Privacy policy

In short

• Your face verification video never leaves your phone, and we do not keep a numeric trace of your face (a face vector).
• Your exact location is never shown to other users; they only see an approximate distance.
• Location and device data in the photos you upload are removed.
• Message content, your location and your phone number are never written to our logs. We do not ask for your phone number.
• This site has no tracking or advertising cookies, no analytics and no forms.

What this policy covers

This policy explains how your personal data is processed in the Fauda mobile app and on the fauda.app website, under Türkiye's Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK).

Data controller: Fauda (fauda.app). You can reach us at info@fauda.app.

Website (fauda.app)

• No cookies or analytics. The site uses no tracking or advertising cookies and runs no analytics. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, may set a technical cookie for security.
• Your theme choice (light or dark) is stored only in your own browser and never reaches us.
• No third-party resources. Every file, including the font, is served from our own domain; opening the page sends no request to another company.
• Server logs. The site is served through Cloudflare. Your IP address and browser details may appear in the logs Cloudflare keeps to deliver and protect the site.
• Email. When you write to info@fauda.app, your email is forwarded by Cloudflare email routing to a team member's Gmail inbox. We use your address and message only to reply and, if you ask, to tell you when the open beta starts. We keep emails for at most 1 year.

Data we process in the app

• Sign-in: you sign in with Google. We store your account ID in a one-way form, not as is. We do not store your email address or the name Google gives us. For your session we keep only a hash of the key.
• Profile: your name, date of birth, intent, your answers to profile questions and, if you fill them in, optional details (short bio, height, education, job, city).
• Date of birth: other users see only your age. Your star sign is not stored; it is calculated from the date and shown only if you turn it on. If you are under 18, your account is closed immediately, your date of birth is not stored and the same Google account cannot sign up again for 2 years.
• Gender: showing it on your profile is off by default.
• Who you want to meet: stored only with your explicit consent. If you do not consent, you are treated as having no preference and can still use the app.
• Photos: up to six. Location and device data (EXIF) are removed. Screening for inappropriate content runs on our own server; your photos are not sent to another company for this.
• Location: required for matching. Exact coordinates are not stored; they are rounded to a grid of about 100 metres. Others only see an approximate distance. No location history is kept, only your latest approximate location.
• Interactions: people you like and pass, your matches, your messages, and people you block or report.
• Messages: are not end-to-end encrypted; they are stored encrypted on our servers. When you send them, your messages are scanned automatically for fraud and harassment patterns; if one is caught, you see a warning or the message is not sent. Our team does not see the scanned message, only how many suspicious patterns were caught. How long they are kept is set out below.
• Reports: when you report messages, you choose which ones. Our team sees only the messages you choose; it can't see the rest of the conversation. The one exception is the "Rahatsız edildim" ("I feel harassed") button: if you tap it, the other person's last 20 messages are added to the report automatically, and we tell you so on screen. If a message you sent is reported, only that message is reviewed; if the other person taps "Rahatsız edildim", your last 20 messages are reviewed.
• Notifications: if you turn notifications on, your device's notification address is stored so we can send them. When we send one, Google receives that address, the type of notification and, for message notifications, the sender's name; the message itself is never sent.
• Usage measurement: when your account was created and your sign-in method (Google), when verification was completed, when you sent likes, and the days you used the app (for usage days only the day is kept, not the time). These records are linked to your account; your name, location, messages and the identity of people you talk to or like are never written to them.
• Security: to limit abuse, your IP address is kept for at most one hour. App traffic also passes through Cloudflare, so your IP address may appear in its logs.

Face verification

To make sure profiles are real, you complete a short face verification when you sign up. You give separate explicit consent for it. Verification is a condition of the service: if you don't consent or you withdraw it, you won't appear in anyone's deck and can't send messages. To withdraw, write to info@fauda.app; an in-app option will come before the open beta.

• The video never leaves your phone. Only three frames are sent to the server.
• The frames are compared with your profile photos. The numeric trace of your face (face vector) is not stored.
• When verification succeeds or is rejected, the frames are deleted immediately.
• If the system cannot decide, the frames are stored encrypted and a member of our team reviews them. They are deleted once the review is done: within 7 days, or 8 days at most counting storage delay.
• During verification, if other people appear in your photos, their faces are processed only at the moment of comparison and are not stored.
• After verification, the face in photos you add is also compared with your verified face; this is covered by the explicit consent you give for face verification. No face template (face vector) is stored during the comparison.
• If other people also appear in a photo you add, their faces are processed only momentarily during the comparison and are not stored.

What other users see

Your name, age, photos, intent, answers to profile questions, verification badge, an approximate distance and, if you filled them in, your optional details (short bio, height, education, job, city). Your gender and star sign appear only if you turn them on. Your date of birth, exact location and who you want to meet are never shown.

How we collect it and why we process it (legal bases)

We collect your data electronically and by automated means: from what you enter in the app and the photos you upload, from your phone's location when you allow it, from Google sign-in, from the emails you send us, and from the records created when you use the app or the site.

• Providing the service (account, profile, matching, messaging): performance of a contract (KVKK Art. 5/2-c).
• Face verification (biometric data) and who you want to meet: your explicit consent (KVKK Art. 6).
• Security, preventing abuse and usage measurement: legitimate interest (KVKK Art. 5/2-f).
• Legal obligations: where the law requires it (KVKK Art. 5/2-ç).
• Protecting rights: where it is necessary to establish, exercise or protect a right (KVKK Art. 5/2-e).

Who we share it with

To run the service we work with these providers:

• Google: for sign-in.
• Render and Fly.io: app servers (Render during testing, Fly.io after that), Frankfurt.
• Neon: database, Frankfurt.
• Upstash: cache and the counters that limit abuse, Frankfurt.
• Cloudflare: network, photo storage, the website and email routing.
• Google Firebase Cloud Messaging: to send notifications, if you turn them on.
• Google (Gmail): the mailbox that emails you send to info@fauda.app are forwarded to.

We may also share it with:

• Competent public authorities and courts: where the law requires it, and in cases of threats, child safety or sexual coercion.

The app servers, the database and the cache run in Germany (Frankfurt); photos are stored in Cloudflare data centres in the European Union. Sign-in (Google), notification (Google Firebase) and email (Gmail) services also run outside Türkiye. Under KVKK this is a transfer abroad. Most of the companies providing these services are based in the United States.

How long we keep it

• Account and profile data: while your account is open. When you delete your account, you can change your mind within 15 days; your data is deleted 15 days after your request (or at most 30 days after it if there is an open report about you). It may stay in our security backups for up to 30 more days; backups are used only to restore the service after a failure or an attack, and are deleted automatically when that period ends.
• What remains after your account is deleted: if you were banned or your account was closed because you are under 18, a one-way hash of your Google account ID, with the reason and date, for 2 years, to stop you signing up again with the same Google account; the same hash, so that you don't appear again to people who blocked you, for as long as their account stays open and for at most 2 years (if you sign up again, those blocks come back); moderation records for 2 years; server logs for 90 days. These records are not anonymous: the hash is what recognises you if you return with the same Google account. We keep them on the basis of legitimate interest (KVKK Art. 5/2-f).
• Face verification frames: immediately after a decision; those under review within 7 days (8 days at most counting storage delay).
• Unprocessed copies of your photos (before location data is removed): deleted as soon as processing finishes; for interrupted uploads, within 3 days at most.
• People you pass: they don't appear to you again for 30 days; the record is kept while your account is open.
• Usage measurement records: 13 months.
• Emails you send us: at most 1 year.
• Server logs: 90 days.
• Messages: kept while the match lasts; deleted when your account is deleted. If the other person deletes their account, the conversation is deleted for both of you. If either of you blocks the other, or the conversation is frozen with "Rahatsız edildim" ("I feel harassed"), the messages are deleted after 30 days; if a report about that conversation is still open at that point, they are deleted when it is resolved. If our team reopens a frozen conversation, its messages are again kept while the match lasts.
• Reported messages: kept with the report until it is resolved. If the person who reported them deletes their account, a copy of the messages they chose stays attached to the report and is deleted when the report is closed; the reporter's identity is removed from the report. In cases reported to the authorities, the reported messages are kept for 2 years, even if the accounts are deleted.
• Moderation and enforcement records: 2 years.
• Automatic scanning records (not the message itself, only how many suspicious patterns were caught): 12 months; deleted as soon as your account is deleted.
• IP address kept for security: at most 1 hour.

Your rights

Under Article 11 of KVKK you have the right to: learn whether your data is processed; request information if it is; learn the purpose of processing and whether it is used for that purpose; know the third parties at home or abroad to whom it is transferred; ask for it to be corrected if it is incomplete or wrong; ask for it to be deleted or destroyed; ask for corrections and deletions to be passed on to those third parties; object to a decision against you that results solely from automated analysis (for example a rejected face verification); and claim compensation if you suffer damage from unlawful processing. You can withdraw any consent you have given at any time.

To make a request, write to info@fauda.app; we reply within 30 days at most. If your account has been suspended, you can also send your appeal to this address.

You can delete your account in the app ("Hesabımı sil" in the ⋮ menu), or ask by writing to this address.

Security

Connections are encrypted. Verification frames kept for review are also stored encrypted. Message content, location, phone numbers and sign-in keys are never written to our logs.

Changes

If we change this policy, we publish the new version on this page and update its date.