interlinked

Privacy Policy

This explains what information interlinked collects about you, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.

Draft — interlinked hasn’t launched yet, and this is still being reviewed. Details in [square brackets] are still to be filled in.

Last updated: [DATE] · Version draft-2-2026-10-03

1. Who we are

interlinked is run by [OPERATOR NAME] (“we”, “us”, “our”). We decide how and why your personal information is used, which makes us the “controller” of it under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

You can contact us about anything in this policy at hello@joininterlinked.com or by post to [POSTAL ADDRESS]. Our registration number with the Information Commissioner’s Office is [ICO REGISTRATION NUMBER].

2. The short version

  • Other members see your first name, your age, your photos and the profile details you choose to add. They never see your surname, email address, date of birth, gender, who you’d like to meet or the age range you’ve chosen.
  • Chats are text only and are stored encrypted. We only look at a chat to deal with a report, to keep someone safe, or when the law requires it.
  • You can change your profile at any time, and delete your account in Settings. Deleting happens straight away; we keep only a small amount of information needed for safety (see section 8).
  • Your information is stored in London, UK. We don’t sell it.

3. The information we collect

Information you give us when you sign up and set up your profile:

  • Your first name, surname, email address and password. Your password is only ever stored in a scrambled form that can’t be turned back into the password; we never see it.
  • Your date of birth, to check you’re 18 or over and to show your age. Once saved, it can’t be changed in the app.
  • Your university email address, and when you verified it. To verify it, we email a 6-digit code to that address. It’s never shown on your profile.
  • Your gender, the genders of the people you’d like to meet, and the age range of people you’d like to see.
  • Your photos (between 2 and 6). Before a photo is uploaded, the app removes hidden details that phone cameras add, such as where the photo was taken.
  • Your interests and your answers to three profile questions (“prompts”).
  • Anything optional you choose to add: a short bio, pronouns, height, job, education, neighbourhood, languages and religion.

Information created when you use interlinked:

  • Who you like and pass on in Discover, and who likes or passes on you.
  • Your links, pending links, when each of you sent your first message, and when and why links end (for example, an unlink or a missed reply).
  • The messages you send and receive, and when you last opened each chat.
  • Whether your account has been paused under the 2-day reply rule, and when you reactivated it.
  • People you block; reports you make; and reports other members make about you, including the reason, any details they give, a copy of your profile as it was at that moment and, where relevant, the chat the report came from.
  • Any action we take on your account, such as hiding it from Discover while reports are reviewed, or a ban.
  • A hidden matching score, worked out from how other members respond to your profile (see section 5).

Technical information:

  • Information our hosting provider records automatically when the app connects to it, such as your IP address, the time and basic details about your device and app. It keeps these records for [LOG PERIOD].
  • A login token stored securely on your phone, so you stay logged in.

ID verification [planned — not live yet]:

  • If you complete an ID check: the result of the check and a reference number from the company that carries it out [provider to be confirmed]. We don’t receive or keep a copy of your ID document.

4. Sensitive information

The law gives extra protection to some kinds of information (“special category data”). On interlinked, this means:

  • your gender and the genders of the people you’d like to meet, which may reveal your sexual orientation; and
  • your religion, if you choose to add it.

We only use this information with your explicit consent, which you give when you sign up. Your gender and who you’d like to meet are used only to decide who you’re shown and who you’re shown to — they never appear on your profile. Religion is optional; if you add it, it appears on your profile, and you can change it to “Prefer not to say” at any time.

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Because interlinked can’t match people without knowing their gender and who they’d like to meet, withdrawing consent for those means deleting your account.

5. How we use your information, and why we’re allowed to

The law requires us to have a valid reason (a “lawful basis”) for each way we use your information:

  • To run interlinked for you — your account, your profile, Discover, links, pending links, chats, the 3-link limit and the 2-day reply rule. Lawful basis: it is necessary to provide the service you’ve asked for (our contract with you), together with your explicit consent for sensitive information.
  • To check you’re a university student, by verifying your university email. Lawful basis: it is necessary to provide the service (interlinked is for university students), and our legitimate interest in keeping interlinked for real students.
  • To decide who appears in your Discover, and in what order (explained below). Lawful basis: our contract with you, and our legitimate interest in showing people profiles they’re likely to want to link with.
  • To keep members safe — handling reports and blocks, hiding profiles while reports are reviewed, banning people who break our rules, stopping banned people from joining again, blocking web links in chats, and limiting how quickly messages and reports can be sent. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in keeping interlinked safe, our legal obligations and, in an emergency, protecting someone’s life.
  • To keep interlinked secure and working properly, and to fix problems. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests.
  • To understand how interlinked is used — for example, how many people use it each day — so we can improve it. We look at counts and trends, not at individual people. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests.
  • To send you emails about your account, such as the codes that confirm your email address, reset your password or verify your university email. We won’t send you marketing without your permission. Lawful basis: our contract with you.
  • To show adverts [planned], such as the short advert you watch to reactivate a paused account. Lawful basis: [to be confirmed — consent will be asked for where the law requires].
  • To meet our legal obligations and respond to lawful requests from the police, courts or regulators. Lawful basis: legal obligation.

How matching works. Discover only shows people whose gender and age suit your choices, and whose choices you suit. Profiles that share more interests with you come first. We also give every member a hidden score, worked out automatically from how other members respond to their profile (their likes and passes, adjusted so that no single person has too much influence). Most of the profiles you’re shown have a score close to yours, with some higher, some lower and some chosen at random, so you see a range of people. Nobody — including you — can see anyone’s score.

This is a type of “profiling”. It decides the order in which profiles are shown to you and to others; it doesn’t stop you from using interlinked, and you can like anyone who appears. You can ask us about it, or object to it, using the contact details in section 1.

6. Who can see your information

Other members, when they’re logged in, can see your public profile: your first name, age, photos, bio, prompts and interests, any of these you choose to add — pronouns, height, job, education, neighbourhood, languages and religion — and a “verified” badge if you’ve passed an ID check. Members you’ve blocked, or who have blocked you, can’t see you.

People you’re linked with see the messages you send them. If a link ends, the chat disappears from both of your apps.

Other members never see your surname, email address, date of birth, gender, who you’d like to meet, your age range, your university email, your matching score, or whether anyone has reported you. When you block or report someone, they aren’t told.

The interlinked team: access to members’ information is limited to what’s needed to run and protect the service. We read a chat only when it has been reported, when we need to protect someone’s safety, or when the law requires it.

Companies that help us run interlinked (“processors”). They may only use your information on our instructions:

  • Supabase — hosts our database, login system and photo storage. Your information is stored in Supabase’s London (UK) data centre.
  • [Planned] Google AdMob — shows adverts.
  • [Planned] An ID verification company [to be confirmed].
  • Resend — delivers our emails, such as sign-up, password-reset and university-email codes [where it processes data to be confirmed].
  • [Planned] Expo, Apple and Google — deliver notifications to your phone.

The police, courts or regulators, if the law requires it, or if we believe it’s necessary to prevent serious harm to someone.

If interlinked is sold or reorganised, a buyer or successor, who would have to respect this policy.

We do not sell your personal information.

7. Where your information is stored

Your information is stored in the United Kingdom (London). Some of our providers are based outside the UK — for example, Supabase is a US company — and may access it from abroad, for example to provide support. When this happens, we make sure your information is protected by safeguards recognised under UK law, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum [to be confirmed against each provider’s data processing agreement].

8. How long we keep your information

  • While you have an account, we keep your profile and activity so that interlinked works.
  • Codes we email you expire after 15 minutes (or an hour, for sign-up and password-reset codes) and can only be used once.
  • Chats are kept, encrypted, while both people still have their accounts — including after a link ends, so that a conversation can still be reviewed if it’s reported. They are deleted when either person deletes their account, except as explained below.
  • When you delete your account, it is deleted straight away from our live systems: your profile, photos, links, chats, likes and passes, blocks and settings. Copies in our backups are deleted within [BACKUP PERIOD, e.g. 7 days].
  • Reports, including the copy of the reported profile, are kept for [REPORT RETENTION PERIOD] after the report is closed. If an account involved is deleted, the report is no longer linked to it.
  • If a chat has been reported, and the report is still open or led to a ban, an encrypted copy of that chat is kept with the report when an account in it is deleted, so it can still be reviewed.
  • If someone who has been banned deletes their account, we keep a one-way “fingerprint” of their email address — not the address itself, and it can’t be turned back into it — so the same address can’t be used to join again. We keep this for [FINGERPRINT RETENTION PERIOD].
  • Usage statistics are kept, but no longer linked to you.

9. How we protect your information

  • Everything sent between the app and our servers is encrypted (HTTPS).
  • Our database and photo storage are encrypted. Chat messages are additionally encrypted with AES-256, using a key kept in a separate, locked key store.
  • Photos are private files with no public web address. To show one, the app asks for a temporary link, which only logged-in members can get and which stops working after an hour.
  • Strict access rules in the database mean each member can only reach the information they’re allowed to see.
  • Your password is never stored in a readable form.

No system can be completely secure. If a security breach affects your information, we’ll tell you and the Information Commissioner’s Office where the law requires.

10. Your rights

You have the right to:

  • get a copy of the information we hold about you;
  • have it corrected — you can change most of it yourself in Edit profile and Settings;
  • have it deleted — you can delete your account at any time in Settings → Delete account;
  • ask us to limit how we use it, or object to how we use it (including the matching score);
  • receive the information you gave us in a format you can take elsewhere; and
  • withdraw your consent at any time (see section 4).

To use any of these rights, contact us at hello@joininterlinked.com. We’ll reply within one month. We may need to check it’s really you first.

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please tell us first so we can try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113).

11. Age limit

interlinked is only for people aged 18 or over. We ask for your date of birth when you set up your account, and don’t allow anyone under 18 to finish signing up. If we learn that someone under 18 is using interlinked, we will remove their account. If you think a member is under 18, please report them in the app.

12. Information stored on your phone

The app stores a login token in your phone’s secure storage so you stay logged in, plus a few settings it needs to work. These are strictly necessary for the service, so we don’t ask permission for them. We don’t currently use advertising trackers. [If adverts are introduced, the advertising company may store and read information on your phone; we’ll ask for your permission where the law requires.]

13. Changes to this policy

We’ll update this policy when interlinked changes. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when it was last updated.

14. Contact us

Email hello@joininterlinked.com or by post to [POSTAL ADDRESS].