How Privacy Works on Carpool.School
June 12, 2026 · Krishna Kamath
Every community on Carpool.School is gated. Parents inside can find each other. Parents outside cannot. That boundary holds regardless of how the community was started.
The clearest way to understand the privacy model is to ask: who can see what about you? Visibility builds up in steps, and every step is an action you choose to take.
Visibility builds up in steps
Step 0: Outside the community, you are invisible. Not your name, not your kid, not a pin on a map. A parent at a different school, camp, or program does not appear in your feed and you do not appear in theirs, even if you live on the same street. A parent at the same school who hasn't joined the same community is just as invisible. There is no global directory to be found in.
Step 1: Join, and your profile is visible inside the community. Once you share a community, members can see:
- Your profile and your kid's: names, plus whatever you chose to add (photo, bio, grade, interests)
- Roughly how far away you are, so families can tell whether a carpool is even plausible
- Whether your route and schedule overlap with theirs
Your profile is open inside the community. Your location and your contact details are not, yet.
Step 2: Post a carpool request, and you appear on the map. Until you do, families can see that you're nearby but you are not plotted anywhere. The request is what puts you on the map, and even then the pin is approximate and zoom-capped, so it never resolves to a street address.
Step 3: Connect with a family, and your contact details unlock. Connecting is mutual: both sides accept. Only then does direct calling through the app become available and phone numbers get shared. Not before, and never automatically.
Each step is yours. You are never more visible than the actions you've chosen to take.
What is never exposed, at any level
- Your exact address. Never shown as text to anyone, and the map pin never sharpens past an approximate area.
- Your phone number, until you connect. Until a mutual connection, every message goes through the app. Your number stays yours.
- Your data, to outside parties. We do not sell your data to anyone. There is no advertiser, no data broker, no third party in the loop.
Parent-led and staff-led: same privacy model
Parent-led communities skip the institutional approval step. They do not skip the privacy model. Gating, proximity-only, no phone-until-connect: all of that applies the same way.
Staff-led communities narrow membership down before anyone is visible to others.
How membership narrows down: Interest → Invite → Join
- Interest: Families fill out an interest form to signal they want to join. No one is added automatically.
- Invite: Your org sends a personal invite link to families who expressed interest. No link, no entry.
- Join: Families who create an account and accept the terms become visible to the community. No one else does.
Contact information uploaded to send invitations is not retained for families who never join.
Your community contains exactly who chose to be in it. The privacy model inside is identical to the parent-led path.
What we do not do
- We do not run background checks. Trust gets built when families meet in person.
- We do not push you to expand beyond your community.
- We do not make safety guarantees. The app surfaces families. The parents do the carpool.
Read the full Privacy Policy.
Questions? support@carpool.school