Who we are

MK Dads Club is a peer-support community for dads in Milton Keynes that meets on walks. The app is run by the club, for the club, and costs nothing to run — there is no company behind it and nothing here is sold, shared or advertised against.

The club is run by Luke, and he is the one responsible for your details (the “controller”, in the jargon). Questions about them go to homes.aaron98@gmail.com. The sign-in emails come from hello@mkdadsclub.app, but nobody reads replies to that address — use the one above, or ask in the group.

What we hold about you

Only what the club needs to know who's coming on Saturday:

• Your name, and if you add one, a line about your kids (“one boy, 4, obsessed with diggers”) and a photo of you.
• The email address you sign in with, or your Google account if you use that. We get your name and email from Google, nothing else.
• When you joined.
• Which walks you said you’re going to (or maybe, or can’t), and how many kids you’re bringing.
• Comments and kudos you leave on walks.
• What you say in club chat, and when you last opened it — that's only so the app can mark what's new to you, and nobody else can see it.
• Photos you add to a walk. The app shrinks them on your phone before they’re uploaded, and strips the location and camera data phones bury in a photo, so a photo can never say where it was taken.
• If you turn notifications on: an address for your phone that the notification service uses to reach it, and which browser it is. Not your phone number, and not your location.
• Which notifications you want.

If something goes wrong in the app it writes a short note of the error — the screen, the message and your member id — so it can be fixed. Those are deleted after 30 days.

That's the list. There's no tracking, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party scripts. The app doesn't know where you are, and it never asks.

Why

So the club can run: put walks in the diary, see who's coming, put names to faces, and nudge you about a walk you said you'd come to. In the language of the law, that's the club's legitimate interest as a members' group. Notifications only happen because you switched them on, and you can switch them off.

Who can see it

Other members. Everyone holding the club's invite code can see your name, your kids line, your photo, which walks you're on, your comments, your kudos, what you say in club chat and any photos you add. That's what a club is.

Comments and club chat are visible to every member, so share only what you're comfortable with everyone seeing. The organiser can remove any comment or message.

A club chat notification never says what anyone wrote, so nobody's words turn up on anyone's lock screen. The one that comes up to four times a day says only that there are new messages. One for a mention or a reply says who, and nothing more: “Dan mentioned you in club chat”.

The organiser (Luke) can also see the member list with join dates, export a walk's RSVP list, and see whether you've got notifications on — how many devices, never which.

Whoever runs the app can see everything in the database, including email addresses, because somebody has to be able to fix it.

Nobody else. Nothing is public. Walks, photos and the member list all need a sign-in and an invite code. One honest detail: your profile photo lives at a web address that works without signing in — it's how every screen shows it quickly — but that address isn't listed anywhere and can't be guessed, so only someone you've given it to could open it.

Photos of children

Photos of children are allowed. It's a dads' walking club and the kids are the point of it. Any member can add photos to a walk, up to ten each per walk. One thing we ask: only post photographs of children you're responsible for.

If you want a photo taken down, ask either the organiser, who can remove any photo, or the member who posted it, who can remove their own.

Whatever is asked, this is what the app does, every time:

• A photo can be seen by every member of the club, and by nobody else. Nothing is public.
• The location and camera data a phone buries in a picture is removed on your phone before the photo is uploaded, so a photo here can never say where it was taken.
• The member who posted a photo can remove it at any time, with one tap.
• The organiser can remove any photo.
• When a member leaves the club, or is removed, every photo they posted goes with them.

Where it lives

The database, sign-in and photos are on Supabase, hosted on Amazon Web Services in Ireland. The app itself runs on Vercel, in London, so what you do in it passes through Vercel's servers there.

Two things do leave the UK and Europe. Sign-in emails are sent by Resend, an American company: it gets your email address so it can deliver your code, and nothing else about you. And notifications are delivered by Apple's, Google's or Mozilla's push service, depending on your phone; those are American companies too, but the message is encrypted before it reaches them, so all they see is that something was sent to your phone.

If you sign in with Google, Google knows you did.

How long

• Everything about you: for as long as you’re a member. Delete your account and it goes straight away (below).
• What you say in club chat: until you delete it, or leave. Nothing in the chat expires on its own.
• Notifications: the queue and the sending log are cleared after 30 days.
• Error notes: 30 days.
• Backups: a copy of the database and the photos is taken once a week. The last 13 weeks are kept, and the first copy of each month for a year. So something you delete — a message, a photo — can stay in a backup for up to a year before it’s gone from there too. The backups are private, and only Aaron, who keeps the app running, can open them.

Getting it deleted

Yourself, any time. On the You tab, under Sign out, tap Delete my account. Your profile, photo, RSVPs, comments, kudos, club chat messages, the photos you added and your notification settings are deleted immediately, along with your sign-in. Walks and notices you posted stay, with no name on them, because the rest of the club was there too.

By the organiser. If you're removed from the club, exactly the same happens, at that moment.

A single photo. Open it and tap Remove photo. The organiser can remove any photo.

A single message. In club chat, press and hold your message, then Remove. It goes for everyone, and a reply to it says only “Message removed”. The organiser can remove any message.

You can also ask for a copy of what's held about you, or to have something corrected — your name and kids line you can change yourself under Edit profile. If you think the club has got something wrong you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Cookies and your phone

One cookie keeps you signed in. A second one holds your invite code for an hour while you join, then goes. Your choice of light or dark, whether you've said “not now” to installing the app, and whether we've already asked you about notifications are remembered on your phone only. That's all.