Privacy policy
Operator: Akshay Baldia. For privacy, support or grievances, contact akshaybaldia@gmail.com. This policy covers the Hello Strangers Android app (com.akshay.hellostrangers) and its supporting services.
Messages are not end-to-end encrypted. The authorized operator can inspect active and retained ordinary conversations, including conversations that have not been reported. Staff messages are labelled, and privileged access is restricted and audited.
Guest does not mean untraceable. The app uses a persistent internal account identifier. Ordinary conversations have a seven-day retention window; reports, requests, security records and legal holds follow separate rules.
Information we use and why
- Guest account: persistent user ID, generated nickname, consent version, adult declaration, admission and restriction state support access and safety. Ordinary guest entry does not ask for a phone number, email or password.
- Setup and preferences: the required Male/Female choice is stored and cannot be changed for the same guest account through the app. Language, optional interests and country-display preferences support matching. The exact age typed into onboarding is transient screen state, not sent or saved by bootstrap; the adult declaration is recorded.
- Connection country: Cloudflare supplies an approximate network-country signal for India availability and safety. It can be affected by VPNs and routing. Showing a badge to a partner is optional; the availability check still applies. We do not show an IP address, city or distance to a partner.
- Conversations and safety records: messages, Staff messages, reports, explanations, evidence, blocks and appeals support delivery, moderation and investigation. Sessions, matching, usage and audit records support reliability and abuse prevention.
- Requests and support: when you contact us, we use the contact address, reference and information you provide to respond, verify ownership and process corrections, appeals or deletion.
- Advertising: Google AdMob processes device/account identifiers such as advertising ID where available, app/ad interactions, diagnostics and IP-derived general location for advertising, measurement and fraud prevention. Advertising is described below.
The chat features do not request camera, microphone, address-book or GPS access. We do not ask for identity-document uploads. Purchases and subscriptions are disabled; the app does not collect payment-card or bank details.
Who receives information
Your conversation partner receives your messages and the guest details displayed in the chat, and may copy them outside the app. The operator uses restricted tools to moderate and handle requests. Google/Firebase provides authentication, database, hosting and app-integrity services; Cloudflare provides the API and connection-country signal; Google AdMob provides ads and related measurement/security processing.
Our Firestore database is in Mumbai, India. Other provider processing may occur outside India; choosing that database region does not keep every record or service exclusively in India. Providers' terms describe their processing: Firebase privacy and security, Cloudflare privacy policy and Google privacy policy. We may preserve or disclose limited records when required by valid legal process or necessary for a specific safety/security response.
Advertising and choices
The app includes Google AdMob banners only on eligible Discover content. Ads are not placed in private chats, matching, safety warnings or report flows. Our integration requests non-personalized ads; that still involves data collection and sharing. The app does not supply your chat text to AdMob for targeting. Whether an ad is served depends on consent status, availability and Google's review/serving decisions; approval or revenue is not guaranteed.
Required consent messages and the ad-privacy options control are shown when Google's consent system requires them. You can also use Android's advertising-ID controls. These choices do not remove records needed to operate your account or address abuse. See Google's Mobile Ads data disclosure for provider details.
Retention
| Record | Period and exceptions |
|---|---|
| Ordinary conversations | Rooms and messages expire seven days after the room was created. Leaving does not restart that clock. Ordinary access stops at expiry; cleanup runs in bounded batches and may finish later. Scoped legal holds and separate report evidence are exceptions. |
| Reports and evidence | Open reports remain for review. Closed reports and their evidence/notes expire 180 days after closure unless held for a documented reason. |
| Appeals and deletion receipts | Resolved appeals and completed deletion requests expire 180 days after resolution/completion unless held. Open, pending and held cases are retained. Older terminal records without an expiry or explicit hold state require review before removal. |
| Guest account and blocks | Kept while the guest account is in use. Approved deletion removes eligible profile, private admission, block and account-access records. Restricted safety and anti-replay hashes have a 180-day clock; hashes are still protected records. |
| Audit and short-lived records | Application audit events have a 180-day clock. Queue eligibility lasts 90 seconds; chat sessions last up to 30 minutes. Activity/rate records have one-day cleanup clocks and hourly usage records have two-day expiry. Eligibility expiry is different from physical deletion. |
| Support correspondence | Our operating policy is manual deletion of support correspondence and session/contact references 180 days after closure/session, checked weekly, except documented holds. This is not automated deletion from an email provider. |
| Provider logs and backups | Providers process security/operational records under their own service terms and applicable obligations. These are separate from the app's message timer. We do not promise a single expiry for every provider copy or immediate erasure from backups. |
Leaving or uninstalling does not immediately delete server records. Legal holds must be scoped to a documented purpose, kept restricted and reviewed; they do not mean every account is retained forever. Cleanup can be delayed by service limits. Where a previous test or retained purchase record exists, account deletion removes raw purchase tokens/entitlements while a restricted anti-replay hash follows its 180-day clock; this does not enable purchases.
Your controls and requests
You can change matching preferences and country display, leave, block, report, appeal a restriction and request account/data deletion. Use Settings → Request data deletion, or the external deletion page without reinstalling. Contact us for access, correction or another privacy request. We verify ownership proportionately, explain specific retention exceptions and apply the rights and deadlines that apply to the request. We do not ask for passwords, OTPs or identity documents. Optional choices can be changed; stopping optional country display does not stop the required availability check.
Security and children
Service requests use HTTPS. Authentication, app-integrity checks, restricted data rules and staff MFA protect access, but no system prevents every incident. Do not send secrets or sensitive personal details to strangers. The service is for people aged 18 or older; if you suspect a minor or exploitation, use Report or contact us. Read our child-safety standards.
Changes and contact
We update this page when practices change, state the new effective date and seek fresh consent where required. Material changes will be communicated through the app or an appropriate service notice. Privacy/grievance contact: Akshay Baldia — akshaybaldia@gmail.com. Response targets and appeals are on the support page.