Explore without an account. Your saved countries stay on your device.
Sharing starts off. You choose whether friends see your explored countries.
No ads or cross-app tracking. WorldNiche does not sell personal information.
Who is responsible
WorldNiche is an independent app operated by Reda Boutayeb in Los Angeles, California, United States. This policy covers the WorldNiche iPhone app and worldniche.app. For privacy requests, contact boutayeb.reda@icloud.com.
What stays on your device
You can discover countries and keep a journal without an account. The app stores saved countries, explored countries, reading history used to avoid repeat discoveries, preferences, and a local profile on your device. A profile can use a nickname, a symbol, or a photo you choose.
Ask Niche and supported AI cultural observations use Apple's on-device models. WorldNiche does not send your questions or companion conversations to a remote AI service. Availability depends on your device and Apple Intelligence settings. Conversations are not saved as a server-side chat history.
Sign-in sessions are stored in iOS Keychain. Exported files may contain personal data; any copy you save or share is under your control. iOS device backups may contain local app data according to your Apple backup settings.
What an optional account uses
| Information | Why it is used |
|---|---|
| Email address and account ID | Sign-in, session management, account recovery, and deletion. Sign in with Apple may provide a private relay email. |
| Chosen name, symbol, or photo | Your profile and the identity shown to connected friends. You do not need to use your legal name. |
| Friends, invitations, and blocks | Connect accounts, prevent unwanted connections, and enforce invitation expiry and revocation. |
| Explored countries and service timestamps | Only uploaded for sharing when you enable it. This records app activity, not physical travel. |
| Reports and support messages | Investigate issues, abuse, and privacy requests. In-app reports include the accounts involved, the selected reason, any optional details you add, and a snapshot of the reported profile name and photo reference. Private review records include decisions and timestamps. Support emails include the details you choose to provide. |
| Technical request records | Our infrastructure providers process connection and delivery information, such as IP addresses, requested paths, timestamps, and service errors, to run and protect their services. |
We use this information to deliver the features you request, secure accounts, handle support and abuse, and meet applicable legal obligations. We do not use it for advertising or sell it to data brokers.
Photos and permissions
Apple's system photo picker gives WorldNiche only the photo you select, without access to your whole library. The app creates a small JPEG without the original camera or location metadata. Guest photos stay local. A signed-in account's photo is uploaded to private storage. New names and photos are available to you and authorized moderators while being reviewed. Friends can see only approved profile content. A previous approved photo may stay visible while its replacement is reviewed. We do not send profile photos to an external AI moderation service.
You can replace or remove your photo in Profile → Edit profile, or choose a symbol instead. WorldNiche does not request your physical location or import your address book. Sharing an invitation uses Apple's share sheet.
What friends can see
Friends can see your chosen profile name, symbol, or photo. They cannot see your sign-in email. Exploration sharing is off by default. If you turn it on, current friends can see countries you explore in the app. Turning it off removes your shared exploration records from the active service. Saved-only journal entries are not shared.
Tapping a valid invitation connects its sender and signed-in recipient automatically. If the recipient is signed out, sign-in happens first. Anyone holding a valid link may be able to use it, so share it intentionally. The signed-in app receives the sender's name and symbol while processing the invitation. You can revoke invitation links without removing existing friends, remove a friend, or block an account. Invitation preview pages do not expose your profile or redeem the link.
Removing a connection limits future service access. It cannot erase screenshots or other copies someone has independently saved.
Services that help WorldNiche work
- Supabase provides account authentication, the social database, and private photo storage.
- Resend delivers email sign-in codes.
- Apple provides Sign in with Apple and on-device platform features.
- OpenAI Sites, using Cloudflare infrastructure, hosts this website and invitation pages.
These providers receive the information needed to perform their functions. Authorized operators may access account information when necessary to run the service, investigate abuse, or answer a request. Information may be processed in the United States and other countries where these providers operate. WorldNiche remains responsible for choosing providers that offer protections consistent with this policy. We do not authorize them to use account data for their own advertising. Their policies describe their own processing and safeguards.
Public content and external links
Music, news, cultural reading, and images are requested directly from Apple, Google, Wikimedia, and the content hosts shown in the app. Those requests can reveal your IP address and the requested country, article, or image to the provider. Following a source or song link opens that provider's service.
See the policies from Apple, Google, and Wikimedia. WorldNiche's app and website do not contain advertising or analytics SDKs, advertising cookies, or cross-site tracking pixels. Hosting and service logs are different from analytics and may still record technical requests.
Retention and deletion
Account, profile, and social information stays in the active service while your account exists, unless you remove it through an available control. Invitation status, profile submissions, moderation decisions, and abuse reports may remain for security and abuse handling until related account deletion or service cleanup. Open reports are kept for review and are not automatically removed just because they are old. We do not treat signing out or uninstalling as a request to delete an online account.
Delete account and all data removes your stored profile photo, authentication account, profile, friendships, shared explorations, invitations, blocks, reports, profile submissions, and moderation decisions linked to that account from the active service. The app clears its local account data after the service confirms deletion. Apple-linked deletion includes authorization revocation, with an explicit manual-removal recovery option if needed. If deletion cannot complete, the app shows an error or pending state so you can retry or contact support.
Provider security logs, email delivery records, and backup copies are separate from active app records. They may remain under the providers' retention and recovery controls after active account deletion. A local clear does not erase those records or copies you saved elsewhere. Contact us for questions about a particular request or retained record.
Support correspondence is kept as needed to resolve the request, handle related follow-up, and meet applicable legal obligations. Avoid including information we do not need.
Your choices and privacy requests
In Profile → Settings, you can change exploration sharing, revoke invitation links, export your data, clear this device, or delete your account. See the deletion steps and what each option does.
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete personal information, or object to or restrict certain processing. You can withdraw optional exploration sharing in the app without losing access to discovery. For other requests, email boutayeb.reda@icloud.com. We may need to verify account ownership before releasing or changing private data. You may also contact your local data protection authority.
Children and policy updates
WorldNiche is not designed for children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact boutayeb.reda@icloud.com so the account can be reviewed and the information removed where appropriate. Local age requirements may differ.
We update this page when practices change and show the revision date at the top. Changes requiring a new permission or choice will be presented before that feature uses the information.