Privacy Policy

Blindly (the "App") respects your privacy. Because our core feature revolves around building deep connections *first* through words, audio, and personality—rather than immediate superficial appearances—we must collect, process, and secure specific data points to make the experience work.

By using the App, you consent to the data practices described in this Privacy Policy. We process and store all data on secure cloud infrastructure managed by Blindly and trusted service providers.

1. Information We Collect

To provide you with a tailored matchmaking experience, we gather data when you register and interact with our application:

• Account Information: Profile credentials via Google Sign-In, Apple, Email, or Phone Auth, including your display name, birthdate, and contact information.
• Rich Profile Data: Including, but not limited to, self-reported metrics, relationship goals, lifestyle tags, education, religion, occupational details, and user-answered "prompts".
• Media & Binary Assets: We collect and securely process standard profile photographs—which are blurred computationally for matching purposes. We also collect and temporarily cache Voice Note prompts (`.m4a` format) for discovery feeds.
• Location Data: To operate our geolocation matching (calculate proximity via Haversine distance), we collect longitude and latitude data if you grant location permissions.
• Behavioral & Swiping Matrix data: Interaction histories, likes, passes, blocks, and reports.

2. How We Process and Use Your Data

Blindly leverages your data to power a highly customized matchmaking experience using Rule-based Scoring and Machine Learning (ML).

• Collaborative Filtering (ML): We analyze your interactions (swipes, likes) compared to others on the platform ("Users who liked A also liked B") to calculate Hybrid Compatibility Scores.
• Real-Time Messaging: Chat contents are synced instantly between matched users utilizing our real-time messaging backend. We collect message volumes specifically to execute our "Progressive Unblurring" milestone thresholds (e.g., verifying when 30 or 100 messages have been naturally exchanged to trigger audio or image reveals).
• Safety & Moderation: Message payloads and audio data may occasionally be subject to automated sentiment or moderation engines to maintain our Zero-Tolerance policy.

3. Data Storage and Security Architecture

We prioritize security by utilizing enterprise-grade technologies:

• Restricted Cloud Access: Your data (including relational profile documents and media storage buckets) is completely protected. Users cannot interface or write directly to the database. All operations strictly pass through authenticated backend processing layers with JSON Web Tokens (JWT).
• Transmission Security: All endpoints ensure encrypted data transit and enforce rate limiting (via `express-rate-limit`) to prevent abuse or scraping bots.

4. Data Sharing & Third-Party Disclosure

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We only share information in the following circumstances:

• With our primary hosting and infrastructure vendors, functioning as essential sub-processors.
• If compelled by valid legal processes, law enforcement, or a court order to investigate fraud or abuse.

5. Advanced Deletion Sweeps & User Rights

You have the absolute right to correct, export, or completely delete your data.

Hard Account Deletion: Should you choose to delete your account via the app settings, we do not merely "disable" it. Blindly deploys a recursive batch-sweep mechanism across the backend. This irreversibly purges your profile records, active real-time conversations, matching histories, connection nodes, uploaded media, cached Machine Learning matrices, and authentication tokens.

6. Spotify Integration

Blindly allows users to connect their Spotify account to enhance matchmaking through music preferences.

When you connect Spotify, we may access:

• Your Spotify profile information (such as email and display name)
• Your top artists and music preferences

This data is used solely to:

• Improve compatibility matching
• Suggest better connections

We do not store or share your Spotify data with any third parties.

Users can disconnect their Spotify account at any time from within the app.

7. Contact Us

If you have any detailed inquiries regarding our Data Protection Practices, automated processing systems, or require a data export, please submit a request to our Data Protection Officer at privacy@blindlyapp.com.