Kinetiq1. Who we are
Kinetiq is a group-travel app operated by Kinetiq Travel LLC. It helps you plan trips day by day, see the people you are travelling with on a live map, stay in touch, and find things to book.
Questions, requests, or complaints: support@kinetiqtravel.com.
2. What we collect
You give us
- Account — name, email, profile photo, and a friend code that others use to add you.
- Trips — destinations, dates, stops, times, notes, bookings and ticket references, packing lists, and shared expenses.
- Content — photos and PDFs you attach (tickets, confirmations), moments you post, and your messages, comments and voice notes.
- Relationships — friends, trip companions, and anyone you designate as family (see §5).
Collected automatically
- Location — see §4. This is the most sensitive thing we handle, and it has its own section.
- Device and diagnostics — app version, device model, OS version, crash reports and performance timings, via Google Crashlytics. Crash reports carry the screen and action involved, never your coordinates, tokens, message contents, or email.
- Booking activity — when you tap through to a travel partner, we record which surface you tapped from and which partner you were sent to. See §6.
We do not collect: payment card details (we never process payments — see §6), your contact list, or your browsing outside the app.
3. Why we use it
To run your trips and keep them in sync across your group; to show group members to each other on the map when you choose to share; to deliver messages, calls and notifications; to suggest plans and re-pace your day (see §3.1); to surface travel options and attribute referrals to us; to keep the service secure and diagnose crashes; and to meet legal obligations.
Legal bases (UK/EU users): performance of our contract with you (running the app), your consent (location sharing, notifications, marketing), our legitimate interests (security, crash diagnostics, affiliate attribution), and legal obligation.
3.1 AI features
Kinetiq's planning assistant works from your trip's context — destination, dates, the stops already in the plan, your stated pace and interests, and the weather.
- When you use an AI feature, the text prompts and trip details needed to answer are processed by third-party AI providers (currently Google Vertex AI) acting on our instructions.
- We do not use your personal inputs to train public AI models, and our provider contracts prohibit them from doing so.
- We send only what the request needs. We do not send your precise coordinates, your messages, your private notes, or other people's personal details.
- AI output is a draft. Nothing is added to a shared plan without appearing in front of your group first.
4. Location — the important part
Precise location is the core of Kinetiq's group features, and it is entirely under your control.
- We only share your location with people you have chosen — members of a trip you have joined, and family observers you have designated (§5).
- Sharing modes. You can share with everyone on a trip, with a selected subset, or turn sharing off (incognito). When sharing is off we send no coordinates at all — not an approximate position, not a stale one. Others simply see "Sharing off".
- Precision. Family observers see an area-level location (neighbourhood and city), not a street address. Trip companions see precise location.
- Background collection. While a trip is active and you are sharing, we may collect location while the app is in the background so your group can see you move. We reduce how often we sample when you are stationary or your screen is off, and stop entirely when sharing is paused.
- Retention. Live positions are held briefly and expire automatically within minutes. Separately, we keep a limited history of the countries and cities you have visited for your Footprints map — city-level summaries only, not a trail of coordinates. Footprints summaries are retained until you clear them or delete your account; there is no automatic expiry, because the map is a record you build deliberately.
- You can revoke it at any time in your device settings or in the app; the app remains usable without location, with reduced group features.
4.1 Incognito sends nothing, and there are no exceptions
When you go incognito, your device stops sending coordinates. Not less often, not less precisely. It stops.
Your companions see that you are sharing nothing, and nothing more. No position, no area, no last-known point. The same is true of your family observers, and it is enforced on our servers rather than hidden in the app, so there is no request that returns your location while incognito is on.
There is no override. No feature of Kinetiq sends your location against a setting you have chosen, and none of our staff can turn your sharing back on.
If you want to go further, turn sharing off for your account entirely (Share location: off) or revoke the location permission in your device settings. The app stays usable either way, with reduced group features.
5. Sharing with other people
- Trip companions see the trip plan, shared stops and bookings, and your location per your sharing mode.
- Family observers are people you explicitly mark as family. They get a read-only view of your group's location and plans for the trip you are on while that trip is running, at area-level precision. They cannot see past trips or trips you have not started, they cannot see anything once the trip ends, and they can never send, edit or act on anything.
- Moments are visible to the audience you choose — everyone, selected people, or nobody. Reducing a moment's visibility removes it from people who no longer qualify.
- Blocking someone stops them seeing your content, your location, and your profile, and prevents them contacting you.
- Private notes stay private to you. Free-time details are never disclosed to others.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers for their own marketing.
6. Bookings and affiliate links
Kinetiq is not the merchant of record. We show travel options and link you to partners (for example Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Vrbo, Klook, Airalo, Aviasales, EKTA) via affiliate networks including CJ Affiliate and Travelpayouts.
- You complete every purchase on the partner's own site or app, at their price. There is no Kinetiq markup, and we never see or store your payment details.
- When you tap through, we pass a non-identifying tracking code that tells us which part of Kinetiq the tap came from (for example "discover" or "trip plan"). It does not contain your name, email, or user ID. We record the tap so we can be paid a commission.
- The partner's own privacy policy governs what happens once you arrive on their site.
- On this website, our marketing pages (the home page, About, Business, For tour operators, and the waitlist confirmation page) load a Travelpayouts affiliate script so that a booking you start from one of our links can be credited to us. It may set cookies or similar identifiers in your browser, governed by Travelpayouts' own privacy policy. It is not loaded on this page, the Terms, the Support page, or the account deletion page.
- Google Places is used to look up places you search for. Those queries are sent to Google and are governed by Google's privacy policy.
7. Where your data lives, and how long we keep it
Data is stored on Google Cloud (United States) using Cloud SQL, Redis and Cloud Storage. If you are outside the US, your data is transferred there under appropriate safeguards (Standard Contractual Clauses where required).
We keep your data while your account is active. Live locations expire within minutes. Footprints city-level summaries are kept until you clear them or delete your account (§4). Trips, moments and messages persist until you delete them or delete your account. Some records — such as affiliate attribution and financial or moderation logs — are retained where we are legally required to.
8. Your rights and controls
In the app: change sharing mode, hide trips from family observers, set moment visibility, block users, edit or delete your content, and delete your account (Settings → Account).
Deleting your account erases your personal data, including your trips, moments, photos, messages, location history, saved places and follow relationships. A small number of records are retained where the law requires; those are anonymised so they no longer identify you. Deletion is not reversible.
You can also request deletion at support@kinetiqtravel.com, or see Delete your account & data.
Depending on where you live you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our use of your data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. UK/EU users may complain to their local supervisory authority.
California residents
California residents have rights under the CCPA/CPRA, including the right to know what we collect, to delete it, to correct it, and to be free from discrimination for exercising those rights.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined under California law. There is therefore nothing to opt out of — but if that ever changes we will publish a "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link on this page and in the app before doing so. We also do not collect an advertising identifier.
9. Security
Authentication tokens are held in your device's secure keystore. Traffic is encrypted in transit. Privacy rules — who can see your location, your moments and your trips — are enforced on our servers before data is sent, not merely hidden in the app. Access to production data is restricted and logged.
No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you we will notify you as required by law.
10. Children
Kinetiq is not intended for anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact support@kinetiqtravel.com and we will delete it. Users aged 13–17 should review this policy with a parent or guardian; location sharing in particular should be a family decision.
11. Changes
We will update this page when our practices change, and revise the "Last updated" date. For material changes affecting how we use your location or share your data, we will notify you in the app before the change takes effect.
12. Contact
Kinetiq Travel LLC — support@kinetiqtravel.com