Privacy Notice

Last updated: August 1, 2026

ShowHive ("ShowHive," "we," "us") provides software for organizing judged events — registration, judging, People's Choice voting, awards, and payouts. This notice explains what information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

We wrote this to be specific rather than vague. Where we collect something, we say exactly what it is. Where we don't collect something people often expect us to, we say that too.

1. Who this notice applies to

ShowHive serves several kinds of people, and what we hold differs by role:

• Organizers — people and clubs who run events on ShowHive.
• Entrants — people who register a vehicle or other entry into an event.
• Judges — people assigned by an organizer to score entries.
• Spectators — people who browse public event pages or vote in People's Choice, usually without an account.

Important: when you enter an event, the organizer of that event also receives your entry information and uses it for their own purposes (running the show, contacting entrants, issuing refunds). For that information, the organizer is an independent controller of your data and their own practices apply in addition to ours. ShowHive does not control what an organizer does with the entrant list for their event.

2. Information you give us

Creating an account

• Email address — required. It is your login identifier and how we send verification codes, receipts, and account notices.
• Password — required unless you sign in with Apple or Google. We store only a salted bcrypt hash; we never store or can read your actual password.
• First and last name — optional. Provided so organizers and judges can identify you at an event. You can leave these blank.
• Role — organizer, entrant, judge, or spectator.

If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive an identifier from that provider and the email address and name you allow them to share. We store the provider name and its identifier so we can recognise you on your next sign-in. Apple's "Hide My Email" is supported — we simply use whatever relay address Apple gives us.

Account security

• Two-factor authentication — if you enable it, we store either an authenticator secret (for app-based codes) or issue short-lived one-time codes by email. Codes are stored hashed and expire.
• Session tokens — issued when you sign in, so you stay signed in.
• Biometric sign-in — if you turn on Face ID / fingerprint unlock, that happens entirely on your device. Your biometric data never leaves your phone and is never sent to us.

Your garage and entries

If you enter events, you can save vehicles (or other entries) so you don't re-type them each time. Depending on what you choose to fill in, this can include:

• A display name, year, make, model, and trim
• Exterior and interior colour, engine, transmission, wheel and tyre details
• Mileage, modifications, component brands, and a free-text description
• Photographs you upload
• The last four digits of a VIN, if you choose to provide them, used by organizers to distinguish similar vehicles. We do not ask for and do not store a full VIN.

You control what is public. Each field has its own visibility setting. Fields you keep private are used for judging and classification but are not shown on public pages. When you register for an event we take a snapshot of the details as they were at that moment, so later edits to your garage don't rewrite past event records.

Running events (organizers)

Event name, dates, venue and location, description, classes, scorecards, entry fees, sponsor names and links, and your organization's details.

Payments

Card numbers never touch ShowHive's servers. All payments are processed by Stripe through their hosted checkout and payment sheet. We receive and store only a Stripe customer or account identifier, the amount, the status, and a receipt record.

Entry fees are paid directly to the organizer — the organizer is the merchant of record. To receive payouts, an organizer completes Stripe's own identity verification; that identity and bank information goes to Stripe, not to ShowHive, and we never see it.

Support

If you email us, we keep the message and our reply so we can help you and follow up.

3. Information collected automatically

• Usage and device information — the pages and screens you use, the app version, and the device type, so we can fix problems and understand what needs improving.
• IP address — used transiently to rate-limit requests and block abuse. ShowHive does not store IP addresses in its database or link them to your account. Our infrastructure providers (see below) keep short-lived security logs that may include IP addresses, which is standard for any service on the internet.
• A device signature for likes and votes — to keep "one vote per person" and "one like per device" honest, we store a salted, one-way hash derived from coarse browser characteristics. It cannot be reversed and is not linked to an account.

Location — only if you ask for it

Nearby-event alerts are off by default. If you turn them on:

• We ask your device for its location once, to fill in a home area. We request foreground permission only. We never run background location and never use geofencing.
• Before storing it, we deliberately round the coordinate to roughly 11 kilometres. The precise location your device reported is never written down. That is accurate enough to answer "is this show near me?" and far too coarse to identify a home address.
• We store that approximate area, your chosen radius, and a display label such as "San Clemente, CA". It does not update as you move.
• Turning the feature off deletes the stored area and this account's notification devices. It is a deletion, not a switch.

Cookies and similar technologies

ShowHive uses cookies and local storage only for things the service needs to work: keeping you signed in, remembering your light/dark theme, and remembering that you have already voted or liked something so we don't ask twice.

We do not use advertising cookies, third-party trackers, or analytics pixels. Share buttons on our public event pages are ordinary links we build ourselves — opening a ShowHive page does not tell Facebook, X, or any other platform that you were there.

4. How we use information

• To create and secure your account, and to verify your email address
• To run events: registration, classification, judging, results, and awards
• To process payments and produce receipts
• To display public event pages, entries, and results according to the visibility settings you and the organizer choose
• To send transactional messages you would expect — verification codes, receipts, and event notices
• To send nearby-event alerts, if you have turned them on
• To prevent fraud and abuse, and to enforce our terms and plan limits
• To fix bugs, improve the product, and provide support
• To comply with legal obligations

5. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

We share only in these situations:

• With event organizers — when you enter their event, so they can run it. As noted above, they are an independent controller of that information.
• Publicly, where you or the organizer chose — entry details marked visible, placards, results and awards once announced. Your garage's trophy case is public per-vehicle.
• With service providers who operate the platform, limited to what each needs:
  • Stripe — payments and payouts
  • Amazon Web Services — hosting, database, and transactional email
  • Cloudflare — website delivery, security, image storage, and email forwarding
  • Expo — mobile app delivery and push notifications
  • Apple and Google — app distribution, and sign-in if you use it
• For legal reasons — if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, and property of ShowHive, our users, or the public.
• In a business transfer — if ShowHive is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may transfer as part of that transaction. We will give notice before your information becomes subject to a different privacy notice.

6. Your choices and rights

• Access and correct — view and edit your profile, garage, and entries in the app at any time.
• Control what is public — per-field visibility settings on each vehicle.
• Change your email — Profile → Email & Verification.
• Turn off nearby alerts — this deletes the stored area and devices.
• Notifications — you can disable push notifications for ShowHive in your device settings at any time.
• Delete your account — email support@showhive.io and we will delete your account and associated personal information. Note that we may need to retain limited records for legal, tax, or fraud-prevention purposes, and that results of completed public events may remain part of that event's historical record.
• Get a copy of your data — email us and we will provide an export.

U.S. state privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to know what personal information we collect, to request deletion or correction, to obtain a portable copy, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. Because we do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioural advertising, there is nothing to opt out of in that respect. To exercise any right, email support@showhive.io. We may need to verify your identity, typically by confirming control of your account email.

A note for Georgia residents

ShowHive is based in Georgia. Georgia has not enacted a comprehensive consumer data privacy statute, so Georgia residents do not currently have the statutory access and deletion rights that residents of some other states do. We honor those requests from everyone anyway — email us and we will treat your request the same regardless of where you live. Georgia's data breach notification law (O.C.G.A. § 10-1-910 et seq.) does apply to us, and we will notify affected users as it requires.

7. Data retention

• Account information — kept while your account is active.
• Event, judging, and award records — kept as the historical record of that event, so past results stay accurate.
• Photos on free (Community) events — retained for a limited window (currently 12 months) and then archived or deleted by an automated process, which also keeps our storage costs — and therefore our free tier — sustainable.
• Payment records — retained as required for tax and accounting.
• Verification codes and sign-in sessions — short-lived; they expire automatically.

8. Security

We take practical measures appropriate to a service of this size:

• Encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS) everywhere
• Passwords stored as salted bcrypt hashes, never in readable form
• Optional two-factor authentication
• Card data handled entirely by Stripe — it never reaches our servers, which keeps us out of scope for storing card details
• Role-based access controls, so judges, entrants, and organizers see only what their role requires
• Rate limiting and abuse detection
• Deliberate data minimisation — the most reliable way to protect information is not to collect it

No service can promise perfect security, and we won't pretend otherwise. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by law.

9. Children's privacy

ShowHive is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Younger family members often attend car shows; if a parent or guardian wishes to include a child's vehicle in an event, the account should belong to the adult. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Where your information is processed

ShowHive is operated from the United States and our infrastructure is located in the United States. If you use ShowHive from another country, you understand that your information will be processed in the U.S., where privacy laws may differ from those where you live.

11. Changes to this notice

If we change this notice we will update the date at the top, and for material changes we will give notice in the app or by email before the change takes effect.

12. Contact us

Questions, requests, or concerns about privacy:

support@showhive.io

Please tell us the email address on your account so we can find your records.