Privacy

We Crossed Paths is a small, free beta run by Yoran Scholiers, in Belgium. This page explains in plain words what it stores and what you can do about it. It covers the website and the Android and iOS apps. You need to be 18 or older to use it; the rules are in the terms of use. Last updated 20 October 2026.

What is stored

Your account: your email address and your password, stored only as a salted scrypt hash. Nobody can read your password, including me. Your email address is used to log in, to send you a link when you ask to reset your password, and to confirm it when you ask for that under Me (until it's confirmed, no reset links are sent to it); nothing else is emailed to you.
Your profile: the display name and city you give when you sign up, and a photo and social media handles if you add them. Your city is also used on your own map to show how far away everyone is. Only people you link with see your profile, and only the parts you choose to share with each of them; you can change or clear it any time under Me. Because others can see it, a new profile photo is checked automatically for nudity, on this server: it's never sent to anyone else for this. If the check flags it, people you link with don't see it until I've looked at it.
Your map: the people you add, with what you enter: name, city, where and when you met, a note about what you talked about, social media handles, and a photo if you add one. The note is for you alone: it's never shared, not even with someone you link with. If you pick where you met from the suggestions (a bar, a café, a city), its location is stored with it, so it can show on that person's page. Photos are stripped of hidden metadata such as GPS location.
Feedback you send from the app (Me → Send feedback): your message, the kind of browser and the app version. It's emailed to me and kept until I've dealt with it. Only if you tick “you can reply to me” is it tied to your account, so I can see your email address and answer; then it's in your data download and deleted with your account. Otherwise it's anonymous.
Reports: if you report someone you're linked with, I see who reported whom, the reason and your message, so I can act on it. The person you report isn't told who reported them. Your reports are in your data download; one stays after you delete your account, without your name, so I can still deal with it.
Invites: if you joined with an invite, who invited you. The person who invited you sees your email address in their list of invites. If you joined with a shared code (a poster, for example), your account notes which one, so I can see where people come from; nobody else sees it.
Connected apps: if you log in to an app with your account, it gets a token to stay logged in. Only a scrambled version (a hash) of it is stored, with the name you gave the app and when it was last used. You can remove apps under Me → Connected apps.
One login cookie, needed to keep you logged in. A login unused for 6 months is removed. Your appearance choices (light or dark, lines on the map) are remembered in your browser only, never sent to the server. No other cookies are set.

Your map is private. Other users, including the people who invited you, can't see the people on it. As the administrator I can technically access the database, and only do so to keep the service running or when the law requires it.

The Android and iOS apps

The official apps are made by Timon De Cock and published under his developer accounts on Google Play and the App Store. They're another way into the same service: everything you enter in them is sent to the same server as the website and handled exactly as this page describes, with me (Yoran Scholiers) looking after your data.

If you allow it in your phone's settings, Apple and Google share crash reports and performance figures about the apps with Timon, without your name or email, so he can fix problems. If the apps ever collect anything else, it will be added here first.

Linking with someone

If someone you met also uses We Crossed Paths, you can link your entries for each other: one of you shows a QR code, the other scans it and accepts. A code works once, for one hour, and is meant to be scanned on the spot. If you accept a code from someone you weren't on the map of yet, you choose the city they put you in; that stays on their map as something you entered, even if you stop sharing later. Then:

They see your display name, and only what you choose to share with them: your city, your photo, your social media handles. They see it in place of what they entered about you themselves.
They never see your map, the people on it, or who else you're linked with.
You can change what you share with each person, or unlink, at any time; it takes effect straight away. Anything they already saw or wrote down can't be undone, so only share what you're comfortable with.
Unlinking, deleting their entry or deleting your account ends the link. Each of you keeps your own entry for the other, without what the other shared.
You can scan a code from inside We Crossed Paths, under Share. The camera only starts when you tap to scan; the picture is read on your own phone and never uploaded, and the camera turns off as soon as the code is read or you leave the screen.

About the people you add

The people on your map didn't sign up for this, so please be kind with their data:

The nicest way is to hand them your phone (Hand over), so they add themselves and choose what to share. Your map stays hidden while they do.
A first name or nickname is enough.
Don't add sensitive details such as health, religion, politics or sexuality.
Only add a photo or their social media handles if they're fine with it.

If someone asks you to remove them from your map, please do. If someone contacts me about an entry about them, I may remove it.

Where your data lives

On a server rented from Hetzner, in Germany. The nightly backups, with the photos, are also copied to separate Hetzner storage in the EU, encrypted so only I can read them.
Traffic passes through Cloudflare, which protects the site and sees your IP address and the pages you request.
City search runs on that same server, so what you type there isn't sent anywhere else.
Where you met: the places suggested (bars, cafés, restaurants, clubs, hostels, hotels) come from Overture Maps and are searched on that same server too. If you tap “Places near me”, your browser asks whether to share your location. It's then sent once with that search, to find what's nearby, and not stored or logged; until you pick a place, nothing is kept. You can turn location off for this site in your browser at any time.
Email goes through Zoho Mail, in its EU data centre: emails you send to [email protected], and the feedback the app forwards to me.
Visit statistics: visits are counted with Matomo, an analytics tool I run myself (matomo.yoran-scholiers.be), so the data isn't shared with an analytics company. It uses no cookies and respects your browser's Do Not Track setting. It records which pages and screens are opened, actions such as "account created" or "showed a code", the site you came from, your device and browser type, and a shortened IP address. It never records your name, email, map, the people on it or the codes in invite and link addresses.
Social media handles are stored as text. The app never loads anything from those networks; they only see a visit when someone taps a link.
The map itself (the countries, roads and place names) comes from that same server too, and so do the code libraries and the map's fonts and icons. Apart from the visit statistics above, your browser loads nothing from other services.

How long it's kept

Your data stays until you delete it. Deleting a person removes them and their photo right away. Deleting your account removes your account, everyone on your map and all their photos. Backups are made automatically: one copy of the database each night, kept for 14 days (on the server and in the encrypted copy elsewhere), and one before each software upgrade, kept for 30 days. So for that long a deleted item can still exist in a backup.

The server keeps a technical log to find and fix problems: which part of the app was used, whether it worked, how long it took, and errors, including errors in the app on your device with the kind of browser (like “iOS Safari”). It never holds who you are: no names, emails, IP addresses, cities or what you search for. Lines are deleted after about two weeks.

Detailed visit statistics are deleted after 6 months; only totals, like the number of visits per day, are kept longer.

Your rights

Get a copy: Me → Download my data gives you a ZIP with your profile and everyone on your map: as JSON, as a spreadsheet (CSV) and as map points (GeoJSON), with the photos. For linked people it holds what you entered and share, not what they share with you.
Delete: Me → Your data → Delete my account removes everything. Without the app or your password, use the deletion page: it emails you a link.
Anything else (a question, a correction, an objection): email [email protected].

How reports about child safety are handled is on the child safety page.

If you think your data is handled wrongly, you can also complain to the Belgian Data Protection Authority (dataprotectionauthority.be).

Changes

This is a beta and things will change. If anything here changes in a way that matters, I'll tell users before it takes effect.