Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Village Toolkit (“we,” “us,” or “our”) helps eco-villages and intentional communities manage their administration. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, and your rights in relation to it.

Village Toolkit is available as a web application at villagetoolkit.com and as a mobile app for Android and iOS. The mobile app presents the same web application inside the app, so the practices described in this policy apply identically however you access Village Toolkit — except where a section specifically says otherwise, as with push notifications in section 3.4 and app update checks in section 3.6.

We are operated by Village Toolkit, based in British Columbia, Canada. This policy is governed by Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

If you have questions or concerns about how we handle your personal information, please reach us through our contact form.

2. Who We Are in Relation to Your Data

Village Toolkit operates as a data processor, not a data controller, for the personal information of community members stored within the application.

Each organization (community) that uses Village Toolkit controls its own data. The organization's administrators are responsible for determining what information is collected about their community members and how it is used within the platform. We process that data on their behalf, according to their instructions and this policy.

If you are a community member whose information has been entered into Village Toolkit by your community's administrators, you should also direct privacy inquiries to your community administrators, as they are the primary controllers of your data.

3. Information We Collect

3.1 Account Information

When a user creates an account on Village Toolkit, we collect:

• Full name
• Email address
• Password (stored as a one-way cryptographic hash — we never store your plaintext password)
• Profile photo, if you choose to upload one

3.2 Community Data (Entered by Organization Administrators)

Organization administrators may enter the following types of information about their community members into the platform:

• Resident and household names, email addresses, phone numbers, and unit/room identifiers
• Volunteer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and work-stay date ranges
• Financial data: cash flow entries, income and expense records (amounts, categories, labels)
• Chore assignments and schedules
• Community events
• Community policies, procedures, and documents, and the votes members cast on them
• Community roles and the members assigned to them
• Projects, project tasks, and the comments and membership attached to them
• Forum posts, replies, and likes — including any personal information a member chooses to write into them
• Free-form notes attached to a resident or volunteer record — these are open text fields, and an administrator may record anything in them, including personal details not listed above

We store this data on behalf of the organization and do not use it for our own purposes beyond providing the service.

3.3 Usage Data

We may collect basic technical information when you use the application, including:

• IP address
• Browser type and version
• Pages visited and actions taken within the application
• Timestamps of activity

This information is used for security monitoring, debugging, and improving the service.

3.4 Push Notification Tokens (Mobile App Only)

If you use the Village Toolkit mobile app and grant it permission to send notifications, we collect and store:

• A push notification token — an identifier issued to your device by Expo and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging, linked to your user account
• The device platform (ios or android)
• The dates the token was first registered and last seen

This token functions as a device identifier. We use it solely to deliver the notifications you have opted into — the same notifications already shown inside the application, such as event approval requests and chore assignments. We do not use it for advertising, analytics, or tracking you across other apps or websites.

Delivering these notifications necessarily involves two processors: Expo's push notification service and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (for Android) or Apple Push Notification service (for iOS). The token and the notification content pass through them for delivery to your device. See section 5 for more on third-party infrastructure.

Retention. A token is deleted automatically as soon as it stops being valid — for example when you uninstall the app or revoke notification permission — and all tokens associated with your account are deleted when your account is deleted.

Your control.You can stop the collection of this token at any time by disabling notification permission for Village Toolkit in your device's operating system settings. Notifications will simply stop; the rest of the app continues to work normally. Push notification tokens are collected only by the mobile app — they are never collected when you use Village Toolkit in a web browser. This setting governs the push notification token described in this section; the update check described in section 3.6 is separate and is unaffected by it.

3.5 Analytics and Performance Data

We use two privacy-preserving services to understand how Village Toolkit is used and to monitor performance. PostHog records page views and general interaction patterns — for example, that a button was clicked, but never its text or the information shown on the page. Vercel Speed Insights records page-loading performance measurements.

Neither service uses cookies or stores anything in your browser, builds a profile of you, or links this data to your account, and neither tracks you across other websites or apps. At most a coarse, country-level geographic estimate is derived from your network connection — never your precise or approximate physical location. We use this data solely to find and fix problems and to decide which parts of the product to improve.

Because the mobile app presents the web application inside the app, this collection occurs in the mobile app as well as in a web browser.

3.6 App Update Checks (Mobile App Only)

App updates.The mobile app checks for over-the-air updates each time it launches. This request identifies the app installation and its version to Expo's update service so the correct update can be returned. It does not identify you personally, and it is not affected by your notification settings.

The information sent is an installation-scoped identifier along with the device platform and the app's runtime version. It is not linked to your account, is not used for advertising or analytics, and is not collected when you use Village Toolkit in a web browser. See section 5 for more on third-party infrastructure.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• To provide the service:Authenticating your account, displaying your organization's data, and enabling application features.
• To communicate with you: Responding to support requests or inquiries you send us.
• To maintain security: Detecting and preventing unauthorized access, abuse, or misuse of the platform.
• To improve the service: Analyzing usage patterns to identify and fix issues and improve features.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use your data for advertising.

5. Third-Party Infrastructure

Village Toolkit is built on reputable third-party cloud infrastructure. As a result, your data is transferred to and stored on servers located in the United States. We use providers with established security practices and appropriate contractual protections, but please be aware that US data protection laws differ from Canadian and EU laws.

If you use the mobile app with notifications enabled, your push notification token and the contents of those notifications are additionally processed by Expo and by Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) or Apple Push Notification service (iOS), strictly to deliver the notification to your device. These providers act as processors on our behalf and are not permitted to use the data for their own purposes. See section 3.4.

The mobile app also contacts Expo's update service on launch to check for over-the-air updates, sending the installation identifier, platform, and runtime version described in section 3.6. Expo acts as a processor on our behalf for this request.

The anonymous usage and performance data described in section 3.5 is processed by PostHog and Vercel, in the United States. Both act as processors on our behalf and are not permitted to use the data for their own purposes.

An organization's administrator may choose to connect an external AI assistantto their organization by generating an access token in their account settings. While such a token is active, the assistant it was issued to can read and create that organization's data, and the data it retrieves is transmitted to whichever AI provider the administrator chose — a provider we neither select nor control. No such connection exists unless an administrator creates one. Tokens can be revoked at any time from the same settings page, and every request made with one is recorded in an audit log.

Apart from the infrastructure and delivery providers described above, and any integration an administrator has explicitly enabled, we do not share your personal information with any other third parties except as required by law.

6. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as your account or your organization's account remains active on Village Toolkit.

If an organization discontinues use of Village Toolkit and requests deletion of their data, we will delete or anonymize all associated personal information within 30 days of the request, except where we are required to retain it for legal or regulatory reasons.

You may delete your individual account at any time from within the app: go to Account settings and choose “Delete account,” or visit villagetoolkit.com/account/delete. Your login credentials, name, email address, phone number, profile photo, registered devices, and notifications are erased — not hidden — and cannot be restored by us or by your community's administrators. Records you contributed to a community (for example events, policies, financial entries, forum posts, and your volunteer or resident history) are retained without them: they are shown as “Former member,” with no identifying information left attached, so your community's records stay intact.

If you are the only administrator of an organization that still has other members, you will be asked to promote another member to administrator before deleting your account, so the organization is not left without anyone able to administer it.

If you are the last member of your organization, deleting your account also permanently deletes the organization and all of its records, including the details of residents and volunteers kept there, since no one would be left able to access or remove them. You will be asked to type the organization's name to confirm.

7. Security

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information against unauthorized access, disclosure, or loss. These measures include:

• Passwords stored using cryptographic hashing (never in plaintext)
• HTTPS encryption for all data in transit
• Organization-level data isolation — each community's data is logically separated and inaccessible to other organizations
• Access controls restricting which users within an organization can view or modify sensitive data

No system is perfectly secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, tell us immediately through our contact form.

8. Your Privacy Rights

Under PIPEDA and BC's PIPA, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information
• Withdraw consent to our collection or use of your personal information (subject to legal or contractual limitations)
• Request deletion of your personal information, subject to our retention obligations

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), you may also have rights under the GDPR, including the right to data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

To exercise any of these rights, use our contact form. We will respond within 30 days.

9. Cookies

Village Toolkit uses session cookies to maintain your login state. These are strictly necessary for the application to function and are not used for tracking or advertising purposes.

We do not use advertising cookies, and our analytics service does not use cookies at all. See section 3.5 for what that service measures.

10. Children's Privacy

Village Toolkit is not intended for use by individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child's information has been entered into the platform inappropriately, tell us through our contact form.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this document. If changes are material, we will make reasonable efforts to notify affected users (for example, by displaying a notice within the application or emailing the account holder).

Continued use of Village Toolkit after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

12. Contact

For privacy-related questions, requests, or complaints, contact: