Privacy Policy

Account information. When you create an account, we collect your display name, nickname(s), email address, and date of birth (used only to confirm you’re 18 or older). If you set a password, we store a salted, hashed version of it — never the password itself.

Profile content. Your profile photo, gallery photos, private-gallery photos (only shown to people you specifically grant access to), bio/description, and interests, if you choose to add them.

Chat activity. Public room messages, private messages, stickers/images you send, and announcements you post, along with timestamps and which room/zone they were sent in.

Location. To show you the right local zone, we use your approximate location from your network connection (via our hosting provider’s IP-based geolocation) and, if you grant permission, your device’s precise GPS location. You can decline location permission and pick your zone manually instead.

Payment information. If you buy credits, our payment processor (Stripe) collects your payment card details directly — we never see or store your full card number. We keep a record of the purchase (amount, credits granted, date) tied to your account.

Usage and device data. We use Google Analytics to understand how the Service is used (pages visited, general device/browser type, approximate region). This may involve cookies or similar identifiers set by Google.

• To operate the Service: show you local chat rooms, deliver messages, display announcements, and track your credit balance.
• To verify you’re eligible to use the Service (18 or older) and to secure your account.
• To process payments and send purchase-related notifications.
• To send account emails: sign-in codes, notifications about messages or credits, and moderation decisions on content you’ve posted.
• To moderate content: reviewing reported messages/photos/announcements, running automated word filtering, and enforcing our Terms.
• To generate an AI-styled avatar if you use that optional feature (see Section 4).
• To understand aggregate usage of the Service and improve it.
• To comply with legal obligations, and to detect, prevent, or address fraud, abuse, or security issues.

Other users. Your nickname, profile photo, gallery photos, bio, general location (zone/city), and anything you post in public rooms or announcements are visible to other users of the Service by design. Private messages and private-gallery photos are visible only to the specific person you’re messaging or have granted access to.

Service providers. We use a small number of vendors to run the Service, each only for the purpose described:

• Supabase — our database and file storage provider, hosting your account data, messages, and photos.
• Stripe — processes credit-card payments for credit purchases.
• Resend — delivers our transactional emails (sign-in codes, notifications).
• An AI image provider — if you choose to generate a Roman-style avatar, the photo you upload for that feature is sent to this provider solely to produce the edited image.
• Google Analytics — aggregate usage analytics, as described above.
• Vercel — hosts the Service and provides approximate IP-based location data used to suggest your zone.

We don’t sell your personal information. We may disclose information if required by law, to protect the rights and safety of our users or the public (including reporting suspected child exploitation to NCMEC or law enforcement), or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

The Roman-avatar feature is optional. If you use it, the photo you upload is sent to a third-party AI image service to generate a stylized version, which is then stored as your avatar (subject to the same moderation review as any other profile photo). We don’t use this feature or your photos to train AI models we operate.

We use your browser’s local storage to keep you signed in and remember preferences on your device, and Google Analytics may set cookies or similar identifiers to measure usage as described in Section 1. We don’t currently use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

• Public chat room messages are automatically deleted 24 hours after they’re sent.
• Private messages are automatically deleted 7 days after they’re sent.
• Announcements are removed once their run time ends (24 hours to 7 days, depending on what was chosen), or sooner if rejected or taken down.
• Sign-in verification codes expire after 10 minutes.
• Account information, profile photos, and credit history are kept while your account is active, and for a reasonable period after you close your account for recordkeeping, fraud-prevention, and legal purposes, after which we delete or anonymize it.

You can update your profile, photos, and nicknames directly in the app at any time, and lock or unlock who can see your private gallery. To request a copy of your personal information, ask us to delete your account and associated data, or opt out of analytics, email us at hello@thegay.chat. We’ll respond within a reasonable time and may need to verify your identity first. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under laws like the CCPA or GDPR; we’ll honor valid requests under those laws as required.

The Service is restricted to adults 18 and older and is not directed to children. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we’ll delete it and terminate the associated account promptly.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including encrypted connections and password hashing. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, though, so we can’t guarantee absolute security.

The Service is hosted in the United States. If you access it from outside the U.S., your information will be transferred to and processed in the U.S., where data protection laws may differ from those in your country.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make a material change, we’ll update the “Last updated” date above and, where appropriate, post a notice in the app.

Questions about this Privacy Policy or your information? Email us at hello@thegay.chat.