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Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

MateOn helps adults find people for real activities like chess, cycling, running, walks and climbing. This policy explains what personal data we process when you use MateOn, why and on what legal basis, who receives it, how long we keep it and what your rights are.

Last updated: October 13, 2026

What This Policy Covers

This policy applies when you use MateOn on the web at mateon.app, and in the MateOn mobile apps once they are released. MateOn is operated by POLPROG, the data controller. We run our own backend, so your data is processed on infrastructure we control rather than handed to a third-party platform.

MateOn is a platform that helps adults find each other for shared activities. It does not organize or supervise meetings: members decide for themselves whether and how to meet. To make that possible, we process the profile you choose to share, your approximate location and what you do in the app. We collect only what the service needs.

This policy informs you about how we process your personal data. It is not a contract and not a consent form: when you sign up, you accept the Terms of Service and the Community Guidelines, and you confirm that you have read this policy.

Data Controller

MateOn is operated by POLPROG, acting as the data controller. You can reach us about privacy at [email protected]. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer, as we are not required to under Article 37 GDPR; privacy requests are handled at the contact address above.

POLPROG Damian Skrzyński · NIP 9211929080 · REGON 369055647 · ul. Kościuszki 57A, 22-600 Tomaszów Lubelski

Data We Collect

  • Account: your email address and a password you choose (stored only as a salted hash, never in readable form), or, when you sign in with Google, the identifier, email address and name Google gives us. We never see your Google password.
  • Date of birth: to confirm you are at least 18. Other members see only your age, and only if you allow it.
  • Profile: your nickname, profile photo, optional bio, city and country, languages, the activities you are open to, and your preferences, skill level and availability.
  • Location: if you allow it, your browser or device determines your position, and MateOn reduces it to an approximate area (about 1 km) before sending it to us. Our servers keep only that approximate area. Without the permission we use the city in your profile or the city you search in. We never store or share your exact GPS coordinates.
  • Activity data: the activities you post, including any place you name in them, your likes, super likes and passes, and the matches that result.
  • Activity plans: the activity invites you exchange with people you match with, including the time, meeting place, optional link and note you add.
  • Notifications and devices: your notification choices, the notifications MateOn shows you in the app and, in the mobile apps once released, a push notification token and your device language, so notifications reach you in your language.
  • Legal records: which versions of the Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy you accepted or acknowledged, your confirmation that you are at least 18 and your safety acknowledgement, with the date, the time and the step at which you gave them.
  • Safety and moderation: reports and blocks you make or that concern you, including a copy of the reported profile, activity or plan as it was when it was reported, the internal trust and safety signals described below, records of moderation decisions about your account, and limited audit records of sensitive actions such as account deletion.
  • Technical data: when the web app runs into an error, a report with the type of error, the screen and the app version, with personal details such as names, emails and locations removed; and the server records we need to keep the service secure, such as the IP address a request comes from when we use it to limit abuse.
  • Usage records: when you last used MateOn, the days on which you used it, and a record of the actions you take in the app, such as signing up, blocking someone or changing a setting, with the time and whether the action succeeded. Only our team can see them.
  • Messages to us: if you write to us, your email address and what you tell us.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.

Why We Use Your Data and Our Legal Bases

We process your data only for the purposes below, each on a legal basis set out in the GDPR:

  • Providing MateOn under our agreement with you (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR): creating and securing your account, keeping you signed in, showing your profile and activities to other members, finding people near you, likes, matches and plans, the notifications you choose, the copy of your data you can download, and deleting your account when you ask.
  • Checking that members are adults (Article 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR): your date of birth and your confirmation that you are at least 18.
  • Using your device location (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR, your consent): only when you allow location access. You can withdraw it at any time in your browser or device settings, and MateOn then uses your city instead.
  • Keeping records of what you accepted (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR): so that we can show which version of each document you accepted or acknowledged, and when.
  • Keeping MateOn safe and enforcing our rules (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, and Article 6(1)(c) GDPR where the law requires it): handling reports and blocks, the internal trust and safety signals, reviewing content and accounts, moderation decisions and requests to review them, and preventing fraud, spam and other abuse.
  • Keeping the service secure and working (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR): security measures, limits on repeated requests, an automated human check at sign-up where we use one, server records and error reports.
  • Keeping usage records (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR): to look into abuse and errors, keep the service secure and count how many people use MateOn each day.
  • Sending service news (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR): occasional announcements about MateOn itself, which you can switch off in Settings.
  • Complying with the law and handling legal claims (Article 6(1)(c) and (f) GDPR): for example, preserving evidence about child safety, answering lawful requests from authorities and keeping the records we need in a dispute.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, they are our interest, and that of our members, in a safe, working and trustworthy service for adults who meet in person. You can object to this processing, as described under Your Privacy Rights. We do not ask for a general consent to process your data, and no part of MateOn depends on a consent the service does not need.

We do not send marketing messages. If we ever want to, we will first ask for your separate, optional consent, and saying no will not affect your use of MateOn.

Signing in

You can create an account with your email address and a password, or sign in with Google. For an email account we store your address and a salted hash of your password, never the password itself, and we email you a link to confirm the address and, when you ask for it, a link to reset your password or a reminder of how you sign in. The first name you enter when signing up is used only to greet you in that email and is not stored. With Google we receive a stable Google account identifier and, where Google provides them, your email address and name. We use the identifier to recognize your account; we do not receive your Google password or access to anything else in your Google account.

If the iOS app offers Sign in with Apple and you use it, we receive a stable Apple identifier and, if you choose to share them, your email address, which may be an Apple relay address, and your name. We keep the token Apple gives us only so that we can revoke MateOn's access when you delete your account.

Signing in sets one strictly necessary cookie on mateon.app that keeps you signed in. It is limited to MateOn's sign-in service, cannot be read by scripts on the page, and is removed when you sign out. Signing out on all devices, or deleting your account, ends every session at once.

Location Data

MateOn is built around meeting people nearby, so location matters. If you allow it, your browser or device determines your position and MateOn reduces it to an approximate area (about 1 km) before sending it; our servers keep only that approximate area. MateOn asks for your location only when you choose to share it, and explains why first. Without the permission, MateOn uses the city in your profile or the city you search in. Other members only ever see a distance in whole kilometres or your city, depending on your privacy settings, and never your coordinates. You control this in the app:

  • Turn discovery on or off
  • Hide your approximate distance from others
  • Hide your city
  • Hide your age
  • Limit yourself to online or in-person activities

When you type a city or a place, our server looks it up with the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service; only the text you typed is sent, never your identity or your location. A place you name in an activity is shown to members who can see that activity, and the meeting point of a plan only to the person you plan with. You can use MateOn for online activities only, without sharing location, and you can turn the location permission off at any time in your browser or device settings. Turning location off limits matching, since MateOn cannot suggest nearby people without a rough idea of where you are.

What Other People Can See

The point of MateOn is to connect you with others, so some of your data is shown to other members. While you are visible in discovery, which is the default, members can see the activities you post, with your nickname and photo, and can open your profile: your nickname, photo, bio, languages, activities and, depending on your privacy settings, your city, age and approximate distance. If you hide yourself from discovery, only people you have matched with can open your profile, although a person you like still sees your nickname and photo in the notification about your like. Nobody can see your email address, your date of birth, your exact location or your Google account.

A person you report is not told who reported them, and a person you block is not notified.

Internal Trust and Safety Signals

To help us notice accounts that may need a closer look, MateOn calculates internal trust and safety signals for each account from information we already hold: how long the account has existed, whether its email address is confirmed or it signs in with Google, whether it has a profile photo and a complete profile, whether it passed the human check, reports from different people and blocks in the last 90 days, unusually fast liking, and earlier moderation decisions. From these signals the system derives a score and a level that tell us whether an account may need a review.

These signals are internal. They are never shown to other members, they are not a public rating, and they do not verify anyone's identity. They never restrict, suspend or remove an account by themselves: any such decision is taken by a person who looks at the account and the facts behind the signals. We rely on our legitimate interest in keeping the community safe (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). The assessment is recalculated as the account is used and is deleted with the account, and you can ask us about it or object to it at any time.

Apart from applying the age rule (an account where a date of birth under 18 is entered is locked) and technical limits such as limits on repeated requests, no decision about you is made by automated means alone. If you think the age lock was applied by mistake, write to us and a person will look at it.

Notifications and Emails

The web app shows new likes, matches and plans inside MateOn while it is open, and does not send push notifications. In the MateOn mobile apps, once released, if you allow notifications we register a device token with Apple Push Notification service (APNs) or Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), with your device language, to alert you about likes, matches, plans, reminders and MateOn announcements. You choose which of these you receive in Settings, and you can turn notifications off entirely in your device settings. Notices about your account and its safety are always sent.

We email you only about your account: to confirm your address, to reset your password or remind you how you sign in, and to answer you or tell you about decisions concerning your account.

Adding Plans to Your Calendar

If you add a plan to Google Calendar or Outlook, MateOn opens that service with the activity, the time, the place and a link to the plan, and that service then processes them under its own privacy policy. If you download the calendar file instead, it stays on your device. The event never names the other person.

Service Providers and Other Recipients

MateOn relies on a small set of providers, each receiving only what its job needs:

  • our hosting provider, which runs the servers in the European Union where your data is stored
  • Cloudflare, which protects and delivers our website and API and so carries your traffic, including your IP address, on its way to our servers; it can also provide a human check (Turnstile) at sign-up
  • Cloudflare also forwards the emails you send to [email protected] to our mailbox at Google (Gmail), and stores our encrypted backups in the European Union
  • Google, for signing in with Google
  • Resend, for sending account emails such as address confirmation and password reset links, and service alerts to our team
  • Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging, for notifications in the mobile apps once released
  • the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service, which receives only the place names typed into a search, without anything that identifies you

Other members see what is described under What Other People Can See. We disclose data to authorities only when the law requires it, for example in response to a valid order, or when it is necessary to protect someone's life or safety. We do not integrate advertising networks or third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.

International Data Transfers

We host MateOn on infrastructure in the European Union. However, some of the third parties that make the app work are based outside the European Economic Area, mainly in the United States:

  • Google (Google Sign-In, Gmail, where the emails you send us are kept, and Firebase Cloud Messaging in the Android app once released)
  • Resend (account emails such as address confirmation and password reset links)
  • Apple (Apple Push Notification service in the iOS app once released)
  • Cloudflare (security and content delivery in front of our website and API)

Where data is transferred outside the EEA, the transfer relies on an adequacy decision of the European Commission, such as the one for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, or on appropriate safeguards under the GDPR, such as the Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. Each provider receives only what its function needs: Resend receives your email address for an account email, Google a sign-in request and the emails you send us, Apple and Google a push token and the notification, and Cloudflare carries your traffic to our servers and may briefly cache public files, such as profile photos, to deliver them faster.

Cookies and Local Storage

The MateOn website and web app (mateon.app) do not use tracking or advertising cookies and do not run analytics. Signing in sets one strictly necessary cookie that keeps you signed in, described under Signing in. We keep a few preferences in your browser's local storage: your theme, your language, that you have seen the cookie notice and, in the web app, your discovery filters. They stay on your device. The sign-in page loads Google's sign-in service, and the sign-up page may load Cloudflare's human check; each runs under its provider's own privacy policy. MateOn contains no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking SDKs.

How Long We Keep Data

We keep your data while your account exists. You can delete your account at any time in Settings. When you do:

  • You are signed out on every device at once and disappear from discovery and matching immediately
  • We delete your personal data: your sign-in details (your email address and password hash, or your Google sign-in link), date of birth, nickname, profile photo, bio, city, location, languages, activities, swipes, matches and plans, settings, device tokens and internal trust assessment
  • Uploaded photos are deleted from our storage

What remains is an anonymous record that the account existed, without your name, email address, date of birth or any identifier from Google, so that safety and legal records stay consistent. Reports you made keep their reason but lose your own words. Reports about you lose the copy of your content, except reports about child safety, whose evidence we keep for as long as the law requires. Records of moderation decisions about the account and of the document versions it accepted stay without your identity. Security and error records are kept without a link to you for as long as they are needed to keep the service secure and working. Backups used for disaster recovery are kept for up to 14 days, after which deleted data no longer exists in any backup, and copies of profile photos cached by our content delivery network expire within a day. The Account Deletion page describes the same process step by step.

If you sign in but never accept the Terms of Service and never finish setting up your account, and then do not sign in again for 30 days, we delete that account in the same way. If a date of birth under 18 is entered, the account is locked and cannot be used; we keep only what is needed to keep it locked, and it can be deleted on request.

Some records have a fixed lifetime even while your account exists: we keep the record of your actions in the app for 90 days, the days on which you used MateOn and other account events for 13 months, and security records, such as the IP addresses of requests, for 90 days.

We back up MateOn's data every night. Backups are encrypted before they leave our server, are stored with Cloudflare in the European Union and are kept for up to 14 days, so data you delete can remain in a backup until then. We restore a backup only to recover from a failure, never to bring deleted data back. Emails you send us are kept for three years after your matter is closed, in case of related claims.

Your Privacy Rights

Under the GDPR you can ask for access to your data and a copy of it, have it corrected or deleted, restrict its processing, receive the data you gave us in a portable format, and object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including the internal trust and safety signals. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting the processing before. You can do most of this directly in the app: edit your profile, change your privacy and notification settings, download a copy of your data in Settings, or delete your account. The download contains the data you gave us and your activity; for a full copy of everything we hold, including internal safety records about your account, or for anything else, write to [email protected]. We reply within one month, as the GDPR requires.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority, in particular in the country where you live or work. In Poland, that is the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Danych Osobowych, uodo.gov.pl).

US state privacy rights (California / CCPA & CPRA)

If you are a US resident, MateOn provides you with the rights to know and access the personal information we hold about you, to delete it, to correct it, and to opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information. We extend these rights to all US residents, not only those in California.

MateOn does not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising as those terms are defined by the CCPA and CPRA. We use no advertising or analytics SDKs, so there is nothing to opt out of, but you can still exercise the opt-out right at any time.

MateOn does not collect precise geolocation: your location is reduced to an approximate area (about 1 km) in your browser or app before it reaches us, our servers keep only that approximate area, and it is used only to provide the matching service.

You can exercise these rights the same way as under the GDPR section above: most are available directly in the app by editing your profile or deleting your account, and for anything else you can contact us using the details below. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

Security

Passwords are stored only as salted hashes, never in readable form, and we never handle your Google password. Your session uses short-lived access tokens and a sign-in cookie that scripts on the page cannot read, and signing out ends them at once. Connections are protected with TLS. Uploaded photos are checked for malware and stripped of hidden metadata, such as the place a photo was taken, before they are stored. Your data is stored on infrastructure we control in the European Union, and access to the back office is restricted and audited. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to limit what we collect and to safeguard what we hold.

Children's Privacy

MateOn is only for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to use it, because the app helps arrange meetings with other people, sometimes in person. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. A sign-up with a date of birth under 18 is refused, and an account where a date of birth under 18 is entered is locked and cannot be used. If you believe a minor is using MateOn, report the account in the app or write to [email protected].

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy when MateOn or the law changes. We will post the new version at this address with a new date. When a change is significant, we will tell you in the app and ask you to read the updated policy before you continue.

Contact

Questions about your privacy or this policy? Contact us at [email protected].

Questions? Email us at [email protected]