Privacy Notice

What we collect

Everything below exists so that Qwest can match you with a few other students and get you to the same place at the same time. We do not sell any of it, and there are no advertisers.

When you text Qwest

• Your phone number. It is how iMessage identifies you. We store it encrypted, with a separate keyed hash used only to recognize your number when you text again. The service that decides what to reply never sees it.
• Your first name and your answers to the sign-up questions: the part of town you prefer, your usual budget, what you are into, and when you are usually free.
• What you tell Qwest about your life. Now and then (at most once every few days, and never in the middle of a plan) Qwest asks one question about what you actually do: what you got up to last weekend, who you usually make plans with, what the best part of a quest was. Answering is optional, and SKIP ends it. We keep what you wrote for 30 days, then erase the text and keep only the interests it showed (say, climbing or trivia). Those stay with your profile and shape who you are matched with.
• Experiences you choose to share. Qwest may ask whether something ordinary changed how you spend your time, from a short list: new to town this year, transferred, an international student, working while studying, and so on. Your picks are used only to put you with people in the same boat. A pick is shown to a group only if you say yes when Qwest asks, in one line such as “Maya’s new to town this year too”; otherwise it stays between you and Qwest.
• A reaction to a short scenario that everyone gets the same, answered by picking one of four options. It is one small signal among others in matching and is never shown to anyone.
• What you ask for. Messages like “free Friday, $40, climbing” are saved as a plan request so the matcher can use them.
• Your messages. We keep the text of what you send and what Qwest replies for 30 days, then erase the text and keep only that a message happened, when, and in which conversation.
• Quests. Which outings you were invited to, whether you said yes, when you checked in, and the XP you earned.
• Your location, only when you share it. If you text a location pin when you say “here”, we compare it to the venue to check you in. The pin is part of that message and is erased with it.
• Private feedback. After a quest, how it went in your own words, whether you would hang out with each person again, and whether the place is worth going back to. Your answers are never shown to anyone, including the people they are about. Staff can only read them through a logged request that records who looked and why. Like your other answers, the words you wrote are kept for 30 days, then erased, keeping only the interests they showed; your yes or no answers are kept until you delete your account.
• Group photos. A photo is kept only after every person pictured approves it. Photos nobody approved are deleted after the quest.
• Safety reports. If you text REPORT or SOS, we keep the report, the category you chose, anything you wrote, and which quest it concerns. Reports are read by a person. They are kept even if an account in them is deleted, so that the people reviewing safety can see patterns.

When you use this website

• Your school email address, which you verify by clicking a link we email you. One email can verify one phone number, and one number can be verified by one email.
• Waitlist and contact form entries: the name, email, school, and message you type.
• A keyed hash of your IP address, kept with sign-in requests and form submissions so we can limit how many a single visitor can make. It is not reversible into your address. The web server’s own access log records request addresses, as every web server does; it is rotated with the server’s logs, not kept.
• Two cookies, both only to make the site work. qwest_session keeps you signed in for up to 30 days, or until you sign out. qwest_link remembers, for up to an hour, that this device opened the verification link Qwest texted you, so that signing in can connect your school email to your phone; it is deleted once they are connected. Both hold random codes that the site’s scripts cannot read, and we keep only a hash of the sign-in one. There are no advertising, analytics, or tracking cookies, and nothing on this site loads from anyone else’s servers.
• Your light or dark choice, if you pick one, is saved in your browser’s own storage. It never leaves your device.
• Your calendar link, if you text CALENDAR. We keep a version number for it. The calendar you subscribe with it fetches the quests you said yes to from us: their titles, times, places, and meeting points, never who else is going. Anyone with the link can see those, so keep it to yourself; texting CALENDAR NEW replaces it, and the old one stops working.

Paying a booking fee or doing the ID check happens on Stripe’s own pages, which set Stripe’s cookies, not ours. Cloudflare, which carries this site’s traffic, may set a short-lived security cookie (__cf_bm) to tell people from bots.

How we use it

• To match you with two or three other verified students and a public place that fits what everyone asked for.
• To run the quest: invites, the group text, reminders, check-in, and XP.
• To make the next match better, using your private feedback and what you have told Qwest about your life. Matching tries a few scoring methods in turn and records which one made each quest, so we can see which leads to groups people want to see again. That is a test of the method, not of you: it only affects who you are introduced to, and it never overrides your choices or a safety limit.
• To keep people safe: reviewing reports, pausing or suspending accounts, and alerting our team to an SOS.
• To answer you when you write to us, and to tell waitlist members when Qwest opens at their school.
• To keep the service working and within its limits, such as rate limits and spending caps.

Automated and AI processing

Qwest recognizes commands, numbered answers, yes and no, dollar amounts, and dates on its own, in ordinary code. Most other messages, including everyday ones like a hello, a question, or a plan in your own words, are sent to Anthropic's Claude models with a short summary of where you are in the conversation, so Claude can understand them and write the reply. Ordinary code still takes every action, such as making or cancelling a plan. Claude is also asked to check a group photo for whether it shows a group at an outing. Claude does not receive your phone number, your email, or other people's feedback about you.

Matching itself is deterministic code, not a model. A suspension is always decided by a person. Some pauses happen on their own, before anyone has looked: you are not matched while a safety report about you is open, and a report that someone felt unsafe with you pauses your matching at once; only a person on our team can lift that pause, after reviewing the report.

Who else sees it

We share data only with the companies that help run Qwest, and only what each one needs:

• Apple, because Qwest texts over iMessage and sends email from an iCloud Mail account.
• Anthropic, for the AI processing described above.
• Stripe, for the booking fee and, where enabled, the 18+ ID check. Stripe handles your card and your ID documents; we never receive them.
• Cloudflare, which carries this website's traffic.

We do not sell personal data, share it for advertising, or hand it to data brokers. We will disclose data if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

Group chats show phone numbers

When a quest forms, Qwest starts an ordinary iMessage group with you and the other members. Like any iMessage group, everyone in it can see each other's phone numbers and first names. You agree to this when you reply YES to the sign-up message. Nothing else about you is shared with the group.

The 18+ ID and selfie check

During the alpha there is no ID check. You confirm that you are 18 or older when you agree to the Terms, and your verified university email is what admits you. Qwest collects nothing about your ID. If an ID check is turned on later, Qwest will tell you first, and the rest of this section will apply.

When the check is on, Qwest confirms before your first quest that you are an adult. Until the automated check is available, a member of our team confirms your eligibility by hand and Qwest texts you the result.

Qwest stores only the outcome: that you are 18 or older, the date it was confirmed, and Stripe's reference for the check. We never store your date of birth, your name as it appears on the ID, your address, your document number, or any image. When you delete your account we ask Stripe to erase its copy too.

Payments

If Qwest charges a booking fee, you pay it on Stripe's checkout page. We never see your card number. We keep the amount, the status of the charge (held, charged, released, or refunded), and Stripe's reference numbers, so that we can refund you and keep our books. Payment records stay after an account is deleted, with the account's identity removed, because we are required to keep financial records.

How long we keep things

• Message text: 30 days, then erased, along with delivery error messages and attachment links. The record that a message existed is kept.
• Plan requests: the text you wrote is erased after 30 days; the structured version (when, budget, interests) is kept with your quests.
• Answers to Qwest’s questions: the text for 30 days; the interests learned from it, your experience picks, and your reactions until you delete your account.
• Unapproved photos: deleted after the quest. Approved group photos are kept until you delete your account.
• Sign-in links: 15 minutes. Sign-in sessions: 30 days.
• Private feedback: the words you wrote about how a quest went, 30 days; your yes or no answers about people and places, until you delete your account.
• Profile, quests, and XP: until you delete your account.
• Safety reports and payment records: kept after deletion, as described above.

Deleting your data

You can delete your Qwest account yourself, at any time, in two places:

• Text DELETE to Qwest, then DELETE again to confirm. This erases your profile, plan requests, your answers to Qwest’s questions, quests, photos, XP, feedback, and conversation. It happens within an hour of your confirmation.
• On this website, sign in and use Delete my account on your account page to remove your school email. The texting account is separate, so do both if you want everything gone.

Text STOP to stop all messages without deleting anything; text START to come back.

Your rights

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by emailing [email protected] from the school email on your account or by texting Qwest. We answer within 30 days. If your state gives you additional rights, you have them too, and we will not treat you differently for using them.

Adults only

Qwest is for people 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger. Everyone confirms they are 18 or older when they agree to the Terms; an account that turns out to belong to a minor is paused and nothing more is collected. If you believe a minor has used Qwest, email [email protected].

Security

Phone numbers are stored encrypted. Each part of Qwest connects to the database with its own account that can read only what it needs, so the software that writes replies cannot read phone numbers, and the staff console cannot read private feedback. Sign-in links and session cookies are random tokens of which only a hash is stored. Card and ID data stay with Stripe. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you we will tell you.

Changes

If this notice changes in a way that matters, Qwest will text you before the change takes effect, and this page will show the new effective date.

Contact

Qwest
Email: [email protected]
Or use the contact form.

This notice is governed by the laws of the State of Washington.