Privacy Policy

About this policy

Hidden Gems is a travel discovery app published by Siddlink FZE, a company registered in the United Arab Emirates, operating under the EscapeXpress brand. This policy explains what the app collects, why it collects it, and what control you have over your information.

Using the app means you accept the practices described here. If you disagree with anything below, please stop using the app and contact us to have your data removed.

What we collect

• Account details — your email address and chosen display name, handled through Firebase Authentication. We never see or store your password.
• Contributions — gems you submit, along with their titles, descriptions, categories, photos, and coordinates.
• Ratings, tips and comments — star ratings and written tips you add to any gem.
• Saved items and itineraries — favourites you keep and trips you build inside the app.
• Location — your device’s coordinates, read only at the moment you tap “Use My Location” when adding a gem or centring the map. It is not recorded in the background.
• Diagnostics — crash reports and performance data via Firebase Crashlytics, so we can find and fix faults. These are not tied to your identity.
• Usage and device data — screens visited, operating system version, and device model, collected by Firebase Analytics.

How we use it

• Create and run your account
• Show your gems, tips, and ratings to other travellers
• Credit contributions to your display name
• Save your favourites and itineraries across devices
• Provide distance and map features when you allow location access
• Diagnose crashes and improve performance
• Send essential service messages such as password resets

AI-generated summaries

Some gem listings include a short AI-written summary. When a summary is generated, the gem’s own public details — its title, description, category, and location — are sent from our secure server to Anthropic’s Claude API. The finished summary is then stored alongside the gem so it does not need regenerating.

Your personal information, account details, and location are never included in these requests. Summaries are produced from public listing content only, and Anthropic does not use API data to train its models.

Where your data lives

Data is stored with Google Firebase in the Middle East (me-central2) region, protected by encrypted transmission over HTTPS/TLS, Cloud Firestore security rules restricting who can read and write each record, and Firebase Authentication for sign-in.

We keep your account data for as long as your account is active. No system is perfectly secure, but we apply the safeguards a service of this kind is reasonably expected to have.

Location

• Location is optional — you can pin a gem manually and browse without granting it
• We never read your location in the background or while the app is closed
• Coordinates are used only to set a gem’s position or centre the map for you
• Coordinates attached to a gem you publish become publicly visible, by design
• You can withdraw permission at any time in your device settings

Services we rely on

Hidden Gems uses these providers, each governed by its own privacy policy:

• Google Firebase — authentication, database, storage, analytics, and crash reporting. firebase.google.com/support/privacy
• Stadia Maps — delivers the map tiles shown in the app. stadiamaps.com/privacy-policy
• OpenStreetMap — the underlying map data behind those tiles. osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy
• Google Maps — opens for turn-by-turn directions when you tap “Navigate”. policies.google.com/privacy
• Anthropic — generates gem summaries, receiving public listing text only. anthropic.com/legal/privacy

What other people can see

When you publish a gem, a rating, or a tip, the following becomes visible to everyone using the app:

• The gem’s title, description, category, photos, and place name
• Its coordinates, shown as a pin on the map
• Your display name as the contributor
• Any star rating or tip text you add

Your email address is never shown to other users. Choose a display name you are comfortable being public, and keep private details out of gem descriptions and tips. You can edit or delete anything you have published from your profile.

Your rights and choices

• See your data — ask us for a copy of what we hold about you
• Correct it — update your display name from your profile
• Delete content — remove any gem, rating, or tip you posted
• Delete your account — use Delete Account in your profile to erase your account and its data, or email us and we will do it for you
• Withdraw consent — stop using the app and request removal at any time

Children

Hidden Gems is intended for adults and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy as the app changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version, and continuing to use the app after an update means you accept it. For significant changes we will give notice inside the app.