Privacy Policy & Terms

1.1 Who we are

Your Dance Buddy ("we", "us", "our") is a community-first platform built by Westies, for Westies. We're passionate West Coast Swing dancers and teachers creating one place where the WCS community can discover events, share authentic reviews, connect with fellow dancers, and organise their dance travel. Read our full story and mission.

1.2 What data we collect

We may collect the following categories of information:

• Account data: email address (required for platform operation, preventing duplicate submissions, essential communication, and optional marketing only if you opt in), nickname, preferred dance role, home region, and WSDC member number
• Social profile data: social media handles and links you choose to add (such as Instagram or Facebook), and your visibility preferences for attendee lists. When you mark yourself as attending an event, your nickname, dance role and social links may be visible to other verified users
• Verification data: your account verification status and the method used (email verification, buddy pass invitation code, or social media DM verification)
• Event planning data: saved events, planning progress and preferences (such as pass type, accommodation, and transport), personal planner notes, and shared planner links
• Festival schedule data: workshop and party check-ins, and personal notes about schedule items
• Staff profile data: for teachers, DJs, photographers, MCs and other event staff, we display names and roles. Photos, bios and social media links are only added when provided directly by the person or by the event organiser. For teachers, bios may also be sourced from publicly available data (event websites, social media) or provided by organisers. Staff members can request corrections or removal of their data at any time by contacting us
• Review data: event reviews, ratings and scores, review likes, and whether you chose to submit anonymously
• Event suggestions: corrections or new event submissions you provide, including any source URLs and descriptions
• Notifications: in-app notification history and your notification preferences
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, and cookies (if applicable). If you consent to analytics cookies, anonymised usage data is collected via PostHog to help us improve the platform

1.3 Why we collect data

We collect data to:

• Publish event reviews and scores
• Help users plan, organize, and track events they are interested in
• Improve the quality and reliability of our platform
• Prevent abuse and duplicate reviews
• Run optional random prize draws
• Contact users for platform-related communication (e.g., verification, important updates)
• Marketing communication: If you explicitly opt in, we may use your email address to send occasional updates, news, or announcements related to the Your Dance Buddy platform. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us directly.
• Participant feedback and event insights: When you submit a review, the feedback is collected to provide useful information to other dancers and aggregated statistics to event organizers. No individual review or personal information, including names, will ever be shared with organizers. Only total counts of reviews and final scores are provided.

1.4 Legal basis (GDPR)

If you are located in the EU, we process your data based on:

• Your consent
• Legitimate interest in operating and protecting the platform

1.5 Data retention

We keep personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes described above.

Reviews after account deletion: If you request account deletion, all personal data (profile, email, planner data, saved events, social links, schedule notes, and notifications) will be permanently deleted. Review text and scores you submitted will be retained in fully anonymised form — they will no longer be linked to your account or display any identifying information. This supports our legitimate interest in maintaining a reliable review database for the dance community. If you wish to have your reviews deleted entirely rather than anonymised, you may request this explicitly.

1.6 Your rights

You have the right to:

• Access your data
• Correct your data
• Request deletion (reviews will be anonymised by default; full deletion of reviews is available upon explicit request — see section 1.5)
• Withdraw consent at any time

To exercise your rights, contact us at: hello@yourdancebuddy.com

1.7 Staff and public figure profiles

Your Dance Buddy displays profiles of event staff such as teachers, DJs, photographers, MCs and other contributors. We display names and roles. Photos, bios and social media links are only added when provided directly by the person or by the event organiser. For teachers, bios may also be sourced from publicly available channels (event websites, social media profiles). We do not collect or display private information about staff members.

If you are featured as a staff member on our platform, you have the right to:

• Request corrections to your displayed information
• Request removal of your profile or any specific data points
• Claim your profile to manage your own bio, photo and links (coming soon)

To make any of these requests, contact us at hello@yourdancebuddy.com.

1.8 Google API Services

Your Dance Buddy's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.