Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Walking Closet ("we," "us," "our") collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use the Walking Closet mobile application and related services (the "Service").

If you have questions, email privacy@thewalking-closet.com.

1. Information we collect

Information you give us directly

• Account details: email address, chosen username, display name, password (stored as a one-way hash via bcrypt), and optional bio and location text.
• Profile photo: if you choose to add one. You can change or remove it any time.
• Listings: the title, description, category, condition, location text, photos, and "looking for" notes you provide.
• Wishlist entries: the natural-language text describing what you're looking for, plus the structured fields parsed from it.
• Swap activity: offers you send and receive, items included, messages you exchange.
• Messages: the contents of chats you send through the Service.
• Reports: content you flag using the in-app report mechanism.

Information we collect automatically

• Device identifiers: push notification tokens (if you grant notification permission).
• Approximate location: city-level only, derived from your profile or device locale.
• Usage data: which screens you view, which listings you browse, basic timing and error logs.

Optional face-verification data

If you choose the optional liveness selfie verification, we capture a single still image of your face on your device and upload it to our servers. We use it solely to verify the account is operated by a real person. We do not use the image for facial recognition, do not sell or share it with third parties, and you can request its deletion at any time by deleting your account.

Information we do NOT collect

• We do not collect Social Security numbers, government IDs, financial account numbers, or precise GPS coordinates.
• We do not access your phone contacts, calendar, microphone, or camera roll except when you explicitly grant permission to attach a photo to a listing.

2. How we use information

We use information to:

• Operate the Service: render listings, deliver messages, send notifications, match wishlist entries with new listings.
• Maintain security and prevent abuse: detect spam, fraud, harassment; enforce community standards; respond to reports.
• Comply with legal obligations and respond to lawful requests.
• Communicate with you about your account and service changes.

We do not sell your information. We do not show third-party advertising in the Service.

3. AI features

When you use Walking Closet's AI-assisted features (smart-fill on listings, natural-language wishlist parsing, AI search), we send the relevant input (image URL, free text) to a third-party large language model provider — currently Anthropic and/or OpenAI — to generate suggestions. These providers process the data under their respective enterprise agreements and do not use Walking Closet data to train their models.

You can use Walking Closet without using any AI features.

4. How we share information

We share information only as follows:

• With other users, by your choice: your public profile (username, display name, avatar, city, rating) is visible to other users. Your real name, email, phone number, and full address are never shared with other users — even after a swap is agreed.
• Service providers under contract: MongoDB Atlas (database hosting), Cloudinary (image storage), Firebase Authentication (login), Expo (push notifications), and Anthropic/OpenAI (AI). Each is contractually limited to processing data on our behalf.
• Legal compliance: if required by valid legal process or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Walking Closet, our users, or the public.
• Aggregated or anonymized data: statistics about usage that cannot reasonably identify you.

5. Your choices and rights

• Access and export: request a copy of your data via privacy@thewalking-closet.com.
• Correction: edit your profile in-app, or email us.
• Deletion: delete your account from Settings → Privacy → Delete account. Your profile, listings, wishlist, messages, and verification photo are removed within 30 days. Reports you filed and swap activity that affects other users may be retained in anonymized form.
• Notifications: opt out of push notifications in Settings → Notifications, or via your OS notification settings.

If you are in the EU/UK, you have additional GDPR rights including the right to object, restrict processing, and lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. If you are in California, you have CCPA/CPRA rights including the right to know and the right to opt-out of "selling/sharing" — Walking Closet does not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

6. Data retention

We keep account data while your account is active. After deletion, backups may persist for up to 30 days before being overwritten. Anonymized usage logs may be retained longer for analytics.

7. Security

We use industry-standard practices: HTTPS in transit, encrypted storage at rest, bcrypt for passwords, short-lived session tokens. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your information we will notify you as required by law.

8. Children

Walking Closet is not intended for users under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe we have inadvertently collected such data, email privacy@thewalking-closet.com.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If changes are material, we will notify you in-app before they take effect.

10. Contact