we leave that carpool's schedule days as they are rather than risk erasing their name instead of yours.
- Household links. If you shared your subscription with a partner or linked a child's account, their account still shows your name or email address as the household it was linked to.
- Invitations you sent. We keep a record of each email invitation: the address it went to, the carpool name, and your name.
- Bug reports and feature suggestions. These are not tied to your account, so deletion cannot find them.
Two kinds of record expire on their own. A log of which accounts each push notification went to, holding only an internal account number and no name, is kept for 90 days. Server logs, which can include that same number and the names of carpools, are kept by Google Cloud for 30 days. If you subscribed through the App Store, RevenueCat (the service that tells us whether your App Store subscription is active) keeps its own record of your purchases under that account number.
What Stripe keeps after you cancel. If you paid through Stripe (on our website or in the Android app), Stripe keeps your customer record after you cancel your subscription or delete your account. That record holds your email address, your past payments and invoices, and your subscription history. We leave it in place on purpose, because refunds and payment disputes are looked up by it, and Stripe holds it under its own privacy policy. When you delete your account, we do remove any saved card from that record, so nothing can be charged to it again.
If the automatic cancellation fails. If any part of canceling your Stripe billing fails when you delete your account, we keep a private record so we can finish the job by hand and refund anything charged after you deleted. That record holds your email address. We erase the email as soon as the problem is resolved, and in any case once 90 days have passed. What stays is an internal account number, Stripe's reference numbers and a note of what was and was not canceled, so a later payment dispute can be matched to it.
Children's Privacy
Carpool-Q offers view-only child accounts. A child signs up for their own Carpool-Q account, and a parent or guardian then links that account to their family in the app. Once linked, the account is managed by the parent or guardian. Child accounts have limited functionality (view schedule only, no editing) and are linked to a parent's subscription. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. The parent who links a child account is responsible for providing that consent.
Push Notifications
We send push notifications for driver reminders, driver shortage alerts, daily schedule summaries, and a notice before your free trial ends. You can enable or disable push notifications at any time in your Settings page or through your device's notification settings.
Cookies and Tracking
Carpool-Q uses local storage and session storage for authentication state and app functionality. On our website and web app we also use Google Analytics and the Meta (Facebook) Pixel to understand how visitors find and use Carpool-Q and to measure the effectiveness of our advertising. These services set their own cookies and may collect information such as the pages you visit, actions you take (for example, completing signup), and basic device or browser details. We configure the Meta Pixel with Automatic Advanced Matching turned off, so we do not send your name, email address, or phone number to Meta. This tracking runs only on our website and web app; it is turned off in the iOS and Android apps. You can block these cookies through your browser settings, opt out of Meta ad targeting in your Facebook ad preferences, and opt out of Google Analytics using Google's opt-out browser add-on.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by posting a notice in the app or sending an email. Continued use of Carpool-Q after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, contact us at:
Email: support@carpoolq.com
Company: Digital-X LLC