Privacy Policy
1. Who this policy covers
This Privacy Policy applies to everyone who creates an account or otherwise uses the RedString mobile application (“RedString”, “the app”, “we”, “us”). RedString is an adults-only (18+) dating service.
2. Information we collect
2.1 Account information
When you create an account, we collect and store, via Firebase Authentication and our own account record: your email address; a hashed password (managed entirely by Firebase Authentication — we never see or store your plaintext password); your email verification status; account status flags (active, pending deletion, suspended); and account creation/last-login timestamps.
2.2 Profile information
To build your dating profile, we collect: your display name; your date of birth (day, month and year), stored in a private record never shared with other users; a publicly-shown age (a whole number, derived from your date of birth) shown to other users instead of your exact birth date; your relationship-intention and dating-preference selections; your ranked interest selections across our interest categories; and your profile photo(s) (see Section 3 below).
At this stage of development, RedString does not yet offer a free-text biography field or a real location display in the shipped app. If a free-text bio, real location display, or similar feature is introduced in the future, this Privacy Policy will be updated first.
2.3 Content you create
Messages you send within a match's conversation; date proposals you create within a match; reports you submit about another user or their content; and records of who you have liked, passed on, or blocked.
2.4 Device / technical information
A push-notification device token, if you have notifications enabled, used solely to deliver in-app notifications (new likes, matches, messages) to your device; and standard Firebase infrastructure logs generated automatically by our backend.
3. Profile Photos and Moderation
When you choose a profile photo, it is first uploaded privately to our backend as a “candidate” photo — it is not shown to any other user at this point.
Before a candidate photo can become part of your visible profile, we send the image to Google Cloud Vision, a Google Cloud service, for automated SafeSearch content-safety analysis. This means:
- The actual image bytes you uploaded are sent to Google Cloud Vision for analysis.
- Google Cloud Vision returns safety signals relating to categories such as: adult content, violence, racy/suggestive content, medical imagery, and “spoof” (altered or meme-like) content.
- These raw moderation signals are kept privately in our backend systems — never shown to you, to other users, or to anyone outside authorized RedString safety review.
- You will only ever see a coarse status for your own photo (for example: pending, approved, or rejected), never the underlying technical signals.
- Some photos may be routed to authorized human review as part of this process.
- We do not publish the specific technical thresholds used to accept, reject, or escalate a photo for human review.
If a candidate photo is rejected, it is deleted and never becomes part of your visible profile. If approved, the candidate copy is deleted and the approved photo (plus a resized version for display) is retained for as long as it remains part of your profile.
4. How we use your information
To operate your account; build and display your dating profile; calculate compatibility based on shared interests; enable matching, messaging, and date-proposal features; moderate profile photos for safety; investigate reports of abuse or policy violations; and maintain the security and reliability of the service.
5. Who we share information with
5.1 Other RedString users
Your public profile information (display name, age, interests, dating preferences, and approved photos) is shown to other users as part of the normal operation of a dating app. Messages and date proposals are shared only with the specific match they are sent to.
5.2 Service providers
We use the following third-party service providers, all part of the Google Firebase / Google Cloud platform. We do not use any other third-party analytics, advertising, crash-reporting, or payment processor at this time:
| Provider | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Firebase Authentication | Account creation, login, and identity verification |
| Cloud Firestore | Storing profile, match, message, and other app data |
| Firebase Storage | Storing profile photo files |
| Cloud Functions / Cloud Run | Running our backend logic (matching, photo moderation, account deletion, other server-side operations) |
| Google Cloud Vision | Automated safety analysis of candidate profile photos |
| Firebase Cloud Messaging | Delivering push notifications to your device |
| Firebase App Check | Helping verify requests come from a genuine copy of the app |
5.3 Legal and safety disclosures
We may disclose information where required by law, or where necessary to protect the safety of our users or the public — including, in the case of child sexual abuse material or exploitation, cooperating with applicable legal reporting requirements (see our Child Safety Standards).
6. Account Deletion
You can delete your account at any time from Profile → Account → Delete account inside the app. As of the effective date of this document, there is no account-deletion option outside the app itself.
When you delete your account, we delete: your matches and the messages and date proposals within them; your likes, passes, and blocks; your profile photos and any pending/unmoderated photo uploads; your photo-moderation history and rate-limit records; your dating profile, private profile data (including date of birth), and interest selections; and your Firebase Authentication account.
What we retain even after account deletion: reports you filed or that were filed against you, and any evidence attached to a report, are retained regardless of account deletion — a deliberate safety and moderation retention practice.
7. Your rights and choices
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, or request deletion of your personal information. You can access and correct most of your profile information directly in the app. To exercise other rights, or if you have questions, contact us at support@redstringdating.com.
8. Children's privacy
RedString is intended only for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
9. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make a material change, we will take reasonable steps to notify you and update the effective date and version number above.
10. Contact us
Questions about this Privacy Policy: support@redstringdating.com
Safety concerns: safety@redstringdating.com
Child-safety concerns: childsafety@redstringdating.com