ChiVibe Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 21, 2026

ChiVibe helps people discover Chicago events, places, transit, parks, tours, and neighborhood information. This policy explains the information ChiVibe handles and the choices available to you.

Information handled by ChiVibe

Location

With your permission, ChiVibe uses approximate location while the app is in use to rank nearby results, identify a neighborhood, show distances, and build tours. Location is processed on your device and is not stored in community posts. If you create a community post, only the detected neighborhood name may be included; your precise coordinates are never published. You can deny or revoke location permission in iOS Settings. ChiVibe will use central Chicago as a general fallback.

Community content

If you use the Community Board, the title, text, category, optional neighborhood, optional event time, CloudKit record identifiers, and abuse reports are stored in Apple's CloudKit public database. These records are linked to the iCloud account identity used by CloudKit so that ownership, deletion, blocking, and abuse prevention can work. ChiVibe does not display your name or email address with a post.

Community posts are public to ChiVibe users. Do not post home addresses, phone numbers, sensitive personal information, or information about another person without permission.

Favorites, My Day, and preferences

Favorites may sync through your private iCloud database when iCloud is available. My Day selections are stored on your device and may also be backed up through Apple's private iCloud key-value store so your chosen events and places can follow your Apple Account across devices. A My Day backup can include the selected event or place's identifier, title, summary, schedule, address, source, category, links, cost information, the day and order you chose, and whether you added it directly or from a ChiVibe Guide. ChiVibe does not add an item to this backup unless it is part of My Day.

Guide and app settings may also sync through the private iCloud key-value store. These settings include your chosen guide vibe and distance, event filters, favorite neighborhoods, notification and appearance choices, and local Community Board safety state such as blocked-author, hidden-post, and locally recognized post identifiers. ChiVibe keeps a local mirror of the compact My Day backup so edits can be reconciled while offline.

To reconcile edits and deletions from more than one device, ChiVibe creates a random identifier for each app installation. This identifier is not an Apple advertising identifier, hardware serial number, or account credential, and ChiVibe does not use it for analytics, advertising, or tracking. It is used only to resolve otherwise equal backup revisions. Deleted My Day items are represented temporarily by deletion markers so an older offline device does not restore them. My Day backup records and deletion markers for plan dates more than 90 days in the past are compacted out of the iCloud backup; this compaction does not by itself delete older rows still stored locally on a device.

A CTA API key entered by you is stored in the iOS Keychain and sent only to the official CTA API when you request live train information.

Calendar, notifications, and photos

Calendar access is used only when you ask to add an event. Notifications are local reminders you choose to enable. Photo-library add access is used only when you explicitly save a generated event story image. ChiVibe does not upload your photo library.

Public data and network requests

ChiVibe downloads event, transit, weather, venue, park, and civic information from public Chicago-area sources. Those providers may receive standard network information such as an IP address as part of serving a request. ChiVibe does not use advertising SDKs, cross-app tracking, or third-party analytics.

How information is used

Information is used only to provide app functionality, sync user-requested data, keep the Community Board safe, investigate reports, and maintain service reliability. ChiVibe does not sell personal information and does not use information for third-party advertising or tracking.

Retention and deletion

Community posts remain until the author deletes them or they are removed for safety or policy reasons. Reports may be retained as needed to investigate abuse. Deleting the app removes its on-device data from that device. My Day selections can be removed in the app; deletion markers may remain temporarily in the compact iCloud backup to keep deletions consistent across devices. Private iCloud data can be managed through your Apple iCloud settings.

To request removal of community content or related CloudKit records that you cannot remove in the app, open a support request with the post details. We may need enough information to locate and verify the record.

Children

ChiVibe is a general-audience local discovery app and is not directed to children under 13. Do not submit personal information about a child through the Community Board.

Security

ChiVibe uses Apple platform protections, encrypted HTTPS connections, bounded network responses, Keychain storage for user-supplied credentials, input validation, and CloudKit permissions. No system can guarantee absolute security; please report suspected issues promptly.

Changes

This policy may be updated as ChiVibe changes. The effective date above will identify the current version.

Contact

Privacy, safety, or deletion requests: email ChiVibe support.

Do not include precise location, account credentials, or other sensitive personal information in a support request. If a request requires private information, ask for a private contact channel first.