This policy explains what Hermit Hour collects, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. It follows the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and where the law of the country you live in gives you more protection, we follow that too. Contact: support@hermithour.com.
Who is responsible for your data
Hermit Hour is run by its founder, who is responsible for the personal data described here (under the GDPR, the "controller"). If a company takes over running Hermit Hour, we'll update this policy and tell you in the app. For anything about your data, email support@hermithour.com.
What we collect, why, and on what basis
Privacy law asks us to name a legal basis for each use. "Contract" means we need it to give you the service you signed up for; "legitimate interest" means we need it to keep Hermit Hour safe and working, in a way that doesn't override your rights; "consent" means you chose to turn it on and can turn it off.
| What | Why | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To sign you in with a one-time code. | Contract |
| Name, date of birth, gender, country, city, languages, interests, bio and profile prompts (if you add them) | To build your profile, check you are 18 or older, and suggest relevant Moments and people. | Contract; legitimate interest in keeping under-18s out |
| Moments you create or join (title, description, activity, time, broad area, and whether it repeats), the meeting point or join details a host adds, and your Match Me requests (activity, time, format, group size and area) | To show and match Moments, and to tell confirmed people where to go. | Contract |
| Your chat messages, Keeps and Circle requests | To let you talk to and stay in touch with people you've met. | Contract |
| Blocks and reports, and moderation decisions about your account or content (including a name reset by a moderator) | To keep people safe and deal with abuse. | Legitimate interest in safety; legal obligations |
| If you choose “Don’t invite me to this series” on an invite | So the host can’t invite you to future dates of that repeating Moment. The host sees that you’ve asked not to be invited. | Your choice (contract) |
| After a Moment: whether you and the others attended, and whether you felt comfortable | To keep attendance fair, award the Reliable Member badge, and spot problems. Your answers are never shown to other users; a “No” to feeling comfortable after a Moment someone hosted, or a one-to-one, may be counted anonymously for our moderation team. | Legitimate interest in reliable, safe Moments |
| Notification token | To send the notifications you've allowed. | Consent (your phone's notification permission) |
| A scrambled (hashed) version of your device's app identifier and of your internet address | To spot fake accounts and people returning after a ban, and to enforce bans on devices (see below). | Legitimate interest in safety |
| Text refused by our filters (what was matched and a short excerpt) | So moderators can review repeated attempts. | Legitimate interest in safety |
| A security check when you request a sign-in code (Cloudflare Turnstile) | To block automated sign-ups. | Legitimate interest in security |
| Anonymous usage data, only if you choose to share it: which features you use (for example, that a Moment was published, joined or completed), with your account's random id, and never your name, messages, free text or location | To understand what works and improve Hermit Hour. It's off unless you say yes, and you can turn it off any time in Account. | Consent |
| Crash and error reports: the technical details of the error, your device model and app version, and your account's random id | To find and fix bugs. | Legitimate interest in a working app |
| Emails you send us | To answer you. | Legitimate interest; contract |
We don't use your data for advertising, we don't sell it, and the app contains no advertising trackers.
Who can see what
- People you share a Moment with can see your name, age range (never your exact date of birth), gender, city, languages, interests, bio, and profile prompts.
- Moments you publish are visible in Explore to other members, with their broad area but not the meeting point.
- The exact meeting point of a Moment is only shown to people the host has confirmed.
- Any member can share a public Moment as a link. Anyone who opens the link, including people without the app, sees a short preview: the title, activity, date and time, broad area and city, and how many spots are left. The preview never shows who is hosting or going, or the meeting point. Circle Only and Matching Only Moments can't be shared, and the link stops working once the Moment has ended or been cancelled.
- Your chat messages are visible to the other members of that Moment's chat. Direct messages are visible only to the person in your Circle you're messaging.
- Reports are anonymous. Only our moderation team can see reports and moderation records.
- If you block someone, they can't see you or your messages. Each block is also passed to our moderation team as a report so we can check for abuse; the person you blocked isn't told.
- Other members never see your email address or how you sign in.
What our team can see
Hermit Hour is run by a small team. Our moderators use a separate moderation site that needs two-step sign-in. They see your messages only when they're part of a report: the reported message and the chat around it, or the chat of a reported Moment. They don't browse chats otherwise. Every moderation action is recorded.
Automated checks and matching
- Text checks. Before something is saved, the app checks it automatically: blocked words, links, and phone numbers in places everyone can see. If it doesn't pass, it isn't posted and you're told why, so you can change it. Repeated attempts may be shown to a moderator.
- Returning after a ban. A new account on a device used by a banned or suspended account may be suspended automatically while a moderator reviews it (see "Device and network information").
- Match Me and Explore. Suggestions are based on what you asked for and what you share: the activity, time, city, language, format and vibe. This doesn't have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
No suspension or ban is final without a person reviewing it, and you can always appeal (see our Terms).
Device and network information
To protect the community from fake accounts and people returning after a ban, when you use the app we record a scrambled (hashed) version of your device's app identifier and of your internet address. Our moderation team uses this to spot accounts that may belong to the same person, and to enforce bans on the devices used by banned or suspended accounts. We keep these records for 90 days after they were last used, including after you delete your account, and then delete them.
Where your data is stored
Your account, profile, Moments, messages and the other data described above are stored in the European Union (Frankfurt, Germany). Some of the service providers below are based in, or may process limited data in, other countries such as the United States. When data leaves the EU, we rely on the safeguards in our agreements with those providers, such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.
Service providers
We use these companies to run Hermit Hour. Each only gets the data it needs for its job.
- Supabase: our database, sign-in, and file storage (hosted in the EU, Frankfurt).
- Resend: sending your sign-in codes by email (EU sending region).
- Expo: delivering push notifications (passed on to your phone by Apple or Google) and app updates.
- Cloudflare: the security check on sign-in, and our website's domain and email settings.
- Vercel: hosting our website and moderation tools.
- Sentry: crash and error reports from the app (hosted in the EU). Reports include the technical details of the error and your account's random id, never your name, email, phone number or messages.
- PostHog: anonymous usage analytics, only if you choose to share them (hosted in the EU). Your IP address isn't stored.
- Microsoft: our support mailboxes, if you email us.
The city list in the app comes from GeoNames, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. It's reference data only: nothing about you is sent to GeoNames.
When we share data with others
- With the service providers listed above, only to run Hermit Hour and only on our instructions.
- With police, courts or other authorities, only when the law requires it, or when we believe someone's life or safety is at serious risk.
- If Hermit Hour is sold or merged with another company, your data would move to the new owner under this policy, and we'd tell you before that happens.
How long we keep data
- Your account data is kept while your account is active.
- A Moment's chat becomes read-only 3 days after the Moment. Direct messages are kept while you're both in each other's Circle; if either of you removes or blocks the other, the chat is hidden at once and deleted after 90 days (kept until then only for safety reviews).
- When you delete your account, your profile details and prompts are erased and your name becomes "Deleted user"; so are the meeting points of Moments you hosted and what you entered in Match Me. Messages you sent, and past Moments you hosted, stay under that name, so other people's chats and history still make sense; attendance answers stay without your name. We send one confirmation email to your sign-in address, then erase the address. See Delete Account for the full list.
- Anonymous usage data (only if you shared it) and crash reports carry a random id, never your name or email; ask us and we'll have them deleted with your account.
- Device and network records: 90 days after last use. Refused text: 90 days.
- Notifications in your Inbox, and the records of which notifications were sent: 90 days.
- Reports: 2 years after the report is closed (open reports are kept until they're closed).
- Moderation records (warnings, suspensions, bans and content fixes): 2 years, or for as long as the account is still restricted, suspended or banned, so a ban keeps its reason.
- We may keep something longer if the law requires it or it's needed for a legal claim.
- Our database host keeps backup copies for up to 7 days, so deleted data disappears from backups within that time.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
- give you a copy of your data, in a format you can take elsewhere: download it yourself any time from Account → Download my data. The file has everything we hold about you or that you wrote; it leaves out other people's messages and reports other people made, because those are their data too;
- correct anything that's wrong (most of your profile you can edit yourself in the app);
- delete your data (Account → Delete account, or see Delete Account);
- restrict or stop a use of your data that's based on legitimate interest;
- stop a use you consented to: turn off usage analytics in Account, or notifications in your phone's settings or in Account → Notification preferences.
For anything that isn't in the app, email support@hermithour.com from your account's email address, so we know it's you. We reply within 30 days. If we can't do something, for example because we must keep a record for safety or legal reasons, we'll explain why.
If you're unhappy with how we handled your request, you can complain to the data protection authority in the country where you live or work. We'd appreciate the chance to sort it out with you first.
Children
Hermit Hour is only for people aged 18 and over. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it and delete its data, except what we must keep to protect children (see our Child Safety Standards).
Security
We use access controls so people can only see what this policy describes, and they're enforced by our database, not just by the app. Our team's moderation tools need two-step sign-in. We never store your device identifier or internet address in readable form, and all connections are encrypted. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires. Contact us if you notice a problem.
Storage on your device
The app keeps you signed in and remembers a few settings on your phone, such as your Explore filters and your choice about usage analytics. It has no advertising identifiers or tracking. Our website uses no advertising or analytics cookies.
Changes
If we make significant changes to this policy, we'll tell you in the app before they take effect. The date at the top shows the current version.