Privacy Policy

Last updated September 23, 2026

CrowdWire keeps a group of friends in touch at festivals and shows, even with no signal. It is built so that we never need to know who you are, who your friends are, or what you say to them.

• No accounts: no email, phone number, or password.
• No ads, no analytics, and no tracking of any kind.
• We never sell or share your data. We have almost none to begin with.
• Messages and locations are encrypted on your phone, and only your crew can open them.

Who we are

CrowdWire is made by Side Hat Ventures LLC. When this policy says "we", it means us.

What stays on your phone

Your identity is a set of encryption keys your phone makes the first time you open the app. Your name, photo, crews, chats, the festival maps you download, and any field-test recording you make are all stored on your phone. None of it is stored on a server of ours, because we don't run one for it.

How messages travel

Phone to phone. CrowdWire sends messages over Bluetooth to nearby phones running the app, which pass them along until they reach your friends. Messages are encrypted before they leave your phone. Crew messages are sealed with a key only your crew holds, and private messages with keys only the two of you hold. The phones passing them along can't read them.

Over the internet, when you have signal. So that friends far apart still get your messages, CrowdWire also sends your crew messages, flares, SOS alerts, and requests to join a crew through independent public internet relays. You can see the relays in Settings, Advanced, and you can turn this off in Settings with "Use the internet too". What the relays see:

• An encrypted message they can't read, filed under a random-looking label that only your crew can work out and that changes whenever your crew does.
• A new throwaway identity for every message, so nothing links your messages to you or to each other.
• Your phone's internet (IP) address and the time, as any server does when your phone connects to it.

Crew messages ask the relays to delete them after a day. Live location updates are sent in a form relays don't store at all. Relays are run by third parties; we don't control them, and they have their own policies.

Your name and photo

Your name and photo go only to the members of your crews, encrypted. Everyone else nearby sees a random tag instead, such as wire-7f3a.

Location

CrowdWire uses your location only for the things you turn on:

• Sharing with a crew. Off until you switch it on for a crew. Your location then goes to that crew only, encrypted.
• Find and the map. Your location shows where you are relative to your friends. The festival map is stored on your phone and never asks a map server where you are looking.
• SOS. An SOS sends your location to your crews until they have seen it. It does not contact emergency services.

CrowdWire uses your location while the app is closed only during an SOS, or if you turn on sharing in the background. We never receive your location.

Festival maps and alerts

When you download a festival's map, your phone fetches it from crowdwire.app. While that festival is on your phone and CrowdWire is open, it also checks that festival's alerts from the organizers every few minutes. Like any website, the company that hosts crowdwire.app sees your IP address and which files were requested. We don't use that to identify you.

Crew invites

An invite link looks like crowdwire.app/j#... The invite itself is the part after the #, which your browser never sends to our server. So we never see your invites, your crews, or who joined them.

Camera, microphone, and photos

The camera is used only to scan crew invite QR codes. The microphone is used only while you record or hold to talk, and that audio goes to the people you're talking to. Photos are used only when you pick a profile picture.

Notifications

CrowdWire's notifications are created on your phone when a message, flare, or alert arrives. We don't run a notification server and don't receive anything about them.

Field-test recordings

If you choose to record a field test (Settings, Advanced), your phone notes how the mesh and your phone are doing, such as battery level and how many phones are nearby. The file contains no names, messages, places, or crews, and it stays on your phone unless you share it.

Deleting your data

In Settings, Erase everything deletes your identity, keys, name, photo, crews, chats, festival maps, and recordings from your phone at once. There is no undo. Messages you already sent stay on your friends' phones, the same as a text message would, and relays delete crew messages within a day.

Children

CrowdWire is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll update it here and change the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy go to hello@sidehat.com.