QuokkaConnect Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 19, 2026

QuokkaConnect is a service that helps adults in the Austin area receive small, invitation-led recommendations to attend events or make plans with other members. This Privacy Policy explains how Jack Cooksey and Alyssa Yang, the current co-owners and operators of QuokkaConnect ("QuokkaConnect," "we," "us," or "our"), collect, use, share, and retain personal information when you use our website, mobile app, and related support services (the "Service"). If a QuokkaConnect legal entity is formed, we will update this Policy before transferring operation of the Service to it.

The v1 Service is intended only for adults age 18 or older in the Greater Austin, Texas metropolitan area. It is not an anonymous event directory or a general member-search service.

Quick summary

• We collect the account and profile information you choose to give us, plus the information needed to operate, secure, and support the Service.
• Other signed-in members see only the parts of your profile that the Service is designed to show them and that your current visibility setting permits. Your street address, direct contact details, private availability, and account credentials are not shown to other members.
• We use Anthropic's API to match members with each other and match groups with events. We may send member and event information for matching, except a member's name, age, gender, and address.
• We do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• You can edit your information, control eligible profile visibility, block other members, request an export, or request deletion. Details are below.

Information we collect

Information you provide

Depending on the features you use, we collect:

• Account information: your display name, email address, password in protected form, adult-age confirmation and age, email-verification and account-recovery information, and account status.
• Profile and matching information: information you choose to provide about interests, goals, dislikes, availability, transportation preferences, budget, crowd preferences, pronouns, bio, and other optional profile responses. You may change or remove optional information through the Service where that control is available.
• Optional street address: if you provide one, we store it in a restricted, encrypted service boundary for the internal travel-estimate feature. We do not show it to other members or include it in browser storage, analytics, AI requests, or external map/routing requests. If you do not provide an address, we do not create an estimate from one.
• Photos and links: an optional profile photo and up to three optional social links. We process an accepted photo into a size-bounded derivative, remove its embedded metadata, and discard the source upload. We do not fetch a social-link destination to make a preview.
• Social and plan activity: invitations, responses, event-interest and self-verified attendance choices, member-created plan information, blocks, reports, and communications or other content you submit if those features are enabled.
• Support communications: the information you provide when you contact us.

The v1 Service does not collect sexual identity as a profile or matching field. We do not infer a member's gender from pronouns or use gender as a general people-matching criterion. A formal event may have a separately disclosed, structured eligibility rule; that rule is evaluated for the event, not as a general judgment about compatibility between people.

Information collected automatically

We collect limited technical and security information needed to provide and protect the Service, such as request and account-security metadata, device and app version information, session status, push-notification token information if you enable push, and diagnostic information. We limit logging of profile content, credentials, and other private information. We do not use third-party analytics or crash-reporting services in v1.

Information from others

We may receive a delivery-status signal from our email or push providers, a report from another member, or event/place facts from approved event, venue, organizer, or registration sources. We do not collect attendee lists, registrations, RSVPs, or social counts from event sources. We verify event facts before using an event in a recommendation; a third-party registration page does not tell us that you registered or attended.

How we use information

We use information to:

• create, verify, secure, and recover your account;
• maintain your profile, visibility choices, blocks, and preferences;
• form and deliver invitation-led recommendations, plans, and related event/place details;
• process invitations, responses, notifications, support requests, reports, and moderation actions;
• calculate a private travel estimate when that feature is available and you have chosen to provide an address;
• protect members and the Service; prevent fraud, abuse, and unauthorized access;
• comply with law, enforce our agreements, and resolve disputes; and
• maintain, troubleshoot, and improve the Service using information that is appropriate for that purpose.

We do not use a recommendation score as consent, a confirmation of attendance, or a claim that members will get along. A recommendation does not create an event reservation or register anyone with an outside organizer.

We send account verification, verification resend, password recovery, and other necessary account or Service notices. Signup presents a separate, preselected checkbox for event and group matching emails. You can deselect it during signup or turn those emails off later in Settings → Emails and continue using in-app matching. Older accounts keep their existing choice and can enable emails in Settings. We record the choice, disclosure version, timestamps, source, and whether it came from default-selected signup or an explicit settings choice. An email already handed to the email provider may still arrive after you opt out. Verification and password-reset emails are separate. If an older database is restored, matching-email opt-ins are disabled and require fresh consent so the restore cannot undo a later opt-out. We do not send unrelated marketing email in v1.

AI-assisted matching

QuokkaConnect uses Anthropic's API to match members with each other and to match member groups with events. The AI matching output can affect the matches, groups, and events presented through the matching feature. Matching requires this AI processing, so members cannot opt out of it while using the matching feature.

For matching, we may send member and event information to Anthropic, except a member's name, age, gender, and address. Matching requests are purpose-built from the information needed for matching; we do not send an entire member-profile schema or record. We do not send account credentials or authentication secrets. For more information, see the AI Use & Automated Recommendations Notice at https://quokkaconnect.com/ai.

How profile visibility works

QuokkaConnect does not make real-member profiles available to anonymous visitors. We use the following member-visibility settings for eligible profile fields:

• Shared: other verified, signed-in, unblocked members may see the field.
• Connections only: only a current, confirmed, mutual connection may see the field.
• Not shared: other members cannot see the field.

Display name is available to signed-in, unblocked members in the limited contexts needed to operate invitations and planning. Other fields are shown only under the current setting and applicable invitation, connection, or block rules. A block, deleted account, revoked access, or ended connection removes access where applicable. You can change available visibility settings in the Service; some information, including an optional street address, is never member-shareable.

How we disclose information

We disclose personal information only as needed to operate the Service, including:

• Other members: the profile, invitation, group, plan, and event-planning information that the Service is designed to show them and that your current visibility and relationship permit.
• Service providers: providers that help us host and secure the Service, store data and processed media, send account email, deliver push notifications, provide customer support, and provide the limited AI review described above. Our planned v1 providers include Amazon Web Services, Amazon SES, Anthropic, Expo and Apple Push Notification service, and Zoho for support email. They may process information only to provide their services to us and subject to the applicable contractual and legal safeguards.
• External event and plan destinations: when you choose to open an organizer, venue, ticket, registration, social-link, map, or other third-party destination, that third party receives information according to its own privacy policy. We do not send your account or profile information to an outside organizer merely because we show its event.
• Legal and safety recipients: government authorities, professional advisers, or others when we reasonably believe disclosure is necessary to comply with law, protect rights, safety, or security, investigate abuse, or respond to a valid legal process.
• Business transfer recipients: a successor in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of assets, subject to applicable law.

We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not use advertising networks in the v1 Service.

Retention and deletion

We retain information for as long as needed to provide the Service, meet the purposes described in this Policy, comply with law, resolve disputes, protect members, and enforce our agreements.

• You can remove optional profile information and replace or remove your photo through the available account controls. Removed photos stop appearing promptly.
• If you request account deletion, we revoke access immediately and permanently delete the account's live data automatically after seven days.
• Chat history and chat media expire after seven days when chat is available.
• We retain support communications, general safety reports, and moderation records indefinitely, subject to lawful deletion obligations. Headshot-specific reason-coded reports are an exception: they are removed when the associated headshot record or reporting/subject account is physically purged, unless separately preserved in a moderator-designated safety record or subject to a documented hold. Removing a photo immediately revokes its display; its metadata and report records may remain until physical purge. Session and verification tokens expire under their security settings; associated database records are removed by account deletion or applicable maintenance. Our CloudWatch operational logs expire after 14 days. We do not persist Anthropic request bodies or outputs as a separate AI history; we retain the resulting proposal and response records while the account is active and under the deletion rules below.
• Our encrypted RDS automated backups have a seven-day retention window. They expire through normal rotation; we do not edit individual accounts out of those backup copies. Before a backup is restored for use, the deletion ledger must be reconciled so deleted accounts stay disabled and their original purge deadlines are honored. We do not operate permanent monthly backup archives. Any deliberately retained recovery snapshot needs a corresponding deletion-suppression ledger and restricted recovery handling.
• We may retain material that a moderator decides to archive where it is lawful to do so.
• A legal obligation, fraud/security investigation, or other valid hold may delay a particular deletion.

We may retain de-identified or aggregated information that does not reasonably identify you.

Your choices and privacy requests

You may use the Service to update or remove optional profile information, change eligible visibility settings, manage notifications, block a member, and request account deletion. You may request access to, correction of, export of, or deletion of your personal information by contacting us at admin@quokkaconnect.com or through https://quokkaconnect.com/privacy. We may ask you to verify your identity before acting on a request.

Where applicable law provides a right to appeal a decision about a privacy request, you may appeal by replying to our decision or contacting us at admin@quokkaconnect.com with the subject line "Privacy Appeal."

Security

We use administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information. No internet or storage system is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please use a unique, strong password and tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

Children

The Service is for adults age 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact us at admin@quokkaconnect.com so we can take appropriate action.

Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy as the Service or applicable law changes. If we make a material change, we will provide notice in the Service, by email, or by another appropriate method before the change takes effect when required by law. The "Effective date" above identifies the current version.

Contact us

Jack Cooksey and Alyssa Yang, co-owners and operators of QuokkaConnect 2815 Guadalupe St, 406A Austin, TX 78705 Email: admin@quokkaconnect.com Privacy requests: https://quokkaconnect.com/privacy

Event and place images

Catalog images may load directly from third-party image hosts. Viewing those images sends ordinary network information, such as your IP address and browser information, to the host. We suppress the referring webpage and do not send your profile answers with image requests. Generic stock images are labeled as illustrative and are not presented as photographs of the actual event or place.