SuRidePrivacy Policy
In short: SuRide is a ride-sharing app for university communities only. Your data is used only for matching and communication, is visible only to people at your own university, is never sold and is not used for ads. Your location is not tracked. You can delete your account from the app at any time.
1. What we collect
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Name and university email address | Creating your account, verifying your email and determining your community (university) |
| Profile photo, department, year (optional) | Helping other members recognise you |
| Car details: plate, model, colour (optional) | Posting rides as a driver; the plate is shown only to people who join your ride |
| Your rides: pickup and drop-off stops, date and time, price, seats, notes | Listing, matching and reminding you about rides |
| Messages and photos you send in chats | Communication in ride groups and direct chats |
| Push token, language, theme and notification preferences, users you blocked | Sending notifications and remembering your settings |
| Reports and feedback | Keeping the community safe and improving the app |
What we don't collect
- Location: no GPS or live location is used; only the fixed stops you pick from a list.
- Contacts, calendar, microphone and similar data are not accessed.
- Ads and tracking: no ads, no advertising identifier and no third-party analytics or tracking tools.
The camera and photo library are used only when you choose to send a photo or add a profile photo, with your permission. Photos are downscaled and their location metadata (EXIF) is removed before upload.
2. Who can see your data
- Only your university: your profile and rides are visible only to verified users of the same university (the same email domain). For example, Sabancı University users only see each other.
- Messages: visible only to the participants of that chat.
- Plate number: shown only to people who join your ride.
We do not sell, rent or share your data for advertising.
3. Service providers and where data is stored
We use the following services to run the app. They process data only to provide their service.
- Google Firebase (authentication, database, server functions, file storage). The database and functions run on servers in the European Union; photos are stored on servers in the United States (Google Cloud, us-central1).
- Expo, Apple Push Notification Service and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging: delivering notifications to your device.
- OpenStreetMap / OSRM: calculating the road route between stops for the map line. Only stop coordinates are sent, never personal data.
- Apple Maps / Google Maps: displaying maps.
Your data may therefore be processed on these providers' servers outside Türkiye.
4. Retention and account deletion
Your data is kept while your account is open. You can permanently delete your account at any time from Profile → Delete Account. When you do:
- Your profile, profile photo, settings and sign-in credentials are deleted.
- Your upcoming rides are cancelled and you are removed from upcoming rides you joined.
- Messages and photos you previously sent in chats may remain under the name they were sent with, because they are part of other participants' chat history. Email us if you want them removed; you can also delete your own messages one by one with "Unsend".
If you can't access the app, you can request deletion by email from your university address. See Support for details.
5. Security
Data is transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS). Access is limited to users with a verified email from an allowed university domain and enforced by server-side security rules. No system is 100% secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your data.
6. Your rights (KVKK and GDPR)
Under Turkish data protection law (KVKK, Law No. 6698) and the GDPR where applicable, you have the right to know whether your data is processed, request information, ask for correction or deletion, and object to processing. You can edit or delete most of your profile yourself in the app. For anything else, write to abdussamet.yildiz@sabanciuniv.edu; we reply within 30 days.
7. User content and safety
You can report and block inappropriate content or users from within the app. Reports are reviewed; content that breaks the rules may be removed and accounts may be closed. See the community rules.
8. Age
SuRide is intended for members of university communities and is not designed for children under 13.
9. Changes
We may update this policy. Significant changes will be announced in the app. The current version is always on this page.
10. Contact
Samet Yıldız · abdussamet.yildiz@sabanciuniv.edu