Rolemate Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account & sign-in. You sign in with Google or Apple. From that sign-in we receive your email address, the name on your provider account, and, if available, your provider profile photo. Other users don’t see your email address, and your profile shows the username and avatar you use in the App, not the name or photo on your provider account.
• Profile. During setup you provide a username and your age, which are required. Your gender is optional: you can add it during setup or later. Your age, and your gender if you add one, appear on your profile. Your age can’t be changed later. Once you add a gender you can’t remove it, but you can switch it to another option at most once every 24 hours. To apply that limit we keep the date of your last switch; it is never shown to other users and is deleted when you delete your account. You may later add a bio and a profile avatar, including a default image or a photo you upload.
• Content you create. Direct messages, group chats and their messages, “starters” posts and likes, voice messages you record, and any images or text you submit. Voice messages and photos sent in chats are stored so they can be delivered and played back, and are automatically deleted after a limited period.
• Social connections. The people you follow, your followers, and users you block.
• Support & safety submissions. Bug reports, messages to our support address, reports you file about other users or groups, and appeals you submit.

Information collected automatically

• Device & technical data. Through our service providers, we automatically receive data such as your IP address, device type and operating system, app version, language, and diagnostic or crash information. The App itself does not collect or use your location; our hosting and diagnostics providers may infer an approximate, city-level location from your IP address as part of delivering and securing their services.
• Push notification tokens. If you enable notifications, we store a push token so we can deliver messages, starter replies, and important updates.
• Activity status. While you use the App we periodically record when you were last active so other users can see whether you are online or recently active. Members with Rolemate Plus can hide their activity status using the invisible-mode setting; while Plus is inactive, activity status is visible like any other member’s.
• Reputation (karma). We calculate a karma score from your activity on Rolemate: posting starters, sending messages, and receiving hearts. You lose points if someone blocks you, if you are removed from a group, or if the other person leaves a one-to-one chat you took part in. Moderation outcomes, such as penalties and appeal refunds, and adjustments by our team also change your score. Your karma total is shown on your profile to other users. We also keep an internal ledger of the individual awards and deductions behind it, which is never shown to other users.
• Screenshot notices. If you take a screenshot while a one-to-one chat is open, we post a notice in that conversation so the other person is told, and that notice is stored with the conversation like any other message.
• Safety & moderation records. Starters you post are checked automatically before they become visible, and we keep the result of that check together with a copy of the text. When you or another member files a report, we keep a copy of the reported content, including messages, photos, and voice messages, as evidence. Warnings, bans, and appeals are recorded on your account.
• Usage limits. To prevent spam and abuse, some actions are limited, such as how soon a new account can send photos, how many photos can be sent in group chats in a short time, and how many groups you can create in a short time. To apply these limits we use the date your account was created, and we keep a small record of the times of your latest photo sends in group chats (at most 20) and of how many groups you created in the latest limit period. That record is never shown to other users and is deleted when you delete your account.

Information from third parties

• Sign-in providers, including Google and Apple, confirm your identity and share the limited account details described above.

We do not collect precise GPS location, contacts, or payment details. Rolemate has no in-app purchases, and Rolemate Plus is an entitlement we grant rather than something you buy. Rolemate messages are not end-to-end encrypted; they are encrypted in transit and at rest by our infrastructure providers, but can be accessed by our systems to operate and moderate the service.

2. How we use your information

We use personal information to:

• create and maintain your account and profile;
• deliver core features, including chats, group chats, starters, following, and blocking;
• send push notifications you’ve enabled;
• keep Rolemate safe, detect abuse, enforce our Terms and Rules, and handle reports, warnings, bans, and appeals;
• provide customer support and respond to your messages;
• maintain security, prevent fraud, and debug problems;
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our agreements.

For users in the EEA/UK, the legal bases are: performing our contract with you by providing the App; your consent, such as for notifications; our legitimate interests, such as safety, security, preventing abuse, and improving the App; and compliance with legal obligations. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Automated moderation and decisions

Some safety decisions about your content are made automatically, without a person reviewing them first. Every “starter” you post is screened before it can appear: we check it against our own word and pattern lists and, unless it is blocked outright, send the text and its tags to Google’s Gemini moderation model for a verdict. Based on that verdict a starter is published, held for a human moderator, or hidden, and a hidden starter can also reduce your karma automatically. Photos are also checked automatically: images you upload are compared on our servers against industry hash databases of known child sexual abuse material, using Microsoft’s PhotoDNA service (each image is sent to Microsoft for that comparison). A match blocks the image, preserves it as evidence for law enforcement, and leads to a permanent ban of the account that uploaded it. We also report the match to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children through Microsoft’s reporting service, together with the image and, when we know it, the uploader’s internal account ID. Images that do not match are delivered normally and are not analyzed any further. We do this to keep Rolemate safe and to enforce our Terms and Rules; the logic behind it is a mix of keyword rules, hash matching, and a language model, and no advertising or profiling of you is involved.

Apart from the permanent ban that a PhotoDNA match can trigger automatically (described above), decisions that affect your account itself (warnings, feature limits, suspensions, and bans) are made by our team. Fixed usage limits that apply the same way to every account, such as those described under “Usage limits” in Section 1, are applied automatically. You can ask for a human to review an automated decision, tell us why you think it is wrong, and contest it by emailing rolematehelp@gmail.com. If a decision led to a ban, you can also use the appeal option on the ban screen when one is offered.

3. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as follows:

• With other users. Any signed-in user can view your profile, including your username, avatar, age, gender (if you set one), bio, karma score, activity status, and the lists of people you follow and who follow you. Starters you post are visible to everyone using the App once they pass screening. Messages you send are visible to the people in that chat or group, and messages in Open groups can also be read by signed-in users who have not joined. The member lists of Open and Invite only groups can be viewed by any signed-in user.
• Service providers. We share information with trusted service providers who help us operate, secure, and improve Rolemate, including providers for account sign-in, cloud hosting and storage, database services, app functionality, push notifications, content moderation, and diagnostics. Today these are Google (Firebase sign-in, database, storage, and hosting, the Gemini model used for starter moderation, and push delivery to Android devices), Apple (sign-in and push delivery to iOS devices), Microsoft (the PhotoDNA service that checks uploaded images, described in Section 2), Expo (app updates and push delivery), and Sentry, operated by Functional Software, Inc. (crash and error diagnostics, configured not to attach your account or profile details, and not used for performance tracking). Notifications pass through Expo and then Apple or Google, and can include details such as the sender’s name, the group’s name, and a link to an avatar image. These providers process information on our behalf or according to their own privacy terms, depending on the service.
• Default profile images. When a member has not uploaded an avatar, the App normally shows a default image that we host. Only when no avatar image is available, and in some notifications, does the App show a generated image from ui-avatars.com instead. The device that displays that image requests it directly from ui-avatars.com, which receives the name shown on the image and that device’s IP address. Nothing else about your account is sent.
• For safety and legal reasons. We may disclose information to enforce our Terms, protect users, respond to lawful requests from authorities, or protect the rights, property, and safety of Rolemate, our users, or others. We also report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as the law requires.
• Business transfers. If Eini Studios LLC is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

4. Your choices and controls

• Notifications. You can turn notifications on or off in the App and in your device settings.
• Device permissions. The App asks for your photo library, camera, and microphone only at the moment you choose to send or upload a photo or record a voice message. You can change or withdraw those permissions at any time in your device settings; the rest of the App keeps working without them.
• Blocking. You can block other users to control who can interact with you.
• Delete your account. You can delete your account from Settings → Delete Account. This permanently removes your profile, direct chats, starters, groups you created and their messages, your follows, likes, block list, bug reports, and appeals, and unlinks your Google or Apple sign-in. Because a one-to-one chat is shared, deleting your account deletes it for the other person too. You can also delete your account without having the App installed at https://einistudios.com/rolemate/deleteaccount/. That page verifies you with Google sign-in, so if you sign in to Rolemate with Apple, please delete your account in the App or email rolematehelp@gmail.com from the email address linked to your account and we will delete it for you. Account deletion is available to every user, including users whose accounts are banned or suspended. Some data is retained as described below.

5. Data retention

We keep your personal information while your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete the data listed in Section 4. Note that:

• Voice messages are automatically deleted about 30 days after they are sent, and photos sent in chats about 90 days after they are sent, even while your account remains active.
• When you delete one of your own text messages in a one-to-one chat, it is removed for both people, but we keep a copy of the original text that only our moderation team can access, so that a later report can still be reviewed. That copy is deleted, along with the chat, when either person deletes their account. When a text message is removed from a group chat, either because its sender deleted it or because the group’s owner, a member with permission to remove messages, or our team removed it, we also keep a copy of the original text for the same reason, unless the person who sent it has already deleted their account. Only our moderation team can access that copy; being the group’s owner or having a role in the group does not give access to it. It is deleted when the group is deleted, or when the person who sent the message deletes their account. Deleted or removed photos and voice messages are erased, unless they were already kept as evidence for a report.
• When you edit one of your own text messages in a one-to-one chat or a group chat, it is updated for everyone who can see it and marked as edited, but we keep a copy of every earlier version that only our moderation team can access, so that if the conversation is reported, our moderators can see what the message said before it was changed. Being a group’s owner or having a role in a group does not give access to these copies. For a one-to-one chat, they are deleted, along with the chat, when either person deletes their account. For a group chat, they are deleted when the group is deleted, or when you delete your account.
• Messages you sent in group chats you don’t own may remain visible to those groups, shown with the name you had at the time.
• When you delete your account, your username is permanently retired: we keep an internal record of the username itself and the deleted account’s internal ID so that the name can never be registered again, by anyone. This record contains no profile content and is never shown to other users.
• We retain our internal karma (reputation) ledger after account deletion. These entries record reputation points awarded or deducted, the reason, and internal account IDs; they contain no message content and are used to keep the reputation system consistent and auditable.
• Reports and moderation records, including copies of reported content kept as evidence and the results of the automatic checks described in Section 2, may be retained after deletion where necessary for safety, to enforce our rules, prevent abuse or ban evasion, protect users, or comply with legal obligations.
• If your account has been banned, suspended, or reported for safety reasons, we may retain limited internal information such as moderation records, ban records, reports, and identifiers needed to prevent abuse, enforce bans, protect users, respond to legal requests, or prevent ban evasion. While a ban is in force this includes a one-way, irreversible hash of your sign-in identifier and email address, which we keep even if you delete your account, solely so that the ban still applies if you register again with the same Google or Apple account. We can’t recover your email address from that hash; it only lets us recognize the same sign-in if it is used again. It is never shown to other users, and it is deleted if the ban is lifted. This retained information is restricted and is not used to recreate your public account.
• Residual copies may persist in backups for a limited time before being overwritten.

6. Security

We use reasonable safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encryption in transit and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

7. International data transfers

Rolemate is operated from the United States, and our service providers may process information in the United States and other countries. If you use the App from outside the U.S., your information may be transferred to and processed in countries that may have different data-protection laws. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses.

8. Your U.S. state privacy rights (including California)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to:

• know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect and how we use and disclose it;
• access and delete your personal information;
• correct inaccurate personal information;
• opt out of the “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioral or targeted advertising; and
• not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

In the past 12 months we have collected these CCPA categories: identifiers such as email and user ID; characteristics of protected classifications, limited to your age and, if you provide it, your gender; internet and app activity; approximate location, inferred from your IP address by our infrastructure providers rather than collected by the App; audio/visual information such as photos and voice messages you send; and sensitive personal information limited to the contents of your messages, which we use only to provide and moderate the service and never to infer characteristics about you. We disclose identifiers, app-activity data, and content you submit to our service providers to operate and moderate the App. For example, starter text is checked by Google’s Gemini model, and photos are checked by Microsoft’s PhotoDNA service. We also report images identified as known child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as the law requires. We do not sell personal information, and we do not “share” personal information for cross-context behavioral or targeted advertising, and we have not done either in the past 12 months.

To exercise these rights, email us at rolematehelp@gmail.com. We will verify your request using your account information and will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request.

Residents of other U.S. states with privacy laws (including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, and others) have similar rights to access, correct, and delete personal information. To exercise these rights, or to appeal a decision we make about your request, email rolematehelp@gmail.com.

9. Your privacy rights in the EEA and UK (GDPR)

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or object to our processing of your personal information; to data portability; and to withdraw consent at any time. The data controller is Eini Studios LLC. To exercise these rights, contact rolematehelp@gmail.com. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

10. Rolemate is intended for users who are 18 years of age or older

Rolemate is intended only for people who are 18 years of age or older. We do not allow anyone under 18 to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected information from someone under 18, we will delete it. See “Children’s Privacy” below.

11. Children’s privacy

Rolemate is not directed to and may not be used by anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If you believe a minor has provided us information, contact rolematehelp@gmail.com and we will delete it.

12. Third-party services

Rolemate uses third-party services from companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Expo, Sentry, and ui-avatars.com for functions like sign-in, hosting, storage, notifications, automated moderation, default profile images, and crash diagnostics. These services may process information according to their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review Google’s and Apple’s privacy policies:

Google Privacy Policy

Apple Privacy Policy

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date and, where appropriate, notify you in the App.

14. Contact us

Eini Studios LLC
Attn: Rolemate Privacy
2108 N St, Ste N, Sacramento, CA 95816
Email: rolematehelp@gmail.com