Privacy Policy
Last updated:
This Privacy Policy explains how Dearly (“Dearly”, “we”, “us”) handles personal data when you use the Dearly mobile app (iOS and Android), its widgets and notifications, and the website at dearlytogether.app (together, the “Service”).
The short version: what you share in Dearly is visible only to you and the partner you link with. We do not sell your data, we do not show ads, and we do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites. Your answers, notes, photos and moods are never sent to analytics. You can download your data or delete your account from inside the app at any time.
1. Who we are
The controller of your personal data is [COMPANY LEGAL NAME — TODO], [registered address — TODO], [trade registry / MERSIS number — TODO] (“Dearly”).
- Privacy questions and requests: [email protected]
- General support: [email protected]
- EU representative (GDPR Art. 27): [NAME AND ADDRESS — TODO]
- UK representative (UK GDPR Art. 27): [NAME AND ADDRESS — TODO]
2. The data we collect
We collect only what the Service needs to work. Most of it you give us directly.
2.1 Account data
- Sign-in identity from Apple or Google (a unique account identifier and, if provided, your email address — which may be an Apple private relay address). If you sign in with an email code, your email address.
- Profile: your display name (required), an optional profile photo, and an optional birthday (your partner sees the day and month, never the year).
- Age confirmation: that you are 18 or older.
- Relationship details you choose to enter: your relationship start date and an optional “how did you hear about us” answer.
2.2 Content you share with your partner
- Answers to daily questions, reactions and comments.
- Moments: photos and notes you send, with optional captions.
- Mood check-ins, including custom moods you create.
- Events and countdowns, reminders, “thinking of you” nudges, wishlists and similar shared items.
- Long-distance settings: an optional city you type in yourself and your busy times, used only for distance and best-time-to-call features. We do not collect GPS location.
2.3 Relationship and usage metadata
- Your link with your partner (which accounts are paired, when, and invite codes), streaks, which questions were shown and answered, and your settings (notifications, privacy switches, widget preferences, blocked accounts).
2.4 Device and technical data
- Push notification tokens (Apple Push Notification service, Firebase Cloud Messaging) and an app installation identifier.
- App version, operating system, device model, language, time zone and region setting.
- IP address, used for security and rate limiting and kept in short-lived server logs (see section 9).
- Widget health reports: technical signals such as when the widget last refreshed — never its content.
2.5 Purchase data
- Whether you have Dearly Plus, the product, store (App Store or Google Play), status, renewal and expiry dates. Payment details (card numbers, billing address) are handled by Apple or Google and are never received by us.
2.6 Analytics and diagnostics
- Product analytics (PostHog, EU): events such as “question answered” or “widget added”, linked to a random user ID. Events never include your answers, notes, captions, moods, photos, names or email. Analytics is off by default in the EU/EEA, UK and Türkiye until you agree; elsewhere it is on by default and you can turn it off (Settings → Privacy). Session recording is disabled.
- Crash reports (Sentry, EU): error and performance data linked to a random user ID, without your content. You can turn crash reports off in Settings → Privacy.
2.7 Support requests
- What you write to us, the category, an optional screenshot, and automatic diagnostics (app version, OS, device model, widget health summary, last sync time). Your content is not attached. If you report a specific moment or answer, the support team can see that item only.
2.8 Website and waitlist
- If you join the waitlist: your email address, language, phone type (iPhone/Android, optional), whether you are in a long-distance relationship (optional), and the campaign that brought you (UTM parameters in the link you used). We do not ask for your name.
- The website uses no cookies, no analytics and no third-party trackers. Our hosting provider (Cloudflare) processes your IP address to deliver the pages and protect them from abuse.
2.9 What we do not collect
- No advertising identifiers (IDFA/AAID), no contacts, no precise location, no microphone, no health data from your device, no browsing history.
- We do not ask about your gender or sexual orientation. Please be aware that free-text answers and notes may reveal sensitive information (for example about health or your sex life) if you choose to write it. We do not analyse, categorise or draw inferences from your content, and it is only ever shown to you and your partner.
3. Why we use your data and our legal bases
| Purpose | Data | Legal basis (GDPR / KVKK) |
|---|---|---|
| Provide the Service: account, pairing, questions, moments, widgets, notifications, sync | Account, content, metadata, device | Performance of a contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b); KVKK Art. 5(2)(c)) |
| Plus subscription and couple sharing | Purchase data, user ID | Performance of a contract |
| Security, fraud and abuse prevention, rate limiting, audit logs | Technical data, IP address, account data | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f); KVKK Art. 5(2)(f)) |
| Support and safety reports | Support data | Contract; legitimate interests |
| Product analytics | Analytics events | Consent where required (EU/EEA, UK, Türkiye: Art. 6(1)(a), explicit consent); elsewhere legitimate interests with opt-out |
| Crash and performance diagnostics | Diagnostics | Legitimate interests (minimal data; you can opt out) |
| Waitlist and launch emails | Waitlist data | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)); confirmed by double opt-in |
| Legal obligations (tax, lawful requests) | As required | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c); KVKK Art. 5(2)(ç)) |
You can withdraw consent at any time (Settings → Privacy, or the unsubscribe link in any email). Withdrawal does not affect processing that happened before.
4. What your partner sees
Dearly is a shared space for exactly two people.
- Your partner sees the content you share in your couple space: moments, answers (after both of you have answered — the “reveal” rule), moods, events, nudges and your streak.
- Depending on your privacy switches, your partner may also see your local time, your city, and whether you have seen their moment. You can turn these off in Settings → Privacy.
- Widgets and notifications can show your partner’s latest moment or note on the home screen or lock screen. You can blur the widget (privacy mode) and hide notification previews on the lock screen.
- Anything shown on a screen can be screenshotted, and photos your partner saves to their device stay there. You can unsend a moment, but copies your partner already saved cannot be removed by us.
5. When you unpair or delete your account
Ending the link (unpair). Either partner can end the link at any time. Access to the shared space stops within seconds for both of you, widgets are cleared, and the space becomes a read-only archive for 30 days. In the archive you can see your own moments, revealed question pairs and events, and request a data export; your former partner’s photos and notes are not shown. After 30 days the couple space is permanently deleted. Your personal account remains. You can also block the other person from inviting you again.
Deleting your account. In the app go to Settings → Account → Delete account, or use the web page at https://go.dearlytogether.app/account/delete. When you confirm:
- your account enters a 7-day grace period; you are signed out, the link ends, and your content is immediately hidden from your partner;
- you can undo the deletion by signing in again with the same method within 7 days (the link with your partner is not restored);
- after 7 days we permanently delete your account and content within 30 days: database records, photos and all their variants, push tokens, sessions, and we ask RevenueCat and PostHog to delete your records and revoke your Sign in with Apple token. Data in encrypted backups expires on rotation within 35 days.
- Deleting your account does not cancel a store subscription — cancel it in your App Store or Google Play settings.
6. Who we share data with
We do not sell or “share” your personal data for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not give it to data brokers. We share data only with service providers (processors) that operate the Service on our behalf under contracts that limit their use of the data:
| Provider | Purpose | Data | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Online GmbH | Servers, database, cache | All Service data (encrypted volumes) | Germany |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | DNS, network protection, website hosting, R2 media and backup storage | Traffic data, photos, encrypted backups | Global network; storage in the EU [TODO: confirm] |
| Backblaze, Inc. | Secondary encrypted backups | Encrypted database backups | EU (Amsterdam) |
| Apple Inc. | Sign in with Apple, push notifications (APNs), App Store purchases | Sign-in identifier, push token, notification payload | USA / global |
| Google LLC | Google Sign-In, push notifications (FCM), Google Play purchases | Sign-in identifier, push token, notification payload | USA / global |
| RevenueCat, Inc. | Subscription management | User ID, purchase history | USA |
| PostHog, Inc. (EU Cloud) | Product analytics (only with consent where required) | User ID, usage events | EU |
| Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry, EU) | Crash and error reporting | User ID, device and error data | EU |
| Grafana Labs | Server metrics and logs | Technical logs without personal content | EU [TODO: confirm] |
| Resend [TODO: confirm provider] | Transactional and waitlist email | Email address, email content | [TODO: confirm region] |
| Google Workspace | Support email | Your messages to us | [TODO] |
| Expo (650 Industries, Inc.) | App builds and over-the-air updates | Technical update request data only | USA |
Notification content is limited by design: push payloads never contain your answers, and lock-screen previews can be hidden. With full previews turned on (Settings → Notifications), a notification can include your partner’s first name and the text of a note or photo caption they shared; that payload is delivered through Apple (APNs) or Google (FCM) as listed above. We send iOS notifications to Apple directly from our own servers (using the open-source “Pushy” library); no additional push vendor receives them.
We may also disclose data if required by law or a valid legal order, to protect someone’s life or safety, or as part of a merger or acquisition (in which case this policy continues to apply). See section 14 for how we handle requests from authorities.
7. International transfers
Our servers are in Germany. Some providers are located in, or may access data from, other countries, including the United States. Where data leaves the EEA/UK or Türkiye, we rely on adequacy decisions, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK addendum), the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, and, for transfers from Türkiye, the standard contracts published by the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority, notified as required by Article 9 of KVKK. [TODO(legal): confirm KVKK transfer strategy.]
8. Security
We protect your data with TLS encryption in transit, encrypted storage volumes for our database, provider-side encryption for media, client-side encrypted backups, hashed or encrypted tokens, strict per-couple access checks on every request, rate limiting, and minimal staff access (support staff can see only content that was reported to them). Dearly is not end-to-end encrypted. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will notify you and the authorities as required by law.
9. How long we keep data
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account and content | While your account is active |
| Unpaired couple space (archive) | 30 days after unpairing, then deleted |
| Deleted account | 7-day grace period, then deleted within 30 days |
| Backups | Up to 35 days (rotation) |
| Server logs (including IP addresses) | 14 days |
| Analytics events | 12 months |
| Security audit log | 2 years (account ID retained for accountability) |
| Data export files | Download link valid for 7 days |
| Waitlist data | Until you unsubscribe, or 12 months after launch at the latest [TODO: confirm] |
| Support messages | [TODO: define, e.g. 24 months] |
10. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you have the right to access, correct, delete and port your data, to restrict or object to processing, to withdraw consent, and not to be subject to solely automated decisions with legal effects (we make none).
- Download your data: Settings → Privacy → Request my data. We prepare a ZIP (JSON, your media and a readable HTML summary), usually within 3 days and at most 30. It includes your profile, the moments you sent, your answers and revealed question pairs, and events. Your partner’s photos are not included.
- Correct: edit your profile in the app at any time.
- Delete: see section 5.
- Object / withdraw consent: Settings → Privacy (analytics, crash reports) and Settings → Notifications.
- Email us at [email protected]. We answer within one month (GDPR) or 30 days (KVKK), and usually much faster. We may need to verify your identity.
You can also complain to a supervisory authority: in the EU/EEA the authority in your country, in the UK the ICO, in Türkiye the Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK Kurulu).
10.1 Residents of Türkiye (KVKK)
Under Article 11 of the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 you may learn whether your data is processed, request information about it, learn the purpose and whether it is used accordingly, know the third parties to whom it is transferred in Türkiye or abroad, request correction or deletion, request that third parties be notified, object to outcomes arising from automated analysis, and claim compensation for damage caused by unlawful processing. A separate KVKK information notice (Aydınlatma Metni) is available in Turkish. [TODO(legal): publish the Aydınlatma Metni.]
10.2 US residents
We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you. Residents of California and other states with privacy laws may request access to, correction of and deletion of their personal information, and will not be discriminated against for exercising these rights. You may use an authorised agent. [TODO(legal): US state annex (CA/WA/NV) and assessment of mood check-ins under the Washington My Health My Data Act.]
11. Age limit
Dearly is for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If a birthday shows that a user is under 18, account creation is blocked and the data is deleted. If you believe a minor is using Dearly, contact us.
12. Sensitive information
We do not ask for special categories of data. Because answers and notes are free text, they may contain such information if you choose to write it. It is stored only to provide the Service to you and your partner and is never used for analytics, advertising or profiling. Any future feature that involves sensitive topics will ask both partners for separate, explicit consent first.
13. Notifications, analytics and crash preferences
- Notifications: choose categories in Settings → Notifications or your device settings. Marketing notifications are off unless you turn them on.
- Analytics and crash reports: Settings → Privacy.
- Tracking: Dearly does not track you, so iOS never shows you an App Tracking Transparency prompt.
14. Requests from authorities
We disclose data to authorities only when legally required and after reviewing the request. Where permitted, we tell the affected user.
15. Changes to this policy
If we make material changes, we will notify you in the app or by email before they take effect and update the date at the top. Previous versions are available on request.
16. Contact
[COMPANY LEGAL NAME — TODO] · [ADDRESS — TODO] · [email protected]