Privacy Policy

Queue Ahead ("we", "our" or "us") is a search engine for real-world virtual queues, waitlists and online check-ins at queueahead.com (the "Service"). This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have.

Queue Ahead is operated by an entity registered in the United Kingdom.

Information you provide

When you use the Service, you may give us:

• Account details — your email address, and an optional display name, public handle and avatar photo.
• Sign-in — a one-time magic-link email, or Google sign-in (see "Google sign-in" below).
• Community contributions — queue submissions, verifications, wait reports, edit suggestions and queue requests, shown publicly against your handle where one is set.
• Payment details — if you subscribe to Premium, Stripe collects and processes your card details. We never see or store your full card number.
• Support messages — anything you send to hello@queueahead.com.

Google sign-in

If you choose "Continue with Google", we use Google's OpenID Connect sign-in flow. Google shares your email address, name and profile picture with us, and we use this only to create or sign you into your Queue Ahead account and to show your name and picture on your account.

Queue Ahead's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We don't use this data for advertising, and we don't share it beyond what's needed to run your account.

Cookies and sign-in security

We set one cookie, qa_session, when you sign in. It's strictly necessary to keep you signed in — it's HttpOnly, scoped to our domain, and expires after 30 days or when you sign out. Because it's strictly necessary for the Service to function, no cookie-consent banner is shown for it.

Magic-link sign-in tokens and Google sign-in state are single-use, short-lived, and stored server-side as a hash rather than in a cookie — the raw token or state value only ever appears in the email link or the Google redirect itself.

Information collected automatically

We use privacy-conscious analytics that don't identify you:

• Cloudflare Web Analytics — a cookieless, privacy-first page-view beacon. It doesn't use any client-side state or cross-site identifiers.
• Workers Analytics Engine — aggregate, anonymous usage events (e.g. a search happened, a queue link was clicked) with no personal data attached.
• Cloudflare Turnstile — a captcha-free anti-abuse check shown on submission forms, to reduce spam without tracking you.

How we use your information

We use the information above to:

• Provide sign-in, your account, and features like alerts and saved queues
• Send transactional email — sign-in links, wait alerts you've set up, and billing receipts and reminders
• Show your public contributions and handle to other visitors, where you've made them
• Process Premium payments and manage your subscription, through Stripe
• Detect and prevent abuse, spam and fraud
• Understand aggregate usage of the Service so we can improve it

How we share your information

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only with:

• Stripe, to process Premium payments and subscriptions
• Cloudflare, our hosting, database, email-sending and analytics provider
• Google, only as part of the Google sign-in flow you initiate
• Anyone you choose to share a Family & Business plan with, or who invites you to one — plan owners can see which members have joined; members don't see each other's personal data
• Law enforcement or other parties, only if required by law or to protect the Service and its users

Third-party data in our directory

Some wait-time data shown on Queue Ahead comes from third parties rather than from you: queue-times.com (attributed as "Powered by Queue-Times.com" wherever it's shown), and the queueing providers whose join links we index (e.g. Yelp Waitlist, Dojo, Waitwhile). We link to those providers' own pages to complete a join; we don't control what they collect once you leave queueahead.com — check their own privacy policies.

Data retention

We keep your account and its associated data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account from /account, we delete your account record; some data tied to your contributions (e.g. an approved submission or a verification) may remain, disconnected from your identity, so the directory stays accurate for other users.

Your rights

If you're in the UK or EEA, UK GDPR and EU GDPR give you the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, and to object to or restrict some processing. If you're a California resident, the CCPA gives you similar rights, including the right to know what we collect and to request deletion. We don't sell personal information, so there's nothing to opt out of a sale of.

You can delete your account and its data yourself at any time from /account, or contact us at hello@queueahead.com to exercise any of these rights.

Children

The Service isn't directed at children under 16, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. Contact us if you believe a child has given us personal information, and we'll delete it.

International transfers

We're based in the UK and use Cloudflare's and Stripe's global infrastructure, so your information may be processed outside your own country, including in the United States. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement and standard contractual clauses.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We'll update the "last updated" date at the top of this page when we do; continued use of the Service after a change means you accept the update.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data? Email hello@queueahead.com.