Privacy Policy — LanternScout

1. Who We Are

LanternScout is operated by LanternScout Technologies Inc. (BC Registration No. BC1595355) ("LanternScout", "we", "us", or "our"), a British Columbia corporation. We provide an AI-assisted activity discovery service that helps parents and guardians find local classes, camps, and extracurricular activities for children. Our Privacy Officer can be reached at hello@lanternscout.com.

2. What We Collect and Why

We collect only what is necessary to operate the Service. We do not require you to create an account, and we do not collect your name, email address, or payment information.

2a. Information you submit (used to generate results)

What	Why	Stored by LanternScout?
Child's age range	To suggest age-appropriate activities	Yes — anonymously in aggregate analytics (see below)
Interests / description	To generate activity suggestions via Google Gemini AI	No — discarded after the request completes
Approximate area (city or postal code)	To search for nearby activities via Google Places	City-level only — street address is stripped before storage
Search radius	To limit how far results are returned	No
Device location (if you tap "Use my location")	To convert GPS coordinates to an approximate address	No — coordinates are used once for geocoding and discarded

2b. Anonymous analytics we store

To understand how the Service is used and improve it, we store the following anonymous records. None of these records contain your name, email, IP address, or full location.

What	Why	Linked to you?
Anonymous session identifier	To group events within one session and detect abuse patterns. This is a random string generated fresh each time you open the app — it is not linked to any account, name, or device identifier.	No — random, resets each session
Age range selected	To understand which age groups use the Service	No
Approximate city or region	To understand where families use the Service. We strip the street-level segment of any address before storing.	No
Activity categories returned	To understand what kinds of searches are common	No
Number of results returned	To monitor search quality	No
Language setting	To understand which languages are used	No
Usage events (e.g. "opened Google Maps link", "clicked a provider website")	To understand how results are used	No — event type and activity category only, no personal info

2c. Feedback you submit (optional)

If you choose to submit feedback, we store:

Your star rating (1–5)
Your optional written comment
Whether you chose to allow anonymous sharing of your feedback on the LanternScout website
The anonymous session identifier linked to your session

Feedback is stored to improve the Service. If you checked the option to share your feedback, we may publish your comment anonymously (without any name, location, or identifying information) on the LanternScout website or in promotional materials. You can withdraw consent to sharing at any time by emailing hello@lanternscout.com — we will remove your comment.

Do not include your name, your child's name, your address, or any sensitive personal information in a feedback comment.

3. IP Addresses and Rate Limiting

We apply rate limits (a maximum number of searches per day per network) to protect the Service from abuse and keep it available for all users. To enforce these limits, your IP address is processed briefly by our server on each request. We do not log or store IP addresses in our database. IP addresses are processed in memory only and are not retained after the request is evaluated.

Our network infrastructure provider, Cloudflare (see section 7), may independently process and log IP addresses as part of its traffic management and security services.

4. Your Browser: Local Storage and Session Storage

LanternScout does not use cookies. We use your browser's built-in storage mechanisms instead:

Session storage (cleared when you close the browser tab): the anonymous session identifier; a temporary draft of your search form so you don't lose your input if you switch away.
Local storage (persists across sessions until cleared): your language preference (if you have selected one).

You can clear this data at any time through your browser settings. None of it contains identifying personal information.

5. Children's Privacy

LanternScout is designed to be used by adults — parents and guardians — on behalf of children. Children should not use the Service directly or submit information through it.

We do not intentionally collect or store a child's name, photograph, precise location, date of birth, school, medical information, or other identifying personal information. We do not build persistent profiles of children. We do not sell, share for advertising purposes, or otherwise monetize any information about children.

If you believe a child has submitted personal information through the Service without authorization, please contact us at hello@lanternscout.com and we will take prompt steps to address it.

6. How Your Information Reaches Third-Party AI and Search Services

To generate activity suggestions, the child's description and age range you submit are sent to Google Gemini API. To find nearby activity providers, the activity category and your approximate location are sent to Google Places API. These are the core third-party services the app depends on to work.

For paid API usage, Google's policy states that prompts and responses are not used to train its AI models. However, Google may retain data for limited periods for safety and abuse monitoring under its own policies. We encourage you to review Google's Privacy Policy.

Because your description is sent to Google Gemini, you should treat the prompt box as if it were shared with a third party. Do not submit a child's full name, school, exact address, medical diagnosis, or other sensitive identifying information.

7. Other Service Providers

We use the following additional service providers to operate LanternScout:

Render — application hosting and database. Our servers and anonymous analytics database run on Render's infrastructure (United States).
Cloudflare — DNS, content delivery, and DDoS protection. Traffic to LanternScout passes through Cloudflare's network. Cloudflare may process IP addresses and other request metadata under its own privacy policy.
Google Fonts — fonts used in the interface are loaded from Google's servers, which may log request metadata (including IP address) under Google's privacy policy.
Ko-fi — if you choose to make an optional voluntary contribution, you interact with Ko-fi's platform directly. Ko-fi's own terms and privacy policy apply to that transaction.

Each of these providers processes information under its own terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for their data-handling practices once data is transmitted to them.

8. Data Retention

Anonymous analytics records (searches, events) and feedback records are retained indefinitely to help us understand how the Service is used over time. Because these records contain no names, email addresses, IP addresses, or account identifiers, we are generally unable to associate them with any specific individual.

Your child's description and exact location are not stored after the request completes.

If you submitted feedback containing personal information and wish to have it deleted, contact us at hello@lanternscout.com.

9. Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational safeguards to protect the data we store. All data is transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Our database is not publicly accessible.

No online service can guarantee absolute security. In the event of a data security incident affecting personal information, we will fulfill our notification and mitigation obligations under applicable law, including BC's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

10. International Processing

LanternScout is operated from British Columbia, Canada, but our infrastructure providers (including Google, Render, and Cloudflare) may process data in the United States or other countries. By using the Service, you acknowledge that your information may be processed outside your province or country, where data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.

11. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you are located, you may have rights under applicable privacy law:

Canada (PIPEDA / BC PIPA): You may request access to or correction of personal information we hold about you, and you may withdraw consent to processing where consent is the legal basis.
European Economic Area / UK (GDPR / UK GDPR): You may have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
California (CCPA / CPRA): You have the right to know what personal information is collected, to delete it, and to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information.
Other jurisdictions: Additional rights may apply under local law.

Because our analytics records are genuinely anonymous and cannot be linked to you, we may be unable to retrieve or delete specific records in response to a request. For feedback records, contact us at hello@lanternscout.com and we will delete your submission.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Your continued use of the Service after the updated policy takes effect constitutes your acknowledgement of those changes.