Plain-language summary
Poplous is anonymous to other users, but not invisible to the service. We use pseudonymous session, device, safety, and billing records to run the app, prevent abuse, process payments, and meet legal duties.
Chats are ephemeral by default. Live message text is processed for realtime delivery, short retry or replay during brief connection gaps, automated safety checks, reports, moderation, and legal preservation where required.
Reports, safety evidence, billing records, account records, and legal records may be retained longer than ordinary chat data when needed for safety, fraud prevention, compliance, or disputes.
Poplous does not describe disabled features as live or available. Optional media, voice, or video surfaces apply only when those features are enabled and used.
Who is responsible for your data
Poplous is responsible for the personal data described in this Privacy Policy.
Privacy contact: privacy@poplous.com.
Legal contact: legal@poplous.com.
If Poplous serves EU or UK users from outside those markets, Poplous will list any legally required representative or Data Protection Officer before relying on that arrangement.
Anonymous to users, pseudonymous to Poplous
Other users see your temporary display name, avatar, approximate matching choices, and the messages or interactions you send. They do not receive your email address, billing details, account identifiers, passkeys, or raw device identifiers from Poplous.
Poplous creates service-side identifiers so the app can match users, maintain sessions, apply blocks, process reports, enforce bans, detect abuse, and keep billing entitlements accurate.
Data we collect
We may collect identity and session data such as guest identifiers, account identifiers, email address if provided, passkey or Google sign-in metadata, session cookies, local storage values, device identifiers, app version, language, region inferred from browser signals, and IP-derived security signals.
We may create privacy-preserving hashes or risk signals from IP address, device, session, or account data to limit spam, enforce connection limits, prevent ban evasion, and protect the service.
We process profile and preference data such as display name, avatar seed, gender or matching preferences where enabled, interests, language, notification preferences, privacy controls, block lists, friend relationships, and premium entitlement state.
How we use data
We use personal data to provide and route realtime chat, maintain guest sessions and account sessions, deliver, retry, and troubleshoot messages, detect spam, fraud, abuse, ban evasion, and safety risks, review reports, and enforce rules.
We also use personal data to operate billing, refunds, subscriptions, and premium entitlements, provide support, secure and debug the service, comply with law, legal process, tax obligations, and safety reporting duties, and measure product health without using chat text.
Legal bases
Where GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on contract to provide the chat service, accounts, subscriptions, and paid features you request.
We rely on legitimate interests to secure the service, prevent abuse, detect spam, enforce rules, investigate reports, prevent ban evasion, debug reliability issues, and protect users and Poplous.
We rely on legal obligation to retain records required for tax, accounting, legal process, safety reporting, and regulatory compliance.
We rely on consent where required for optional analytics, optional device-access technologies, optional marketing, or other processing that legally requires consent.
We rely on vital interests or emergency protection where necessary to protect someone from serious and immediate harm.
Chat delivery and short replay
Message text, edits, reactions, typing state, delivery state, conversation metadata, and moderation decisions may be processed to deliver conversations in real time.
Poplous does not store ordinary live chat as normal database chat history. Short-lived Redis or Valkey replay queues, cache entries, and realtime buffers can exist so messages can be delivered after brief network interruptions.
When you save journal content, Poplous stores encrypted journal snapshots and related metadata so you can view what you intentionally saved. Journal records are separate from ordinary live chat storage.
Reports, moderation, and safety evidence
If you report a message or conversation, Poplous may store the report reason, selected message reference, reported content or evidence needed for review, involved pseudonymous identifiers, timestamps, moderator actions, appeals, and enforcement history.
Moderation systems may process message text, media metadata, behavior signals, device or network safety signals, and report context to detect harassment, hate, threats, sexual exploitation, child-safety risks, spam, fraud, and illegal activity.
For child sexual abuse material, grooming, sextortion, or other legally reportable child-safety risks, Poplous may preserve evidence, create hashes or escalation records, and submit reports to NCMEC or other legally required channels.
Media, voice, and video when available
Poplous is text-first. If optional photo, voice-note, voice-call, or video-call features are enabled later, Poplous may process file metadata, storage object keys, moderation outputs, call setup metadata, WebRTC signaling metadata, TURN usage metadata, and operational diagnostics.
If you use media or calling features when available, Poplous may store temporary media objects, call records, safety review records, and abuse-prevention signals. These terms apply only when the feature is enabled and used.
Analytics and observability
Poplous configures analytics as event-only analytics and does not use analytics for targeted advertising, cross-context behavioral advertising, or sale of personal data.
Analytics events are designed not to include chat text, message drafts, report narratives, raw identifiers, or chat screenshots. Poplous does not use targeted ads.
Sentry or similar error monitoring may receive technical diagnostics such as stack traces, route names, app version, device class, browser, and sanitized context. Poplous does not intentionally send session replay, raw message content, message drafts, cookies, tokens, or payment details to error monitoring tools.
Stripe billing
If you buy a subscription or paid feature, Stripe processes payment method data, billing address data if required, receipts, invoices, fraud signals, card network responses, refunds, disputes, taxes where applicable, and subscription status.
Poplous receives billing identifiers, entitlement status, payment status, product information, and limited billing metadata needed to provide premium access, support refunds, resolve disputes, and keep financial records.
Processors and transfers
Poplous may use service providers for hosting, database storage, realtime infrastructure, email delivery, captcha, analytics, error monitoring, payment processing, identity providers, moderation, and customer support.
Data may be processed in countries other than your own. Where required, Poplous uses contractual, technical, and organizational safeguards for international transfers.
OpenAI moderation or similar moderation providers may process content to classify safety risk. Poplous does not use user conversations for AI training, and OpenAI API data is not used for model training unless Poplous explicitly opts in.
Retention
Ordinary live chat is ephemeral by default and is not kept as normal database chat history. Short-lived delivery, cache, replay, and diagnostic data expires according to operational settings.
Account, session, block, premium, support, safety, moderation, report, NCMEC, dispute, fraud, tax, and legal records may be retained longer when needed for safety, legal compliance, payment processing, auditability, or enforcement.
Backups and logs expire on their own schedules. Deletion requests are propagated to processors where required, subject to records Poplous must keep for safety, billing, fraud, or legal reasons.
Your choices and rights
You can use Poplous as a guest before creating an account. If you add email, Google, or passkey login, you can manage account access and deletion from settings where available.
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, export, restrict, object to, or appeal certain processing decisions. Poplous will verify requests in a way that protects anonymous and pseudonymous users from account takeover or impersonation.
Before deleting an account, export anything you need to keep. Some safety, billing, fraud, tax, or legal records may remain after account deletion.
Law enforcement and legal process
Poplous reviews legal requests for validity, scope, and legal basis before preserving or disclosing records, unless emergency circumstances legally justify immediate action.
Law-enforcement requests must be sent to lawenforcement@poplous.com and include the requesting agency, officer or authorized representative, legal authority, records sought, emergency basis if any, relevant identifiers, and a verified return contact.
Contact
Privacy rights requests: privacy@poplous.com.
General support: support@poplous.com.
Legal requests: legal@poplous.com.
Law-enforcement requests: lawenforcement@poplous.com.
For immediate danger, contact local emergency services first. If it is safe to do so, also submit an in-app report so Poplous can review and take platform action.