1. Who this policy covers
This Privacy Policy explains how the Hello Shanghai project collects, uses, stores, and protects personal information when adults use the website, create an account, discover people, chat, join meetups, save plans, receive notifications, or use paid features when payments become available.
Hello Shanghai is an 18+ service. Do not create an account or provide personal information if you are under 18.
2. Information we collect
Account and profile information
- Email address, nickname, age, password credentials in hashed form, account status, and verification status.
- Optional profile details such as country or region, gender, languages, Shanghai area or metro station, interests, connection purposes, biography, preferences, and profile photo.
Community activity
- Hello requests, accepted connections, private messages, meetup participation, meetup content, saved events, reminders, blocks, reports, and moderation records.
- Content you voluntarily submit, including photos, descriptions, promoter offers, and support or safety details.
Technical and security information
- Session identifiers, browser or device information, approximate network information, hashed IP-related security records, login attempts, error logs, and push-notification subscription data.
- We do not ask for your passport number, government ID, precise live location, or full payment-card credentials.
Payments
When payments are enabled, we may store order identifiers, provider, amount, currency, payment status, transaction reference, policy version, and activation time. The payment provider processes the actual payment credentials.
3. Why we use information
- Provide accounts, profile discovery, chat, meetups, saved plans, notifications, memberships, and paid access.
- Verify age declarations and email ownership, secure accounts, prevent abuse, investigate reports, and enforce Community Rules.
- Operate backups, diagnose errors, measure service reliability, prevent duplicate payments, and maintain audit records.
- Send essential account emails and optional push notifications that you enable.
- Comply with applicable legal obligations and protect users, the public, and the service.
We process information where it is necessary to provide the service you request, where consent is required and given, for security and legal compliance, and for other lawful purposes permitted by applicable law.
4. Visibility and sharing
Your nickname, age, profile details, approximate Shanghai area, interests, purposes, and profile photo may be shown to other verified users through discovery, meetups, and chat. Your email address, password data, security records, blocks, and reports are not displayed publicly.
We use service providers for infrastructure and operations, including Cloudflare for hosting, database and storage; Resend for account email; Tavily for public event-search support; web-push infrastructure for notifications; and a payment provider when connected. Providers receive only information reasonably needed for their function and are expected to protect it under their terms and applicable law.
We may disclose information where required by law, a valid governmental or judicial request, or where reasonably necessary to address fraud, security, threats, or serious harm.
5. International infrastructure notice
Hello Shanghai currently uses international cloud and email infrastructure. Processing or technical access may therefore occur outside mainland China. Before broader commercial launch, we will review localization and cross-border requirements, update this notice, and use any consent, contract, certification, assessment, or other mechanism required by applicable law.
6. Retention
- Account and profile information is generally kept while the account remains active.
- Sessions expire automatically. Security, operational, audit, report, transaction, and backup records are retained for limited operational, fraud-prevention, dispute, safety, and legal purposes.
- When you delete your account, your public profile and direct identifiers are removed or replaced. Some messages, reports, transactions, safety records, and backups may remain temporarily or be retained where necessary to protect other users, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, or comply with law.
- Backups rotate under retention rules and are not publicly accessible.
7. Your choices and rights
- Review and correct profile information in the app.
- Disable push notifications through the app or browser.
- Block users, submit reports, and leave meetups.
- Delete your account using Profile → Privacy & Safety → Delete account.
- Ask about access, correction, deletion, consent withdrawal, processing restrictions, or a copy of relevant personal information by contacting us.
Some requests may require identity verification. Certain information may be retained when required by law or necessary for security, evidence, disputes, or the rights of other people.
8. Security
We use measures such as hashed passwords, email verification, secure cookies, rate limits, access controls, private storage, backups, operational monitoring, and moderation tools. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Use a unique password and do not share sensitive information in profiles, messages, or meetups.
9. Changes and contact
Material changes will be shown through the app and may require renewed acceptance. The version and effective date appear at the top of this page.