Connect — Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 23, 2026

Who we are

Connect is operated by Volodymyr Antoniuk, an individual, who is responsible for your personal data. Contact: pivnich@gmail.com

Who can use Connect

Connect is for people aged 16 and older. When you create an account, you confirm that you are 16 or older. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 16, we may delete it.

What we collect

Account: your email address and password, handled by Firebase Authentication. We store your email and the date you signed up.
What you add: your profile, cards, posts, the photos you add to posts, and the Digital Objects you add to them — for example contact details, links, locations you enter and notes. Documents and files are shared as links.
Approximate location: only while you use the app, and only if you allow it. Your position is sent to our server to calculate an area a few kilometres across. We store only that area, never your exact coordinates. We also count how often your area changes (numbers and times only, no location) to limit misuse.
Photo library: only the photos you pick — to add to a post or to create an AI portrait. Before a photo leaves your phone, the app removes its location (GPS) and other metadata, such as camera details and the time it was taken (see "Photos in posts" and "AI portraits").
AI portrait age confirmation: if you create an AI portrait, a record that you confirmed you are 18 or older, and when.
Safety data: reports you file (including a text copy of the reported content), people you block, restrictions placed by moderators, and which version of the community guidelines you accepted and when.

How we use it

To run Connect: your account, feed, posts and exchanges.
To choose which posts appear in feeds, using your approximate area. Your coordinates, your area and your distance are never shown or sent to other people. Because posts are chosen by area, the fact that a post reaches a feed says roughly where it was published (see "What other people see").
To order the posts in your feed: posts you have not been shown yet come first, newer posts get a moderate boost, and the rest is a stable rotation. For this, Connect records which authors' posts your feed has actually shown you (IDs and times only). It is used for nothing else and is never shown to anyone.
To create an AI portrait when you ask for one.
To keep Connect safe: reports, blocks, moderation, checking photos in posts for unsafe content, and limits against abuse.
To send account emails, such as password reset.

We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking tools. We do not sell your data or share it for advertising.

What other people see

Posts: people in your broader area see your post in their feed for up to 12 hours, or until you end or delete it. Your post shows your name, short description, profile colour and your portrait if your portrait setting is "Everyone". Photos in your post are shown with it, under the same limits. Once you block someone, or someone blocks you, our server stops delivering your photos to them. The copy of a photo that the app saved on their device is deleted once it is 12 hours old, the next time they open or return to the app — or right after the block, if they are the one who blocked. As with anything you post, we can't control what people save or capture outside Connect.
Requests: when you send a request to a post, its author sees your name, short description, profile colour and your portrait if your portrait setting is "Everyone". Until the request is accepted you see the post as it currently is, including any changes the author makes.
Exchanges: when an exchange is accepted, the other person receives the Digital Objects you chose to share (nothing is selected by default), plus your name, short description, profile colour and your portrait, if you have one. Your portrait setting decides only whether your portrait appears in feeds and requests; after acceptance it is always shared. What was shared is fixed at acceptance. It stays available to them in Connect for 12 hours after acceptance and is then removed within minutes — or earlier if one of you blocks the other, the post is deleted, or an account is deleted. We can't control what they save or copy outside Connect.
Other people never see your coordinates, your area or your distance. But posts are chosen by area: anyone who sees your post can tell you were in the same broader area (about 10–15 km across) when you published it. Someone who deliberately misuses the app by faking their location could narrow that down to an area a few kilometres across. We limit how often an account can change its area, which makes this slower and harder, but does not make it impossible.

Expiry and deletion

When a time limit runs out, Connect stops showing that data. Most records are then deleted automatically, usually within minutes to two days. A few small records (IDs and times only) are kept longer — see "How long we keep data".

When we delete a file (such as a photo or a portrait), our cloud storage keeps it in a recovery area for 7 more days, where only we could restore it; then it is erased for good. A deleted or changed database record can still be read back, and restored, by us for up to 7 days; after that it is gone. We do not keep any other backups of the database.

AI portraits

The photo you choose is uploaded to our storage.
It is sent to fal.ai through a temporary link that expires in 15 minutes (the link contains a random job ID and your account ID, not your name or email). fal.ai generates the portrait using a model provided by Black Forest Labs, to which fal.ai passes the photo and the request.
We ask fal.ai not to store the request and to delete the generated image after 10 minutes. We keep our own copy of the portrait.
Google Cloud Vision checks the generated portrait (not your original photo) for unsafe content (SafeSearch) and to find where the face is.
We delete your original photo after processing. If processing never starts, it is deleted automatically, usually within 1–2 days.
We keep a record that you agreed to this for 30 days.

AI portraits are available only to people aged 18 or older, because our AI provider's terms require it. Before your first AI portrait you confirm that you are 18 or older; we keep that confirmation (and when you gave it) until you delete your account. Without it, no photo is uploaded and no portrait is created; the rest of Connect works as before.

When you remove your portrait, or create a new one, the old portrait file is deleted once nobody can still see it through a post or an exchange — usually within two to three days.

fal.ai's and Black Forest Labs' own privacy policies apply to their processing.

Photos in posts

You can add up to 10 photos to a post. Before uploading, the app resizes each photo (at most 2048 pixels on the longer side) and removes its location (GPS) and other metadata (EXIF, XMP). Our server refuses a photo that still carries EXIF or XMP metadata.
Before a photo is shown to anyone else, Google Cloud Vision checks it for unsafe content (SafeSearch). A photo that fails the check, or is an exact copy of a photo our moderators removed, is left out of the post. If every photo fails, or the check is unavailable, the post is not published, or, for a post that is already published, the published version stays as it was. We store the result of the check and the photo's SHA-256 hash with the photo's record; they are deleted together with the photo.
Connect does not share links to photos. Our server checks every request before it delivers a photo: to you while your account exists and is not restricted; to other signed-in people only while your post is published, and never to someone you blocked or who blocked you; and, outside those limits, to our moderators only while a report or a legal hold keeps the photo (see "How long we keep data").
If moderators remove a post, or restrict its author, because of a report, we keep the fingerprint of each of its photos (a SHA-256 hash, not the photo itself) with the moderation decision, without a time limit, so that an exact copy is left out of any post published or updated after that.

Link previews

When you add a link to a post, our server fetches the page to build a preview. The website sees our server, not you. Preview images are deleted together with the post, or with your account. We also keep a shared preview cache that is not linked to your account, for up to 72 hours, and a per-account counter that limits how many previews can be requested and for which posts (links stored only as short hashes), for about 48 hours. Preview images are also cached on your device until the system clears the app's cache or you sign out.

Service providers

Google Firebase / Google Cloud: sign-in, database, file storage, server functions and Cloud Vision (which checks photos in posts and generated portraits). Our database, files and server functions are located in the European Union (Belgium and an EU multi-region). Sign-in and Cloud Vision are global Google services.
fal.ai and Black Forest Labs: AI portrait generation.

Your data may be processed outside your country, including in the United States.

How long we keep data

Approximate location area used for your feed: up to 6 hours, then deleted automatically. The counter of area changes (no location): until it is back to its full allowance, at most about a day.
Feed order records: the list of posts your feed was built from (IDs and times only) for up to 12 hours, and which authors' posts it has shown you for up to 24 hours; both are deleted automatically.
Exchange copies: 12 hours after acceptance, then deleted automatically.
Your posts and their photos: until you delete them or your account. A photo that is no longer part of any of your posts — removed in an edit — is deleted automatically, usually within about a day. A photo you add while editing a post, but haven't saved yet, is deleted about a day after you stop editing.
Ended publications: about a day after a publication ends, its content is erased — the post text, your name, description and portrait at the time, and the approximate area. Only IDs and times remain, until you delete your account. Only you can access them. The photos of an ended publication stay with your post. Until you publish it again, they are shown only to you, while your account exists and is not restricted, and to our moderators while a report or a legal hold keeps them.
Technical records linking accounts that exchanged (IDs and times only): deleted automatically, usually one to two days after the exchange ends.
Portraits and post photos of other people that the app has shown you are kept on your device as a temporary copy. The copy is deleted once 12 hours have passed since it was downloaded, the next time you open or return to the app. The app also deletes the copies it saved of a person's portraits and post photos right after you block that person, and the app's saved copies when you sign out. If the portrait or photo is still available to you, the app may download it again.
Reports keep a text copy of the reported content so moderators can review it. Only moderators can read it. The copy is kept until a moderator decides, then for 90 days, and is then deleted. The report record itself (who, what, when and the decision) is kept until the reporter's or the author's account is deleted. If the reported post has photos, they are kept for moderators to review while the report is open — even if the post ends or is deleted — for at most 30 days from the report. After that, or when the report is closed, they are deleted, usually within a day, unless they are still part of a post or another open report or a legal hold keeps them.
Profile, cards, blocks, guideline acceptance and the AI portrait age confirmation: until you delete them or your account. A portrait you remove or replace, and the portraits of a card you delete, are deleted once nobody can still see them through a post or an exchange — usually within two to three days. Moderator restrictions: until lifted or until you delete your account.
Technical records of actions you take (IDs and times, so a repeated tap is not applied twice): 7 days. Records of who was given access to a portrait (IDs and times): deleted automatically about a day after that access ended.
Server logs: 30 days. Some system audit logs: up to 400 days.
We may keep a specific photo from a post longer than described here, including after you delete your account, when the law requires it or when it is needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. Once its usual period has ended, such a photo is kept only for that purpose; a legal hold does not keep it showing in posts. While the hold lasts, our moderators can open the photo. You can open it too, while your account exists and is not restricted. When that need ends, we lift the hold, and the photo is then deleted, usually within a day, unless it is still part of a post you keep or an open report still holds it.

Deleting your account

Go to Settings → Delete account. This removes your account, profile, cards, posts and their photos (including photos kept for a report that is still open), exchanges, portraits, uploaded files, and the reports and blocks you are part of. What can remain: server logs until they expire; the preview cache not linked to your account until it expires; mentions of you in the text copy of reports other people filed about other content (until a moderator decides, then up to 90 days); the copies of your portrait and post photos that the app saved on other people's devices (until they are 12 hours old and the person next opens or returns to the app); IDs without content in other people's hidden lists; photos kept under a legal hold (see "How long we keep data"); deleted files, in our storage's recovery area for 7 days, and earlier versions of your data in our database's recovery window of up to 7 days, until they expire (see "Expiry and deletion"); fingerprints of photos from posts moderators removed or whose author they restricted (no image).

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct or delete your data, to receive a copy of it, to object to or restrict some processing, and to withdraw consent at any time — for example by turning off location or photo access in your device settings. To use these rights, email pivnich@gmail.com. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Legal bases (EU and UK)

Contract: your account, feed, posts and exchanges.
Consent: location access and AI portraits. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already happened.
Legitimate interests: safety, moderation, preventing abuse, security logs, and establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
Legal obligation: where the law requires us to keep or disclose data.

Changes

When our practices change, we will update this page and its date.