Privacy policy

The short version

We keep what you tell us so we can run your profile, and we don't sell your information. Your photos and who you'd like to meet are private: other people can't see them. What your friends write about you is seen only by you and your friends, and reaches your profile only if you choose to put it there. Who liked what is seen only by you. And emails from us are opt-in: off unless you say yes.

What we keep

When you make a profile: your first name, email address, date of birth, gender, who you'd like to meet, area, what you're looking for, and your photos. Your password is stored scrambled, so nobody at Wingset can read it.

What you add later in the app: a bio and up to six interests for your profile; a phone number, if you choose to add one (it's private, never shown to anyone, and not yet used for anything); your search preferences; and which profiles you liked or passed on, and any matches. We also keep your notification and privacy choices, and whether you have Wingset Plus, with its dates. Wingset doesn't collect card or bank details: Plus is a free preview for now.

About your photos: we save a fresh copy of each one and throw away the details hidden inside the original, such as where and when it was taken and which camera took it. From your first photo we also make a small square picture around your face, which is your profile photo: the round picture at the top right of every page. We keep a note of when you added each photo and what the photo check (below) found.

How photos are checked: when you create your profile, add a photo, add a picture to an answer or suggest a photo for a friend, each picture is sent once to Google's Cloud Vision service. It looks for a face in your first photo, so that photo can be your profile photo, and rates every photo for things that break the House rules, like nudity or graphic violence. Google only finds where a face is: it doesn't work out who anyone is, and it isn't sent your name or any other detail. We don't keep anything about how your face looks. We keep only how many faces it found and how sure it was about the content. Google handles your photos for us, only to run this check.

If you sign up only to help a friend: your email address, name and date of birth, and nothing else. There's no profile, gender, area or photos unless you later choose to date.

Your friend link: one permanent random code that lets people become your friend. You can make a new one at any time, and the old one then stops working.

What friends write and send: when a friend answers a question about you, adds a picture to an answer, likes an answer or suggests a photo, we keep their name, how they know you, what they wrote or sent, and who liked which answer. The same goes for what you write and send about your friends.

A record of what you agreed to: that you accepted the House rules and this Privacy policy, when, and which version. If you said yes to emails and updates, we keep that choice and its date too.

Two small cookies: one keeps you logged in, and one remembers your cookie choice. The Cookie policy page has the details.

What your profile shows

Your first name, your age (never your birthday), your area, your bio, your interests, what you're looking for, and the answers you choose to put on your profile (up to six, each with the first name of the friend who wrote it and how they know you). Your public page shows the words of those answers to anyone who has the link, signed in or not, but pictures that go with answers are shown only to signed-in members. Your gender shows only if you tick "Show my gender on my profile". Who you'd like to meet is never shown. Your email address, phone number and password are never shown to anyone.

Wingset isn't showing members to each other yet: the feed in the app has sample profiles, clearly labelled, so nobody else sees your profile today. This page will say so before that changes.

Your photos are private for now: only you can see them. Every photo is checked against the House rules when you make your profile. If Wingset starts showing photos to other people, this page will say so first, and any photo the check flagged will be looked at by a person before it's shown.

Your friends and your feed

Everything written about you, and everything you write about yourself, sits in a feed that only you and your active friends can open. Friends can answer questions about you, add a picture, say something without a question, like answers, and suggest photos. They can't comment on each other's answers.

Likes are private to you: a friend sees only their own likes, never anyone else's and never counts. You decide which answers go on your profile. You can show, hide, edit or delete what a friend wrote. If you edit it, it says it was edited next to the friend's name, and they're told. A photo a friend suggests is seen only by you, and is copied onto your profile only if you tap Add.

To write, like or suggest anything, a friend must have confirmed their email address. "Vouched for by" is the number of your active friends with a confirmed email; there's no limit. If you remove a friend, or they leave, what they wrote and sent about you, and their likes, are removed from your feed and your profile.

Why we keep it

To run your profile and show the answers you choose, to choose who to show you and who to show you to, to check that everyone is 18 or over, to keep Wingset safe and enforce the House rules (including checking photos), and to send you the emails you asked for.

Gender and who you'd like to meet

Who you'd like to meet is very personal, so we treat it with extra care. It's used for one thing: choosing who to show you and who to show you to. It's never displayed on your profile, never shown to other members, and never sold.

Your gender is used the same way. It appears on your profile only if you choose to show it.

Emails and updates

These are optional. They're off unless you tick the box when you sign up or turn them on from Settings, and you can turn them off the same way at any time. Saying no changes nothing else about how you use Wingset.

If you say yes, we'll send occasional news about Wingset, like new features and launches. We won't sell your email address or hand it to other companies for their marketing.

Every one of these emails has a link at the bottom that unsubscribes you with one press, without logging in, and shows our mailing address. We only send them to people who said yes and have confirmed their email address. Emails about your account itself, such as the link that confirms your email address or a security notice, aren't marketing, so they can be sent either way.

Who we share it with

Visitors see what your profile shows, and nothing more. Your friends see your feed as described above. Companies that help us run Wingset, such as the ones that host our database, store your photos, and check them (Google, as described above), may handle information for us, only to do that job. We'll share information if the law requires it, or if it's needed to keep someone safe. We don't sell it.

How long we keep it

For as long as you have a profile. You can delete your account any time from Settings, under Privacy and safety. That removes your profile, photos (including the files in our storage), your answers, what friends wrote about you and what you wrote about them (including the pictures), photo suggestions, likes, friendships, your friend link, settings and logins straight away, and can't be undone. Some records, like a report about someone's behaviour, may need to be kept for safety or legal reasons. The exact times for those will be set before launch.

Your privacy choices

You choose which answers appear on your profile, and you can take any of them off at any time. You can turn emails and updates on or off from Settings, under Notifications, whenever you like.

From Settings you can also pause your profile, change or remove what you told us, download a copy of your data, log out every other device, choose your cookies, and delete your account. Your date of birth can't be changed there, so nobody under 18 gets in; if it's wrong, contact us. For anything else about your information, the Contact page says how to reach us.

We don't sell your information, so there is nothing to opt out of there. If that ever changes, we'll tell you here first and give you the choice.

Age

Wingset is for adults 18 and over. We ask for your date of birth to check this, and we don't allow anyone younger to make a profile. If we find out that someone under 18 has one, we'll remove it.

Security

Passwords are stored scrambled, and login sessions end after 30 days. Your details are kept in a private hosted database that the public internet can't reach directly, and your photos are kept in private file storage with no public web addresses. The connections between Wingset and those services are encrypted, and when Wingset is live, so is the connection between your device and the site.

No website is perfectly secure, so please choose a password you don't use anywhere else, and tell us if you think someone else has used your account.

Cookies

Wingset uses two cookies: one to keep you logged in, and one to remember your cookie choice. Anything optional stays off until you say yes. The Cookie policy page has the details.

Changes

As Wingset grows, this page will be updated, and we'll tell you about any important change. If it changes in a way that matters, we'll ask you to agree again.