Privacy Policy

Version dated October 1, 2026 — superseded on October 3, 2026. Read the current Privacy Policy. This copy is kept so members can see the policy that applied before the update.

This Privacy Policy explains what information AVident ("AVident", "we", "us") collects when you use the AVident website, web application, iOS and Android applications, and related services (the "Platform"), how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. The Platform is offered in the United States. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meaning given in our Terms of Service.

1. Information you provide

• Account and profile. Name, email address, password (stored only as a hash), phone number, roles (pilot, student, instructor, examiner, owner, mechanic, dispatcher, enthusiast), photo, bio, home airport, time zone, availability calendar, whether you are looking for a flying partner or take ferry flights, and optional links to your website or social profiles.
• Pilot and professional credentials. Certificate numbers, ratings, endorsements, medical certificate class and dates, mechanic certificates and specialties, examiner designations, and the session types, services, and rates you offer. Instructor and mechanic certificate numbers are matched against the FAA's public Airmen Registry to earn a verified badge.
• Aircraft. Registration number, make and model, base airport, hangar or meeting-point location, photos, equipment, rates, billing meter type, cancellation policy, availability, private rental instructions, and ownership documents. Registrations are matched against the FAA Civil Aviation Registry, and ownership is re-checked after each registry update.
• Bookings and flights. Booking details, messages with the other party, meter (Hobbs or tach) photos taken at block-out and block-in, squawks, meter disputes, cancellation and no-show records, reviews, and the safety acknowledgment you give when booking.
• Logbook. Flight entries you add or import from another logbook (dates, aircraft, routes, times, approaches, remarks), carry-forward totals, and the endorsements and currency items linked to them.
• Maintenance records. Maintenance entries, reminders, and documents recorded against an aircraft, and the certificated mechanic who signed them.
• Schools. School name, description, logo and photos, locations, staff and co-admins, fleet, internal schedule, and any contact email, phone number, or website the school chooses to publish.
• Verification and vetting documents. Documents you upload to verify aircraft ownership, renter's insurance, or endorsements. If you are a student pilot who is not a U.S. citizen, the TSA Flight Training Security Program requires eligibility screening before flight training; you may record your citizenship status, TSA application ID, an identity document, and the determination TSA issued. You apply to TSA directly. We do not transmit anything to TSA, and we do not adjudicate eligibility.
• Community content. Lounge posts, comments, and likes; profiles and aircraft you save to My Hangar; reports you file; and Members you block.
• How you found us. If you answer the optional "How did you hear about AVident?" question at signup, your answer and any text you add.
• Consent records. The version of the Terms you accepted, when you accepted it, and the IP address and device user agent at that moment, recorded at signup, on each booking, and when you re-accept updated Terms.
• Support. Messages you send to support@flyavident.com.

2. Information collected automatically

• Location. With your permission, the app uses your device's location to rank nearby aircraft, Members, mechanics, and Lounge posts. Live location is sent with those requests and used only to rank results; it is not stored as a location history. Base airports, hangar pins, and meeting points you enter yourself are stored.
• Push notification tokens. If you enable notifications, we store the device token assigned by Apple (Apple Push Notification service) or Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) so we can deliver them. The token is removed when you sign out or turn notifications off.
• Email verification. When you sign up or change your email address we send a 6-digit code and keep only a hashed copy of it until it is used or expires.
• Signup source. If you arrive through a link that carries a tag, such as an ad, a flyer, or a Member's invite link, we record that tag with your new account: the ad or campaign name, or which Member invited you. For an invite, we also record when you finish signing up (verify your email and set a home airport), because that is when the invite counts toward free months for you and the Member who invited you.
• Usage and device data. Server request logs (IP address, requested page, browser or app version, and time) used for security, abuse prevention, and keeping the service running.
• Lounge views. When a Lounge post stays on your screen for about a second, we record that you saw it, together with your roles, your home airport, and its distance from the author's home airport at that moment. We use this only to show the post's author, and AVident administrators, how many Members the post reached (see section 5). Views of your own posts, and views by AVident administrators, are not counted.
• Session storage. The web app keeps your sign-in token and interface preferences in your browser's local storage. Apart from the ad measurement described next, we do not use advertising cookies, third-party analytics, or tracking pixels.
• Ad measurement (websites only). Our website and web app load Google Tag Manager to run Google Ads conversion measurement. If you arrive from one of our Google ads, Google may store an ad-click identifier in a cookie in your browser, and when you finish creating an account we tell Google that a sign-up happened, so we can see which ads bring new Members. We do not send Google your name, email address, or other account details. These tags are not part of the iOS or Android apps, and they do not load at all if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal. You can also block or clear cookies in your browser settings. Google's use of this information is described in How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

3. Payment information

Payments are processed by Stripe. Your full card number never reaches AVident; we receive limited metadata (card brand, last four digits, a saved-card reference, and the status of each hold, charge, refund, or payout). Members who receive payouts (owners, instructors, examiners, contract pilots, mechanics, schools) onboard with Stripe directly and give their identity, tax, and bank details to Stripe, not to us. Credits and refunds we issue to your AVident wallet are recorded in our ledger. Stripe's handling of your data is described in Stripe's privacy policy.

4. How we use information

• To operate the marketplace: matching and search, bookings, scheduling, messaging, payments, card holds, payouts, cancellations, and disputes.
• To verify aircraft, instructor, and mechanic credentials against public FAA data, and to confirm insurance, ownership, and endorsements, which protects Members from fraud.
• To send service notifications (booking updates, messages, security alerts, profile-completion reminders, and notices about the Terms) by email and push notification. We do not send marketing email today; if we ever do, it will carry an unsubscribe link.
• To understand which ads, links, and invites bring new Members, and to run the invite program: counting finished invites and the free months they earn.
• To keep the community safe: screening public images automatically for explicit content, reviewing reports, enforcing blocks, and taking account action.
• To keep records required by law, including instructor endorsement records and flight-training security records.
• To enforce and defend our Terms, including producing consent records, meter photos, and booking documentation in a dispute or chargeback.

We do not sell your personal information. Apart from the Google Ads sign-up measurement on our websites (section 2), we do not share it with third parties for advertising.

5. How information is shared

• With other Members. Your profile, credential badges, listings, availability, services and rates, reviews, Lounge posts, and approximate distance (e.g. "12 nm away") are visible to other Members. Your email address and phone number are shown only to Members you have a confirmed booking with, Members of the same school, an aircraft owner and their designated instructors, and AVident support; other Members can reach you only through in-app messaging. Contact details a school chooses to publish are visible to everyone. When you view someone's Lounge post, its author sees only totals (how many Members saw it, by role and by distance from their home airport), never who you are.
• Invites. If you join with a Member's invite link, that Member sees your first name and last initial, when you joined, and whether you have finished signing up, never your email address or other details. Anyone who opens an invite link sees the first name and last initial of the Member who shared it.
• With the other party to a booking. Booking details, meter photos, rental instructions, and messages are shared between the parties to that booking and any delegate or school staff acting for a party.
• Your logbook. Your logbook is private and is not shown on your profile. Flight instructors you have trained with on the Platform can review your logbook entries to sign endorsements and track your progress. You can export your logbook as a CSV file at any time.
• With calendar services you connect. If you publish your AVident bookings as a calendar feed, anyone who has that feed URL can read the booking times and titles. If you add an external calendar URL to an aircraft, we fetch it about every 30 minutes and store the busy blocks it contains so they can block bookings.
• With service providers. Stripe (payments and payouts); Apple and Google (push delivery and app distribution); Google Cloud Vision (automated screening of profile, listing, and Lounge photos); Render (hosting and database); Google Workspace (sending email from support@flyavident.com); Google Ads and Google Tag Manager (measuring which of our ads lead to sign-ups on our websites, as described in section 2); and OpenFreeMap (map tiles, which your device requests directly when a map is shown). Each receives only what it needs for its function. FAA registry data is downloaded to our systems; we do not send your information to the FAA.
• With apps you open from AVident. "Directions" links open Apple Maps or Google Maps on your device, and insurance links go to the insurer's site; those services' own policies apply to what you share there.
• For legal reasons. If required by law, subpoena, or a regulator, including the FAA, TSA, or NTSB; or to protect the rights, safety, and property of AVident and its Members.
• In a business transfer. If AVident is acquired, merges, or forms a new legal entity, your information may transfer to the successor under this policy.

6. Automated image screening and moderation

Photos that other Members can see (profile photos, aircraft listing photos, school photos, and Lounge images) are checked by Google Cloud Vision SafeSearch before they are stored. Images classified as adult or graphic content are refused and not stored; borderline images are stored and placed in a review queue for a human. We keep a log of each screening result (the classification scores, not a copy of the image). Private documents such as meter photos, maintenance records, and vetting documents are never sent for screening. Reports filed by Members, blocks, and actions taken by AVident administrators are recorded in an audit log.

7. Data retention and deletion

We keep your information while your account is open. Uploaded files (photos and documents) are stored in our database alongside the records they belong to.

• Deleting your account. You can delete your account from Settings, or by emailing us. Deletion cancels your open bookings, releases any uncaptured card holds, and then permanently removes your profile, listings, bookings, messages, Lounge posts and the record of posts you viewed, logbook, maintenance entries you recorded, documents, and consent records from our database. An account cannot be deleted while a flight under it is blocked out. Amounts you owe, and payouts owed to you, survive deletion as described in the Terms.
• Invites. When you delete your account, your invite link stops working and you are removed from the invite list of the Member who invited you. Members you invited stay, but are no longer linked to you.
• Payment records. Stripe keeps its own records of charges, refunds, and payouts under its policies. We may keep a transaction summary as long as tax, accounting, or dispute rules require.
• Endorsement records. Instructor endorsements you gave or received, and the supporting documents attached to them, are kept after either account is deleted, because the FAA requires the instructor to retain each record for three years (14 CFR § 61.189) and the TSA requires citizenship-verification records to be kept for five years (49 CFR Part 1552). A retained record shows the names as signed, no longer links to a profile, and stays visible only to the other party while they remain a member. Once both accounts are gone and every retention period has passed, the record and its documents are purged automatically.
• Flight-training security records. Your TSA status and identity document are deleted with your account.
• Server logs. Request logs are kept by our hosting provider for a limited period, currently no more than 30 days.
• Screening logs and audit logs. Kept for the life of the Platform to detect repeat abuse; they identify an account only while it exists.

8. Your choices and rights

• Review and update your profile, credentials, aircraft, and school details in the app. Export your logbook as a CSV at any time.
• Turn off location access or push notifications in your device settings; the app keeps working without them.
• Block any Member. Blocked Members cannot message you or see your contact details.
• Request a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion of your account by emailing support@flyavident.com, or delete your account yourself from Settings. We answer requests within 30 days and will not treat you differently for making one.
• Residents of California and other states with privacy laws may have rights to know, correct, and delete personal information and to opt out of its sale or use for targeted advertising. We do not sell personal information. Some state laws may treat the Google Ads measurement on our websites (section 2) as sharing for targeted advertising; you can opt out by turning on Global Privacy Control in your browser, which stops those tags from loading, or by blocking cookies in your browser settings. The other rights are available to every Member through the steps above. If we decline a request, you may appeal by replying to our response.

9. Security and breach notice

Passwords are stored hashed, traffic is encrypted in transit, production access is restricted, and card data never touches our systems. No system is perfectly secure; please use a strong, unique password. If a security breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and any regulator as the law of your state requires, without unreasonable delay.

10. Children

The Platform is for adults 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18, and we will delete it if we learn we have.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Platform changes. We will post the updated policy here, change the date above, and keep earlier versions reachable from this page. For material changes we will also notify you in the app or by email.

12. Contact

Privacy questions or requests: support@flyavident.com with the subject line "Privacy request".