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Privacy

How CarFree handles product, support, and business submission data.

This page covers the CarFree app, website, feedback form, support channels, and listing or event inquiry workflows. It is written to reflect the current product and service stack without implying account systems or data uses that do not exist.

Privacy help Data deletion

Effective date

September 11, 2026

CarFree ("we", "our", "us") provides a transit-focused discovery app, a public website, support pages, a feedback form, and business or event inquiry flows. This Privacy Policy describes what information we collect, how we use it, and your choices.

Quick summary

  • We use data to operate routing, support, feedback review, and business workflows.
  • Listing and payment workflows rely on providers like Stripe and Firebase.
  • Privacy or deletion help goes through Support and Data Deletion.

Information We Collect

  • Location data (optional): If you grant permission, the app uses coarse or fine location while you use the app to find nearby neighborhoods, calculate routes, and keep an active trip in sync. On supported app builds, you can enable screen-locked guidance for trips you start. This uses location while your screen is locked or you use another app, and saves your preference for future trips. Tracking is intended to stop when you end the trip or disable screen-locked guidance. Relevant origin and destination information is sent to routing services when directions are requested or recalculated. Location access can also be revoked in your device settings.
  • Route inputs: If you type a manual start or destination address, it is used to request directions.
  • App usage data: We collect analytics events, such as screen views, route starts, tab/filter selections, and trip progress events, to improve quality and performance.
  • Crash and diagnostics data: We collect crash reports and diagnostic context, such as app version, route mode, origin source or fallback state, and technical error details, to debug reliability issues.
  • Information you submit directly: If you contact us through Support, Feedback, listing onboarding, or event inquiry flows, we collect the information you choose to send us, such as your name, email address, phone number, business details, message contents, route context, and any image or screenshot URLs you include. Some forms also collect optional car-free access details, such as transit stops, pickup or dropoff notes, shuttle information, micromobility parking, water taxi access, and accessible entrance details.
  • Business and billing metadata: If you start a paid listing or invoice-backed event flow, payment is processed by Stripe. We do not store full payment card numbers, but we may receive transaction, customer, subscription, invoice, and payment-status metadata needed to operate billing and support.
  • Saved device data: We store local data on your device, including saved places, route shortcuts, trip reminders, active trip session state, and short-lived route or location cache entries.
  • Notification data (optional): If you allow notifications, the app stores and schedules local trip reminder notifications and, on supported builds, active trip guidance alerts. These notifications may include POI name, departure time, stop context, and trip progress cues visible on your lock screen. Your device settings control previews and sound. On supported builds, the Private notification previews setting replaces details in new guidance alerts with generic text; it does not rewrite existing notifications or scheduled trip reminders.
  • Spoken trip alerts (optional): On supported builds, you can separately enable spoken boarding, transfer, and exit alerts during active trips, including while the phone is locked. Speech is generated on your device; this feature does not record your microphone or upload speech for synthesis. Spoken alerts may reveal trip details to people nearby even when private notification previews are enabled. Background guidance and the Voice control must also be on.

How We Use Information

  • Provide routing options, nearby place discovery, and related trip features.
  • Improve product reliability, speed, and user experience.
  • Support reminders, active trip behavior, and related product operations.
  • Monitor service quality, detect failures, and fix defects.
  • Respond to support requests, product feedback, and data deletion inquiries.
  • Review listing submissions, event inquiries, and optional car-free access details; follow up on missing information; and manage activation workflow.
  • Send operational emails related to feedback, listings, billing, and event requests.
  • Process recurring listing billing and related payment events through Stripe.

Third-Party Services

CarFree uses third-party services, including:

  • Google Maps Platform APIs for directions and map services. This can include your selected origin/destination, travel preferences, and request metadata.
  • Firebase services, such as Hosting, Firestore, Analytics, and Crashlytics, for app content, usage analytics, and crash diagnostics.
  • Swiftly API for real-time transit feed data where available. CarFree requests agency feed data, and user identity is not required by Swiftly requests.
  • Stripe for listing checkout, subscription billing, and certain event-payment workflows.
  • Resend for transactional email delivery related to feedback, support, listings, and billing operations.

These providers may process data according to their own privacy policies: Google, Firebase, Stripe, and Swiftly.

Event Providers and External Booking Links

Where event discovery is available, CarFree displays the event source and separately identifies an external booking provider when it differs. If you choose to continue through an external ticket, reservation, registration, or booking link, CarFree creates a content-minimized clickout receipt and sends you to the selected provider to complete the transaction under that provider's terms and privacy policy.

  • Eligible Ticketmaster handoffs use Ticketmaster-provided Impact affiliate links. CarFree may earn a commission when an eligible purchase is completed; this does not increase the price paid through Ticketmaster.
  • The receipt uses internal event, offer, and provider identifiers, timestamps, status or reason, and app-surface context.
  • Identity, email address, precise location, payment-card details, or provider destination URLs are not included in the receipt.
  • Affiliate configuration is maintained server-side. A resolved booking URL is delivered to the app when needed to open the selected provider page.
  • If direct provider event images are enabled, eligible non-sports Ticketmaster images load from Ticketmaster's exact image host. Ticketmaster may receive ordinary request information such as IP address, user agent, and request time under its privacy practices.
  • CarFree does not rehost or persist those provider images, create derivatives, or materially crop them. They use reload/no-prefetch handling, require Ticketmaster attribution and exact event provenance, fall back automatically to reviewed CarFree media, and are subject to a 24-hour takedown limit. Sports-team, league, fallback, and explicitly restricted provider creative is excluded unless separate written rights apply.

Experiences, Affiliate Bookings, and Purchase Reports

CarFree displays experience and attraction offers from Viator and Tiqets. If you choose a booking option, CarFree opens the selected provider's website. The provider handles availability, checkout, payment, and customer service under its own terms and privacy policy. CarFree may earn a commission on eligible purchases.

Experience click receipts contain a random per-click reference, provider and offer identifiers, destination or city context, the app surface, and a timestamp. These receipts do not contain your Firebase user ID, a persistent user hash, device ID, name, email address, or precise location. Anonymous authentication and security records are handled separately to protect access to services.

Providers may return purchase and refund reports containing a booking reference, product, dates, status, amount, currency, and affiliate click reference. CarFree stores a hashed transaction reference and normalized booking or commission information to reconcile eligible purchases, cancellations, commissions, and payments. This reporting does not give CarFree your payment-card details. CarFree does not use these reports to build rider advertising profiles or target advertisements.

Affiliate links identify CarFree and may include a click or campaign reference. After you leave CarFree, providers may receive ordinary browser information and use cookies or similar technology for attribution and other purposes under their own policies and consent choices. A random click reference does not mean your purchase is anonymous to the booking provider. See Viator's privacy policy and Tiqets' privacy policy.

Data Sharing

We do not sell personal data. We share limited data with service providers only as necessary to operate the app and website, for example for routing, analytics, crash diagnostics, content hosting, email delivery, payment processing, and real-time transit data retrieval.

Data Retention

  • Local active-trip state uses a renewable 12-hour expiration window. Ended-trip diagnostic summaries, including destination, service and trip timing, use a 30-day expiration window. On supported builds, Clear ended-trip records deletes these summaries without clearing active guidance or saved places. Expired cache records are removed when the app next reads or maintains its cache; expiration does not guarantee immediate physical deletion while the app is inactive.
  • Saved favorites, shortcuts, and reminders persist on-device until removed or app data is cleared.
  • Feedback, support, listing, and event inquiry submissions may be retained for a reasonable period for review, support history, and operational records.
  • Payment and billing records may be retained as required for operational, accounting, tax, fraud-prevention, or provider-related purposes.
  • Third-party analytics and diagnostics retention is controlled by those providers' policies and settings.

Your Choices

  • You can deny location permissions and still use core discovery features.
  • You can disable notifications in device settings at any time.
  • You can clear app data from your device settings.
  • You can use Data Deletion or Support to request privacy help.
  • You can choose whether to include contact details when sending product feedback.

Children's Privacy

CarFree is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy periodically. We will post the updated version on this page with a new effective date.

Contact

For privacy questions, privacy or help requests, or deletion-related support, contact support@carfreeapp.com.

For product suggestions, use Feedback. For listing-specific business questions, contact listings@carfreeapp.com.

CarFree • Miami-first transit discovery app