Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

• · Account: the email address you sign up with, used only for sign-in codes.
• · Early access list: if you join the waitlist, your email address, an optional Mode preference (Casual, After Dark, or Both), and the times you signed up and confirmed. Entering the code we email you is what confirms the signup and freezes your place in line. Entries are used only for early access: when the operator admits you, we email you that your access is open; if CasualMeet later opens to everyone, every confirmed entry gets one announcement email. The early access page also recognizes a returning address — anyone who enters your email there can see it's on the list and its place in line, or that it already has access. To be removed from the list, ask the operator (see Section 7 — there's no dedicated contact address yet).
• · Invites: invite links are single-use and expire 7 days after they're created. A link works for whoever holds it, but accepting one requires a code emailed to the address claiming it. Redeeming a link records that you were invited by the member who issued it: the issuer sees only whether their link was redeemed (never by whom), and the who-invited-whom record is visible to the operator only — never shown to other members or published anywhere.
• · Profile: whatever you choose to add — pseudonym, bio, interest tags, boundaries, and what you're looking for.
• · Location: your 5-digit US ZIP code. You type it in yourself (or use the optional "Detect my ZIP" button, which asks your browser's permission first). It powers nearby search and the approximate area shown to other members (see Section 2 for exactly what that means).
• · Messages: the content of chats you participate in, for as long as your chat's retention setting keeps them (see Section 3).
• · Photos: up to five non-explicit photos per profile. You confirm at upload that a photo is of you and you have the right to share it, and each photo is reviewed by hand before anyone else can see it — there's no automated moderation. Photos that aren't approved are never shown to other members.
• · Reports and blocks: if you report or block another member, we keep a record of that action so we can act on it.

2. What we do NOT collect

• · No precise location, and no tracking. Your ZIP code is the most specific location fact we hold — no street address, no GPS coordinates stored. We match it against our own offline reference data to get an approximate central point for the area (a ZIP centroid covers several square miles), so no third-party geocoding service is ever involved. Other members see only the city and state it maps to and a broad distance band (like "within 25 mi") — never your ZIP itself, never exact miles. The "Detect my ZIP" button does read your device's location once, with your permission, but that coordinate is used only to pick the nearest ZIP and is never stored. Nothing follows your location in the background.
• · No ID or selfie verification. We do not collect government ID, a selfie, or any other formal age-verification document. Age is self-attested at signup (see the Terms of Service).
• · No chat photo sharing. Messages are text only — there is no way to send photos or images inside a chat.

3. Message retention

Every chat has a retention setting, chosen by either participant, that applies to the whole chat for everyone in it:

• · A day-count: 90 days by default, or a shorter window of 60 or 30 days, or
• · Burn-after-reading: messages are deleted 1 minute, 5 minutes, or 1 hour after being opened by their recipient.

Once a message passes its retention window, it is permanently deleted from our systems. You can also delete your own messages or entire chats manually at any time, independent of the retention setting.

4. How we use your data

We use your data only to operate CasualMeet: to show your profile to other members (subject to your settings), to deliver messages, to enforce retention and deletion, and to review reports. We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising or share it with third parties except the infrastructure providers necessary to run the service (hosting, database, email delivery).

5. Account and data deletion

You can delete your account at any time. Deleting your account removes your profile immediately. Messages you've sent remain subject to the retention settings of the chats they're in, but are removed from your own view.

6. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your data, but as a small, solo-operated project, we cannot guarantee the same security posture as a larger company. Please avoid sharing information in your profile or messages that you would be uncomfortable having exposed in a breach.

7. Contact

CasualMeet is run by one person, and there isn't a dedicated contact address yet. When one is set up, it will be listed here.