Privacy practices

What we collect

• Account: email, username, password hash (argon2id), session timestamps.
• Profile: anything you chose to share — display name, mode, species, intents, prompts, photos, location label.
• Activity: signals you sent, matches, transmissions (only visible to the other party + you), missed-connection posts, RSVPs.
• Server logs: HTTP request metadata + IP for 30 days for abuse prevention. Not joined to your profile unless we’re investigating a report.

What we don’t collect

• Payment info — never stored on our servers. Merch is fulfilled by an external print-on-demand provider; they handle checkout.
• Photo EXIF metadata — stripped on upload so GPS coordinates don’t leak.
• Third-party analytics or ad trackers. No Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no Facebook login.
• Your contacts list, phone book, or social-graph imports.

Cookies

One session cookie (JWE-encrypted, HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax) so you stay signed in. No advertising cookies.

Who sees what

• Public profile: anyone who visits the URL or hits /browse (when your visibility is “public”).
• Discovery-only: only signed-in users on /browse and /swipe.
• Logged-in only: hidden from anonymous visitors and search engines.
• Transmissions (DMs): only you and the other party. Admins can’t read these unless you’ve reported a specific message.
• Cloaks (blocks): private to you. The other user is not notified.

Deleting your data

From /profile/me you can delete your account. We soft-delete for 30 days so you can recover; after that it’s a hard delete including all profile data, photos, signals, transmissions, and posts. Matches with you become “deleted entity” on the other party’s side.

Email

We send transactional emails (signal received, match created, meetup proposed, email verification) via Resend. No marketing emails unless you explicitly subscribe. You can stop transactional email by deleting your account; per-type preferences land with a future settings page.

Contact

Data requests: privacy@alien.net