Privacy Policy

1 · Who we are

GIRO is a social driving app and website (drivegiro.com) made by Evoris Group Inc., a company based in Ontario, Canada ("GIRO", "we", "us"). Evoris Group Inc. is responsible for the personal information described here, and our Privacy Officer, Tudor Popescu, is accountable for it (see section 17).

This policy covers the GIRO app on Android and iPhone, drivegiro.com, the GIRO shop and the waitlist. GIRO is still in testing, so features change often. When a change affects your privacy, this page changes with it (see section 16).

2 · What we collect

Your account

• Your email address and password. Your password never reaches us as you typed it: your phone or browser turns it into a sign-in secret first.
• Your birthday. We ask it only to confirm you're 16 or older. It's private and never shown to anyone.
• Your @handle and display name, and if you add them, a profile photo, banner and bio.
• Security settings: your messages PIN check, and if you turn on two-step sign-in, what you use for it (an authenticator app, an email code, or a prompt on another phone signed in to GIRO).
• The devices signed in to your account: their type and a plain label like "Chrome on Windows", so you can see them and remove them in Settings › Devices.

What you share in GIRO

• Posts, stories, comments, likes and reposts, with their photos and videos.
• Clubs, crews, events and meets you create or join, and your RSVPs and check-ins.
• Routes you record or draw and publish, Spots you add, and hazard reports you make.
• Your rides (cars and motorcycles): make, model, year, mods, photos and a nickname. You can add your car's VIN; it stays private (see section 6). To get a ride verified, you send photos of its registration or ownership and its VIN plate. An Evoris admin reviews them, and the proof photos are deleted once the decision is made.
• Who you follow, who follows you, and who you block.

Location

Location is at the heart of GIRO, so it has its own section: section 3.

Messages

Messages are end-to-end encrypted. We store them, but can't read them. What we can see is explained in section 4.

Activity in the GRID

The GRID is GIRO's points, levels, titles and leaderboards. It's built from things the app already knows: your proven drives (distance, moving time, average speed), routes you finish, hazard reports, convoys, meets, Spot check-ins and referrals. Your top speed is kept on your private stats only. It never appears on a leaderboard or anywhere anyone else can see it.

Reports and safety

If you report someone or something, we keep the report: who made it, who or what it's about, the reason, and a copy of the reported content. If you report messages, your app sends us the messages you chose to include, decrypted. That's the only way message content ever reaches us, and only because you sent it. When you block someone, we store the block.

Shop orders

When you buy something, we keep the order: the item, size, price, the shipping name, address and phone number, and your email. If you choose to save them, your shipping details are kept on your account ("Your details") to fill in your next order. They're private, never shown on your profile, and you can edit or delete them any time. Payment happens on Stripe's own checkout page, so your card number never reaches us.

The waitlist

If you join the waitlist, we keep your email. Anything else you add is optional: your name, province, social handles, what you drive, and (in earlier versions of the form) a mailing address and clothing size. Before we save it, we check that the email's domain can receive mail. That check only looks up the domain (the part after the @), never your address.

Referrals and giveaways

If someone referred you, we record who it was (one person, once). We also keep the count of people you referred, and any giveaway entries your account has earned.

Technical information

Like most online services, the systems we use record basic technical information when you sign in and use GIRO, such as your IP address, device type, browser or app version, and times. We use it to keep accounts secure (for example, emailing you about a sign-in from a new device) and to fix problems. Our server logs are deliberately kept free of locations, search text, addresses and message content.

Phone permissions

• Location — for the map, sharing, drives, convoys, Spots and navigation (section 3).
• Physical activity (Android) — so your phone can tell when a drive starts and stops.
• Camera — to scan a convoy QR code and to take photos and videos for stories.
• Microphone — only while you're recording a story video.
• Photos — so you can pick photos for a post. GIRO doesn't ask to read the location stored in your photos.
• Notifications — for the notice that shows while GIRO uses your location in the background.

You can turn any of these off in your phone's settings. The parts of GIRO that need them stop working, and everything else keeps working.

3 · Your location, in detail

Who sees you: your map mode

• Crews & Friends (the default once you turn sharing on) — your friends (people you follow who follow you back) and the people in your crews see your precise live position. Strangers see nothing.
• Ghost — nobody sees you on the map, and you can't see anyone else either.

Sharing starts only after you agree to it on a one-time screen. If you say no, you're in Ghost. Public map modes, which would make you visible to people you don't know, are not available in GIRO today. If they ever are, they'll be off unless you turn them on, and this policy will say so before they launch.

With the app closed

When you're not in Ghost, GIRO keeps your live position up to date for your friends and crews even when the app is closed. That's why it asks for location access "Always" ("Allow all the time" on Android). It updates about every 15 seconds while you're driving and every 2 minutes while you're parked. On Android, a notification shows the whole time this is running. If you don't allow "Always", or you turn it off later, you're in Ghost for the live map, and the rest of GIRO (feed, messages, profiles, clubs) keeps working.

One latest position, not a history

For the live map, we store only your most recent position. Each update replaces the last one. If your position hasn't updated for 15 minutes, people see when you were last seen. After 24 hours, you disappear from their map. Your position is deleted when you deactivate or delete your account.

Your drives: the one history we keep

GIRO notices when you're driving (with the app closed too) and saves the route of each drive to your account. It saves the line you drove and its stats. It never saves where you were going, and never place names or addresses.

• We keep the routes of your last 30 drives at most. Older routes are erased for good. Their stats (distance, time, average speed) stay in your GRID.
• People who can see you on the map can see the line of a drive you're on right now. Your friends (mutual follows) can see your recent finished drives. Nobody else ever sees them.
• In Ghost, GIRO still saves your drives, for you alone. Nobody else sees a drive recorded in Ghost.
• You can delete any drive, or all of them, at any time. Deleted drives are gone for good.

Privacy zones: home and work

You can restrict any friend or crew member. Restricted people don't see your dot near your home or work, your live line stops at the edge of those zones, and they never see your past drives. Your phone stores your actual home and work, encrypted so we can't read them. Our server only gets a zone circle whose centre is deliberately moved away from the real place.

Convoys

A convoy is a group drive you join on purpose (by code, QR or invite). While you're in one, everyone in that convoy sees your precise live position, including people you don't know who joined by code. If you've chosen to keep sharing with your convoy when GIRO is closed, your position keeps reaching them with the app in the background, with a notification showing the whole time. It stops when you leave the convoy, the convoy ends, or you swipe GIRO away. Convoy positions are relayed live and never saved. The convoy's member list and its destinations (up to three) are kept only while the convoy exists. You can turn background convoy sharing off at any time in Settings › Location.

Spots

A Spot is a public place on the map: a lot, a garage, a lookout. Never a home.

• Everyone sharing their location is counted in the number of people at the Spot they're in. The number is only shown once 5 or more people are there. Below that it reads "quiet".
• In Ghost you still count toward that number, but you're never named. To count you, your phone sends only "at this Spot", with no coordinates, and that is forgotten after 5 minutes.
• On Verified Spots with 5 or more people, other GIRO users who are sharing can see a "who's there" list. If you're sharing (not in Ghost) and you're there, that list can name you to people you don't know. It tells them which Spot you're at, never your exact position or the time. Ghost keeps you off every list, and a block in either direction removes you from each other's lists.
• Spot visits: when you spend a minute or more at a Spot, GIRO saves a private note that you visited that Spot that day, with no time and no coordinates. Only you can see it. You can delete it, or turn automatic check-ins off in Settings › GRID.

Hazard reports

When you report a hazard, its location is shown to everyone on the map as "Driver reported". Your @handle is shown only if you turn on "Show my handle on hazard reports" (off by default, and never in Ghost). We keep who made each report, for moderation and points. Reports are deleted when they expire: within hours for most, and within a week at most.

Search, navigation and the map

When you search for a place or ask for directions, your search text and the locations involved (your position, your destination and any stops) are sent from our server to our mapping providers, TomTom and Stadia Maps, to get the answer. We don't store them and we don't log them. Map images come from OpenFreeMap, which sees the area of the map you're looking at and your IP address, as any website you load does.

4 · Messages and encryption

Every chat in GIRO (direct messages, crews and club chats) is end-to-end encrypted. Your messages are locked on your device with keys only the people in that chat hold. Our servers store the locked messages but cannot read them. We never get the keys.

• Your password is the key to your messages. A locked backup of your message keys is kept on our server so a new phone can read your history. It can only be opened with your password, which we never see. Make it a good one.
• Your messages PIN guards your messages when you sign in on a new device.
• What we can see: who is in which chat, when messages were sent, which devices are signed in to your account, and that a locked backup exists. Not what anyone said.
• Link previews are made by the sender's phone, not by our server, so we never learn the links you share.
• Reported messages are the one exception: if you report messages, the ones you choose are sent to us decrypted, as evidence (section 2).
• "Encrypted" protects the messages in transit and on our servers. It doesn't stop people in the chat from reading them. A club chat that anyone can join can be read by anyone who joins.
• If you lose your password, your email and every signed-in phone at the same time, we can't recover your old messages. Nobody can.

5 · How we use it

• To run GIRO: your account, the map, sharing, drives, navigation, chats, clubs, events, the GRID and the shop.
• To keep people safe: reviewing reports, enforcing our Terms, preventing fake accounts, spam and abuse, and securing accounts.
• To contact you: sign-in and security codes, security alerts (a new sign-in, a password or email change), account notices (deactivation, deletion, the last warning before deletion), order emails, and waitlist news if you joined the waitlist. You can ask us to stop waitlist emails at any time.
• To fix and improve GIRO, using the technical information above.
• To follow the law and respond to valid legal requests.

We use your information only for these purposes, with your consent. That consent is given when you create an account, turn on a feature, or choose to share something. You can withdraw it by turning the feature off or deleting your account.

6 · What other people can see

• Always public: your @handle, display name, profile photo, banner, bio and follower counts.
• Your posts and garage follow your privacy settings. A private profile shows its extras only to people you've approved.
• Your VIN is private. Only you see it. Others see only "VIN verified". If someone else proves they own the car on that VIN, the car's facts (make, model, mods and so on) move to them. Your photos, words and nickname move only if you agree.
• Your location is never shown on your profile. Who sees you on the map is covered in section 3.
• The GRID: other people see your level, title and leaderboard places, updated once a night. Public profiles appear on public leaderboards by default. Private profiles appear only on Friends and Clubs boards unless you opt in.
• Clubs: a club's members can be seen by anyone who can see that club's posts.
• Routes and Spots you publish show your name as their maker. People you've blocked see "a Giro driver" instead.
• Blocking someone hides you from each other across the map, search, follows and messages.

7 · Companies that help us run GIRO

We share personal information only with the service providers below, and only what each needs to do its job for us. They're bound to protect it and to use it only for us.

Supabase

Our database, accounts, sign-in and file storage. Everything in GIRO lives here. Servers in the United States (Oregon).

Cloudflare

Hosts drivegiro.com. It also answers the waitlist's email-domain check (along with Google's public DNS); those see the domain only.

TomTom and Stadia Maps

Place search, addresses and directions: they get your search text and the locations in the request.

OpenFreeMap

Map images: it sees the area of the map you're viewing and your IP address.

Resend

Sends our emails: your email address and the email itself.

Stripe

Shop payments: your name, email, phone, shipping address and payment details. Stripe also emails your receipt.

Printful

Makes and ships shop orders: your name, shipping address, phone, email and what you ordered.

Google Fonts

Serves this website's typeface, so your browser contacts Google when a page loads.

Apple and Google

Distribute the app through their stores, under their own privacy policies.

We may also share information if the law requires it (for example, a valid court order), to protect someone's safety, or as part of a sale or merger of our business. In that last case, this policy would keep applying to your information.

8 · Where your data is stored

GIRO's database and files are stored in the United States, and some of our providers work from other countries. That means your information may be processed outside Canada and may be accessible to courts and authorities there under their laws. We choose providers that protect it to a standard comparable to Canadian law.

We also keep backup copies of the database for recovery. We keep up to about ten weeks of backups, so something you delete can stay in a backup for up to that long before the backup is overwritten.

9 · How long we keep it

Your account and what you post

Until you delete it, or delete your account.

Your live position

Only the latest one, replaced with each update. Hidden from others after 24 hours without an update. Deleted when you deactivate or delete your account.

Drive routes

Your last 30 at most. Older ones are erased. Their stats stay until you delete the drive or your account.

Convoy positions

Never stored. Convoy details are deleted when the convoy ends.

Ghost Spot counts

5 minutes.

Spot visits

Until you delete them or your account.

Hazard reports

Until they expire: hours for most, a week at most.

Stories

24 hours, then deleted with their photos and videos.

In-app notifications

30 days.

GRID point history

About 13 months (400 days). Your totals, level and trophies stay while you have an account.

Ride verification photos

Deleted once an admin has decided.

Messages

Kept (encrypted) for the chat's history until you delete your account.

Reports

Kept, even after either account is deleted, with both people's @handles as they were at the time. This is so a harasser can't erase the record by deleting their account.

Shop orders

Kept as business and tax records for as long as the law requires (in Canada, generally six years), even after you delete your account.

Waitlist entry

Until you ask us to remove it. Deleting your account doesn't remove it, so email us.

Backups

Up to about ten weeks.

10 · What we never do

• We don't sell or rent your personal information, to anyone.
• There are no advertising SDKs, ad trackers or third-party analytics in the GIRO app, and no tracking or advertising cookies on drivegiro.com.
• We don't use your location or messages for advertising.
• We don't put locations, search text or message content in our logs.

11 · Your choices and rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you, and get a copy.
• Correct it if it's wrong. Most of it you can edit yourself in the app.
• Delete it. You can delete your account yourself (section 12), and delete drives, Spot visits, posts and your saved details whenever you like.
• Withdraw consent: go Ghost, turn off background location, turn off auto check-ins, or switch off a permission.

Email contact@drivegiro.com from the address on your account. We may need to confirm it's you. We answer within 30 days. If we can't do what you asked, we'll say why.

If you're not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca). In Quebec, you can also go to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec. If you live elsewhere, you may have a similar right with your local privacy regulator.

12 · Deleting your account

In the app: Settings › Account › Danger zone › Delete account. On the web: sign in at drivegiro.com/account and choose Delete account. To make sure it's you, we ask for your password and a code we email you.

• Your account is hidden straight away: your profile, posts, stories, comments, likes, map presence and convoys. In chats you show as "Giro user".
• After 30 days, it's gone for good, along with your posts, rides, clubs, messages, drives and files. Sign in before then and tap Reactivate if you change your mind. We email you when deletion starts, and again 3 days before the end.
• What stays after deletion: shop orders (business records), your waitlist entry (email us to remove it), reports made by you or about you (with both @handles), posts you made in a club (they belong to the club and show as "Giro user"), and, for a car whose VIN was verified, the car's build stays with that car, without your name, unless you chose otherwise.
• If you only want a break, use Deactivate instead (the "Take a break" group, just above Delete account). It hides everything the same way with no end date, and you turn it back on whenever you like.

13 · Children

GIRO is for people 16 and older. If you're under 18, you need a parent's or guardian's permission to use it. GIRO is not directed to anyone under 16, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 16, we turn it off right away and delete it after 30 days. If you believe one does, email us.

14 · Security

We protect your information with end-to-end encryption for messages, encrypted connections everywhere, strict database rules that only let each person read what they're allowed to, optional two-step sign-in, and email alerts for sensitive account changes. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach of your information creates a real risk of significant harm, we'll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

15 · This website

• drivegiro.com has no advertising or analytics cookies and no tracking scripts. Every script on it is our own.
• If you sign in here, your browser keeps your sign-in in its own local storage. If you open your messages here, this browser's message key is kept in its local database. Signing out, deactivating or deleting removes them.
• Pages that show a map load map images from OpenFreeMap, and every page loads its typeface from Google Fonts.

16 · Changes to this policy

We'll update this page when GIRO changes, and change the date at the top. If a change matters, for example a new way your location is shared or a new kind of data, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and ask for your consent where the law requires it.

17 · Contact us

Evoris Group Inc. is responsible for your personal information. Our Privacy Officer is accountable for how we handle it:

Tudor Popescu, Privacy Officer, Evoris Group Inc.
contact@drivegiro.com

For any privacy question or request, email that address.

See also: our Terms of Use and Support.