Recovery Meetings

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 24, 2026

Meeting Finder is a free tool for finding recovery meetings. It is built privacy-first: we collect as little as possible. We never sell your data and we don't use advertising or cross-site tracking.

The short version

  • No name required. An account needs only an email address.
  • Your saved meetings, filters, and settings stay in your browser, on your device.
  • Location is optional and only used to show nearby meetings and distances.
  • Analytics are anonymous, aggregate counts only — we can't identify you.
  • We honour Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control — with either on, we count nothing.
  • We don't sell data or run ad trackers.

Information stored on your device

To remember your preferences, the app stores the following in your browser's local storage: saved meetings, filter and sort choices, your appearance choice (light, dark or follow-my-device), recently viewed meetings, and your location preference. This data stays on your device and you can clear it anytime through your browser settings. If you choose to sign in, your saved meetings and your appearance choice are also kept on your account so they follow you to another device; nothing else in that list ever leaves the browser.

Location

Location is optional and used only with your permission. It lets the app show distances and surface meetings near you. When you enable it, approximate coordinates may be sent to our meeting-data service and to third-party meeting-data providers in order to return nearby results. We do not associate those coordinates with your identity or retain them, and you can deny or turn off location at any time in your browser or device settings.

Usage analytics

We count how the app is used so we can tell whether it's working — for example, whether people are finding meetings or hitting dead ends. Here is the whole pipeline, end to end.

What we collect

Only counts, drawn from a fixed list of things we decided in advance to count. A typical one is “someone opened an online meeting on a Tuesday evening” or “a search returned no results with 2 filters on.” That is the entire level of detail — there is no record of which meeting, which fellowship, or which person.

Here is the complete list. Nothing outside it is counted, and anything an app sends that is not on it is discarded rather than stored:

  • A meeting was opened — with whether it was in person, online or hybrid, which day of the week it meets, and roughly what time of day (morning, afternoon, evening, night).
  • A meeting was saved or unsaved. Just that it happened.
  • A search finished — whether it found a few, some or many meetings, and how many filters were switched on. Never what was searched for.
  • A search or filter found nothing — and how many filters were on at the time. This is how we find gaps in our meeting data.
  • A filter was changed — which kind of filter (day, time, distance, program, format, meeting type, or text), never the value chosen.
  • A screen was viewed — as a screen name such as “home” or “detail”. A meeting page is always counted as just “detail”; the meeting's identifier is removed first.
  • Location was turned on. That it was granted — never the coordinates.
  • A 988 crisis link was tapped — and which placement it was tapped from (the ribbon, a page footer, or a legal page).
  • A meeting was shared — and whether it went through the share sheet or a copied link.
  • An install prompt was shown or dismissed — and on which platform.
  • The feedback form was submitted — and which of the three types it was. Not the message; see below.

That list is the whole of it, and it is kept in step with the code: the events the app is capable of sending are defined in one file, and anything not in that definition is rejected when it arrives.

We specifically never collect, through analytics:

  • Your IP address. It is discarded at the moment the request arrives — not stored, not shortened and kept, not turned into an ID.
  • Any account, device, session, or advertising identifier — including when you are signed in.
  • Cookies of any kind, or browser fingerprinting.
  • Your location, exact or approximate.
  • Anything you type, including searches and filter text.
  • Which recovery program or fellowship you looked at.

Where it goes

To our own database, run by us for this app alone. No analytics company, advertising network, or third-party tracking script is involved — there is no vendor analytics code in this app at all.

How it is stored

Events are added into daily totals as they arrive, and the individual event is never written down. So what exists is a number like “41 evening meetings opened on 24 September” — not a list of moments that could be put back in order to reconstruct one person's visit. The detailed version never exists, so it cannot be looked up, leaked, or handed over later.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

We honour both. If your browser or an extension sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, we record nothing at all — not a reduced or anonymous version. The app checks before sending anything, and our server checks again on arrival and discards the request, so the choice is honoured either way.

Feedback you send us

If you use the in-app feedback form, the message you write — and any contact details you choose to include — are stored so we can read and, if you asked, respond. Sharing contact information is entirely optional. Please do not include sensitive personal or health information in feedback.

Third-party services

Some parts of the app rely on third parties, each with their own privacy practices that apply when you interact with them:

  • Maps from Google Maps, which loads when a map is shown.
  • City search via OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service, used only when you type a city name into the location picker.
  • Meeting listings from public recovery-organization feeds (AA, NA, SMART, and others).
  • Outbound links you tap — e.g. driving directions (Apple/Google Maps), online-meeting links, and official program locators.
  • Accounts through Clerk, if you choose to sign in. You need an account to save meetings, set reminders and report a listing.
  • Fonts from Google Fonts.
  • Hosting by Vercel.
  • Phone notifications, if you choose them for a reminder, are delivered by your phone maker's push service (Apple, Google or Mozilla). We store the meeting, the lead time and the address that service gave your phone. The notification itself says only “Meeting reminder” and a time, and is encrypted so the push service cannot read it.

When you follow a link or load a map, that provider may receive standard technical information (such as your IP address) as part of serving the request. We don't control those services.

Cookies

We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. (A single secure, HTTP-only cookie is used solely for the private operator/admin area and is never set for ordinary visitors.)

Data retention & security

Information stored on your device persists until you clear it. Feedback you send is retained until we remove it. Analytics totals are kept as daily counts; because they are only ever totals, there is nothing in them that relates to you, and deleting them would not remove information about any individual. We take reasonable measures to protect information, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

Children

Meeting Finder is not directed to children under 13 (or under 14 in Quebec), and we do not knowingly collect their information.

Your choices

You can deny or disable location, clear the app's data via your browser settings, and contact us with any privacy questions or requests. To opt out of usage analytics entirely, turn on Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control in your browser or privacy extension — we check for both and, if either is set, collect nothing.

If you have an account

Both of the following are in the app, under Profile → Account. Neither needs you to ask us, and neither waits on us doing anything.

  • Download my data gives you a JSON file containing everything this app holds about your account: your email address, your saved meetings, any problem reports you sent, and any role you hold. The file also lists what we do not hold, so you can see the whole picture rather than just our half of it.
  • Delete account removes the account immediately — there is no waiting period and nothing to confirm with us afterwards. It deletes your email address, your saved meetings and any invitation sent to your address, and any phone-notification reminders, and it clears reminder settings from this device. Problem reports you sent about a meeting stay on that listing, because they are how the listing gets fixed for everyone else — but the report keeps only the category and the date, with the text you wrote deleted and the link to you replaced by a random value that identifies nobody.

Two things deletion cannot reach, because they were never ours: reminders you already added to your phone's calendar (remove them there), and meetings you saved on another device while signed out (clear that browser's data).

Canadian users

If you are located in Canada, your personal information is handled in accordance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial privacy legislation. Residents of Quebec also have rights under An Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25), including the right to access, correct, and request deletion of personal information we hold about you. If you use the app without an account, we hold nothing identifying about you server-side, so those rights are satisfied by clearing your browser's local storage. If you have an account, access and deletion are both self-service and immediate — see If you have an account above; you do not need to make a request or wait for us. To make a formal request about anything else, contact us at the address on our site.

Personal information, to the extent any is collected (feedback messages with optional contact details), is processed on servers located in the United States.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app evolves. We'll revise the “Last updated” date above and, for material changes, note them in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests: use the Feedback form in the app (or email us at the address published on our site). See also our Terms of Service.

In crisis or thinking about using? Call or text 988 — US & Canada, 24/7, free. · Back to the app