Privacy policy and support.
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Orbit is an invite-only app for the people you already know. You can share roughly where you are so friends and their friends can find each other, make plans, and see what people in your circles are planning. People nearby are only ever your friends and their friends. Plans can reach one circle further, to friends of those friends, and you can narrow that to close friends only.
Account. Your email address and a password, handled by our authentication provider. We never see your password in readable form.
Profile. Your name, handle, optional bio, profile photo, and any photos you add to your profile.
Events. Titles, descriptions, dates, place names and their coordinates, photos you upload, who is attending, and comments.
Location, only while you turn it on. When you enable location sharing, your coordinates are stored so friends can see roughly where you are. Location sharing is off by default and you can switch it off at any time, which deletes the stored position.
Messages. Direct messages you send are stored so that you and the person you are writing to can both read them. They are visible to the two of you and to nobody else in the app.
Blocks and reports. If you block or report someone, we keep a record of it. Blocking is what stops that person contacting you, and reports are kept so we can look into them.
Shared trip links. If you choose to share an event, we create a random link for it. Anyone holding that link can see the place, the month and how many people are going, and nothing else. You can revoke the link at any time, which stops every copy of it working.
Saying you're in from a shared link. Someone who opens a shared link can leave a first name to say they are coming, without an account. We store that first name with the plan so the person who made it can see it. We do not ask for an email, a phone number or anything else, and the names are deleted when the link is revoked or the plan is deleted.
Contacts, as scrambled codes only. If you use "find friends from contacts", phone numbers and email addresses from your address book are converted on your device into one-way SHA-256 hashes. Only those hashes are sent to us, purely to check which of them belong to existing Orbit accounts. We do not store them, and we never receive the names, numbers, or email addresses of people in your contacts.
Invite links, across the install. When you open someone's invite link, we note the network address it was opened from, with the link, so that Orbit can recognise the invite when you open the app for the first time and connect you without you pasting anything. Nothing that names you is kept with it. The note is deleted as soon as the app collects it, and within two hours either way.
Connecting people who have each other's numbers. When a contact match finds an Orbit member whose phone number is in your address book, we keep a note that it is. That note is only ever about Orbit members, never about anyone else in your contacts, and it does not contain the number. If that member's address book also contains your number, the two of you are made friends on Orbit straight away, and both of you are told. One person having the other's number is not enough; it stays a friend request.
That is the complete list. There are no other analytics or advertising services in Orbit.
We advertise Orbit on Instagram and Facebook, and we need to know whether those ads work. To do that, Orbit includes software from Meta.
What Meta receives. Each time Orbit is opened on your device, and the moment you finish setting up your account. If Orbit ever offers a paid plan, it would also receive that a purchase was made. Alongside these it receives basic device details such as the model and iOS version. It does not receive who you are in Orbit, who your friends are, or anything you do in the app.
The tracking question. The first time you reach the app, iOS asks whether Orbit may track you. This is Apple's wording and we cannot change it. If you choose Allow, Meta also receives your device's advertising identifier, which lets it match your install to an ad you saw in another app. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, it does not, and we only see anonymous totals through Apple's own ad measurement, which identifies nobody.
Saying no costs you nothing. Orbit works exactly the same either way. You can change your answer at any time in iOS Settings, Privacy and Security, Tracking.
What Meta does with what it receives is covered by Meta's privacy policy.
Your shared location is visible to your friends and their friends. When another member's own circles have fewer than ten people sharing nearby, the map may also show them your area, rounded to about a kilometre, so they can find people to meet through a friend. You can turn this off with "Show me on the explore map", and it is off whenever location sharing is. Your plans, with their photos and comments, can be seen one circle further out, by friends of those friends. Both limits are enforced at the database level rather than only in the app, so people outside your circles cannot query them. Separately, the app can show a count of how many Orbit members are within 10 miles. It is a number only, never who, and it is not shown at all when fewer than five people are in range. Direct messages are narrower still: only you and the person you are writing to can read them. The one exception is a trip link you deliberately share, described above.
Orbit is not intended for anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information.
If this policy changes materially, we will update the date at the top of this page and notify you in the app.
Questions, bug reports, account deletion requests, or anything else: bradjpearson0823@gmail.com. We aim to reply within a few days.