Privacy Policy

Last updated October 6, 2026

Poko is a map of places your friends love. To make that work we keep your account, the places you rate and save, and who you follow. We don’t show ads, we don’t sell your data, and we don’t use third-party analytics or tracking.

What we collect

Your phone number

You sign in with your phone number and a code we text you. Google’s Firebase sends and checks the code. We keep the number to sign you in and to match you with friends who have it in their contacts. It is never shown to other members.

Your profile

Your name, handle, bio, and profile photo.

What you post and save

Ratings (score, note, tags, friends you tag, and visit date), photos and captions, comments, reactions, pokes, saved places, collections, private notes, places you add to the map, and tag votes. Before a photo leaves your phone, Poko removes its location data.

Reports and blocks

When you report something, we keep what you reported, the reason, and any note you add, so a person at Poko can review it. We don’t tell anyone who reported them. We also keep the list of people you block.

Contacts, if you turn it on

Poko turns each phone number in your contacts into a scrambled code (a hash) on your phone and sends only those codes. Names and other contact details never leave your phone. We keep the codes for up to 180 days so we can tell you when a friend joins. You can delete them any time in Settings.

Location

If you allow location, the map starts where you are. To find places, Poko sends our servers the map area you’re looking at, and sometimes your location so it can sort your saved places by distance. We don’t store your location with your account. Our hosting provider’s request logs can keep these requests for a limited time.

Rate Today reads your photos’ locations on your phone to suggest places you went. For each stop it sends only an area rounded to about 100 meters, and we don’t keep it. Your photos, their capture times, and their exact locations stay on your phone unless you attach a photo to a rating.

How you use Poko

To improve your recommendations, we record which search results you see and tap, the kind of place you searched for, and what you save and rate. We keep this for up to 25 months. It doesn’t include your notes, your photos, the words you type into search, or your exact location. You can turn it off and delete it in Settings under Personalize recommendations.

Device details

A push notification token and a random installation ID so we can send you notifications, and your time zone so streaks follow your calendar day.

Imports

If you import your places from another app, we keep the places, notes, and scores from that file. You can erase your import history in the app.

Who can see what

• Any Poko member can see your name, handle, bio, profile photo, join date, follower counts, leaderboard rank, Want to Go list, and public collections. New collections are public unless you make them private.
• People you’ve accepted as followers can see your ratings, notes, scores, comments, reactions, and badges. If your account is public, anyone can follow you without asking. Make your account private to approve each follower.
• Place photo galleries can show photos from your ratings to any member, without your name.
• Friends who have your number in their contacts may be told when you join.
• People you block can’t find you or see what you post, and you won’t see theirs.
• Nobody sees your phone number.

Shared links and the web map. The web map and search require you to sign in as a Poko member. A completed public account automatically has a public web profile. Anyone, including people without a Poko account, can see your display name, handle, bio and current profile photo when available. Public place pages can show a place’s name, category and stored address or locality. Anonymous place and profile web pages and their link previews do not expose your ratings, reviews, scores, library, Want to Go list, collections or private saved notes. Private, incomplete and deleted profiles have no public identity preview. Sharing a link does not grant access to content that requires sign-in.

Public collection links follow the collection’s public visibility setting. Anyone with a public collection link can see the collection’s name, owner’s display name, place count and a preview of its places.

Messaging apps and other services may retain a preview they already fetched after you change or delete the shared content, remove a photo, or make your account or collection private. Poko cannot retract those stored cards.

Services we use

We use these companies to run Poko. They handle your data only to provide their service to us.

• Google: Firebase Authentication (sign-in codes), Firebase Cloud Messaging (notifications), and Google Cloud (our servers, activity database, and logs) in the United States.
• MongoDB Atlas: our main database.
• Cloudflare: our network edge, which limits abuse, and storage for photos. Cloudflare also hosts the website, member web map, shared pages and preview images.
• Apple: Apple Maps search and push notification delivery.
• OpenFreeMap: map images. Your phone or browser loads them directly, so OpenFreeMap sees your IP address and the map area you view.
• Vercel: hosting for our existing landing website during the transition to Cloudflare.

Some place photos load straight from the place’s own website, which can see your IP address.

How long we keep it

• Your account and what you post: until you delete it or your account.
• Contact codes: up to 180 days.
• Recommendation activity: up to 25 months.
• Blocks: until you unblock.
• Reports: kept as the record of our review.
• Photos you uploaded but never posted: 7 days.
• Backups: up to 90 days.

When you delete a rating, it disappears from Poko and its photos are deleted. We keep a record of the deleted rating’s text and score in our internal records.

Your choices

• Make your account private, remove followers, or unfollow anyone.
• Block anyone, and report anything that breaks our terms.
• Delete your ratings, comments, saves, and collections.
• Delete shared contacts, and turn off or delete recommendation activity, in Settings.
• Turn notifications off in Settings or in iOS.
• To delete your account and its data, or to get a copy of your data, email hello@getpoko.app. We’ll confirm the request with the phone number on your account.

Children

Poko isn’t for children under 13. If you think a child under 13 has an account, email us and we’ll delete it.

Where your data lives

Poko is available in the United States, and our servers are in the United States.

Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. For big changes, we’ll tell you in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests: hello@getpoko.app