Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how Ballad Match ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use our website and services. By using Ballad Match, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following types of information:

• Account information — your email address and a password, which we keep only as a hash. To finish your profile, we also collect your name, your birth date, and, if you choose to add them, your location and gender. We use your birth date to work out your age, which is what other members see.
• Profile content — the story text you write, photos you upload to your vault, messages you send to your matches, and any other content you add to your profile.
• Usage data — how you use the service: likes and passes, matches, blocks, reports, messaging activity, and how often your story is read. We also collect device information, such as your IP address and browser, and log data.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Provide, maintain, and improve the Ballad Match service
• Show you other members' stories, narrowed by any search or filters you choose, and leave out people you have already liked, passed on, matched with, or blocked
• Ensure the safety and integrity of our platform, including content moderation
• Send you service-related communications, such as in-app notifications about likes and matches, and emails to confirm your address or reset your password
• Analyze usage patterns to improve the user experience

4. How We Share Your Information

• With other members — anyone who visits Ballad Match, signed in or not, can read your published story. It shows your name, your age, your gender if you chose one, and your location if you added one. Other members never see your birth date. Your vault photos are visible to a member you have liked until that member passes on your like, and to members you are matched with. Blocking in either direction, passing, or unmatching closes that access again.
• Service providers — Cloudflare runs Ballad Match. It hosts the app and stores your data, including your photos, and processes that data on our behalf.
• Legal requirements — we may disclose your information if required by law, regulation, or legal process.

5. Your Rights & Choices

You have the right to:

• Access, correct, or delete your personal data
• Request a copy of the data we hold about you
• Delete your account from Settings once your profile is finished. Section 6 explains what is removed

6. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with our services. Photos you remove from your vault are deleted from storage right away. When a match ends, its messages stay in our database but are hidden from both of you, until one of you deletes an account. When you delete your account, we delete your sign-in details, profile, story, photos, likes and passes, matches, messages, notifications, blocks, and reports (including reports about you) at the same time, except where we are required to keep some of it for legal or regulatory purposes. Conversations you share with other members are removed for them too.

7. Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. Children's Privacy

Ballad Match is intended for users who are 18 years of age or older. You confirm that you are 18 or older when you sign up, and you enter your birth date when you finish your profile. If your birth date shows that you are under 18, we will not save it or finish your profile. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected data from a minor, we will delete it promptly.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the service or by other means. Your continued use of Ballad Match after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal data, contact us at contact@balladmatch.com.