Privacy policy and support.
Last updated: 2 October 2026
Orbit is an invite-only app for the people you already know. You can share roughly where you are so friends and their friends can find each other, make plans, and see what people in your circles are planning. People nearby are only ever your friends and their friends. Plans can reach one circle further, to friends of those friends, and you can narrow that to close friends only.
Account. Your email address and a password, handled by our authentication provider. We never see your password in readable form.
Profile. Your name, handle, optional bio, profile photo, and any photos you add to your profile. If you add them, also your home town and where it is, and the places on your wish list. We also keep your time zone, so notifications arrive at sensible hours.
Events. Titles, descriptions, dates, place names and their coordinates, photos you upload, who is attending, and comments.
Location, only while you turn it on. When you enable location sharing, your coordinates are stored so friends can see roughly where you are. Location sharing is off by default and you can switch it off at any time, which deletes the stored position.
Messages. Direct messages you send are stored so that you and the person you are writing to can both read them. They are visible to the two of you and to nobody else in the app.
Blocks and reports. If you block or report someone, we keep a record of it. Blocking is what stops that person contacting you, and reports are kept so we can look into them.
Shared plan links. Anyone who can see a plan can share a link to it, except a plan marked invite only, which only its host can share. Each plan has one random link. Anyone holding it can see the plan's title, cover photo, day and time, the town, the host's first name, the first name of whoever sent it, and how many people are going. It never shows the address, who is going or the description. A link sent straight to a person, by message or AirDrop, also connects them to the person who sent it and lets them see that plan in Orbit. A link posted to a story or a feed connects nobody. The host can turn the link off at any time, which stops every copy of it working.
Saying you're in from a shared link. Someone who opens a shared link can leave a first name to say they are coming, without an account. We store that first name with the plan so the person who made it can see it. We do not ask for an email, a phone number or anything else, and the names are deleted when the link is turned off or the plan is deleted. If that person then installs Orbit, the first name they gave moves with them, so they are on the plan's real list instead.
Contacts, as scrambled codes only. If you use "find friends from contacts", phone numbers and email addresses from your address book are converted on your device into one-way SHA-256 hashes. Only those hashes are sent to us, purely to check which of them belong to existing Orbit accounts. We do not store them, and we never receive the names, numbers, or email addresses of people in your contacts.
Invite links, across the install. When you open someone's invite link, or tap Get Orbit on a plan they sent you, we note the network address it was opened from, with the link, the plan if there was one, and the first name you gave there if you said you were in. That lets Orbit recognise the invite when you open the app for the first time, connect you and open the plan without you pasting anything. The note is deleted as soon as the app collects it, and within two hours either way.
Verified links. We send a few people a personal link that verifies the account made through it. Opening one notes the network address it was opened from, so the account that signs up from there can be recognised. The note is deleted once it is used, and within a day either way.
Notifications. If you share your area, friends who are also sharing within a couple of miles may be told you are close by, at most once a day for each friend. A plan you post may be announced to people in your circles who are nearby. Neither is sent between 10pm and 8am where the person receiving it is, and you can turn both off.
Emails. We may email you when a new version of Orbit comes out, to say what changed. Every one has a link to stop them.
Connecting people who have each other's numbers. When a contact match finds an Orbit member whose phone number is in your address book, we keep a note that it is. That note is only ever about Orbit members, never about anyone else in your contacts, and it does not contain the number. If that member's address book also contains your number, the two of you are made friends on Orbit straight away, and both of you are told. One person having the other's number is not enough; it stays a friend request.
That is the complete list. There are no other analytics or advertising services in Orbit.
We advertise Orbit on Instagram and Facebook, and we need to know whether those ads work. To do that, Orbit includes software from Meta.
What Meta receives. Each time Orbit is opened on your device, and the moment you finish setting up your account. If Orbit ever offers a paid plan, it would also receive that a purchase was made. Alongside these it receives basic device details such as the model and iOS version. It does not receive who you are in Orbit, who your friends are, or anything you do in the app.
The tracking question. The first time you reach the app, iOS asks whether Orbit may track you. This is Apple's wording and we cannot change it. If you choose Allow, Meta also receives your device's advertising identifier, which lets it match your install to an ad you saw in another app. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, it does not, and we only see anonymous totals through Apple's own ad measurement, which identifies nobody.
Saying no costs you nothing. Orbit works exactly the same either way. You can change your answer at any time in iOS Settings, Privacy and Security, Tracking.
What Meta does with what it receives is covered by Meta's privacy policy.
Your shared location is visible to your friends and their friends. When another member's own circles have fewer than ten people sharing nearby, the map may also show them your area, rounded to about a kilometre, so they can find people to meet through a friend. You can turn this off with "Show me on the explore map", and it is off whenever location sharing is. Your plans, with their photos and comments, can be seen one circle further out, by friends of those friends. Both limits are enforced at the database level rather than only in the app, so people outside your circles cannot query them. Separately, the app can show a count of how many Orbit members are within 10 miles. It is a number only, never who, and it is not shown at all when fewer than five people are in range. Direct messages are narrower still: only you and the person you are writing to can read them. The exception is a plan link someone deliberately shares, described above: it shows that plan's outline to anyone holding it, and a link sent straight to a person lets them see the plan in Orbit.
Orbit is not intended for anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information.
If this policy changes materially, we will update the date at the top of this page and notify you in the app.
Questions, bug reports, account deletion requests, or anything else: brad@neworbit.app. We aim to reply within a few days.