Privacy & safety

Who we are

NU Pool helps Northeastern Oakland students find each other, make Plans, share rides and chat. It is an independent student project. It is not sponsored, operated, or endorsed by Northeastern University. This page covers the website at nupool.app and the NU Pool iPhone app, which uses the same account and data.

What NU Pool stores

Your account: your Northeastern email, display name, account role and sign-in sessions. A session keeps you signed in for up to 30 days. Verification attempts and email-send records help limit abuse. If NU Pool is invite-only when you ask to join, we email you a code to confirm the address, then keep your display name and email with your request. That device keeps a sign-in pass for up to 30 days so it can sign you in once you’re approved. You get one more email only if you’re approved. NU Pool also notes the last time you opened it and which days you opened it, so its founders can count how many students use it and whether they come back. Now and then the founders may email you from their own school address with NU Pool news, such as a new version of the app. Reply if you’d rather not get these.

Your profile, if you fill it in: a display name, campus, major, class year, short bio and a profile photo. Photos are cropped to a square and re-saved on your device before upload, which removes hidden photo details such as GPS location.

What you create: Plans, ride requests (the pickup and destination you type), connections, blocks, reports, messages, notes and dining plans, your class schedule and your Canvas assignments if you connect Canvas. A message you type but don’t send stays only on that device until you send or clear it, for up to a week; signing out clears it.

Phone notifications, if you turn them on: a delivery address and keys for each device, so NU Pool can send banners to it. If you use the iPhone app, NU Pool also notes which version of it you last opened, so only phones on an older version hear that a new one is out.

On your iPhone, in the NU Pool app: a copy of what each screen last showed you (your Plans, chats, clubs, schedule and the like) is kept on the phone itself, so they still show when you have no signal. It is never sent anywhere, and it is erased when you sign out or delete your account.

Email verification confirms control of a Northeastern inbox. It is not identity verification, a background check, or a guarantee of current enrollment, trustworthiness, or safety. Names and profile details are self-reported. A few invited guests, and Apple’s App Review account, sign in through a private link without a Northeastern email; they are kept apart from students and can’t find or message them.

What NU Pool does not collect

NU Pool never asks for your device location, contacts, phone number, home address or payment details. There are no ads, no outside analytics or tracking tools, and nothing is sold or shared with advertisers or data brokers. Name searches are not saved, and they never appear in a web address.

What other students can see

Your email is never shown to other students.

Name search and Quick connect: verified students can find you by name on Connections and see your profile, unless you turn off Let others find me by name on Account. The same switch covers Quick connect: with the search empty, People suggests Northeastern students you might know, by how many connections you share (a count, never who), class chats or clubs you’re both in, a course you both list (if you both turned on Suggest me to classmates), or how recently they joined. Hiding someone there is remembered only on your device. App Review and guest accounts don’t see Quick connect and aren’t suggested. Blocked students never see you in results. NU Pool’s founders, who run the app, can see every student’s profile and can send you a connection request even with that switch off, unless one of you blocked the other.

Suggest me to classmates is off unless you turn it on, on Account or when Schedule asks once. While it’s on, NU Pool keeps the course codes (such as CS 2500) found in your class names and Canvas courses, and Quick connect suggests you to other students who turned it on and list the same course, and them to you. It says only “In your class”, never which course, and never shows your schedule. Let others find me by name still applies. Turning it off deletes those course codes.

Profiles and photos appear to people you share a Plan, chat, ride or club with, to your connections (and anyone you have a pending request with), and to students who find you by name or in Quick connect. While you host a campus-visible Plan, any verified student can see your photo next to it. Leaving a chat or ending a connection stops photo access that came only from it. A profile may show how many connections you share, never who they are. To load faster, a device that has shown a profile photo keeps a copy in its browser for up to a day. So after you remove your photo, block someone or delete your account, a copy can remain on devices that already loaded it for up to a day. A changed photo shows the next time a screen loads.

Campus-visible Plans show their title, description, category, general location, time, capacity, host and how many people are going to every verified student. Keep room numbers and private addresses out of those fields; use Private meeting details instead, which only confirmed members can read. Invite-only Plans stay out of Discover.

Clubs: a club’s name, description, category, picture, member count and who runs it are shown to every verified student. A club meeting is for the club’s members: only they (and anyone already going) can see or join it, unless a club admin opens that meeting to all verified students. One NU Pool founder account can also see every club meeting, to keep the app safe. Only its members see who else is in it and read its announcements. Every member can read the whole club chat, including messages sent before they joined; leaving the club removes access. New clubs appear only after NU Pool’s founders approve them, and the founders can remove a club or hand it to another member.

Connections: Discover and Home can show a connection’s name next to campus-visible Plans and Events they host or joined, and the ride board can say a connection is on a trip without naming them. Private Plans and chats are never shown this way.

Notes and dining plans: a note you post at the top of Chats (up to 60 characters) and a dining place and time you pick on Dining are shown only to your connections, with your name and photo. A note is deleted at 4 AM, a dining plan half an hour after its time, and you can clear either sooner.

Invite links: anyone who opens your invite link sees your name, even before signing in. A student who joins through it on the web is connected to you right away, and NU Pool keeps a record of who invited whom. If they choose Get the app instead, they type their Northeastern email first: NU Pool keeps that address with your name for up to 30 days, and when it signs up, your connection request is waiting for them to accept. The address is deleted as soon as it signs up, after 30 days, or when your account is deleted, whichever comes first, and it is never used for anything else.

Your NU Pool code: People can show a QR code of your invite link with a key that works for 10 minutes. A student who scans it is connected to you right away, even if Let others find me by name is off, and you get a notification naming them. Blocked students can’t connect this way. After 10 minutes (a screenshot, say), the code works only as an ordinary invite link.

Rides: while your ride request is open, every verified student can see its pickup, destination, date, time and party size on the ride board, without your name. When you post one, other students on your campus who aren’t on a ride get a phone notification with its destination, date, time and open spots, also without your name (at most one every six hours). A potential match also sees the name you signed in with before both of you accept, and their match alert names you. Use a public pickup spot.

Chats & messages

Private chats, group chats, Plan chats and Ride Rooms are visible only to their members. Direct chats need an accepted connection. You can delete your own messages, and edit them until someone else has seen them; an edit replaces the old text, and a deleted message’s text is removed. Leaving a chat or Plan ends your access but does not erase what you already sent.

Class chats: each course code (such as ACCT 1201) has one class chat. Schedule offers it only for courses whose code is in one of your class names or Canvas courses, and you’re in it only once you tap Join. Students who take the course see how many people joined, never who, until they join. Members see each other’s names and profiles, like any group chat, can read the whole chat, including messages sent before they joined, and may be suggested to each other in Quick connect. You can leave at any time.

Polls: a poll you post in a group chat or Plan chat is a message to its members. Members see each option’s votes and who voted for it, and can change or remove their own vote. Blocked students’ votes and names are left out of what you see. Deleting the poll’s message deletes the poll.

Read receipts: NU Pool keeps track of how far each member has read a chat. The sender sees “Seen” under their newest message once someone else has opened it; when three or more people are in the chat, it shows the profile photo or initial of each person who has. Read receipts are always on, and blocked students never see yours.

Typing: while you type in a Chats-tab chat, the other members see “typing…” for a few seconds. NU Pool keeps only the time you last typed in each chat, never your unsent text, and sending the message clears it. Blocked students never see it.

Member-only means restricted access in the app, not end-to-end encryption. NU Pool’s founders and hosting providers can access stored data for operations, safety reviews and troubleshooting. The founders’ dashboard lists each student’s email, when they joined and whether they were active this week, plus a feed of recent activity with names and times (for example, that someone joined a Plan or started a chat), never message text. Other members can copy or screenshot what they see.

Canvas, schedule & notifications

If you paste your Canvas calendar feed link, NU Pool stores it encrypted, fetches it from its server, and keeps each item’s title, course, time and link. It never shows the link to anyone, and Disconnect removes the link and every item. Your class schedule is saved to your account and shows on any device you sign in on. When you add a class, the course names from your Canvas items are offered as one-tap names; only you see them. Adding a class from Browse classes saves its listed days, times and room to your schedule like any class you type in. Paste link reads your clipboard only when you tap it, to get the feed link.

Phone notifications are delivered through your browser’s or Apple’s push service, which handles the alert text to deliver it, and can show on your lock screen. Message alerts show who sent it, for a group chat the chat’s name, and the message itself (shortened), the way a text message does; your phone’s notification settings decide whether that shows while it’s locked. A message from someone you blocked never shows. A Plan chat alert names the Plan and the sender; a Ride Room alert names the sender and the destination. Alerts about a Plan you’re in show its title and start time, and an update shows the new time or place. A connection’s new campus-visible Plan alert shows its title. A ride match alert names the other rider and shows the destination and time; a new-ride alert shows a ride’s destination, time and open spots, never who posted it (switch it off under Notifications as New rides). When a new version of the app is out, an iPhone still on an older one gets one alert with its version and what’s new (switch it off as App updates). Club alerts name the club; an announcement alert shows the announcement (shortened), a meeting alert shows its title and time, and a club’s admins see the name of whoever asks to join. Private meeting details are never in an alert. The evening Canvas reminder names the assignments that are due. The morning summary names your first class and its room, a Founders Commons lunch dish, and the Plans you’re going to that day, and counts how many of your connections have Plans or notes up (never who); switch it off under Notifications.

Rides, booking & fare sharing

NU Pool does not book rides, provide drivers, take payments or store payment details. Ride members can see who is booking, the booking status, and any fare someone enters, plus the per-person split. NU Pool does not verify that a ride was booked, that a fare is correct, or that anyone paid.

Open Uber sends the destination text to Uber. Open Lyft sends the map coordinates of a known campus-area place. Either app then uses its own location permission and its own privacy terms. NU Pool never receives your device’s location through these buttons.

Campus information

Dining menus come from Northeastern Dining’s public menu pages and can change. Browse classes lists Oakland’s classes from Northeastern’s public class search, read by NU Pool’s server a few times a day without any student information; seats are as of that read, and you register on Northeastern’s site. The campus shuttle is awaiting Northeastern approval, so NU Pool does not show it yet. Building and dining hours appear only where Northeastern publishes them. The campus Map is an illustrated diagram, not navigation. BART departures come from BART’s official public data, fetched by NU Pool’s server without any student information.

Who else handles data

Cloudflare hosts the app and its database, runs the bot check on the sign-up screen (which sees your IP address and browser), and keeps basic request logs, such as the page address and IP address, for up to 7 days for troubleshooting. Resend delivers sign-in codes and the email saying you’re approved, so it receives your email address and those emails. Apple, Google, Mozilla or Microsoft deliver phone notifications to devices that turn them on. Google (Gmail) holds email you send to support@nupool.app, which is forwarded to the founders’ inbox. NU Pool does not send account or conversation data to anyone else except when you open Uber, Lyft or an outside link yourself.

Your choices

Edit or clear your profile and photo at any time. Turn off name search, phone notifications or Canvas on their own pages. Block or report anyone you have met in NU Pool; the blocked student is not told. Signed-in students can see what NU Pool stores about them at My data.

Delete my account is on the Account page. It asks you to finish or leave any active rides and Plans first so no one is left stranded. Deletion signs you out everywhere and removes your profile, photo, emoji reactions, poll votes and the polls you posted (with their votes), typing status, the record of when you opened NU Pool and which app version you use, schedule, Canvas feed, notification devices, notifications, blocks, settings, mutes and pins, your invite link and the record of who invited whom, and your club memberships. Your connections end. Your name, messages (including club chat), club announcements, ride locations and the text of Plans you hosted are replaced with a removal notice. A club you run passes to another member, or is removed if no one else is in it. A copy of your photo can remain for up to a day in the browsers of devices that already loaded it (see Profiles and photos above).

What is kept & for how long

There is no fixed automatic deletion schedule. After deletion, some shared records stay so other students’ history still makes sense: that you were a member of a Plan, ride or chat, that you were once connected, how far you had read a chat, names you gave group chats, logs of Plan invitations, joins and edits, party sizes and fare totals. A club that passes to another member keeps its name and description. Your email is kept with restricted access so the closed account stays closed. Reports you filed stay for safety review, and a report about one of your messages keeps a copy of it. For recovery, our database host keeps a rolling 30-day history and we keep up to four private backups; a deleted account drops out of them as they are replaced. Copies other people saved are outside our control.

Leaving, cancelling, archiving and signing out do not delete records. Sign-in codes stop working after 30 minutes. For access, correction or deletion help, email support@nupool.app; requests are reviewed by hand and may require confirming the account is yours.

Meeting & travel safety

Meeting strangers carries inherent risks, even through a verified campus email. NU Pool is a coordination tool, not a transportation provider or a guarantee of anyone’s conduct or safety. It does not provide vehicles or drivers or perform background checks.

Use your judgment. Confirm arrangements with your group, meet in a public and well-lit place, tell someone you trust about your plans, and step away if you feel uncomfortable. In an immediate emergency, call 911. For an Oakland campus emergency, call Northeastern Public Safety at 510-430-3333. See the official campus safety guidance.

Community rules

NU Pool has zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. In Plans, chats, profiles and photos, don’t post or send:

• harassment, bullying, threats or intimidation
• hate speech or discrimination
• sexual or violent content
• spam, scams or pretending to be someone else
• anything illegal or that puts someone in danger

Report a student from their profile, a message by pressing and holding it, or a Plan from its page, or email support@nupool.app. When you report a message, a copy of it goes with your report so the team can review it, even if it is later deleted. We review every report within 24 hours. Content that breaks these rules is removed, and the student who posted it can lose access to NU Pool permanently. Blocking someone stops them contacting you right away.