Our commitment to protecting your privacy

1. What data we process

Your account

• Your mobile number (verified with a code). You need it for an account: it is how you sign in, and how people who have your number can find you, unless you turn off “Findable by your number”.
• Your name as you enter it, and your language
• When your account was created

You never need a password. If you want, you can add a profile photo and your birthday (day and month; the year is optional and never shown), and choose who may see your birthday (nobody, until you choose). People who use the partner portal can add an e-mail address to sign in on the website. You can remove these again.

Signing in

• The one-time codes we text or e-mail you (stored only in hashed form), when they were requested and the IP address of the request — to limit abuse
• Your sessions: a hashed session key, whether it is the app or the website, and when it was last used

Answering a plan without an account

• The first name you enter and your answers (votes, whether you can make it)
• Your mobile number, if you confirm it with a code: so the plan stays yours on another device or in the app, and — only if you ask for them on the card that names them — for at most three texts about that plan (to the person who started it: when friends have answered and it can be fixed; when it is set; the morning after), each with a link to stop
• A cookie in your browser that lets you return to the plan as the same person (see “Cookies”)

Plans, chats and photos

• Plans: name, description, the dates, times and places suggested, votes, the final choice, who is coming, and whether someone in the group said you went; for a trip also its places, dates and activities
• Chats: name, members, and the messages, photos and voice messages sent in them
• Photos: before a photo is uploaded the app removes its location. On your phone it only checks whether the photo was taken near the plan’s place; we keep that yes or no and when it was taken. A photo in a chat disappears after 7 days unless someone keeps it for the plan. Photos are only shown to the members of the chat.
• Ideas: a chat’s list (visible to its members) or your own (visible only to you). When you save a link, our server reads its title and picture once; that website sees our server, not you.
• “Wie doet mee?”: what was asked in a chat today and who joins; a group’s yearly traditions
• Notifications we show you in the app, and the kinds you switched off

Your own words and voice

• When you answer or plan in your own words, typed or spoken, a language model reads them for us to fill in your answers (see “Who receives data”). You always see what was understood before anything counts, and you can always answer by tapping instead.
• A spoken answer is transcribed and the recording is not stored. Words about a plan are deleted 7 days after the plan closes, and after 60 days at the latest; words in a chat’s planning round when the round closes, and 30 days after it started at the latest. Only with your tick do we keep words, without your name or number, to improve the reading.
• What always holds for you (“not on Fridays”) is kept as what was understood, never your words; only you see it, until you remove it.
• When a plan asks where you live (optional), we keep only the town, as if you had said “I come from Leusden”, and delete it with your words. The plan uses it to find a place that works for everyone, from the towns people gave. Others never see your town: the plan only says when what leads lies best for all of you. “Use my location” turns your position into a town on your own phone; the position itself is never sent. The list of towns comes from the Dutch Kadaster (BAG), the districts and neighbourhoods from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), adapted, under the licence CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
• Receipt photos you add to split costs are read by the same kind of model and kept with that cost.

Your calendar (only if you connect one)

• You can let GoingDutch use your phone’s calendars, a calendar link you paste, or a Google or Microsoft account. We keep only when you are busy (start and end), the names of your calendars and the account they come from — never what is in your appointments. With your phone’s calendars, the app reads them on the phone and sends only the busy times. A calendar link and the access to a Google or Microsoft account are stored encrypted.
• Busy times fill in your answers privately, warn you about clashes and help the organiser see good moments. Others see at most whether you are free or busy at the plan’s moments, and only if you allow it.
• Busy times that are not refreshed for 7 days are deleted. Disconnecting a calendar deletes it, its access and its busy times.

Your contacts (only with your permission)

• When you add people, the app asks for access to your address book. It then sends the phone numbers in it to our server, to show which of your contacts are on GoingDutch. Numbers of contacts you do not pick are not stored.
• For a contact you add who is not on GoingDutch yet, we store the name from your address book and the number as an open invitation, so that person sees the group when they sign in with that number.
• You can refuse access and add people by number instead. With “Findable by your number” off, your number matches nobody’s contacts.

The people you know

• Partner and family: a link that you and the other person both confirm (as partners, or a family role such as mother or brother). As partners, you each choose whether to share when you are both free and whether to get a weekly reminder. Ended partner links are deleted after 30 days.
• A star (“close”) or a label (family, friend, acquaintance, colleague) you give someone: only you ever see it.
• Connections: a request you send to a number, with an optional first message and where you met, or a QR code you show in person (valid for 10 minutes). Declined requests are kept for 30 days so they are not sent again, then deleted.
• Birthdays you share: the people you chose may see a card three weeks ahead. Nothing is sent on the day.
• Blocking and reports: the person you block is not told. If you report someone, our team sees the reason and your note; reports are deleted after a year.

Together

• When you join Together during a plan, we keep who is in and since when, and when phones are down, to show the group its time together. These details are deleted 30 days after the session; a summary for the group stays.
• The phone helper (Screen Time on iPhone, Do Not Disturb on Android) runs only on your phone: we never learn whether you used it or which apps you chose.

Splitting costs

• Expenses, amounts, receipt photos, who shares in them, rounds and the pot on a trip, and settlements between members and their status
• Bank account numbers (IBAN) or payment links you add, shown to the members who need to pay you

Plans with a partner

• Which QR code or link a plan started from
• A reservation request your group sends: the organiser’s first name, the group size and their note, and the partner’s answer
• Orders at a venue that takes orders in GoingDutch: your first name and what you ordered
• Booking links carry a short GoingDutch reference (gd=…) that names nobody, so the partner can confirm that a booking was made

Feedback and support

• When you send feedback or ask for help in the app or the portal: your message, a voice message or screenshot if you add one, and details the app adds so we know where it happened — the screen, the app version, your phone’s model and system, the last ten screens you opened (never what you typed there) and your language.
• If you take a screenshot in the app, it may offer to send it to us; nothing is sent unless you choose to.
• A language model may read your message to sort it (see “Who receives data”). Our answers appear in the app or the portal, and for the portal also by e-mail. Feedback is deleted with your account.

Push notifications

If you allow notifications: a push token for your device, used only to deliver our notifications.

Usage statistics

We record what happens in the Service (for example “a plan was started from this QR code”, “a group chose an option”) under a coded key per person (a one-way hash that differs per plan), not your account id or number. We use these records to improve the Service and to give partners totals. We do not use third-party analytics, advertising or tracking tools in the app or on the website.

Partner staff

For people who sign in to the partner portal: their e-mail address and/or mobile number, name, job title if given, which partner they work for, their role and when they last signed in.

Organizations and business contacts

• For organizations we work with or talk to: the names, roles, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of their contacts and notes on our contact with them; when someone signs up an organization, who accepted the partner terms and when.
• When we share a presentation with a contact, we record when they open it. Someone who asks for access to a presentation leaves a name and a way to reach them.

2. Why we process data

• To sign you in and keep your account secure
• To run plans, chats, photos, ideas, trips, Together and costs, and show what you share to the people you share it with
• To let people answer a plan without an account, and to add those plans to your account when you sign in with the same number
• To help you find people you know and link up with them (with your permission)
• To use your calendar for your answers, if you connect one
• To send you the notifications and texts you allowed, and suggestions from your own plans (a tradition coming up, a birthday you were told about)
• To prevent abuse (limits on codes, logs) and to handle reports
• To answer your questions and feedback, and fix what goes wrong
• To improve the Service and give partners totals about their QR codes, pages and campaigns
• To work with organizations and their contacts

We do not sell your personal data and do not use it for advertising.

3. Legal basis (GDPR)

• Performance of our agreement with you: your account, plans, chats, photos and voice messages, ideas, trips, Together, costs, the links you set up with people, notifications, reading your own words when you choose to answer that way, and support
• Legitimate interest: security and abuse prevention, reports and blocking, usage statistics under a coded key, totals for partners, answering a shared plan without an account, an invitation for a contact you add, sorting feedback, and our contact with organizations and their staff
• Consent: access to your contacts and calendars, push notifications, the texts about a plan, and keeping your words to improve the reading. You can withdraw it at any time: in your phone’s settings, by disconnecting the calendar, with the link in every text, or by unticking the box.
• Legal obligation, where the law requires us to keep or hand over data

4. Who receives data

Other people see what you share with them: your name, votes, messages, photos and voice messages in the plans and chats you are in, and the payout details you add to a cost split.

Partners see totals, never who did what. Two exceptions show a first name: when a group asks a partner for a reservation, the partner sees the organiser’s first name, the group size and the note they wrote; at a venue that takes orders in GoingDutch, the venue sees the first name with each order. The booking reference (gd=…) names nobody. On a partner’s own website, that site’s privacy policy applies.

Service providers that process data on our behalf, under a data processing agreement:

• Nodge — hosting of the website, the server, the database and uploaded files, in the European Union
• Bird (the Netherlands), or CM.com (the Netherlands) as an alternative — sends our text messages (sign-in codes, and the plan texts you asked for); receives your mobile number and the message
• AhaSend — sends our e-mails (sign-in codes and invitations for the portal, reservation requests to partners, answers to portal support messages); receives the e-mail address and the message
• OpenAI (United States), and Mistral AI (France) when configured — read your own words, spoken answers, receipt photos, and feedback and support messages with their screenshots. They may keep them for up to 30 days to detect abuse, then delete them, and may not use them to train their models.
• Anthropic (United States) — when our team uses Claude to look into support messages and feedback, it receives those messages, the app details that came with them and the sender’s name; never your number
• Google (Ireland/United States) — place search and maps in the app, and your Google calendar if you connect it (busy times only)
• Microsoft (Ireland/United States) — your Microsoft calendar if you connect it (busy times only)
• Expo (650 Industries, United States) — delivers push notifications through Apple and Google, and app updates; receives your push token and the notification text, and when the app checks for an update, its version and your IP address
• Apple and Google — deliver push notifications to your device and distribute the app
• Google Fonts — some of our presentations for organizations load typefaces from Google, which then receives the viewer’s IP address; the app, the website and the plan pages load nothing from Google Fonts

Some of these providers are in the United States. For them we rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. Write to privacy@going-dutch.com for a copy of these safeguards.

Authorities, only if the law requires us to.

5. How long we keep data

• Account data: as long as your account exists.
• Sign-in codes and their request records (including the IP address): 30 days.
• A guest’s answers on a plan: as long as the plan exists. A guest’s mobile number that never became an account: 12 months after the last date of the plans it was used for, so the plans are still there if you install the app later.
• Your own words: 7 days after the plan closes, 60 days at the latest; in a chat’s planning round, until it closes and 30 days at the latest. The plan’s change history: 90 days after it closed.
• Chat photos: 7 days, unless kept for the plan. Plan photos and voice messages: until they are removed or the account is deleted.
• Busy times from a calendar: until they are 7 days old without a refresh, or the calendar is disconnected.
• Together: who was in and when, 30 days after the session.
• Ended partner links and declined connection requests: 30 days. Reports about a person: 1 year.
• Usage statistics: 24 months; they carry a coded key, never your account id or number.
• Contacts at organizations and presentation visits: as long as we work or talk with the organization; ask privacy@going-dutch.com to remove yours earlier.
• Cookies: see “Cookies”.

6. Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app: Profile → Delete account. This is refused while you still owe money or are owed money in a cost split; settle up first. No access to the app any more? Write to support@going-dutch.com.

When you delete your account we sign you out everywhere and delete, at once: your profile photo, birthday, photos, voice messages and feedback; your partner, family and connection links, stars, labels and blocks; your own ideas list, notifications, calendars and busy times, what always holds for you, your Together history and your push tokens. Payout details you added become unavailable to everyone. Your name is replaced with “Deleted user” and your number is released so it can register again; the released number is erased after 30 days.

Messages, answers and costs you shared with others stay available to them, shown as “Deleted user”, so their plans and balances stay right. A report you filed stays without your name; usage statistics stay without a link to you until they are deleted after 24 months.

Answered a plan without an account? Ask privacy@going-dutch.com to remove your answers.

7. Automated decisions

GoingDutch suggests dates, options and good moments, and language models read words and receipts, but people decide: you see what was understood before it counts, and you, the organiser or the group choose. We do not take decisions about you with legal or similarly significant effects by automated means, and we do not build profiles for advertising.

8. Cookies

On going-dutch.com we only use cookies that the Service needs to work. There are no analytics, advertising or third-party cookies, so we do not ask for consent for them:

• gd_session — keeps you signed in on the website (90 days)
• A cookie per plan — lets you return to a plan you answered as a guest as the same person (180 days)
• gd_v — a random key so a reload of a page opened from a QR code or link counts as one scan (30 days; it contains nothing about you)
• gd_lang — remembers the language you chose (1 year)

9. Security

Codes and session keys are stored only in hashed form, calendar access is stored encrypted, access is limited per person and per plan, uploaded files are only served to the people they are shared with, and connections are encrypted. No system is 100% secure; if something goes wrong, we will inform you and the authorities as the law requires.

10. Your rights

You have the right to access, correct and delete your data, to restrict or object to processing, and to data portability. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Write to privacy@going-dutch.com. We may ask you to confirm your number so we know the request is yours. You can also file a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

11. Children

GoingDutch is for people aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly collect data of younger children. If you think we have, write to privacy@going-dutch.com and we will delete it.

12. Changes

When the Service changes, this policy changes with it. We announce material changes in the app or on this page before they apply; the date at the top shows the current version.

13. Contact

GoingDutch B.V., Generaal Winkelmanstraat 127, 3769 EC Soesterberg, the Netherlands

Chamber of Commerce (KvK) no. 82729409 · VAT no. NL003723134B32

• Support: support@going-dutch.com
• Privacy: privacy@going-dutch.com
• Website: https://going-dutch.com