InterPals Privacy Policy

This policy covers how InterPals ("InterPals.net," "we," "us," or "our") treats personal information that it collects and receives on www.InterPals.net. This notice tells you what information we collect, steps we take to protect and secure it, how we use and share information, and finally, how you can contact us with questions or concerns.

 

1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

1.1 InterPals collects personal information when you register with us, use Interpals products or services or post content on a InterPals site.

1.2 InterPals may also collect personal information when you enter into promotions or sweepstakes.

1.3 InterPals may combine information about you that we have with information we obtain from business partners or others.

1.4 InterPals may also collect information about your transactions with us and with some of our business partners. This information might include information necessary to process payments due to us from you such as your credit card number.

1.5 InterPals may automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address, cookies, and the pages you request.

1.6 InterPals uses information for the following general purposes: products and services provision, billing, identification and authentication, services improvement, contact, research, and anonymous reporting.

1.7 InterPals may also automatically collect technical and usage information about your device, your browser and the way you interact with the site and its features. This may include aggregate and derived measurements produced from that activity. We use this information to operate, secure and improve the service, to keep the community safe, and to detect and prevent fraud and abuse. It is retained for a limited period and then deleted.

 

2. IP ADDRESS

InterPals may occasionally obtain IP addresses from users depending upon how you access our web sites. IP addresses, browser and session information may be used for various purposes, including to:

2.1 Diagnose and prevent service or technology problems reported by our users or engineers that are associated with the IP addresses controlled by a specific web company or ISP.

2.2 Estimate the total number of users visiting InterPals.net's web sites from specific geographical regions.

2.3 Help determine which users have access privileges to certain content, services or resources that we offer.

2.4 Monitor and prevent fraud and abuse.

2.5 Provide more relevant advertisements to you.

 

3. COOKIES

3.1 A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a web site's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive.

3.2 If you reject all cookies, you may not be able to use Interpals services or products that require you to "sign in" and you may not be able to take full advantage of all offerings.

3.3 You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies or notify you when a cookie is set.

3.4 InterPals uses its own cookies for a number of purposes, including to:

- Require you to re-enter your password after a certain period of time has elapsed to protect you against others accidentally accessing your account contents.

- Keep track of preferences you specify while you are using the InterPals.net Sites, Products and Services.

- Estimate and report our total audience size and traffic.

- Conduct research to improve the content and services provided on the InterPals.net Sites, Products and Services.

- Ensure that visitors are not repeatedly offered the same advertisements and to customize advertising based on browser type and user profile information.

3.5 InterPals.net lets other entities that show advertisements or provide services on some of our web pages set and access their cookies on your computer. Other entities' use of their cookies is subject to their own privacy policies, and not this policy. Advertisers or other entities do not have access to InterPals.net's cookies.

 

4. INFORMATION RELATING TO CHILDREN

4.1 Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. For that reason, InterPals does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information through the InterPals web site from persons under 13 years of age, and no part of InterPals service is directed to persons under 13.

4.2 If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use or access the InterPals service or web site at any time or in any manner.

 

5. INFORMATION USE, SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

5.1 InterPals does not share personal information we learn about you from your use of the InterPals web sites, products and services with others except as described in this policy.

5.2 When you provide personal information through using InterPals you are however sharing your personal information with InterPals.net and its affiliated entities. The use of your personal information by these organizations is subject to this policy.

5.3 We do not share your information with unrelated third parties for their direct marketing purposes. However, InterPals may display targeted advertisements based on personally non-identifiable information (such as browser type and IP address) and/or personal selection (See the Section entitled Third Party Advertising below for more information on how your information is shared with advertisers).

5.4 InterPals may use or share your personal information where it is necessary to complete a transaction, to operate or improve the InterPals products and services, to do something that you have asked us to do, or tell you of products and services that we think may be of interest.

5.5 From time to time, InterPals.net or a partner, may sponsor a promotion, sweepstake or contest on InterPals. You may be asked to provide personal information including name, email address or home address or to answer questions in order to participate. InterPals.net may transfer personal information to certain advertising partners that you have explicitly requested to receive information from. It will be clear at the point of collection who is collecting the personal information and whose privacy statement will apply.

5.6 Where you are contacted with an offer or service based on information you have shared with InterPals, we will do our best to provide you with an opportunity to opt-out of receiving such further communications at the time you are contacted, however, in connection with any of our paid products and services (i.e., products or services that you license or use for a fee), we reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to those products and services, such as service announcements, and administrative messages, that are considered part of your InterPals.net account, without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving them.

5.7 When you register for InterPals, InterPals.net collects user-submitted account information such as name, email address and age to identify users and send notifications related to the use of the service. InterPals.net also collects user-submitted profile information, including additional contact information, location, biographical information and photos. This additional profile information will assist other users in finding and communicating with you.

5.8 InterPals will display your "Display Name" on your profile. InterPals will display your name and any other user-submitted profile information on your profile according to the preferences you set in your account.

5.9 Email addresses and full names may be used when a user invites a friend via email to join InterPals and when InterPals sends notifications to a user related to their use of InterPals.

5.10 When you post a message on a InterPals Site, you have the ability to post a message which may include personally identifiable information about yourself.

5.11 If you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

5.12 InterPals.net may share personally identifiable information about you under the following circumstances:

5.13 In the course of operating our business it may be necessary or appropriate for us to provide access to your personal information to others such as our service providers, contractors and select vendors so that we can operate InterPals and our business.

5.14 We may share your personal information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, to establish or exercise our legal rights or, defend against legal claims and if in our judgment in such circumstances disclosure is required or appropriate.

5.15 We may share your personal information if we believe it is necessary in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our various terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.

5.16 As we continue to develop our business, we may also buy or sell all or part of our business. In such transactions, personally identifiable information you have shared with us is generally one of the business assets that will be transferred. The transferred personally identifiable information will remain subject to the promises made in this privacy policy or subsequent policies to which you have consented.

5.17 If you allow location access in your browser or device settings, Interpals collects the approximate location of your device when you sign up and while you use the service. Before we store or use it, we move it to the centre of a grid square of about 2 km. We also record the accuracy that your device reports, the location that your IP address indicates, and whether your device reports a simulated location. Our app and website ask your device for it about every 3 hours while you use the service. For accounts younger than 14 days, and for members in South Korea or mainland China, they ask for it about once every 7 days.

We use this information to show members near you, to show a more accurate distance between you and other members, to suggest your city, and to keep the community safe by detecting fake or fraudulent profiles, for example by comparing the location of your device with the city in your profile. The distance feature is part of the service that we provide to you, so we process your location for it to perform our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR). We process it for safety and fraud detection on the basis of our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Your distance point. Distance between members is measured from a distance point, which is the centre of your city by default. If you are 18 or older, your account is at least 14 days old, and you are not in South Korea or mainland China, your distance point can move to the centre of the grid square where your device usually is. The square is about 2, 4 or 8 km wide, and we only use a square where at least 10,000 people live. In areas with fewer people, your distance point does not move to a square there. The point moves when your device is in a new square on two occasions at least 12 hours apart, for example after an overnight stay, and at most once a day.

Other members never see the location of your device. They see an approximate distance, such as "~35 km away", "Nearby" or "Same city", and search results can show members in order of distance. From this, another member can find out which grid square holds your distance point, and whether you allow location access. If you use Interpals mostly at work, your distance point can be in the square of your workplace. Our moderators can see the approximate device locations (to about 2 km) that we keep for safety. Members under 18 always have the centre of their city as their distance point.

Location access is optional, and you can use Interpals without it. To stop us using the location of your device, turn off location access for Interpals in your browser or device settings. Your distance point then stops moving. It goes back to the centre of your city after about 30 days, or at once when you change your city yourself. If you use a VPN, your distance point may not change.

Your distance point goes back to the centre of your city when we receive no location that we can confirm inside the square of your distance point for about 30 days. We delete the location observations that we keep for safety after 180 days. Our database backups keep copies for up to 15 days.

We never send the location of your device to analytics or advertising partners. To find the grid squares where at least 10,000 people live, we use population data from the European Commission, Joint Research Centre: Schiavina M., Freire S., Carioli A., MacManus K. (2023): GHS-POP R2023A - GHS population grid multitemporal (1975-2030), doi:10.2905/2FF68A52-5B5B-4A22-8F40-C41DA8332CFE, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). We changed the data by adding up the residents in each grid square.

5.18 A copy of some notification emails we send to adult members may be delivered to Trustpilot, an independent review platform, so that it can send a one-time review invitation. That copy includes your email address and the content of the notification, such as the name of the member who contacted you. You can opt out with the unsubscribe link in the invitation, or prevent these copies entirely by turning off message notification emails in your settings. Trustpilot processes this information under its own privacy policy.

 

6. THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING

6.1 Advertisements appearing on the InterPals.net Sites, Product or Services may be delivered to users by InterPals.net or one of our Web advertising partners. Our Web advertising partners may set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. In this way, ad servers may compile information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This privacy policy covers the use of cookies by InterPals.net and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

6.2 InterPals.net does not share any personally identifiable information with advertisers. InterPals.net may share general demographic information (such as aggregated statistics about members' interests and occupations) and non-personally identifiable information (such as browser type and IP addresses) with advertisers and partners. InterPals.net does not give advertisers access to your individual personal account information. However, by selecting, interacting with or viewing an ad you are consenting to the possibility that the advertiser will make the assumption that you meet the targeting criteria used to display the ad.

6.3 We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

 

7. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

InterPals.net may revise, modify or update this policy. We may notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your particular InterPals.net account or by placing a prominent notice on our site. You are encouraged to check this policy frequently for any changes as your continued use of the InterPals service indicates your consent to such changes.

 

8. CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECURITY

8.1 No data transmissions over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we take reasonable measures to secure it on our systems.

8.2 If InterPals.net learns of a security systems breach we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. By using InterPals or providing personal information to us you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy and administrative issues relating to your use of those sites, products and services. We may post a notice on our applicable web sites if a security breach occurs. If this happens, you will need a web browser enabling you to view the applicable web sites. We may also send an email to you at the email address you have provided to us in these circumstances. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing. To receive free written notice of a security breach (or to withdraw your consent from receiving electronic notice) you should notify us at [email protected].

 

9. CHANGING YOUR PREFERENCES AND PERSONAL INFORMATION

9.1 You can edit your account information with InterPals at any time. Most personal information you may provide is entirely optional. For example, to the extent that parents are considering whether to permit their children to use Interpals, we do not condition a child's participation based upon their provision of any more personal information than is necessary to operate those sites, products and services.

9.2 You can delete your applicable account by visiting the applicable account deletion page; however, please note that some personal information, primarily your contact information, may remain in our records to the extent necessary to protect our legal interests or document compliance with regulatory requirements.

 

10. PERSONAL DATA PROCESSING AND DELETION

10.1 Interpals collects personal user data when a user creates or edits an account. This information includes name, birthday, gender, current city, hometown, email address and other data voluntarily supplied by the user including photographs and description text. This data is stored on Interpals servers and a subset of it is made public to other users on the site via a user's public profile. Non-public data including email and passwords are used for authentication purposes and for notifications. Section 5.17 describes how we collect and use the location of your device.

10.2 In compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR), at a user's request, Interpals will delete all user data from its servers. To request data deletion, a user must send an email to [email protected] requesting "Permanent data deletion" and including the username of the profile in question. If the email is received from an email address other than the one used to register the account, supplemental identity verification will be required.

 

11. INTERNATIONAL USERS

The InterPals web site is hosted in the US and is intended for and directed to users around the world. If you are accessing this web site from the European Union, Asia, or any other region with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure, that differ from US laws, please be advised that through your continued use of this web site, which is governed by US law, this privacy policy, and our Terms of Service, you are transferring your personal information to US and you consent to that transfer.

 

12. PHOTO VERIFICATION AND FACE DATA

12.1 InterPals offers optional photo verification in the mobile apps. If you use it, we collect an image of your face and the result of the check.

12.2 A third-party service provider carries out the check for us. It confirms a live person is present and compares your face with your profile photos. We use the image to check your profile photos and Verified badge. Authorized moderators can also review images from failed attempts to investigate fake accounts and abuse. We do not sell it or use it for advertising. We do not create or store a face template or faceprint.

12.3 We store verification images privately with encryption. We keep images from failed attempts for 90 days. We keep a successful reference image until you verify successfully again, delete your account, or do not sign in for one year. Account deletion also removes failed-attempt images. Records kept after account deletion do not include images.

12.4 Photo verification is voluntary and happens only after you consent in the app. You can withdraw consent at any time by writing to us at [email protected]. We will then delete the image and remove the badge. Section 10 describes your other data rights.

12.5 If the check finds that your face does not match your profile photos, we make that result available to our automated safety systems for 14 days. Our automated safety systems, which include third-party AI service providers, may use the result to help detect fake accounts. They receive the result only, never the image or the match scores. The result is one signal among others and is never by itself grounds for action against your account.

 

13. PHONE VERIFICATION

13.1 We may ask some accounts to verify a phone number. We do this to stop fake and scam accounts. Our automated systems choose these accounts from signals that suggest a fake account. A moderator can also ask an account to verify. Until such an account verifies, it cannot send messages, reactions, friend requests or likes. It also cannot post, comment, start calls or create groups. Members under 18 need to verify only to create groups or to post, comment or like in groups.

13.2 When our systems ask an account to verify, we store a risk score and the reasons for the request, whether or not the account verifies. If you verify, we collect your phone number and the country of the number. We also keep a record of each verification step. A record holds the time, the method you used, your app platform and version, the country of your IP address and the countries in your profile. We store your number in encrypted form. We also store a code made from the number with a secret key. The code lets us find accounts that share a number without reading the number. For numbers that start with +1, we also store the line type, such as mobile or landline, and the name of the carrier.

13.3 Your number goes to the provider of the method you choose:

- Text message: the app or site sends your number to Google Firebase, which sends you the code.

- WhatsApp code: we send your number to Meta, which delivers the code on WhatsApp.

- WhatsApp message to us: you send a code to our WhatsApp number, and Meta gives us your number with your message.

- Telegram: you share your contact with our Telegram bot, and Telegram gives us your number.

For numbers that start with +1, we also send your number to Twilio to find the line type and carrier.

13.4 Our moderators can see the risk score and its reasons, the country of a verified number and which other accounts verified the same number. For numbers that start with +1, they can also see the line type and carrier. A moderator can also view the full number. We record each time a moderator views it. Our automated safety systems, which include third-party AI service providers, receive the country of the number, whether it matches the countries in your profile or of your IP address, and how many active and deleted accounts verified the same number. They never receive the number itself or the code made from it. Our automated safety systems also use the line type to flag accounts with virtual numbers for a closer review.

13.5 We keep your verification record while your account exists. We keep the records of verification steps for 400 days. If your account is deleted, we keep the verification record and the encrypted number, so that the account can be restored and our moderators can review it. If your data is permanently deleted under section 10.2, we delete your verification record and step records. We also delete the encrypted number, its line type and its carrier, unless another account, including a deleted one, still uses the same number. We keep the code made from the number, the date it was verified and a count of the accounts that verified it or were deleted. We use them to detect a number that returns after fake accounts are removed.

 

14. AGE AND PARENTAL CONSENT INFORMATION FROM APPLE

14.1 In the InterPals app on an Apple device, you can choose to share your age range with us. Sharing is optional. If you share it, Apple gives us your age range and the source of that information. The source shows, for example, whether you or a parent or guardian declared your age. Apple does not give us your exact birthday through this feature.

14.2 We use your age range to apply age-appropriate limits on features and on who can contact you. Our automated systems and our moderators may also review it, for example when it does not match the birthday on your profile. Authorized service providers may help us with this review. Sharing your age range does not verify your identity or add a badge to your profile.

14.3 Apple can also tell us the parental consent status for your use of the InterPals app on an Apple device. We receive this status automatically. It is separate from the optional age range sharing. To link the status to the InterPals account you are signed in to, we use an identifier that Apple issues for your copy of the app. We verify that this identifier comes from Apple. This does not require a purchase and does not verify your identity. We do not store the signed app receipt from Apple. If Apple tells us that a parent or guardian withdrew consent, we pause contact on the InterPals accounts linked to that status, on all devices. You can still correct your birthday and contact support. A birthday correction does not change the consent status.

14.4 We keep the age range information we receive from Apple for 90 days. We keep the decisions we make from it for 400 days. If a review of your account is still open, we keep the minimum information that the review needs. We delete it when the review ends or when we erase your account data.

14.5 We keep the identifier and consent status as needed to honor parental consent. We remove the link to your account when we erase your account data. We keep consent notification records for 400 days.

 

15. CONTACTING INTERPALS.NET

If you have a privacy concern regarding InterPals, or this policy, and if you cannot satisfactorily resolve it through the use of those sites, products or services, you should complete a feedback form or you can write to us by email at [email protected].