Privacy Policy

1. The short version

This policy explains how personal data is processed when you use the Kinda Close app for iPhone and Android (the “App”) and the website kindaclose.app (together, the “Service”). It is written to meet the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP / nDSG) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

2. Who is responsible

The controller responsible for processing your personal data is:

For any privacy question or to exercise your rights, write to hello@kindaclose.app.

3. What data we process

3.1 Account

• Anonymous account (default): when you first open the App, an anonymous account with a random user ID is created. No email address or name is required.
• Optional sign-in: if you choose Sign in with Apple, Google or email, we process your email address and the provider’s user ID so you can recover your account on a new phone. With Sign in with Apple you may choose Apple’s private relay address. For email sign-in we also process your password in hashed form only, and send confirmation and password-reset emails.

3.2 Profile

• Your display name and, if you add one, a profile photo.
• Your time zone (to show both clocks and schedule the daily question).
• Your town and country, and coordinates rounded to approximately 10 km (see section 4).

3.3 Couple data

• Your invite code and the link between your account and your partner’s account.
• Your next reunion date, your “together since” date and the name of your shared plant, plus streak and plant status.

3.4 Content you create

• Answers to daily questions, mood check-ins and This-or-That picks.
• Photos, including daily photos and photos in your Moments album.
• Open-when letters (including any opening date), bucket-list entries and nudges you send.

3.5 Subscription data

• If you buy Premium: the subscription status, product, purchase and expiry dates and a store transaction identifier. We never receive your payment card details — payment is handled entirely by Apple or Google.

3.6 Device and technical data

• Push token: a device token so we can deliver notifications (for example, when your partner sends a nudge or answers the daily question).
• Technical logs: when you use the Service, our infrastructure records technical data such as IP address, timestamps, request details, app version and error information. These are used for security, abuse prevention and fixing bugs.

4. Location: town only

Kinda Close shows the distance between your towns. To do that, we need to know roughly where you are — and nothing more.

• If you allow location access, the App uses your device location once, to look up the name of your town. Alternatively, you can search for your town manually and never grant location access.
• We store your town, country and coordinates rounded to approximately 10 km. Your precise location is never stored and never shared.
• There is no background location, no live tracking and no location history.
• Your partner sees your town (not coordinates) and the distance between you.
• Town searches are sent to the Open-Meteo geocoding service (see section 7). Those requests contain only the search text or rounded coordinates, never your account data.

5. Who can see your content

• Your profile, answers, moods, picks, photos, letters, bucket list and nudges are visible only to you and the partner you are connected with. Nothing is public.
• Your partner’s answer to the daily question and their photo of the day stay hidden from you until you have shared your own — and the same applies the other way round.
• Letters sealed until a date can only be opened from that date on.
• Access is enforced on our servers with row-level access rules, not just in the App.
• We do not look at your content except where strictly necessary to operate the Service, to investigate a report of abuse, or where required by law.

6. Purposes and legal bases

We process personal data only for the following purposes. Under the GDPR, we rely on the legal bases listed; under the revFADP, processing is carried out in line with its principles (lawfulness, good faith, proportionality, purpose limitation and transparency).

Content you choose to share may reveal sensitive information (for example about your relationship or feelings). You decide what you share; it is processed only to deliver it to your partner and to keep it available to the two of you.

7. Service providers

We use a small number of carefully selected providers who process data on our behalf under data processing agreements, or who act as independent controllers where indicated. We do not sell or rent your data to anyone.

Apple and Google also process data as independent controllers when you use their app stores, accounts or payment services. Their own privacy policies apply: Apple Privacy Policy, Google Privacy Policy.

8. International transfers

Our main database and file storage are located in the EU (Ireland). Some providers listed above (Expo, RevenueCat, Apple, Google) are based in the USA or may process data there. Switzerland and the EU recognise the EU as providing adequate protection. Where data is transferred to a country without an adequate level of protection, we rely on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), as recognised and adapted for Switzerland by the FDPIC, and — where a provider is certified — on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its Swiss-U.S. extension. You can request a copy of the relevant safeguards by emailing us.

9. No ads, no tracking

Kinda Close contains no advertising, no advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics and no tracking SDKs. We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising. This website does not set cookies and uses no analytics; it loads fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser connects to Google’s servers and transmits your IP address when you visit.

10. Permissions on your phone

• Notifications: to receive nudges and reminders. Optional; you can turn them off in your phone settings at any time.
• Location: used once to look up your town. Optional; you can search for your town instead.
• Camera and photos: only when you take or choose a photo to share.

11. How long we keep data

• Account and content: kept for as long as your account exists.
• Disconnecting: if either partner disconnects, the couple link is removed for both of you and you no longer share anything new.
• Deleting your account: deletes your profile, your content and your photos from our live systems within 30 days. Copies in encrypted backups are overwritten within up to 30 additional days.
• Technical logs: kept only as long as needed for security and troubleshooting, and then deleted.
• Purchase records: where we are legally required to keep certain records (for example, for accounting), we keep only what is required, for as long as required.

12. Security

All connections between the App, the website and our servers are encrypted in transit (TLS). Data is stored with an established cloud provider with encryption at rest. Access to your data is restricted by row-level access rules on the server so that only you and your connected partner can read your content, and administrative access is limited to what is necessary to operate the Service. No system is perfectly secure, but we work hard to protect your data and will inform you and the authorities of breaches as required by law.

13. Your rights

Subject to the applicable law, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you and receive information about its processing;
• Correct inaccurate data (most data you can edit directly in the App);
• Delete your data — in the App via Settings → Account → Delete account, or by email;
• Data portability: receive the data you provided in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format;
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests, and restrict processing;
• Withdraw consent at any time (e.g. notification or location permission), without affecting earlier processing;
• Complain to a supervisory authority: in Switzerland, the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC / EDÖB, edoeb.admin.ch); in the EU, the data protection authority of your country of residence or work.

To exercise your rights, email hello@kindaclose.app. We may need to verify that the request comes from the account holder. We respond within 30 days.

Please note: content you shared with your partner (for example your answers) is part of your shared space. When you delete your account, your content is deleted too.

14. Children

Kinda Close is not intended for anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the Service or the law changes. We will post the new version on this page and update the date below. If changes are significant, we will let you know in the App before they take effect.

16. Contact

Last updated: October 2026