Porchlight privacy policy
Testing program. Last updated 20 October 2026. Porchlight is made by Rockstar Automations Ltd. Privacy questions: emily@gatherat.ai.
Porchlight is a safety companion for walking home. To do its job it has to know your number, who to call if you go quiet, and, if you choose to share it, where you are during a walk. This page says what we collect, why, who sees it, how long we keep it, and how to get it deleted. The terms of use say what Porchlight does and does not promise.
1. What we collect
What you give us
- Your first name and mobile number, from the sign-up form.
- Your contact's name and mobile number.
- Everything you text Porchlight, and the texts it sends you.
- What you say on calls with Porchlight, as a written transcript. Calls are not recorded as audio.
- Your home, if you confirm it after a walk, and the nights you are usually out, if you tell us.
- A live location link from Google Maps, if you share one.
What happens during a walk
- While a walk is running and you have shared a link, Porchlight reads your position from that link about every 30 seconds: where you are, how accurate the reading is, and how old it is.
- If you open your Porchlight page, we record that you opened it and what you tapped. If you allow it, the page can also send your phone's own position while it is open.
- Whether calls were answered, how long they lasted, and whether texts were delivered.
What we work out
- Where each person got to in the journey (signed up, replied, started a walk, got home, and so on) and where they stopped. We use this to see what to improve.
- Which of two ways of asking for your location you were shown. We test both to learn which one people prefer.
We do not collect your contacts list, your photos, your email, or anything from your phone beyond what is listed here.
Ad measurement
We find people through ads on Meta (Facebook and Instagram). The sign-up page uses Meta's ad measurement through Gather Launch, a service run by Rockstar Automations Ltd.: it sets a cookie that remembers which ad brought you, counts page visits and taps on Get started, and when you sign up it sends Meta a hashed copy of your phone number (scrambled one way, so the number itself is not sent) so Meta can tell us whether an ad worked. Nothing you text Porchlight, say on a call, or share about your location is ever sent to Meta. Questions about ad measurement: delbert@gatherat.ai.
2. Why we use it
- To run Porchlight: text you, call you, follow your walk, and reach your contact if you go quiet.
- To make the assistant's replies fit the conversation.
- To review what happened on real walks and fix what went wrong.
- To keep the service safe: stop abuse, honor STOP requests, and answer carrier or legal requests.
We do not sell your information. We do not use it for advertising. We do not share it with data brokers.
3. Who sees it
Your contact
If you go quiet during a walk and Porchlight cannot reach you, it texts and may call your contact with your first name, the time, and, if you shared it, a link to your last known location. It tells them the alert is over when you turn up. It never sends them your messages.
Our team
A small team runs Porchlight and reads conversations and walk records afterwards to improve it. We see your number only as its last four digits in our tools, and the full number only when we need to reach you.
Services that help us run it
| Who | What they do with your data |
|---|---|
| Telnyx | Sends and receives the texts, places the calls, and runs the voice assistant on calls. Keeps the written transcripts of calls. Telnyx may use language models from other companies to make the assistant speak. |
| Anthropic | Writes the text replies. Receives the conversation it needs to write a reply. It does not receive your location link or your page link. |
| When you share a Google Maps live location link, we read your position from Google using that link, under Google's own terms. | |
| Railway | Stores the data on servers in the United States. |
| Meta | Receives page visits, taps, and a hashed copy of your phone number when you sign up, to measure our ads. Never your texts, calls or location. |
| Slack | Carries alerts to our team about the service and a daily summary. These include the last four digits of a number and the last question Porchlight asked, never your location. |
Each of these works for us under its own terms and keeps the data only to do its job.
Everyone else
We share information when the law requires it, to answer a valid request from a carrier or a court, to protect someone's safety, or if Porchlight changes hands, in which case this policy still applies.
4. How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your setup: name, number, contact, home, usual nights | Until you reset it by text or ask us to delete it, or until the test ends. |
| Texts, call records and transcripts | 30 days, then deleted. |
| Location readings from a walk | 30 days, then deleted. The link itself is cleared when the walk ends, or after four hours at most. |
| Journey records (which step you reached, no message content) | 180 days, then deleted. |
| STOP requests | Kept, so we never text you again by mistake. |
These figures match how the service is built today. If we change them, we change this page.
5. Your choices and rights
- Stop texts and calls: reply STOP. Everything stops, and the last text tells you so. To come back, text START to the Porchlight number, then sign up again on the Porchlight website.
- Stop sharing location: end the share in Google Maps at any time. Porchlight only reads it during a walk.
- Change your contact: text Porchlight the new name and number.
- Reset your setup: text RESET STATE, then CONFIRM RESET. This clears your name, home, location link and contact. Message logs still expire on the schedule above.
- Delete everything, see what we hold, or correct it: email emily@gatherat.ai from any address and tell us your number. We will confirm it is you by text and answer within 30 days.
If you live in California, you also have the right to know what personal information we collect and why, to delete it, to correct it, to limit the use of sensitive information such as precise location, and to not be treated differently for using these rights. We do not sell or share personal information for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of there. Use the email above for any of these. Other states give similar rights, and we honor them the same way for everyone.
6. How we protect it
Data travels over encrypted connections. Your location link is stored encrypted and cleared when the walk ends. Access to the tools that show conversations is limited to the team running the test. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise that yours will never be exposed. If we learn of a breach that affects you, we will tell you.
7. Children
Porchlight is for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you think we have, email us and we will delete it.
8. Where the data lives
In the United States. If you use Porchlight from elsewhere, your data comes here.
9. Changes
If we change this policy, we post the new version with a new date. If the change affects how we use what we already hold, we text you before it takes effect.
10. Contact
Rockstar Automations Ltd., emily@gatherat.ai. For ad measurement: delbert@gatherat.ai.
Draft for review, 20 October 2026. Structure modeled on the Noonlight privacy policy (collection, use, sharing, your rights, children, changes, contact) and the Replika privacy policy (retention table, deletion, minors). Not legal advice.