Privacy Policy

Last updated 1 November 2026

Closer is a small app for a household and the people they want to see more of. It finds the evenings two people are both free and suggests something to do with one. This describes what it holds, who else sees it, and how to get rid of it.

It is written to be read. Where it says Closer does not do something, that is because there is no code in it that does.

Who runs it

Closer is run by one person, for their household, at letstrycloser.com. It is not a company and there is no support desk.

For data protection law, the person responsible for your data — the controller — is Bernie, reachable at bsmithenvi@gmail.com. Write there about anything on this page, including the rights below. Everyday questions are usually quicker asked of the person who invited you.

How you get an account

You cannot sign yourself up. Somebody already using Closer has to create a profile for you and send you an invitation, which is a link that works once, for that one profile, and stops working after fourteen days. Without one, signing in tells you that nobody here is expecting you, and nothing is stored.

The public page has a form for asking to be let in. If you use it, Closer keeps your name, your address and what you wrote, where the person who runs it will see them. That is all it does — it does not let you in, and the answer it gives you is the same whether or not your address is already here, because a form that answered differently would be a way of reading the household’s address book from outside. Once the request is answered, or once fifty newer ones have arrived, it is gone.

What Closer holds about you

Only what the app needs to do its job:

• Your name and email address. The address is how you sign in and where reminders go.
• How you know each other — partner, friend, family or housemate — and who added whom.
• When you are usually free, your working pattern, and days you have booked off.
• Events you add: a title, a date and times.
• Plans you were offered and whether you said yes, and afterwards whether it happened and what you thought of it.
• Bills you choose to track: a name, an amount, a currency and when it is due.
• Notes you write, which only you ever see.
• A picture, if you add one.
• An area, if you type one — a neighbourhood or a postcode, not an address.
• A password, if you set one, stored as a PBKDF2-SHA256 hash over a random salt at 600,000 rounds. The password itself is never written down anywhere.
• An identifier from Google or Apple, if you sign in with one, so you are recognised next time.
• A second step, if you turn one on: a shared secret so the codes from your authenticator can be checked, and a hash of each recovery code. The codes themselves are shown once and never stored.
• A connected calendar, if you connect one: for a Google account, a refresh token, the address of the account, the names of its calendars so you have something to tick, and which ones you ticked; for a subscription link, the link. Plus the busy times read from it — dates and times, nothing else. The section on calendars below says what this means.

There is no tracking of any kind: no advertising, no analytics, no third-party cookies, no profiling, and nothing is sold or shared for anybody’s marketing. The only cookies Closer sets are the ones that keep you signed in, and one that remembers which profile a device is using.

What other people in Closer can see

This is the part most worth knowing.

• Your events show as "Busy", with their times and nothing else, unless you tick the box to share what one is. The title is removed on the server before the page is built, so there is nothing to find by looking.
• You choose how much each person sees: only when you are free, that you are busy, or what you are doing.
• Your bills are yours until you share one, and then only with the people you picked.
• Your notes are yours, always.
• Your area is never shown to anybody. It is used to work out a point between two people and nothing else.
• Circles. You see the people you added and the person who added you. Not their other contacts.

Calendars, if you connect one

You can connect up to six, in two ways. A Google account, where you grant Closer read access and then tick which of that account’s calendars count — work and personal are usually two accounts, so you can connect both. Or a subscription link, which is the published .ics address that iCloud, Outlook and almost everything else will give you. You can give each one your own name, so the list reads “Work” rather than an address.

Either way Closer reads busy times only — never titles, never guests, never locations, never anything else. From Google it asks the free/busy endpoint, which returns nothing but intervals, so the server never learns what you are doing. From a subscription link the titles are in the file and are thrown away unread.

Connecting a Google account means Closer keeps a refresh token for it, so it can go on reading your busy times without asking you again. That is a standing key to that calendar, and it is worth being plain about: it is stored in data.json on the server, it is never sent to the browser or to anybody else, and it is used for nothing but asking Google when you are busy. Closer re-reads a connected calendar about every half hour while you are using it.

Disconnect one and the token goes with it, out of the file, along with every busy time read using it. So does deleting your account. You can also revoke Closer yourself at myaccount.google.com/permissions, which stops it working from Google’s end whatever Closer holds.

Who else sees any of this

Five, and only for the thing named:

• Google, if you sign in with it: Closer asks for your name, address and picture, nothing else. If you connect a calendar, Google is also asked when you are busy.
• Apple, if you sign in with it: your address the first time and an identifier after that. Apple’s Hide My Email works normally — Closer accepts a relay address like any other and never needs to know the one behind it.
• Whoever publishes a subscription link, if you add one — Apple, Microsoft, or whatever your calendar lives in. Closer fetches that address, as any calendar reader would. Nothing about you goes with the request beyond the link itself, which you chose and which your calendar handed you.
• Google Maps Platform, if places are switched on: the area you typed, to turn it into a point, and a point between two people, to find places near it. Closer never asks your device where you are. There is no location permission, no GPS, no Wi-Fi scanning: you type a neighbourhood or you do not.
• Claude or ChatGPT, if the person running Closer has set a key, to suggest activities. What goes is the kind of relationship, the sorts of thing you both like, and how long a free evening tends to be. No names, no dates, no calendar, no addresses.

Email reminders are sent through Gmail, so Google carries the message, as it would any email.

Why Closer is allowed to hold it

Under the GDPR every use of your data needs a reason the law recognises. Closer’s are:

• To run the thing you joined — your profile, your circle, your hours, your plans. This is performance of a contract: it is the service itself, and without it there is nothing to use.
• A calendar you connect, and the busy times read from it: consent. You choose to connect one, nothing depends on it, and disconnecting withdraws that consent and removes what was read.
• Email reminders, if they are switched on: consent, withdrawn by switching them off.
• Suggestions from an AI provider, where one is configured: legitimate interests — making the app useful. What is sent carries no names, no dates and no calendar, so the effect on you is slight. You can object; write to the address above.
• Keeping the place secure — counting failed sign-ins, limiting how often a stranger may ask for an invitation: legitimate interests, in not having the household’s evenings read by whoever turns up.
• A request to be let in, if you use the form on the public page: consent, given by sending it.

How long it is kept

• What you put into Closer stays until you or the person who invited you removes it.
• Signing in lasts thirty days before you are asked again.
• An invitation lasts fourteen days, and once.
• A plan nobody answers expires after forty-eight hours.
• Places looked up near a point are cached for seventy-two hours so the same search is not paid for twice.
• A connected calendar is held until you disconnect it or delete your account, and its busy times are replaced each time it is read.
• A request to be let in lasts until it is answered.
• The server keeps an access log — which page was asked for, what it answered, and how long it took — which is how a fault gets found. It records no addresses, no names and no sign-in links; the only thing in it that touches a person is the reference in a picture’s address, which means nothing to anybody without the file itself. It is held by the hosting provider for as long as they keep logs, and read for nothing else. Deleting your account removes your profile, your events, your bills, your notes, your rhythms, your schedule, your picture, your password, your second step, any calendar you had connected and everything read from it, and your name from other people’s records. The people you added who have their own accounts keep them.

Deleting your account

Profile → Delete your account. You type your name to confirm, because there is no undo. It is available to everybody, and you do not have to ask anyone.

Keeping it safe

Closer is served over HTTPS only. Session cookies are HttpOnly and Secure. Passwords are hashed, never stored. Wrong passwords are made to wait, and the wait grows. You can add a second step from an authenticator app, and turning it off asks for a code as well. Nobody can create an account without an invitation, and an invitation is good for one profile once.

No system is perfect, and this one is built and run by one person. If something looks wrong, say so to whoever invited you.

Children

Closer is not for anyone under 16, or under the age your own country sets if it is lower — several in the EU allow 13. Nobody can join without being invited by an adult who already uses it. If you believe a child has an account here, write to the address above and it will be removed.

Where it runs

Closer is hosted in the European Union. The services it talks to — Google, Apple, and an AI provider if one is configured — may process data elsewhere, including the United States.

Where data goes outside the European Economic Area, it relies on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for providers certified under it, and otherwise on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses, which those providers include in their terms. Ask at the address above for a copy of what applies to a particular one.

Your rights

Most of these you can exercise yourself, without asking anybody. The screens are the data: open Closer and you are looking at it.

• A copy of your data (access, and portability): Your profile → A copy of your data → Download my data. It is a JSON file holding everything Closer has about you, which you can keep or take elsewhere.
• Correct something (rectification): edit it in the app. If it is something the app will not let you change, write to the address above.
• Delete everything (erasure): Your profile → Delete your account. It cannot be undone.
• Withdraw consent: disconnect a calendar, or switch reminders off. Withdrawing does not undo what was done beforehand, but it stops it from there.
• Object, or ask that use of your data be restricted while something is sorted out: write to the address above.

If you would rather not write, or you have written and are not satisfied, you have the right to complain to a data protection authority — the one in the EU or EEA country where you live, work, or where you think something went wrong. The list is at edpb.europa.eu. You can go to them directly; you do not have to come here first.

Closer sells nothing and shares nothing for advertising, so there is no opt-out of that to offer. There are no tracking signals to honour because there is no tracking, and nothing here makes an automated decision about you.

Changes

If this changes, the date at the top changes with it. The version of Closer this describes is shown at the foot of every screen.

This policy describes what the code does. It was written by reading it, not from a template.