Privacy policy

Libut Café is a café guide for Zamboanga City, Philippines, run by Raiyan Asaral (“Libut Café”, “we”). This policy covers the Libut Café app for iPhone and Android, and this website.

What stays on your phone

• Your location. We never keep your location. Your phone uses it to sort cafés by distance, show you on the map and notice when you arrive somewhere. When you check in, or post a wall note as written at the café, it sends your position once to our server, which checks you’re near the café and doesn’t store it. The only location we save is a café’s pin you choose to send with “Pin it here”, and only the pin, not where you were. You can use Libut Café without allowing location. If you turn on Nearby or arrival check-ins (Notifications), your phone also uses your location when Libut Café is closed: to notice when you pass a pop-up or event that’s on, or when you’ve been at a café for about ten minutes while it’s open, and to ask if you’d like to check in. That check happens on your phone too: your location isn’t sent to Libut Café or kept. Nothing is checked in until you tap.
• Saved cafés and private notes. Only you can see them. They aren’t sent anywhere.
• Your caffeine diary: the drinks you log, your caffeine settings, and what the caffeine widget shows. It’s a diary on your phone, not sent anywhere. (A photo you choose to snap for a guess is the one exception: see Snap your drink.)
• Postcards. When you make a postcard, the photo you take or pick is used on your phone only. It leaves your phone only if you share the postcard, and then it goes wherever you send it.
• Wall memory. The notes you’ve written (so you can see yours while one waits for a check), notes you’ve hidden, and cafés you’ve reported closed.
• Settings and a copy of the café list, with photos, so Libut Café works with no signal.

Deleting the app deletes all of this.

Anonymous usage counts

Unless you turn it off, the app counts a few kinds of taps, so we can see which cafés, events and features people use, work out which cafés are popular, and count how often a Featured card is seen and tapped. The welcome screen tells you this the first time you open the app. What’s counted:

• opening and leaving the app;
• opening a café’s page, its menu or an event, and where you opened it from (Discover, the map, search and so on);
• seeing or tapping a Featured card;
• choosing a directions app, or tapping Messenger, Instagram, Text or Call on a café;
• saving or unsaving a café, turning on a filter, and how many results a search found (not what you searched for);
• sharing a postcard (which café and design), and sending a wall note (which café, and whether it went up or waited for a check);
• commenting on or reacting to a wall note, and editing your own note (which café; never the words);
• opening the Caffeine tab, and logging a drink with where you picked it: the café’s menu, the list, a usual, your own drink or a photo guess (never which drink or how much);
• checking in at a café (whether it was confirmed at the café; not which café);
• tapping a notification (whether it was news, a comment, a reminder, a nearby pop-up or an arrival);
• once a day, which Libut Café widgets are on your Home or Lock Screen.

Each count comes with the app version and basic details of the phone: its general model (such as “iPhone”, never your phone’s name), its system version, screen size, language and time zone, and whether it’s on Wi-Fi or mobile data.

The counts never include your location, anything you type (search words, wall notes, comments, names, messages), your private notes, what’s in your caffeine diary (which drinks, how much, your settings), the photos you pick, or your phone’s advertising ID. The app doesn’t record your screen. Each install gets a random ID that isn’t linked to your name, an account, your phone number or your phone; deleting the app resets it. Your IP address isn’t stored.

If the app hits an error, it sends a crash report to PostHog: what went wrong, on which screen, the app version and the phone model. Never your location or anything you typed. “Share anonymous usage” in About turns crash reports off too.

To turn it off: About → “Share anonymous usage”. It takes effect straight away, and while it’s off nothing is sent at all. No ad networks. The only stats we keep are anonymous, and you can switch them off in About.

What you send us

When you suggest a café, report wrong information, report a café as closed, or claim a café you own, Libut Café sends us:

• your message, and what kind of report it is;
• which café it’s about, if any;
• for a suggestion, the café’s name and, if you add them, its pin and up to 3 photos (photos need an account; only Libut Café sees them);
• a contact (email, phone number or social handle), only if you enter one. A claim needs one, so we can check it’s your café.

Sending any of these needs an account. Our server keeps which account sent it until we’ve handled it, so each person counts once and nobody can flood us; it’s never shown to anyone, and it’s removed once we’ve handled the report. Each message also carries your phone’s platform (iPhone or Android), the app version, and whether the app came from the App Store or Google Play or a test version, so we can tell which version a problem is in. Nothing else about you or your phone is attached. We use these messages to keep listings right, to verify café owners, and to reply when you’ve asked us to. Reports can’t be read back through the app.

When two signed-in people say a café has closed, it shows “Reported closed · Libut Café is checking”. The café stays listed until we’ve checked.

If you email us, we get your email address and whatever you write.

A café’s details that we publish (name, hours, menu, photos, public contact details) are about the café, not about you.

Early access (ended)

Before launch, you could sign up on this website for early access to Libut Café. We kept the email address you gave and whether you use Android or iPhone, and used them only to add you to the early access list on Google Play or Apple’s TestFlight. Early access ended when Libut Café came to the App Store and Google Play, and we’ve deleted our list. Google and Apple keep their own tester lists under their own privacy policies.

Notes on café walls

Each café has a freedom wall. A note you leave there is public: anyone using Libut Café can read it.

To write on a wall you sign in (reading stays open to everyone). When you post a note, Libut Café sends the note’s text (up to 280 characters), the name you typed (you can leave it blank), which café it’s for and the time. Our server keeps which account wrote it, so we can stop abuse; that’s never shown with the note. Signed-in readers can block a writer: that writer’s notes then disappear for them on every wall, and we’re told. We can ban a writer who breaks the rules; their notes come down. Deleting your account deletes your notes. At most 10 notes an hour per account.

A note can carry one photo you take, pick, or make as a postcard in the app. It’s shrunk on your phone and its location data (GPS) is removed before it’s sent. Wall photos are public, like the note. Deleting your note deletes its photo; so does Libut Café removing a note.

For a note written at the café, your phone sends its position once and our server checks you’re near the café; it doesn’t store it. “Pin it here” is different: when a café’s map pin is off, you can choose to send where you are as the café’s pin (see What stays on your phone). Before a note goes up, our server checks it against a word list and for phone numbers, emails, links and @handles; a note that matches waits until we’ve looked at it. Photos from new writers go up straight away; we may check them afterwards.

If you report a note, Libut Café sends which note it is and the reason you pick or type. Our server keeps which account sent the report until we’ve handled it, as with other reports. A note reported by three signed-in people is hidden until we’ve checked it. Once we’ve checked a note, new reports come to us instead of hiding it. We may remove any note, and a café’s verified owner can ask us to hide a note on their café’s wall.

Notes and comments on a café’s freedom wall are public and show only the name you choose, or none. Our server keeps which account wrote each one so people can block someone and we can stop abuse; it’s never shown. If you edit a note or comment, we keep the earlier words for 90 days in case of a report. Reactions are counted; who reacted isn’t shown.

Please don’t put anything personal in a note: yours or anyone else’s.

Snap your drink

If you choose “Snap your drink”, your phone shrinks the photo and sends it, with the café’s menu, through our server to Cloudflare’s AI service, which suggests the drink. Neither we nor Cloudflare keep the photo, and it isn’t used to train AI models. Your caffeine diary itself stays on your phone. We keep only a count of photo guesses per account for two days, to keep within limits.

Permissions

Every permission is optional. The welcome screen asks for location, notifications and location all the time, with what each is for; say no to any of them and the rest of the app still works. You can change them any time in your phone’s settings.

Pushed news. If you turn on news about saved cafés, new cafés in areas you follow, or “This week” (Fridays), Libut Café keeps this phone’s push ID with the cafés you saved and the areas you picked: no name, no location. Pushes are delivered through Google Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple. If you’re signed in and turn on “Your account”, the push ID is linked to your account so we can tell you about your own things (a note on the wall of a café you run, a decision on something you sent, your weekly rank). Turn them all off and the push ID is deleted; an unused one is deleted after 270 days.

Comments and reactions on your notes. If you’re signed in and turn on “Comments and reactions” (“Comments on your notes” in older versions), the push ID is linked to your account so we can tell you when someone comments on or reacts to a note you wrote on a café’s wall, as it happens, with a short piece of what they wrote. Who reacted isn’t shown. Turn it off any time in Settings.

If you make an account

An account is optional: everything above works without one. If you sign in, Libut Café keeps:

• your email address, to sign you in: with a link or code we email you, or with Sign in with Apple or Google. With Apple we ask only for your email (Apple may give us a private relay address). With Google, Google also shares your name and profile photo address; we use the name to fill in your profile once, and to suggest your leaderboard name (first name and last initial).
• your profile, if you add to it: a name, and a picture: a Libut sticker, or a photo. A photo is your Google photo (copied once) or one you take or pick, shrunk on your phone to 512 pixels before it’s sent.
• your public profile. A new account is public from the start, with a name (your first name and last initial, from the name you signed in with) and a handle made from it; the app tells you, with a way to change either or go private. Your name, handle, short line and picture show on the leaderboards and with your freedom wall notes and comments, with how many cafés you’ve checked in at, and so do the socials you add (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads). Which cafés, and when, never show. You can hide your photo, hide your socials, or go back to private any time. “Connect” opens that app so you can copy your profile link; back in Libut Café, the link you copied fills in (your phone asks first). Libut Café reads nothing else from the other app.
• feedback you send: how the app is going (the faces, picks and anything you type, asked after your third check-in or from Settings → Send feedback), or, as a café’s owner, how Libut works for your café or how an offer went. We keep it with your account, the app version and whether it’s iPhone or Android, so we can reply. Never your location. Only Libut Café reads it. We keep it until you delete your account, or 24 months, whichever comes first. If you give the app 4 or 5, your phone may show Apple’s or Google’s own rating prompt; Libut Café doesn’t send them your feedback.
• your badges, worked out from your checked visits and what you confirm is at a café. Caffeine badges stay on your phone.
• your saved cafés and private notes, so they’re the same on any phone. Notes stay private: only you can read them;
• the cafés you check in at (“Check in”, called “I was here” before), with the date and whether the check-in was confirmed at the café. Your position is sent once for that check and isn’t stored. Visits are private;
• If your profile is public, your check-ins show under “Here today” on that café’s page unless you turn it off (the switch under your check-in; the app remembers your choice): your name and picture appear there from two hours after you checked in until the end of that day, and never to someone you’ve blocked on a wall. A café’s page also shows how many people checked in there in the last two hours, once it’s three or more, never who. A café’s owner sees how many check-ins it had, never who.
• If you give a café stars or write a note after a check-in, your stars count toward its visitor rating and your note shows on its page with the name you choose (or “A visitor”), never your account. You can change them or take them down any time.
• If you use a café’s offer in the app, Libut keeps that you used it and when, so it can’t be used twice. The café sees only how many were used, never who.
• If you share a café’s Wi-Fi password after checking in there: the network name and password, which account shared it and when, and whether you said a shared password worked. Others who check in there see it as “Shared by a visitor”, never who. If you delete your account, the password stays for the café’s visitors but is no longer linked to you.
• if you claim a café you own: what you told us to verify it, and its hours, contact details, closures, menus, photos, events, Wi-Fi details and offers.
• Your café’s owners and staff see a list of changes to its page and who made them: you, a teammate by their profile name, or Libut Café. It’s kept 12 months.

Anyone signed in can report a public profile; we can remove a photo or a name that breaks the rules.

Your caffeine diary, your location and the anonymous usage counts are never linked to your account. You can delete your account in the app (Saved → your account → Delete account); that deletes everything above from our servers, your profile photo included. What’s on your phone stays until you delete the app.

Who else is involved

• Supabase hosts Libut Café’s café database, photos, profile pictures, the reports you send and wall notes. Its servers are in Sydney, Australia. Like any web server, it sees your phone’s IP address when the app loads cafés or sends something, as part of its normal server logs. Supabase privacy policy.
• Google Maps provides the map. When you open the map, Google receives usage and diagnostic data about the map and your phone, and, if you’ve allowed location, your location while the map shows where you are. Google uses it as described in the Google Privacy Policy, and the map is subject to the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service.
• Resend sends the sign-in emails, so it receives your email address when you sign in. Resend privacy policy.
• Apple and Google, if you sign in with them: their own privacy policies apply to that sign-in.
• Google Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple deliver pushed news, if you turn it on: they receive the push ID and the message.
• PostHog receives the anonymous usage counts, unless you’ve turned them off, on its servers in the United States. PostHog privacy policy.
• Directions open in Google Maps, Waze or Apple Maps, whichever you pick, with the café’s position only. From then on that app’s own privacy policy applies.
• Sharing. Postcards and café links go through your phone’s share sheet to the app you choose.
• Cloudflare runs the AI that guesses the drink when you choose Snap your drink, serves this website, counts its visits (see This website) and passes email sent to libutcafe@raiyanasaral.com on to our inbox, which Google hosts.

We don’t sell data or share it with advertisers. No ad networks. The only stats we keep are anonymous, and you can switch them off in About.

How long we keep things

• Reports, suggestions and claims: until they’re handled, and deleted within 12 months. Which account sent a report is removed once we’ve handled it.
• What you send us in the app (menus, photos, claims, suggestions, reports, feedback), each step of what we did with it, and our replies: 12 months. Reports about wall notes, comments, profiles and reviews: 90 days.
• Wall notes: on the wall until they’re removed. A removed note stays in our database, out of sight, for 90 days, then it’s deleted. Ask us and we’ll delete it sooner (see Delete your data).
• Wall reports: deleted 90 days after they’re sent. Which account sent one is removed once we’ve handled it.
• Backups: a copy of the database is made every night and kept for 14 days, in our Supabase storage and on our own computer. It doesn’t include sign-in details. Something you delete is gone from the backups within 14 days.
• Profile pictures: until you change or remove yours, or delete your account.
• Wall photos: as long as the note or comment is up.
• Earlier words of an edited note or comment: 90 days.
• Snap your drink: the photo isn’t kept; a count of photo guesses per account for two days.
• A “Pin it here” spot: kept as the café’s location if it’s right; who placed it is forgotten once we’ve checked it.
• Anonymous usage counts: 30 days, then deleted.
• Things on your phone: until you delete them or the app.

Your rights

Under the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012, you can ask to see, correct or delete anything you’ve sent us. Email libutcafe@raiyanasaral.com with roughly when you sent it and what it said (we don’t know who you are otherwise), and we’ll reply within 15 days. You can also complain to the National Privacy Commission.

Children

Libut Café is a general-audience guide and isn’t aimed at children under 13. If a child has sent us a message with contact details, or written something personal on a wall, email us and we’ll delete it.

This website

libutcafe.com uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits. It sets no cookies and no identifiers. It records the page you opened, the site that sent you here, your browser, device type and country, and how quickly the page loaded. The site has no other analytics, and no third-party fonts. Cloudflare, which serves it, sees your IP address like any web host.

Changes

If this policy changes, we’ll update the date above and say what changed here. If a change means Libut Café collects something new, the app will tell you first.

• 5 November 2026: this page now explains what’s kept when you send something through the app and Libut Café answers it, the list of changes owners see for their café, and that notifications can now come at any hour, and that comments and reactions on your notes now come as they happen.
• 4 November 2026: early access has ended now that Libut Café is on the App Store and Google Play; the sign-up on this website is closed and our list of sign-ups is deleted.
• 3 November 2026: new accounts are public from the start (name and handle filled in, change them or go private any time); every notification kind, Nearby and arrival check-ins are on until you turn them off; the welcome screen asks for location all the time; public profiles show under “Here today” unless turned off; your name is filled in on freedom wall notes and comments.
• 2 November 2026: removed the Mapbox section: the app now uses Google Maps only.
• 1 November 2026: the app asks once whether to show you on the leaderboards (name and handle filled in); socials show on public profiles; “Connect” for socials; feedback about the app and, for café owners, about Libut. Later the same day: sending a suggestion, correction, claim or report now always needs an account, and carries the app version; the Visit timer can end when you leave a café; feedback is kept at most 24 months; links to the new Terms of Use and Community rules. Later still: check-ins and wall notes written at the café are confirmed by our server from your phone’s position, which it doesn’t store; the app can send crash reports to PostHog.
• 29 October 2026: arrival check-ins (off until you turn them on); “Here today” and the “checked in recently” count on café pages; check-in counts for café owners; café offers and shared Wi-Fi passwords on café pages.
• 27 October 2026: the map is now Google Maps, with Mapbox as a fallback.
• 26 October 2026: alerts when someone comments on your wall note (“Comments on your notes”); “I was here” is now called “Check in”.
• 21 October 2026: comments and reactions on wall notes; editing your own note or comment; “Snap your drink” photo guesses (Cloudflare); new anonymous counts for the Caffeine tab, check-ins, notification taps and widgets.
• 20 October 2026: photos from new writers go up straight away; we may check them afterwards. Removed wall notes and wall reports are deleted after 90 days; nightly backups are kept 14 days.
• 19 October 2026: reports from signed-in people keep which account sent them until we’ve handled them, so each person counts once; reports no longer hide a café, and a note we’ve checked can’t be hidden by reports; photos from new writers are checked first.
• 15 October 2026: café suggestions with a pin and photos; pushed news (push ID); photos on wall notes; “Pin it here” when a café’s map pin is off; anonymous usage counts kept 30 days instead of 12 months; signing up on this website for early access to the app.
• 13 October 2026: signing in to write on walls, blocking writers; Sign in with Apple and Google; profile names and pictures, public profiles, badges and leaderboards; reminders and Lock Screen updates (on your phone only).
• 12 October 2026: added anonymous usage counts, the freedom wall, private notes and the caffeine diary; optional accounts (sign-in by email, synced saved cafés and notes, “I was here”, café owner tools). This website now counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics.
• 11 October 2026: first version.

Questions: libutcafe@raiyanasaral.com