Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

• Account info — email, password (hashed), and any profile details you add (name, username, age, bio, avatar, socials, interests).
• Two-factor authentication (optional) — if you turn it on, our sign-in provider stores the secret key that links your authenticator app to your account, so it can check your 6-digit codes. It is deleted when you turn two-factor off or delete your account.
• Content — posts, photos, Moments (videos), Stories, comments, @mentions and tags, likes and reactions, reposts, follows, blocks, and messages you send, including group chats and message requests.
• Activity records — which Moments you viewed (so each view counts once a day), when you used Spotlight, earlier versions of comments you edited (visible only to our moderation team), and short-lived counters that limit how often actions can be repeated, to stop spam.
• Stories — a Story is visible to others for 24 hours. After that it stays in your private Story archive (only you can see it) until you delete it, add it to a highlight, or delete your account. You can see who viewed your Stories while they are active.
• Story highlights — stories you add to a highlight stay visible on your profile to other signed-in users (except accounts blocked in either direction) until you remove them, and are deleted with your account.
• Highlight likes — when you like a story in someone's highlight, only that story's owner can see it.
• Custom highlight covers — a cover photo you upload for a highlight is visible to other signed-in users (except accounts blocked in either direction) and is deleted with the highlight or your account.
• Location — if you allow location access in your browser or the SocialMe iPhone app, the app first rounds your position on your device to the square size of your Location privacy setting (about half a mile, 2 miles or 10 miles across) and sends us only that; our servers round it again before anything is saved. Your exact coordinates are never stored. See "Location" below.
• Safety records — reports you file and reports about your account or content, and our moderation decisions (such as hidden content or suspensions).
• Upload problem records — if posting a Moment fails, we record which step failed and coarse details (for example device type, file size range and error code) so we can fix bugs. These records never include your video, caption, file names or location, and are deleted after 14 days.
• Information other people provide about you — for example when someone tags or @mentions you, sends you a message, adds you to a group chat, or reports your account or content.
• Browser and app storage — SocialMe stores small pieces of information on your device only to keep you signed in, remember settings such as your theme, and keep drafts and uploads working. We don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
• Technical logs — our hosting, database and sign-in providers automatically keep short-lived request logs (such as time, IP address and browser or device type), used to run the service and investigate security problems.

Your email, password and age are required to create an account. Everything else, including location, linked accounts and photos, is optional, though some features won't work without it. Please don't put sensitive information such as health details, government ID numbers or financial account numbers in your profile, posts or messages.

2. How we use it

• To operate the service: show you people nearby, deliver messages, host posts.
• To keep the platform safe: respond to reports, detect abuse (for example spam, fake accounts or impossible location jumps), check text against a blocked-words list, and enforce our Terms.
• To order Socialize and nearby results, including the influence score described below.
• To send account emails (sign-up confirmation, password reset) and in-app notifications, and to tell you about important changes to SocialMe or these policies.
• To send occasional update emails about SocialMe and people near you, only if you opt in (at sign-up or in Settings → Privacy → "Email me updates"). Every update email has an unsubscribe link, and you can turn them off anytime. We record when you opted in or out.
• To fix bugs and keep the app running smoothly.
• To comply with the law and protect people: to respond to valid legal requests (such as a subpoena or court order), to protect the rights, safety and property of our users, the public and SocialMe, and to prevent fraud and abuse.
• To create aggregated statistics that don't identify anyone (for example, "500 people use SocialMe at USF"), which we may share publicly or with partners. We don't try to re-identify people from these statistics.
• We don't use your data for advertising, and we don't sell it or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

3. Location

• When we collect it — only after you grant location permission in your browser or iPhone Settings. Location is optional; you can skip it during onboarding and deny or revoke it in your browser or iPhone Settings at any time.
• Ongoing updates — we only use location on screens that need it. While you have the Socialize (nearby people) screen open, your browser or the iPhone app may keep sending location updates (only while you are sharing), and we save your latest rounded position (updates are sent roughly when you move about 30 meters, or about once a minute). Updates stop when you leave that screen. Location is also read once when you choose to attach it to a Moment, update it in Settings, or set it during onboarding. Other screens, like Messages, Profile, or Notifications, do not request your location. SocialMe does not collect location in the background when the app is closed.
• Location privacy settings — you choose how precisely you appear on Socialize: Precise (a square about half a mile / 0.8 km across), Neighborhood (about 2 miles / 3.2 km — the default), City Only (about 10 miles / 16 km), or Ghost Mode (no location at all; you leave Socialize and can't browse it). You can change this anytime in Settings → Location.
• What we store — only your most recent location, rounded to the center of a square of your chosen size; each update replaces the previous one. If you post a Moment while location is available, the location rounded the same way is saved with that Moment. Choosing a less precise setting re-rounds your saved location and your Moments' locations right away. Your exact coordinates are never saved.
• Abuse protection — to stop people from pinpointing others, we limit how often a saved location can change and ignore impossible jumps (for example hundreds of miles in minutes), which can pause location updates for an account for about an hour.
• See and be seen — only people who are currently sharing their location can see who is nearby on Socialize, and only they can be seen there. You can't browse nearby people while hiding yourself. Distances are always calculated on our servers from the rounded locations and shown at the less precise of the two people's settings: a rounded distance (like "<1 mi" or "3 mi") when both are Precise, otherwise a range (like "Within 5 mi"). Nobody ever sees your coordinates or your setting's square.
• How long you stay visible — your most recently saved location stays on your account, and you remain visible on Socialize at that location (shown to others only as a rounded distance) until you update it, turn on Ghost Mode, or delete your account — even when you aren't using the app.
• Moment locations — the rounded location saved with a Moment stays with that Moment. Updating your location doesn't change it; choosing a less precise setting re-rounds it; in Ghost Mode your Moments show no distance to anyone; deleting the Moment or your account removes it.
• What we use it for — showing people and Moments near you, filtering by your chosen radius, sorting by distance, and showing approximate distances.

4. Linked social accounts and link previews

• What is sent — when a social account is linked to your SocialMe profile, its public handle or profile URL is sent to a third-party data service, SocialCrawl, which returns public profile information such as follower counts. We never ask for or receive your passwords for those accounts, and we can't see anything that isn't public.
• Verification — you can verify a linked account yourself with an automatic check of its public bio (see "Influence score" below). Our team can also confirm or remove a verification.
• How often — public follower counts for confirmed linked accounts are refreshed once a day, with one retry later that day if the first try fails. Each refresh is saved so we can spot sudden, suspicious changes.
• Link previews — when you paste a link from a supported social platform into a post, that link is sent to SocialCrawl to build a preview (title, thumbnail, author handle and public counts like views or likes), which is saved with your post.

5. Influence score

• Linked accounts — we use the public follower counts of the social accounts you link, fetched through our data provider, SocialCrawl. Verified accounts count in full. Unverified accounts with 100,000 followers or fewer also count in full. Unverified accounts with more than 100,000 followers don't count toward your reach until you verify them. Accounts with no follower count add nothing.
• Verification — to verify Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or X, add your SocialMe profile link (socialme.me/u/your-username) to that account's public bio. On Instagram it can also be in your website field or on a link-in-bio page such as Linktree. After you tap Verify, we check that account's public profile through SocialCrawl automatically about 10 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours and 24 hours later, and whenever you tap "Check now" (up to 5 times an hour). We stop once it's verified. If your Instagram website is a known link-in-bio page, we also load that public page once per check to look for your link; we don't store its contents. Facebook uses a short code you add to your bio instead, valid for 24 hours. You can keep or remove the link or code afterwards. Verified accounts show a "Verified" check on your profile, add a small bonus, and you get a notification in the app. If you verify a handle that other SocialMe accounts have also linked without verifying, their link stops counting toward their score. Changing a linked handle removes its verification.
• Variety and activity — the score also counts how many platforms and kinds of platforms you have with followers, and your activity on SocialMe over the last 30 days: your SocialMe followers, likes, comments and saves others give your posts and Moments, and how often you post posts, Moments and stories.
• Updates — scores are recalculated daily, and when you add, change or verify a link. Suspended accounts score 0 and don't appear on Top.
• What it affects — your position on the Socialize "Top" list, which shows people within your chosen radius. The score helps order that list, but the app does not show its number. It does not decide who can see or message you.
• Removing a linked account — you can remove a social link from your profile at any time. To also delete the stored data for a linked account (its saved follower history) without deleting your SocialMe account, email ant@socialme.me; once it's removed, your score is recalculated without it.

6. Service providers

We use a small number of companies to run SocialMe. Unless noted otherwise, they process data only to provide their service to us:

• Hosting — Lovable, on Cloudflare's network, runs the website and app.
• Database, sign-in and file storage — Supabase (provided through Lovable Cloud) stores your account, content, photos and videos.
• SocialCrawl — fetches public social profile information and link previews, as described above. SocialCrawl's own public-data notice states that, for the public data it retrieves, it acts as an independent controller rather than only on our instructions — meaning it decides some purposes for that public data itself. We send it only public handles, profile links and links you paste; we don't send your private SocialMe data, and we don't control or speak for SocialCrawl's own handling of public data. If you want a public profile excluded from SocialCrawl retrieval, contact us at ant@socialme.me — we handle valid rights requests and coordinate with SocialCrawl where applicable (technical suppression on their side is not yet in place, so we can't promise a specific outcome), and you can also contact SocialCrawl directly.
• jsDelivr — a public code network. When you edit or post a Moment, your browser downloads the free, open-source video tool the app uses (FFmpeg) from it; like any website, it sees your IP address and browser type. Your videos and other content are never sent to it.
• Email delivery — Lovable's email service sends account emails such as sign-up confirmation and password reset, and internal safety alerts to our team.

We also share information only in these situations:

• With other users — the parts of your profile and content described in "What other people see" below.
• At your direction — for example when you share a post or profile, or tap a link to another app or website.
• Legal and safety — with law enforcement, government authorities or others when we believe in good faith that the law requires it (such as a subpoena or court order), or that it's needed to protect someone's safety, prevent fraud or abuse, or enforce our Terms.
• Professional advisors — lawyers, accountants and insurers, who are bound to keep it confidential.
• If SocialMe is sold or merges — your information may be transferred to the new owner as part of the business, under this Privacy Policy. We'll tell you before your information becomes subject to a different policy.

We don't send your SocialMe data to the social platforms you link; we only read their public information. We do not sell your personal data, and SocialMe has no advertising or data-broker integrations.

7. What other people see

Other signed-in users can see your name, username, bio, avatar, banner, city, follower and following counts and lists, linked accounts and their Verified checks, highlights, posts, reposts, tagged posts and Moments. Your influence score helps determine your order on Top, but the app does not show its number. Your age is used only to confirm that you're 18 or older and is not shown to other users. Other users never see your exact coordinates or the exact coordinates of your Moments. They may see an approximate distance, rounded to the nearest mile (or shown as "<1 mi" when you are less than a mile away), and whether you appear within their chosen radius.

Public previews of shared links — when someone shares a link to your profile, a post or a Moment, people without a SocialMe account can open a read-only preview.

• Profile preview shows your avatar, name, @username, bio, banner, linked accounts (with their Verified checks), highlight covers and titles, follower and following counts, and up to 9 recent post photos or Moment covers.
• Post preview shows the author's avatar, name and @username, the photos and caption, and the like count. Moment preview shows the author, the cover image and caption; the video doesn't play.
• Never shown — your location, city, distance or coordinates, age, email, influence score, follower/following lists, stories, comments, messages, saved items, who you viewed, or blocking/suspension status.
• Turning it off — Settings → Privacy → "Show a public preview of my profile". When off, people without an account only see a sign-up screen for your profile, posts and Moments. Suspended or deleted accounts and deleted content are never previewed.
• Photo links — profile photos and post photos are stored at web addresses that aren't listed or searchable, but anyone who has a photo's exact link can open it, even without an account. Stories, Moments, banners and backups are stored privately. When you delete a photo, post or your account, its link stops working, usually within two days (cached copies can take a little longer to expire).
• Copies made by others — anything you show other people can be screenshotted, saved or shared outside SocialMe. We can't control or delete copies made by others.
• Link previews in other apps — when a link is pasted into a messaging or social app, that app may fetch and keep its own copy of the title, description and image (your avatar, a post photo or Moment cover). We can't delete copies cached by those apps. Preview pages are marked so search engines don't index them.

8. Insights (traffic counts)

• What we count — taps on the linked accounts and links shown on a profile, unique profile visits by signed-in members, and how often posts, Moments and profiles are sent in SocialMe or shared by link. Each person counts once per link, and once per profile visit, per day.
• What creators see — only totals for their own profile (for example "18 taps on Instagram"). Nobody can see who visited or tapped.
• Signed-out visitors — taps on public preview pages are counted with an identifier made by scrambling the visitor's IP address and browser type with a key that changes every day. We never store the IP address itself.
• How long — the underlying records are deleted after 13 months, and when you delete your account (both taps and visits on your profile and the ones you made).

9. Messaging

Direct messages are stored so they can be delivered to the recipient. They are not end-to-end encrypted. Do not share sensitive information through messages.

When you send a post, Moment or profile to friends, it is delivered as a message. To suggest people when you share, SocialMe privately remembers which profiles you visit. Nobody else can see this, including the people you visited, and it is deleted with your account.

10. Adults only

SocialMe is only for people who are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to use the service or knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe an under-18 person has an account, report the account or email us at ant@socialme.me so we can review and delete the data when appropriate.

11. Your controls

• Edit or delete your profile and posts at any time.
• Block any account from settings or their profile.
• Report content or accounts that violate our rules.
• Saved posts and Moments are private to you and are deleted when you delete your account.
• Delete your account from settings; we remove your profile, content, and stored location (including coordinates saved with your Moments), plus your linked social accounts, their saved follower history, your influence score, and our records of requests made to SocialCrawl for them. Short technical logs of data-service requests, which contain a social handle but not your name, are deleted automatically within 90 days. Messages you sent stay visible to the other person, shown as from "Deleted user".
• Turn on Ghost Mode in Settings → Location. This deletes your saved location right away and removes you from Socialize and Nearby; you won't see people nearby until you choose another setting and share again. Your Moments stop showing a distance.
• Turn off location permission in your browser or iPhone Settings; we stop receiving updates.

12. How long we keep data

• While your account exists — your profile, content, messages, rounded location and settings, until you delete them or your account.
• When you delete your account — we delete it right away as described in "Your controls". Backup copies of your photos and videos are deleted within 30 days. Messages you sent stay with the people you sent them to, shown as from "Deleted user". We keep only a scrambled (hashed) record that an account was deleted and when, so we can honor the deletion.
• Shorter limits — upload problem records 14 days; data-service request logs 90 days; insights records 13 months. Reports you filed and reports about your account are deleted with your account; other moderation records (for example about content that was removed) may be kept where needed to keep people safe or to meet legal obligations.
• Provider logs — our hosting, database and email providers keep their own short-lived logs under their retention policies.

13. Your privacy rights

• Everyone can ask us for a copy of their data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by emailing ant@socialme.me. If you have an account, email from the address on it so we can confirm it's you. If your data appears on SocialMe but you don't have an account (for example a public social profile shown through a linked account), email us from any address and tell us which profile or content you mean — no account is needed. You can also edit your profile and delete content or your whole account in the app at any time. You can also ask for a copy of your data in a machine-readable format. We'll confirm the request comes from you (usually by replying from your account's email). You can authorize someone else to make a request for you; we may ask for proof that they're allowed to. We respond within 30 days (45 days where the law allows). If we decline a request, we'll explain why, and you can appeal by replying to that email. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.
• Automated ranking — the influence score and nearby results order people on Socialize automatically. This ranking doesn't decide who can see you, message you or use SocialMe, and it has no legal or similarly significant effects. The score's formula and methods are SocialMe's confidential business information and aren't disclosed; that protects only the proprietary method itself — the privacy rights in this section still apply to the underlying and derived personal data (for example the linked accounts and follower history behind a score), and requests about them are decided case by case with legal advice where needed.
• California and other U.S. states — we don't sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we don't use sensitive information to infer characteristics about you. Your location is used only to provide nearby features you turn on. Because we don't sell or share personal information, there's nothing to opt out of; if that ever changes, we'll update this policy first and honor Global Privacy Control signals. We don't share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing (California "Shine the Light").
• European Economic Area, UK and Switzerland — we process your data to provide the service you signed up for (contract), to keep SocialMe safe and improve it (legitimate interests), and for location with your permission (consent, which you can withdraw in Settings or your device settings). We also process data where the law requires it (legal obligation). You may also object to or restrict processing and complain to your local data protection authority. SocialMe is designed for users in the United States.
• Where data is processed — SocialMe and its service providers operate in the United States and may process data in other countries, where privacy laws may differ from yours. Where a provider transfers data internationally, the safeguard that applies (for example standard contractual clauses) depends on that provider's own terms; we have not independently verified each provider's transfer arrangements.
• Do Not Track — SocialMe doesn't track you across other websites or apps, so it doesn't respond differently to browser "Do Not Track" signals.

14. Other sites and apps

Profiles link to other platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. When you open those links you leave SocialMe, and that platform's own privacy policy applies. We aren't responsible for how other sites and apps handle your information.

15. Security

We use industry-standard safeguards, including encrypted connections, encrypted storage and row-level access controls, and we offer optional two-factor authentication in Settings. No system is perfectly secure — keep your password strong and unique, and consider turning on two-factor.

If we learn of a security breach that affects your personal information, we'll notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

To protect against accidental loss, we keep a private backup copy of uploaded photos and videos. Nobody can view it through the app. When you delete a photo, video, Story or your account, its backup copy is deleted within 30 days.

16. Changes

We will post any updates to this policy here and change the "Last updated" date above. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

17. Contact

SocialMe LLC ("SocialMe"), 104 Bill Perkins Ln, Georgetown, KY 40342, is responsible for your data. Questions or requests: ant@socialme.me, or Settings → Help & support in the app.