Account privacy.

Your information

We store your email address, your name if you provide one, when your account was created and verified, and the events and places you save to My Day. Verification emails are delivered through Amazon SES.

Sign-in codes expire after ten minutes. Sessions expire after 24 hours. We store protected hashes of codes and session credentials, and remove expired authentication records hourly. Hashed request identifiers help limit abuse.

Your choices

Creating or signing in to an account does not change your app settings. In the iOS app, usage statistics and Event Insights are on by default and you can turn either off at any time, with or without an account. These account pages do not load advertising or session-recording scripts, and the app does not use an advertising identifier.

You can sign out or delete your account from the Account screen on the website or app. Deletion removes your account and active sessions. Encrypted backups may retain a copy until their roughly two-week rotation completes.

When you sign in, your saved plan syncs between the website and app. Guest saves stay on the device until you sign in. Account deletion removes the server copy of your plan; cached copies on other devices may remain until those devices reconnect or you clear their app/browser storage.

Tickets and tokens

Token purchases use Stripe-hosted checkout. We store the quantity purchased, payment-provider references, your token balance, and pickup or activity-redemption receipts. Card details are entered with Stripe, not stored by this app or account service. Existing Fair tickets remain with the Fair’s ticketing service.

Physical token pickup and digital activity payments deduct from one balance. Authorized staff must sign in, unlock access with an authenticator, and be assigned to a station before confirming a redemption. Short-lived token QR codes are stored as protected hashes and expire after two minutes; camera images used to scan them stay on the staff device.

Account deletion removes your profile, sign-in sessions, and saved plan. Purchase and redemption records are retained separately for fulfillment, reconciliation, refunds, and fraud prevention. A protected email reference lets you recover the same token wallet after verifying the same email again; it is not anonymous data. Deleting an account does not automatically refund a purchase.

App usage statistics

The iOS app sends usage statistics by default so the Fair can see what guests look for and improve the app and the Fair. They include screens opened and time spent on them, events and places viewed and for how long, searches and how many results they found, saves, reminder times chosen, directions requested, notifications opened, and the app version, iOS version and device type. They do not include your location.

The copy kept on the Fair’s own server is tied to a random identifier created when the app is installed, which we store only as a protected keyed hash, and is not linked to your account. Organizers see grouped reports there; a search appears only after at least three devices typed the same words. Raw usage events on our server are deleted after 180 days.

The same statistics, and crash reports, are also sent to PostHog, Inc. (United States), the product analytics service the Fair uses to understand how the app is used, answer short in-app surveys, and compare versions of a feature. In PostHog they are tied to a random identifier and, when you are signed in, to your Fair account’s ID, so your use of the app can be understood across your devices and visits. Your name and email are not sent to PostHog, and the app does not use an advertising identifier or track you across other companies’ apps or websites. Screen recordings are made only in TestFlight test builds, never in the App Store app, and hide text fields, QR codes and photos.

Turn usage statistics off in the app under About the Fair → Share how I use the app. When you do, the app stops sending them to both our server and PostHog and clears any it had not sent yet. “Delete my usage history” in the same place deletes the usage records on our server and starts a new random identifier; to have your PostHog history deleted as well, contact the Fair.

Fair notifications

Fair notifications are on by default. On first launch the app asks iOS to deliver them quietly to Notification Center without a prompt; setting a reminder, or choosing to show news on the Lock Screen, asks for full permission. The app registers this phone so the Fair can send announcements such as schedule changes, weather updates, and lost-and-found news. We store the Apple push token, whether notifications are allowed, the app version, and the events you saved, so news about an event can reach the people who saved it. If you are signed in, the registration is linked to your account and is removed when you delete your account. Event reminders you set yourself are scheduled on your phone and are not sent by the server.

Turn Fair notifications off in the app under About the Fair → Fair news, from a notification itself, or in iOS Settings → Notifications → Homestead Fair. Push tokens that Apple reports as no longer valid are disabled and deleted after 30 days; registrations that stop checking in are deleted after about 13 months.

Suggestion box

When you drop a note in the suggestion box in the app or on the website, we store the note, the topic you picked, an email address only if you choose to leave one for a reply, whether it came from the app or the website and the app version, the event or place it was about, and a link to your Fair account if you were signed in. Fair organizers read these notes to improve the Fair and the app. Notes are kept on the Fair’s own server and are not sent to PostHog. Deleting your account removes the link to it but keeps the note itself. To have a note deleted, contact the Fair.

Meet-ups

When you start or join a meet-up in the app or on the website, we store the meeting place and time, the name you enter (or “Friend”), and whether you joined from the app or the website. Only while you choose to share, we also store your phone’s latest location, its accuracy and direction, and the data the app passes between phones to find each other nearby. Your location is shown only to the other people in that meet-up, never to Fair organizers, and is not sent to PostHog; no location history is kept, and your location is removed when you stop sharing or leave. A meet-up ends three hours after its meeting time (at most a day after it was started); locations are cleared then, and the meet-up and everything in it is deleted an hour later. If you are signed in to the app, your place in a meet-up is linked to your account until you delete the account.

Event Insights

In the iOS app, Event Insights is on by default once you allow the app to use your location (for example, to remember where you parked). It works without an account. When iOS allows the app to use location in the background, sharing can continue while the app is in the background or the screen is locked. Navigation and parking work without Event Insights.

Turn Event Insights or background sharing off in the app under About the Fair → Event Insights, or deny location access in iOS Settings.

While it is on, the app sends your location, its accuracy, capture time, and an event-day identifier during configured event hours on the mapped fairgrounds. Fair organizers use grouped reports to understand busy areas, time near activities, and movement between areas. Location samples contain no name, email, advertising identifier, or ticket details. Day identifiers are pseudonymous; they are not a promise of anonymity.

Pause sharing or turn it off at any time. Turning it off clears pending locations on your phone and revokes the server collection session; an offline change is retried when you reconnect. “Delete my movement data” also removes the corresponding raw server records. No earlier navigation history is uploaded.

Event hours are the Fair (November 27–29, 2026) and its Christmas market days on the same grounds (December 5, 6 and 12). Raw locations are kept to help plan future Fairs until the Fair deletes them; turning Event Insights off and choosing “Delete my Event Insights data” in the app removes yours. Encrypted disaster-recovery backups rotate after roughly two weeks; restored records must undergo retention cleanup before the service resumes. Grouped daily reports may be kept for future Fair planning. Reports suppress small groups and show participating phones, rather than a total attendance count. Organizers must sign in with an approved role and an authenticator code; the dashboard provides no individual routes or raw-location downloads.

Map survey

The iOS app includes a map survey for helping the Fair correct its map. Test versions installed through TestFlight always offer it; in the App Store app (version 1.3 and later) it appears only while the Fair has opened it to everyone. It stays off unless you turn it on. When you turn survey mode on, the app sends the reports you write about the map (what is wrong, the place or point it concerns, the phone’s location and compass heading, a note, and an optional name you type) and the photos you take for a report, with each photo’s location and time. While survey mode stays on, it also records the phone’s location on and near the fairgrounds, including when the app is in the background, so walkways can be traced; points away from the grounds are discarded. Turning survey mode off stops recording, and so does the Fair closing the survey to App Store guests, from the next time you open the app.

Survey data is keyed to a random identifier for the app install, not to a Fair account, and is kept on the Fair’s own server, separate from usage statistics and Event Insights. Organizers who sign in with an approved role and an authenticator code review it, including individual walk traces and photos, to correct the Fair map. It is not shared with advertisers or used for anything else.