Privacy Policy

1. Overview & Purpose

Waterloo Event Treasure ("we", "our", or "the Platform") is an open event aggregation and student companion platform designed for University of Waterloo students and the Kitchener-Waterloo (KW) community. Our mission is to make campus life more vibrant by connecting students to hackathons, career fairs, workshops, free food events, and companion groups (找搭子).

We believe in minimal data collection. We do not sell your personal information, nor do we engage in commercial profiling, tracking across the web, or ad targeting.

2. Information We Collect

We restrict data collection to the absolute minimum required to operate the platform:

Information We Do NOT Collect: We never collect or store passwords, credit card or banking information, government IDs, physical home addresses, or real-time GPS location coordinates.

3. Public Visibility of Social Features

By using our social and buddy-finding features, you understand that certain information is displayed publicly to other visitors of the website:

• Find Buddies: When you create a buddy request for an event, your Google avatar, display name, target faculty, message, and any contact handles you specified will be visible on the event modal so that fellow students can contact you.
• Event Comments: When you post a comment on an event, your display name and avatar are shown with your comment. If you check the box to share your contact information, the selected handle will also be made visible.
• Safety Recommendation: Only share communication handles (e.g., Discord or WeChat) that you are comfortable having viewed by other Waterloo community members. Never share sensitive credentials, phone numbers, or private keys.

4. Data Storage & Third-Party Infrastructure

Our backend and database services are powered by enterprise-grade cloud providers:

• Google Firebase: User authentication and profile storage are hosted on Google Cloud Firestore and Firebase Authentication with strict security rules. Data transmission is encrypted using TLS/HTTPS.
• Public Event Aggregation: Event listings are aggregated from publicly accessible calendars, university websites (WCMS, WUSA, student societies), and community feeds. We do not scrape private user accounts.
• Zero Data Monetization: We do not sell, rent, or trade any user information with third-party advertisers, data brokers, or marketing networks.

5. Cookies & Local Storage

We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. We only utilize local browser storage (LocalStorage and session cookies) strictly necessary for:

• Remembering your UI theme preference (dark mode vs. light mode).
• Maintaining your active Firebase Google OAuth session state.

6. Your Rights & Data Deletion

You retain full ownership and control over your presence on the platform:

• Edit Contact Details: You can update or clear your contact handles anytime on your Profile Settings page.
• Remove Buddy Requests: Once you have paired up or no longer wish to attend, you can delete your active buddy post at any time with a single click from the event details modal.
• Account & Data Removal: If you wish to permanently delete your account, comments, or all associated records from Firestore, you can send an email request to our administrators, and your data will be permanently wiped within 7 business days.