Privacy Policy

When you use Karia Guide, we collect:

• Account data: first name, last name, email (during registration).

• Location data: your GPS position, used only to show nearby historical sites and send proximity notifications.

• Usage data: which locations you view, which audio narration you listen to, your language preference, device type, app version.

• Device identifier: anonymous device ID (no advertising IDs like IDFA/GAID).

• Push notification token: for sending event and announcement notifications.

• AI Q&A content: when you use the "Ask the Karia expert" feature, your questions and the answers given are logged anonymously for 90 days (quality improvement + abuse detection). Do not include personal data in your questions.

• Voice recordings (voice Q&A): audio you speak into the microphone is sent to OpenAI Whisper for transcription; the recording itself is not stored on our servers.

• To provide app functionality (showing nearby historical sites, audio narration).

• To verify your account and ensure security.

• To produce anonymous statistics (total visitor count, most popular location, etc).

• To deliver event and announcement notifications sent by administrators.

• To display advertisements (including sponsored content).

We do not sell your data or share it for marketing purposes. To provide the service, we use the following infrastructure providers:

• Supabase — database, authentication, file storage (EU)

• ElevenLabs — audio narration generation

• Anthropic (Claude) — for AI Q&A, your questions and POI content are sent to the Anthropic API; Anthropic does not use customer data for training.

• OpenAI — for AI Q&A embeddings and Whisper speech-to-text, your questions and audio recordings are sent to the OpenAI API; OpenAI does not use API data for training by default.

• Expo Push Notifications — notification infrastructure

• Sentry — application error reports; on a crash your device details, IP address and (if signed in) your user id are recorded (Germany, EU). Used only to diagnose and fix faults.

• Hetzner Cloud — server hosting (Germany, EU)

These providers access your data only to provide their services.

• Account data: as long as your account is active.

• Usage data: anonymously for 24 months.

• Push notification token: until you uninstall the app.

To delete your account: in-app Settings → Delete My Account, or email hello@kariaguide.com. We process requests within 30 days.

Karia Guide is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from users under 13.

Our website (kariaguide.com) uses only functional cookies. We do not use third-party advertising cookies.

If you enter your email address in the waitlist form on our website, we store it — together with the language of the page and the date you signed up — solely to notify you when the Karia Guide mobile app launches. We do not use it for any other purpose.

This data is stored in our Supabase database (EU).

We delete your email address once we have sent the launch notification; you can also ask us to delete it earlier, at any time: hello@kariaguide.com.

Legal basis: your explicit consent (KVKK art. 5/1, GDPR art. 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw your consent at any time; this does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.

Some pages contain links to our partners GetYourGuide (tours and tickets) and Booking.com (accommodation). If you book through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

We count clicks on these links anonymously: we record only which partner link was clicked, on which page and in which site language — no personal data.

Once you are on a partner's website, that partner's own privacy policy (and cookie policy) applies.

Under GDPR (and Turkey's KVKK), you have the right to:

• Access your data

• Correct inaccurate data

• Delete your data (right to be forgotten)

• Data portability

• Object to processing

To exercise these rights, email hello@kariaguide.com.

This policy may be updated from time to time. Important changes are announced in-app.