Privacy Policy
I'M HERE · Version 1.4.1 · Effective: 8 October 2026
This app helps people who are in the same place at the same time meet briefly. Location is the most sensitive data we handle, which is why we keep it for the shortest time. Below is what we collect, why, and how long we keep it — without overstating any of it.
1. Who is responsible
The controller of your personal data is Mert Dolu, based in the United Kingdom. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK data protection regulator, under registration number ZC254647. You can reach us at [email protected] about anything in this policy.
I'M HERE is designed for the United Kingdom and is for people aged 18 and over. It is distributed through Google Play and Apple's App Store and can also be downloaded in other countries; wherever you use it, this policy applies.
2. The short version
- Your precise location is never shown to any user — no pin, no distance, no direction.
- Your precise location is held only while a 30-minute session is running. Erasure starts as soon as the session ends; our target is to complete it within 24 hours.
- Your date of birth is never shown to anyone; the server only calculates your age.
- Your profile photo is re-processed when it is published and the hidden data inside it — including where it was taken — is stripped.
- When you delete your account your profile goes, but what you wrote in someone else's chat stays for up to 30 days. Section 7 explains this plainly.
- If you add a link to your LinkedIn profile, people near you who open your profile in Nearby, and people you send a request to, can open it. We do not check that it is yours, and we do not contact LinkedIn about it.
- We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or pass it to ad networks.
3. What we collect
| Data | What it is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Your email address, a random identifier we assign you, account status, language and time zone | So your account exists and you can sign in |
| Profile | Display name, the text you write about yourself, your photo, interests, languages you speak, and a link to your LinkedIn profile if you add one | So others can decide who they want to meet |
| Private profile | Date of birth, gender, occupation, your visibility choices for each, and your default purpose (networking or friendship) if you set one | The 18+ check, letting you choose what is shown, and selecting your default purpose in advance when you say you are here |
| Location | Your coordinates, measurement accuracy, an area code, and a technical flag for spoofed location | Finding people near you. See section 4 |
| Session | When you said you were here, when it ends, and the purpose you chose for it (networking or friendship) | Running the 30-minute window, showing your purpose to people nearby, and applying the purpose rule described below |
| Interactions | Requests sent and received, including the intention attached to each one (in the current app this is the purpose you chose for your session; in older versions of the app it is the friendship, networking or both choice made when sending or accepting), connections made, your continue decision, your blocks | Core functionality. People nearby can see the purpose you chose for your session. An intention chosen in an older version of the app is shown to the other person only once you are connected |
| Events | Your choice for an event (Interested or Going) and when you made or last changed it. If you withdraw your choice, it is deleted | So you can plan to go, and so we can send you reminders and tell you if an event changes or is cancelled. Only you see your choice; our team sees only how many people chose each event |
| Event suggestions | What you send when you suggest an event (title, description, category, start and end time, venue name and address), when you sent it, its status, when we decided, and any short internal note our team adds (not shown in the app) | So our team can review your suggestion and, if we accept it, prepare an event from it. Only you see your suggestions and their status. Other users are never shown who suggested an event |
| Messages | The text of your messages | The chat. Message text is never written to any log |
| Contact card | The phone number, email address or Instagram handle you save on your card, and a record of which of them you sent to whom | Kept privately so you can send it in a chat with one tap. Shown to no one until you send it. You can change or remove what is on your card. If you block someone before any report is made, the contact card copies sent between you are deleted straight away (your messages are not; see section 7). If a report is made first, those copies are kept with the report (section 6), even if one of you then blocks the other. |
| Reports | Who you reported, the category, and your note | Safety. No user can read these files |
| Technical records | Operation receipts, abuse counters, notification limit counter, invitation code records | Preventing duplicate operations and abuse; and counting, in aggregate only, how many people joined through each invitation code |
Two things we keep elsewhere, two we do not keep
Your sign-in email address lives only in the sign-in system, not in the app database, and is never shown to another user. If you put an email address on your contact card, that copy is kept in the app database, privately, only so you can send it when you choose.
We do not store your IP address. We generate an irreversible fingerprint of it for abuse counters. The raw address is never written to any record.
Hidden photo data is stripped. When your photo is published, it is re-processed on our server; embedded capture information — including the coordinates where the photo was taken — is stripped at that step and is not present in the published photo.
Unfinished uploads. If you upload a photo but publishing does not complete, the uploaded file is scheduled for deletion after one day; our target is to complete the deletion within two days. This file has not been through the clean-up step above: your device drops most capture information before uploading, but the coordinates where the photo was taken may remain in the file. It is never shown to any user.
We do not want special category data. We do not ask about your health, religious or political views, ethnicity or sexual orientation, and we ask you not to put them in your profile.
Events
Events are published by our team and are the same for everyone; event images are added by our team. Some events start as a suggestion from a user. We may edit a suggestion before we publish it, and the event never shows who suggested it. Choosing an event does not use your location and does not check you in. We send event notifications only about events you have chosen — a reminder, a change or a cancellation — and we do not send notifications advertising new events. If you tap Add to Calendar or Open venue on map, your phone's own calendar or map app opens: only the event details are passed to the calendar app, and only the venue name and address to the map app. The app does not ask for permission to read your calendar, and we do not receive anything back from either app.
Your purpose when you say you are here
When you say you are here, you choose one purpose for that session: networking or friendship. It cannot be changed during the session. People nearby can see the purpose you chose. Your purpose is kept with your session record and deleted with it (section 6); if you send or accept a request, it is also recorded as that request's intention.
If you try to send a request to someone whose purpose is different from yours, the app warns you first. If you then choose Send anyway, we check the situation at that moment:
- If the other person has since started a new session with the same purpose as yours, the request is sent as normal.
- Otherwise, if they are still checked in nearby, the request is not sent. For the next 10 days the two of you will not see each other in Nearby, will not get nearby notifications about each other, cannot send each other requests, and will not see an earlier request from each other.
- If they are no longer checked in nearby, the request is not sent and no 10-day period starts.
The other person is not told why. Chats you already have are not affected, and you can still block or report each other. The purpose the app showed you for the other person is used only for this check and is not kept. This rule applies only if you chose a purpose and the app showed you a different purpose for the other person.
Your default purpose and LinkedIn link
Default purpose. In Settings you can choose a default purpose: networking or friendship. It is optional, and you can change it or remove it at any time. When you say you are here, it is selected for you in advance, and you can still choose the other purpose before you start; that choice applies only to that session and does not change your default purpose. If you have not set one, nothing is selected in advance. Your default purpose itself is not shown to other people: people nearby see only the purpose of your current session, as described above.
LinkedIn link. In Settings you can add a link to your own LinkedIn profile (a linkedin.com/in/ address). It is optional. Before you can save it, the app asks you to open the link and confirm that it is your profile. This is a check you make yourself: we do not verify that the profile is yours, the app never marks it as verified, and we do not read your LinkedIn page or contact LinkedIn about it. We keep only the address of your profile, without any extra parts added to it (such as tracking codes). In the app, only two groups of people can see the word "LinkedIn" on your profile and open the link: people near you who open your profile in Nearby while you are both checked in, and people you send a request to, while your request is waiting for an answer. It is not shown in Connections or in chats, and it is not shown to anyone you have blocked or reported, or who has blocked or reported you. People may already have seen it before that. The link opens outside I'M HERE, in the LinkedIn app or a web browser. Your LinkedIn page may show your full name, photo and where you work, so people near you could find out who you are; think about this before adding it. Details you hide in the app, such as your occupation or age, may also be visible on your LinkedIn page. The link is not part of your contact card. You can remove it at any time in Settings; it is then deleted and no longer appears on your profile. Removing the link or blocking someone in the app cannot undo what they have already seen, and does not block anyone on LinkedIn. In some situations we may temporarily hide LinkedIn links from other people; your saved link stays saved unless you remove it.
Networking and friends slider. Earlier versions of the app had a slider on your profile showing how much you were looking for networking or for friends. We no longer show it to others or use it, and we no longer store new values from it. If you set it, the stored value is deleted the next time your profile is saved, from any version of the app, or when you delete your account.
4. Location
Location is the most sensitive data here. Three things matter.
Nobody sees where you are
Your coordinates stay on the server. No user can see your point, their distance from you, or your direction. Others are only told you are nearby. The coloured density you see on the map reflects how busy an area is, not individual people.
Location is deleted in three stages
| Stage | What happens | When |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your coordinates are recorded | When you say you are here |
| 2 | Coordinates and area code are erased | Deleted when your session ends; our target is to complete this within 24 hours |
| 3 | The remaining record, with no coordinates in it, is deleted entirely | After 7 days |
If you end the session yourself or delete your account, this erasure is brought forward. It can never be postponed.
The map provider never receives your precise location
Map imagery is served by OpenFreeMap. Your precise location, identity and account data are not sent to that provider. As with any map you look at, the map images are requested directly from the provider's servers, so those servers see your phone's network address and which map area was requested — nothing else. If you tap Show my area while you are checked in, the map centres on the area of your current check-in — a zone of roughly 5 km², not your point — and the map images for that area are requested like any other area you look at. No new location reading is taken, nothing is drawn on the map, and that zone is shown only to you. There is no advertising or tracking software in the map component.
5. Why we process your data, and on what basis
| Purpose | Lawful basis (UK GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Creating your account, showing you people nearby (including your purpose and the 10-day rule in section 3), running the chat and events, and handling event suggestions | Performance of a contract — Article 6(1)(b) |
| Keeping your default purpose and LinkedIn link if you set or add them, selecting your default purpose in advance when you say you are here, and showing your LinkedIn link to people near you in Nearby and to people you send a request to | Performance of a contract — Article 6(1)(b) |
| Reviewing reports, enforcing blocks, preventing spoofed location and abuse | Legitimate interests — Article 6(1)(f): user safety |
| Enforcing the 18+ limit | Legitimate interests — Article 6(1)(f): protecting children |
| Keeping aggregate, non-identifying usage statistics | Legitimate interests — Article 6(1)(f): improving the service |
| Keeping past event records and images for event history, safety and report review, and aggregate, non-identifying statistics | Legitimate interests — Article 6(1)(f): running events safely and improving them |
| Responding to lawful requests | Legal obligation — Article 6(1)(c) |
You can withdraw your device's location permission at any time in your phone's settings. The core function of the app will not work without it.
6. How long we keep things
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Precise location (coordinates) | Deleted when your session ends; our target is to complete this within 24 hours |
| Unfinished photo uploads | Scheduled for deletion after 1 day; our target is to complete this within 2 days |
| Session record without coordinates (including the purpose you chose) | 7 days |
| Messages, continue decisions, shared contact details | 30 days after the chat stops being writable |
| Contact card (what you saved) | Until you change or remove it, or delete your account |
| Contact card copies sent in a chat | If a report is made, kept with the report for 90 days and not visible to the other person, then deleted. If you block someone before any report is made, the contact card copies are deleted straight away; the messages themselves follow the 30-day rule in section 7. Otherwise, 30 days after the chat stops being writable |
| Ended meeting requests | 30 days |
| Record that two people who chose different purposes are hidden from each other (who the two people are and when the 10 days end; no purpose or reason) | Deleted when the 10 days end; our target is to complete this within 24 hours. Deleted with the account if either of you deletes your account |
| Your event choices (Interested / Going) | 30 days after the event ends or is cancelled; sooner if you delete your account |
| Event records, event images and event totals (how many people chose an event, no names) | 12 months after the event ends or is cancelled |
| Draft events (prepared but never published) and their images | 90 days after they were last updated |
| Event suggestions you sent | If you withdraw one, deleted straight away. If we do not accept it, 30 days after our decision. If we make no decision, 30 days after the start time you suggested. If we accept it, 30 days after the event prepared from it ends or is cancelled, or, if that event is deleted without ever being published, when it is deleted. The event itself follows the event rows above and does not record who suggested it |
| Event notification jobs (internal records that an event reminder, change or cancellation needs to be sent) | 7 days after the job is completed or no longer needed; a job still waiting to be processed is kept until it is processed |
| Notification queue (including event reminders, changes and cancellations) | 7 days |
| Notification replay protection | 24 hours |
| Notification limit counter | Until you delete your account; it is overwritten each time and the count starts again each new day |
| Operation receipts | 24 hours |
| Server logs | 14 days |
| Aggregate statistics (non-identifying) | 90 days |
| Content a report is about | 90 days after the report |
| Report file (category, note, outcome, parties) | 12 months after the report |
| An open connection (who you are connected with and the intentions you both chose) | While the connection is open. After it closes, the record is emptied and only the empty trace below remains |
| Empty trace of a closed connection | Indefinite |
| Your profile and account | Until you delete it |
| Your default purpose and LinkedIn link | Until you change or remove them, or delete your account |
| A networking and friends slider value set in an earlier version of the app (no longer shown or used) | Deleted the next time your profile is saved (from any version of the app), or when you delete your account |
| Account data after we close your account for breaking our rules | 30 days after closure (section 7) |
Repeat-request protection record. The record that prevents repeated requests between two people is not deleted on a timer — it is deleted based on state. Once there is no open connection and no pending request between you, any waiting period has expired and no 10-day purpose rule (section 3) is running between you, the record is deleted. It does not store who talked to whom or anyone's purpose; it only determines whether a new request can be sent and whether the two of you are hidden from each other.
Operation receipts: 24 hours. These are short-lived records that prevent the same request from being processed twice by accident; they are deleted after 24 hours.
The notification limit counter. To stop notifications about people near you arriving too often, we keep a single record attached to your account. It holds only the day, how many notifications were sent that day, the time of the last one, and when the record was last updated; no location, no message text, and nothing about the other person. It has no fixed deletion period: it is overwritten each time, the count starts again when a new day begins, and it is deleted when you delete your account.
Safety report files. When you submit a report, a safety file is opened. Content that a report is about is deleted 90 days after the report was made, whether or not the report file is still open. The file itself — the category, your note, the outcome and the identities of the people involved — is deleted 12 months after the report was made. It is kept for that period so that safety history remains traceable: if the same person is reported again, that history needs to be visible. Only an account with safety permissions can access this file. If you delete your account, your identity in the file is replaced with a pseudonym. If you block someone and report them afterwards, any contact card copies between you will already have been deleted when you blocked; the messages are still kept as evidence.
Backups. We do not keep a separate backup of your data. The infrastructure that hosts the service stores data in more than one place for its own durability; this is not a "restore archive" and we cannot roll back to an earlier day from it. Once your deletion request has been processed, we cannot bring your data back.
About the "empty trace of a closed connection" row: when a chat is cleared, the connection record itself is not deleted but is emptied. All that remains is the fact that a connection existed and closed; no identity fields and no content remain. It is never displayed anywhere in the app and exists to stop the same connection being reopened by mistake.
7. What happens when you delete your account
When you delete your account, your messages remain in the chat on the phone of the person you spoke to. Your name, photo and profile are deleted and they can no longer reach you — but the text of what you wrote is part of their own chat history, so it is not deleted.
Those messages do not stay forever either. Messages are deleted 30 days after a chat stops being writable. A chat stops being writable in three ways: it closes (including when either of you ends the connection or blocks the other), it becomes read-only after both of you decide to continue, or the message allowance runs out. The clock starts at whichever happens first. No chat keeps messages indefinitely. You are warned in the app a week before messages are deleted. You are not shown an exact date or a countdown — only which stage the chat is at. We tell you something has been deleted only once it actually has been.
We do not tell you that the other side's copies were deleted, and we make no such promise.
The moment you request deletion, your access ends, any open session closes, your location is queued for erasure and pending requests lapse. We then delete, in order: your sign-in record and email address, your profile (including your default purpose and LinkedIn link) and date of birth, your photo file, your location records, your requests, your continue decisions, your contact card and the contact details you sent, your operation receipts, your event choices, your event suggestions, and any 10-day purpose records involving you (section 3). An event we prepared from one of your suggestions is not deleted, because it is our team's event and does not record who suggested it.
Also deleted. In addition to the above, your device's notification registration (the device record kept so notifications can be delivered) and your account's activity day information (the day the account was created and the last day it was active) are deleted. If a safety file has been opened about you, your identity in that file is replaced with a pseudonym; the file itself is kept for our safety history for up to 12 months.
If we close your account. If we close your account for breaking our rules, your access ends straight away. We keep your account data for 30 days after the closure so that you can contest the decision or ask for a copy of your data — write to [email protected] from the email address on your account. If you would rather we deleted it sooner, say so in the same email. After 30 days we delete your account data in the order described above, and your identity in any safety file is replaced with a pseudonym; the safety file itself is kept for 12 months from the report, as section 6 says. Two exceptions: if we close an account because the person is under 18, we delete the data without waiting (section 12); and if the law requires us to keep something, or a public authority lawfully asks us to preserve it, we keep only what is required, only for as long as required, and use it for nothing else.
The one thing that cannot be deleted. Aggregate counters that cannot be linked to anyone are not reversed, except that when your account is deleted, any event choices you still have are removed from those events' totals of people who chose them. For example, your contribution to a number such as "how many people joined that day" is not removed — because that number does not record who joined, only how many. It therefore does not point to you.
Your identity in report files
If there is an open report involving you, your identity fields in that file are not deleted but replaced with a pseudonym, so an open safety review can continue even if the reported person deletes their account.
We will also tell you the limit of that: this pseudonym is not anonymisation. Someone with access to the database could reverse it. It protects against an outside party and against someone using the admin screens; it does not protect against someone with access to the system itself.
8. Who we share data with
We do not sell your data. We do not share it with ad networks, data brokers or marketers. There are two providers we need to run the service:
| Provider | For | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase | Sign-in, database, photo storage, server functions and notifications | The data described in this policy. Your sign-in email address only in the sign-in system; an email address you put on your contact card is kept in the app database |
| OpenFreeMap | Map imagery | Requests for the map area shown on screen (your phone's network address and the requested area) — including, if you choose Show my area, the roughly 5 km² zone of your current check-in. Your precise location, identity and account data are not sent |
On iPhone, notifications are delivered through Apple's push notification service. Apple receives a device token, a fixed code that tells your phone which short notification text to show (for example "You have a new message") and, for chat and event notifications, a random reference so the right screen opens. Apple does not receive your name, your location or the text of your messages from us.
We chose not to use another map provider because its tracking could not be switched off.
LinkedIn. We do not send your data to LinkedIn, and we do not contact LinkedIn to check or read anyone's LinkedIn page. If you add a LinkedIn link, the link that opens is only your LinkedIn profile address; we add nothing to it. When you or someone else taps a LinkedIn link in the app, the phone opens the LinkedIn app or website directly, and LinkedIn's own privacy policy applies to what happens there. For example, if the person who opens it is signed in to LinkedIn, LinkedIn may let the profile's owner see that they viewed it, depending on the viewer's LinkedIn settings.
Beyond this, we share data only where we are legally required to, in response to a valid legal request.
9. Where your data is held
Your data is held on servers in the United Kingdom, in the London region. The database, the file storage and the server functions that process your data are all located there — your data is not only stored in the UK, it is processed there.
Our provider, Google, may access this data from outside the United Kingdom in the course of maintenance and support. Where that happens, the transfer relies on the safeguards required by the UK GDPR.
10. Your rights
UK data protection law gives you the right to:
- Access a copy of the data we hold about you.
- Rectify anything that is wrong.
- Erase your account, which you can do yourself in the app. If we have closed your account, write to us instead. Section 7 explains the limits.
- Restrict processing and object to processing based on legitimate interests.
- Port the data you gave us, in a machine-readable format.
Write to [email protected]. We respond within one month.
If you are unhappy with our response you can complain to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. We would prefer you came to us first, but you do not have to.
11. Security
The app cannot reach the database directly; every operation goes through checked server functions, and the database rules refuse direct access outright. Photos are held in private storage and opened only through time-limited addresses. Invitation codes are never stored in plain form.
No system is perfect. If a breach affects your personal data, we will make the notifications the law requires.
12. 18+ only
This app is for people aged 18 and over. Your age is calculated on our server from the date of birth you give when you sign up; the app on your phone cannot set or override that result. We do not check your date of birth against an identity document. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18 we close it and delete the data, unless the law requires us to keep it.
13. Changes to this policy
When we update this policy we change the version number and date on this page. For significant changes we will tell you in the app.
14. This website
This website is served through Cloudflare. To deliver and protect the site, Cloudflare processes your device's network address and technical details of each request in its own server logs; we do not receive or keep those logs. The site sets no cookies, runs no analytics or advertising, and loads its fonts from our own server rather than a third party. If you are shown a language switch, your choice is kept only in your own browser.
15. Contact
For anything: [email protected]