Privacy Policy

• Sightings are public. Everything else about you is private unless you choose to show it on your profile.
• No ads, no tracking cookies, no analytics companies, and we never sell your information.
• We never follow your location in the background. We only use your device's location when you press a button that asks for it.
• If you verify your identity, Stripe checks your ID and selfie and then erases them. We only keep the fact that you're verified.
• You can see, change or delete your information, and delete your account at any time.

iSawYou LLC ("iSawYou", "we") runs isawyou.com and is responsible for your information under this policy. Contact us at [email protected] or 1240 W Sims Way #11, Port Townsend, WA 98368, United States.

What you give us

• Your account: email address, username and password (stored only as a secure hash), and your confirmation that you're 18 or over. If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your name and email address from them.
• Your profile, if you fill it in: photo, a few words about you, age, gender, sexuality and how you look (height, build, hair, eyes, skin, facial hair). You choose what to show on your public profile. Your gender and sexuality are sensitive; we use them only with your consent, to show you sightings that could be about you.
• Sightings: what you write, any photo you add, where (city and zone) and when. Sightings are public.
• Messages: the first message you send with a connection request, and your chats after a connection is accepted.
• Alert settings: the places and Who Saw Who choices you pick, an area you save (rounded to about 100 metres, or 110 yards), how and how often you want to hear, and your time zone (for quiet hours).
• Icebreaker: what you tell it, so it can write a draft. We don't keep what you tell it, only the draft you choose to post.
• Payments and verification: handled by Stripe. We never see your card number. We keep your plan, its status and Stripe's reference for you. For verification, Stripe checks your photo ID and a selfie and then erases them; we keep only whether you're verified and when.
• Reports, requests and feedback: flags, removal requests (with an email address if you're not signed in), appeals and feedback you send us.

What we collect as you use iSawYou

• Activity: likes, flags, connections, blocks, notifications, which sightings matched you, and counts of how often sightings are viewed.
• Location: we work out your approximate city from your IP address using a database on our own server, and nothing is sent elsewhere for that. Your device's precise location is used only when you press a button that asks for it (for example "near me" or "use my current location"), and only for that purpose. When you suggest a zone, your location is used to check you're there and isn't kept.
• Phone alerts: if you turn them on, the address your browser gives us for sending them.
• How you found us: when you sign up, we note where you first arrived from - a search engine, another website, or a link we shared (for example in an email) - so we can see which ones bring people who connect. We also count visits by where they came from, without recording who made them.
• Technical information: IP address, browser and device type, and the pages you request, in our server logs, used to run and protect the site.

• To run iSawYou: show sightings, match them to people they might be about, deliver messages, alerts and emails, and provide paid features.
• To keep iSawYou safe: check posts and first messages for things that break our rules, review reports, prevent spam, fraud and abuse, and enforce our terms.
• To talk to you about your account, your posts, and changes to our terms.
• To fix and improve iSawYou.
• To meet legal obligations.

We don't use your information for advertising, and we don't build profiles of you to sell.

Automated checks

New and edited sightings, their photos, and first messages are checked by an AI classifier. Clear, serious breaches (such as a threat, personal details, or an explicit image) are hidden automatically, and anything unclear is held for a person to review. You're always told what happened and why, and you can ask a person to look again.

We share information only with the companies that help us run iSawYou, and only what they need. They may use it only to provide their service to us.

• Scala Hosting: hosts our servers and database, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (EU).
• Stripe: payments, and identity verification for the Verified badge.
• TalkJS (EU): stores and delivers chats between connected members.
• Anthropic: provides the AI that checks posts and messages, writes Icebreaker drafts, and checks pictures of places. Under its commercial terms, Anthropic doesn't use this information to train its models.
• Postmark: sends our emails.
• Google and Apple: if you sign in with them.
• Apple, Google and Mozilla's push services: deliver phone alerts to your device, if you turn them on.
• Geoapify: helps us check that a suggested zone is a real place (we send the place, not information about you).

Some things your browser loads directly from other services, which then see your IP address: map tiles from OpenStreetMap, and pictures of places from Wikimedia Commons when you browse them in Icebreaker.

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, to investigate abuse, or as part of a sale or reorganisation of iSawYou (and the buyer would have to follow this policy). We never sell your information.

We only use cookies that iSawYou needs to work: keeping you signed in, protecting forms against forgery, and remembering your session. We don't use advertising or analytics cookies, so there's nothing to opt into. Your browser also stores a few preferences on your device (such as the theme, or a tab or tip you closed); these never leave your device.

• Your account and content stay until you delete them or your account.
• When you delete your account, we permanently delete your account, profile, sightings and chats straight away (chats within a few minutes, at our chat provider). Copies in our backups are deleted within about 45 days, and if we ever restore a backup, we delete them again.
• Moderation records, reports and removal requests are kept as long as we need them to keep iSawYou safe and handle disputes.
• If the law requires us to keep something, for example content we report to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a law enforcement preservation request, or a legal claim, we keep a secure, encrypted copy for as long as that requires (usually 90 days to 1 year), even if you delete it, and then delete it.
• Payment records are kept by Stripe and us as long as tax and accounting law requires.
• Server logs are kept for a short time, to run and protect the site.

You can see and change most of your information in your account and profile, choose what your profile shows, turn alerts on or off, and delete your account in Account > Privacy.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to get a copy of your information, correct it, delete it, object to or restrict how we use it, withdraw consent, and complain to a data protection authority. Email [email protected] and we'll respond within 30 days (we may need to confirm it's you).

United States: we don't sell or share personal information for advertising, and we treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a request not to. You won't be treated differently for using your rights.

UK and EU: we use your information to provide the service you signed up for (contract), to keep iSawYou safe and improve it (legitimate interests), with your consent (for example your gender and sexuality, and phone alerts), and to meet legal obligations. Our servers are in the Netherlands, in the EU. Some of the companies that help us (listed above) are in the United States; when your information goes to them, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

We use encryption in transit, hashed passwords, limited access, and regular backups, and we choose service providers who protect data well. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password. If a breach affects you, we'll tell you as the law requires.

iSawYou is for people 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think someone under 18 is using iSawYou, tell us and we'll remove their account.

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you by email or on the site before it takes effect. Questions or requests: [email protected], or iSawYou LLC, 1240 W Sims Way #11, Port Townsend, WA 98368, United States.