Privacy policy
Buto helps students and recent graduates form teams, build projects and show the work. This page explains what we collect, why, who sees it, and how to get a copy or have it deleted. We collect only what the service needs. There are no ads, no analytics, and no tracking cookies.
Who we are
Buto is operated by Andrew Sterling, East 27th Street, Hamilton, Ontario L8V 3G1, Canada. For anything about your privacy, email info.webuildtogether@gmail.com. That address reaches the person responsible for privacy at Buto.
What we collect
When you create an account
- Your name and email address.
- Your password. It is stored only as a one-way hash by our sign-in provider; we never see it.
- That you agreed to these policies (which version, and when), that you confirmed you are 16 or older, and whether you chose to get product emails.
What you choose to add
- Profile details: headline, photo, skills and tools with levels, overall experience, weekly availability, school or background, city, a short bio, and links (portfolio, GitHub, LinkedIn, Dribbble or Behance). All optional except your name and at least one skill.
- Your usual free hours each week, if you add them for team scheduling, and your weekly check-ins (what you did, what’s next, what’s blocking you).
- What you do on Buto: the teams you join and your role, tasks, team chat messages, voice notes, direct messages, files you share, comments, likes, follows, saved briefs, portfolio pieces and images, work you add from outside Buto (images, PDFs, video links and code), your résumé if you upload one, services you list, comments and appreciations on portfolio projects, confirmations and ratings of teammates, and reports you make.
Collected automatically
- Sign-in cookies that keep you signed in (see the cookie policy).
- When you were last active on each of your teams, so we can send a gentle reminder if you go quiet.
- When you last had the app open, to show other members a green “online” dot or “Active 2h ago”. You can hide this in Settings → Password & privacy.
- If you turn on push notifications, a push address for that browser or device.
- Your IP address and browser details, in our providers’ server logs, used for security and to keep the service running.
What we do not collect
- No date of birth, phone number, government ID, payment details or precise location.
- No advertising or analytics trackers, and no data from data brokers.
- Voice room audio is never recorded or stored. It goes directly between teammates’ browsers.
- Location and camera data (EXIF) is removed from photos before they are uploaded.
How we use it
- To run the service: your account, matching you with projects and teammates by skills and level, team workspaces, messages, notifications and portfolios. (Legal basis where it applies: performing our agreement with you.)
- To keep Buto safe: handling reports, suspending accounts that break the guidelines, and preventing abuse. (Legitimate interests.)
- Notifications: in the app; on your device if you turn on push; and as a daily email summary if you turn that on. You can switch each one off in Settings, and every email has an unsubscribe link.
- Helping teams form and finish: telling you about new briefs that match your skills, telling team leads when someone who fits an open role joins, and reminding members who haven’t been active for a few days.
- Product emails, only if you opted in. Every one has an unsubscribe link, and you can turn them off in Settings. (Consent.) Account emails, like confirming your address or resetting your password, are sent whatever you choose, because the service needs them.
- To improve briefs: we use counts of which kinds of projects get claimed, finished or abandoned to write better ones. These counts don’t identify anyone.
We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.
Who can see what
- Signed-in members can see your profile, skills, tools, links, portfolio, team memberships and comments. People who aren’t signed in can’t see anything.
- Your teammates only can see team chat, voice notes, tasks and files.
- Only the two people in a conversation can see a direct message.
- Only the person rated sees the collaboration and reliability ratings teammates give them.
- Admins can see reports and the content reported, and can suspend accounts.
- Your teammates can see your check-ins and the free hours you added.
- Feedback notes on a portfolio piece are visible only to the piece’s author and the person who wrote the note.
- Anyone on the internet, only if you turn on your public portfolio in Settings. It shows your name, photo, headline, bio, skills, links, finished portfolio pieces and anything you add to it yourself (outside work, services, a banner, a public contact email, and your résumé if you switch it on), plus view, appreciation and follower counts and comments from signed-in members, at a link you choose. It never shows your account email, messages, ratings or unfinished teams. Your résumé stays private until you switch it on. Teammates appear by role only, unless they made their own portfolio public. Turning it off hides the pages straight away, though copies others saved or that search engines cached may take time to disappear.
- Your email address is never shown to other members.
AI features
Some features use Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic: writing new project briefs, team suggestions, and drafting case studies. These run only when someone uses them. Drafting a case study sends Anthropic the project brief, team members’ names and roles, the task list and deliverables, and nothing else. AI feedback on a portfolio piece sends that piece and the team’s case study. Anthropic processes this to produce the reply. Its commercial terms say it does not train its models on this data. AI output can be wrong, so check it before relying on it.
Service providers
We use a small number of providers to run Buto. Each gets only what it needs.
| Provider | What for | What it handles | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in, file storage, live updates, scheduled jobs | Everything stored on Buto | Canada (Montreal) |
| Stripe | Payments, if you subscribe | Your name, email, card details (held by Stripe, never by us) and payment history. We keep only your Stripe customer number and subscription status | United States and others |
| Anthropic | AI features | The data listed above, only when an AI feature is used | United States |
| Have I Been Pwned (Pwned Passwords) | Checks a new password hasn’t leaked in a data breach, when you sign up | Only the first 5 characters of a one-way scramble (hash) of your password. Never your password, email or name | Global |
| Vercel Inc. (United States) | Serving the website | Requests to the site and server logs | See provider |
| Your browser’s push service (Google for Chrome and Android, Apple for Safari and iPhone, Mozilla for Firefox, Microsoft for Edge) | Delivering push notifications, if you turn them on | The notification text, encrypted so only your device can read it | Varies |
| Resend | Sending the daily email summary, if you turn it on | Your email address, name and the titles of your unread alerts | United States |
| GitHub | Showing commit counts on portfolio pieces that link a public repository | Our server asks GitHub for public data about that repository; your browser doesn’t contact GitHub | United States |
| Figma | Showing a design prototype, only when a viewer presses “Load prototype” | Figma receives that viewer’s request and may set its own cookies | United States |
| Google (STUN servers) | Setting up voice room connections | Your IP address, when you join a voice room | Global |
In the voice room, audio goes directly between browsers, so teammates’ browsers can see each other’s IP addresses. Fonts are hosted on our own site, so loading a page sends nothing to font providers.
International transfers
Our database and files are stored in Canada (Montreal). Some providers, such as Anthropic, process data in other countries, including the United States, where the law may differ from yours. We use providers that commit to protecting the data they handle for us.
How long we keep it
- Your account and profile: until you delete your account.
- When you delete your account, your profile, skills, settings, consent history, direct messages, likes, follows, saves, notifications and portfolio pieces are deleted straight away, and your photo, portfolio images, outside work files and résumé are removed from storage.
- Things that belong to a team stay so your teammates’ projects still make sense: team chat messages, task history, comments and shared files remain, shown as “Former member” with no link to you.
- Copies in our provider’s backups are overwritten on its normal backup cycle. Server logs are kept for a short time for security.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can:
- Get a copy of your data: Settings → Download my data.
- Correct it: Profile → Edit profile.
- Delete it: Settings → Delete my account.
- Withdraw consent to product emails at any time, from Settings or any email’s unsubscribe link.
- Ask a question or make a request (including access, correction, deletion or objection under Canadian, Quebec, EU, UK or California law) by emailing info.webuildtogether@gmail.com. We reply within 30 days. See your data.
- Complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca), or to the data protection authority where you live.
Age requirement
Buto is for people aged 16 and over. Everyone confirms this when they sign up. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone younger. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 16, we delete it. Parents or guardians who think their child has an account can email info.webuildtogether@gmail.com and we will delete it.
Security
Connections are encrypted. Access to data is limited by database rules, so for example only teammates can read a team’s chat. Passwords are hashed, and the files of private teams are served through short-lived links. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts you at real risk, we will tell you and the regulator, as the law requires.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that affects you, we will ask you to review and accept it the next time you sign in. Small fixes, like typos, show a new date at the bottom.
Last updated October 12, 2026 · version 2026-10-12