Privacy notice

Who is responsible

Asim Poptani, operating Heron Connect, is the controller of your personal data. Contact: [email protected].

What we collect, and where from

Only what you connect or give us:

• GitHub sign-in: your name, email, public profile (bio, company, website, X handle) and your public repos (languages, topics, stars). We don't keep your GitHub access token after reading these, and we don't store your location.
• LinkedIn sign-in: your name, email and profile photo.
• The web: once we've read your GitHub (or you add a website or your LinkedIn profile link), we search the web for your public work, such as your own site, talks and posts. We keep only what links back to your GitHub, your own site or your LinkedIn profile: a few tags and at most one line about your work, each showing the site it came from. We don't keep the search, the pages or their text. Without a GitHub username, a website of yours or your LinkedIn profile link, we don't search. You can remove anything we found.
• What you upload or type: a sentence about you, and your photo, headline and tags; a website; a GitHub username; and your LinkedIn PDF, which we read once and don't keep (we keep only the experience and skills we list back to you).
• Using the app: your answers to suggestions, who you met and where, any reports, your alert settings and the browser you turned alerts on in, and when you were last active.
• The venue check: once matching starts we ask, after you press a button, whether you're at Hoxton Docks. Your phone compares its own location with the venue's and sends us only yes or no, which we keep with when you checked, for this event. We never receive your coordinates, how accurate they are, or how far away you are: your exact location never leaves your phone. If it can't tell (location off, a laptop, a weak fix), it sends nothing. Only a “no” pauses your matches, and you can check again or tap “I'm at the venue” at any time.
• The “you are here” dot on the 3D venue map is worked out and drawn on your phone only, while the map is open. It is never sent to us or anyone.

What we use it for

• Suggesting people to meet at this event, and writing a reason to talk.
• Sending event alerts (in the app, push, and email backup if you leave it on).
• Keeping the event safe: reports, and removing people who break the terms.

The emails we send

• One welcome email when you first sign up, with your link back to the app.
• Alert emails about a new suggestion or a match, only while you keep email alerts on (turn them off in Settings), at most one each round.
• One email after the event with a demo of our work, unless you unticked “Send me a demo from our work today” when you signed up (it starts ticked) or turned it off in Settings.

Nothing else: no newsletters and no marketing, and we never pass your email on.

Every email has a link to stop them (“Stop all emails from Heron Connect”), and your mail app's own Unsubscribe button does the same. Either one turns off your alert emails and the email after the event, without signing in. Matching in the app carries on.

Our lawful basis is your consent when you sign in (and separately for the demo email), and our legitimate interest in running a safe event. We never sell your data, never show your email to other people, and never see where you are (the venue check tells us only yes or no).

Who sees it

People you're suggested to see your name, photo, headline, tags and the sentence about you. The organisers can see the admin overview and reports. Nobody else.

Who processes it for us

• Amazon Web Services (London region): hosting and sending email.
• Cloudflare: the network in front of the site.
• GitHub and LinkedIn: signing you in, and the profile data you let us read.
• OpenRouter: writing the reason to talk, when switched on. It gets the shared tags and headlines needed for that sentence, never your email or photo. It also runs the web search for your public work (through its search partner, Exa), given only your name, GitHub username, website or LinkedIn profile link.
• Pydantic Logfire (EU region): error and performance monitoring. It sees request paths (which can include your public GitHub username), timings, errors and a random id for your profile, never your name, email, photo or what you type.

How long we keep it

Delete everything from Settings at any time: you disappear from the app straight away and everything is erased within 30 days, including from backups. Otherwise we delete all of it within 30 days after the event, unless you tick “Keep my profile for future events”.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of your data, have it corrected or deleted, object to how we use it, or withdraw consent, by emailing [email protected]. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.