Privacy Policy

Scope and how the services work together

This Privacy Policy explains how Unmapped Japan collects, uses, stores, and protects information when you use the site, create an account, save travel preferences, use an Anonymous Traveler profile, contact us, or use related planning and security features. Unmapped Japan and its companion Japan travel service may use shared application infrastructure for account, email-suppression, security, and service-integrity functions. Site-specific anonymous profiles and browser sessions remain separated by the service that created them.

Information you provide

We collect information you choose to provide, such as your email address, name or display name, profile settings, saved places and events, Favorite / Want to Visit / Visited states, visit dates, private notes, Journey planning data, discovery preferences, reviews, social or profile content, contact-form messages, and other information you submit through the service. If paid Membership is enabled, we also maintain membership and transaction records needed to provide and administer the purchased service.

Anonymous Traveler profiles

If you are signed out and use an eligible save control, the site may create a temporary Anonymous Traveler profile. The profile uses a Traveler Code, a four-digit PIN, and secure browser tokens so your selected place and event states can work on the current browser and, if you choose, be restored on another browser or device. The profile has a fixed 15-day lifetime that does not restart when you return. You can see the remaining time, review connected browsers, expire other browser sessions, or delete the temporary profile from Settings. If you later create an eligible registered account, supported temporary preferences may be merged into that account.

Network, browser, session, and approximate location information

When you access the service, we and our infrastructure/security providers may automatically receive technical and network information such as your IP address, browser and device information, user-agent information, request and security identifiers, and request timestamps. For authenticated and Anonymous Traveler sessions, the service may also record session creation and last-active times, session expiration or revocation status, and approximate geographic metadata supplied by our hosting and security infrastructure. Approximate geographic metadata may include city, region, country, timezone, metro or postal-area information, and approximate coordinates when available.

We use this information for site operation, session security, abuse and fraud prevention, rate limiting, troubleshooting, and protection of accounts and services. Settings may show you a simplified browser/device label, approximate city and region, when the session started, when it was last active, and when an Anonymous Traveler session expires. The site does not display your raw IP address in the session-management interface. Approximate location may be incorrect or shifted by VPN use, mobile carriers, network gateways, or provider geolocation data and is not intended to identify your precise physical location.

Account, password, and security information

Passwords are stored using one-way password hashes rather than as readable passwords. Password-reset links use cryptographically generated, single-use tokens; the stored token value is hashed, and reset links currently expire after two hours. A successful forgot-password reset invalidates prior signed-in sessions. A logged-in password change rotates the current session and can sign out other sessions.

We may record security events such as password-reset requests and completions, password changes, session revocations, failed recovery attempts, authentication-related abuse controls, and whether our security provider reports that submitted credentials may have appeared in known breach data. Security records can include timestamps, IP addresses, browser/device labels, approximate city/region information, service identifiers, and security/request identifiers. A credential-exposure signal is used to warn and protect the account; the service does not store the submitted password in security logs. If an account is banned for abuse, fraud, or security reasons, we may retain keyed cryptographic representations (HMACs) of the normalized email address and, when appropriate, an eligible network address so we can enforce the restriction without keeping those identifiers in readable form. These security identifiers are used only for access-control and abuse-prevention purposes and are not used to reconstruct deleted account preferences.

How we obtain information

Information comes from you directly, from your browser and use of the service, and from service providers used to operate requested features. For example, Cloudflare may provide request-security and approximate-location metadata; Google may provide account identity information when you choose Google sign-in; Stripe may process payment information when paid Membership is enabled; and mapping, transport, attraction, booking, or affiliate providers receive information when you choose to use their services or follow their links.

Reviews and public contributions

Reviews may be screened before storage to reduce unnecessary personal information and abusive content. Email addresses and phone numbers detected in review text may be automatically replaced with redaction labels, and restricted language may be masked or a submission may be rejected. If you permanently delete your account, eligible reviews may remain as de-linked community contributions: the account relationship is removed, detected contact information and known account-name values are scrubbed, and the public author is shown as [deleted user]. We do not keep a convenience mapping from a retained review back to the deleted account. Automated redaction cannot guarantee that ordinary prose contains no identifying information. You can delete your own review while signed in before deleting your account, and you may contact us afterward to request removal of retained review text that identifies you, subject to applicable law.

Cookies and browser storage

The site uses necessary session and security cookies or comparable browser storage to authenticate users, protect forms, maintain Anonymous Traveler profiles, remember essential settings, and keep browser sessions connected to the correct account or temporary profile. The Anonymous Traveler Code/PIN and browser token features depend on necessary storage. Analytics is an optional category controlled through Cookie Settings. Optional partner content and affiliate-attribution technology is enabled by default where applicable law permits; active Members can opt out on their browser. In the United Kingdom and European Economic Area, this optional partner technology remains off until affirmative consent is recorded. Supported browser privacy signals and site-wide settings may also prevent activation. Visitors in Japan can review the categories of externally transmitted information, recipient, and purposes in the External Transmission Disclosure. See the Cookies and Affiliate Disclosure pages for more detail.

Email and unsubscribe

System email may include account verification, password recovery, security, and other account or service messages. System email includes an unsubscribe path where applicable. If you confirm an unsubscribe request, the normalized email address is placed on the shared suppression list and future system email to that address is blocked, including verification and password-recovery email, unless the suppression is later deliberately removed.

Payments, service providers, and third parties

When paid Membership is enabled, payments are processed by Stripe, and Unmapped Japan does not store full payment-card details. We use infrastructure, security, email, authentication, and other service providers to operate the site. We may also link to maps, transport providers, booking services, attractions, and other independent third parties. Their privacy practices are controlled by those providers. Some travel links are affiliate or referral links, and the site may receive a commission or referral benefit if you make an eligible purchase.

We do not currently sell personal information or use personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. Affiliate attribution and other marketing technologies may be used as described above and in the Affiliate Disclosure. If those practices materially change, we will update the applicable disclosures and controls.

Retention

Anonymous Traveler profiles have a fixed 15-day lifetime and are removed after expiration through the site’s cleanup process; deleting the current anonymous profile removes its associated temporary preferences and browser-token records. Active Member session records use a rolling expiration period of up to 30 days while the session remains in use. Account data is retained while the account is active and as otherwise reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy.

Post-trip Journey learning: optional post-trip check-ins remain tied to your active account only while the account exists. If you permanently delete the account, the identifiable feedback rows are removed after their contribution is converted into de-linked per-location totals and anonymous location-pair counts. Those retained aggregates do not keep your user ID, Journey ID, stop ID, visit date, email, session, IP address, or a key that can reconstruct a deleted traveler profile. Dismissed feedback prompts are account-bound and are deleted with the account.

If you use the permanent account-deletion control, your account and ordinary user-owned data are deleted from the active service and cannot be restored through the account. Your saved Favorites and Favorite / Want to Visit / Visited Place and Event states are removed from the account. We may preserve only aggregate count contributions from those selections for site statistics and popularity measurements. Those aggregate records do not contain your user identifier, a replacement account identifier, private notes, individual visit dates, or a key that groups the retained selections back into a deleted-user profile. De-linked reviews may remain as described above. Limited transaction/accounting records, security or legal records, administrative audit history, email-suppression records, and minimized ban-enforcement identifiers may be retained when reasonably necessary or legally required. When practical, retained records are de-linked from the deleted account or reduced to the information needed for the continuing purpose. Password-reset links expire after two hours and are invalidated after successful use.

Security

We use access controls, password hashing, hashed reset and session tokens where appropriate, CSRF protections, secure-session settings, rate limits, prepared database queries, session revocation, and other technical and organizational safeguards. No internet service can guarantee absolute security, and users should protect account credentials and Anonymous Traveler Code/PIN combinations from unauthorized use.

Your choices and privacy rights

You can change many account details from your account pages; change your password; review and sign out other account sessions; review or expire Anonymous Traveler browser sessions; delete an Anonymous Traveler profile; use available Member export tools; manage optional cookie choices; use email unsubscribe controls; and permanently delete your account from Settings. The deletion flow requires the exact confirmation text DELETE MY ACCOUNT and warns that the action is irreversible.

Depending on where you live and which privacy laws apply, you may also have rights to request access to, correction of, deletion of, or restriction of certain personal information, to receive information about how it is used or disclosed, and to exercise applicable opt-out rights without unlawful discrimination. Some limited records may be retained where permitted or required for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, accounting, dispute resolution, recordkeeping, or honoring an email-suppression request.

Privacy requests can be sent through the Contact Us page. We may need to verify that a request relates to you before acting on it.

Children

The service is a general-audience travel and discovery service and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly seek to collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information through the service, contact us so the matter can be reviewed.

Japan external-transmission notice

When optional affiliate-automation technology is active for a visitor in Japan, browser or device information may be sent directly to an external provider for link conversion, attribution, measurement, security, and related service operation. The dedicated External Transmission Disclosure identifies the current recipient and describes the categories of information and purposes. This disclosure is intended to give users a readily accessible opportunity to confirm those transmissions.

International use

The service can be accessed from multiple countries. Information may be processed or stored in a country different from the one in which you are located, subject to the safeguards and legal requirements applicable to the service and its providers.

Changes

This policy may be updated as the sites, legal requirements, or integrations change. The current revision date will remain visible on this page. Material changes will be reflected in the posted policy and, when appropriate, through additional notice.