Privacy Policy - Dovetail

1. Collection of your information

We may collect information about you in a variety of ways. The information we may collect via the App includes:

Personal Data:

Personally identifiable information, such as your email address, display name, and age, that you voluntarily give to us when you register with the App.

Profile Data:

Photographs and text-based prompts that you voluntarily upload to create your profile ("Feathers"). This includes your prompts.

User-Generated Content:

Ratings ("Wishes") you give to other users' Feathers.
Messages you exchange with your match during a "Courting."

Safety & Moderation Data:

Reports you submit about other users or content, and reports other users submit about you (including the reason and any details or message text you include).
Your block list (the users you have blocked).
Results of automated photo screening and any resulting moderation flags on your account.

Matching & Research Data:

When you are matched with someone, we save a snapshot of the profile information and matching preferences of both people as they were at the moment of the match (for example, profile traits and the preference settings that produced the match), together with the date and how the match turned out (for example, whether you continued past the first hour, whether either person ended it, and whether a date was scheduled).
If you choose to answer the optional "why are you leaving?" question when you delete your account, we store your answer without your name or account identifier.

We use this to understand what kinds of profiles genuinely lead to lasting connections — not just who gets the most attention — so we can make matching better for everyone. See "Matching research & analytics" below for how long we keep it and how it is de-identified.

Financial Data:

The App does not currently charge for any features, and we do not collect payment or financial information. If we introduce paid features in the future, payments will be handled by a third-party payment processor and we will not store full financial data on our servers. This policy will be updated before any such processing begins.

2. Use of your information

Having accurate information about you permits us to provide you with a smooth, efficient, and customized experience. Specifically, we may use information collected about you via the App to:

Create and manage your account.
Generate your anonymous "Feathers" to be displayed to other users.
Run our proprietary matching algorithm (the "Wishing Hour") to find your most compatible match.
Facilitate communication between you and your match during a "Courting."
Keep the community safe: screen uploaded photos with automated moderation, review reports, enforce blocks, and enforce our Community Guidelines (including suspending or banning accounts).
Analyze match outcomes to improve our matching algorithm and the overall quality of matches (see "Matching research & analytics" below).
Process payments and refunds, if we introduce paid features in the future.
Notify you of updates to the App.

3. Disclosure of your information

Your information is primarily used within the App's ecosystem. Your "Feathers" are displayed anonymously to other users for rating. Your displayName and full profile are only revealed to a match after a successful "Courting" and mutual agreement to continue chatting. We will not share your personal information with any third parties except as necessary for the App's functionality (e.g., cloud hosting, automated content-moderation, and identity-verification providers), or where required by law or to protect the safety of our users.

4. Content moderation & safety

To keep Dovetail safe and comply with app-store requirements, photos you upload are automatically analyzed for objectionable content (such as adult or violent material) using a cloud image-analysis service (Google Cloud Vision). Photos that fail this screening are removed and your account may be flagged for human review.

When you report a user or message, we store that report so our moderation team can review it and take action, which may include removing content, suspending, or permanently banning an account. Blocking a user is stored so we can prevent further contact and matching between you. We retain safety and moderation records (reports, block lists, moderation flags) for as long as needed to keep the community safe, enforce our Terms, and comply with legal obligations, even after other data is deleted.

5. Matching research & analytics

Dovetail pairs you with the person who wants you most — but the person who wants you most isn't always the one you'd be genuinely happy with. To close that gap, when a match is created we save a snapshot of both people's profile traits and matching preferences as they were at that moment, along with how the match turned out over time. Because profiles and preferences change, this can only be captured at match time, not reconstructed later.

This information is used only by us, internally, to study and improve match quality. We do not sell it, and we do not share it with advertisers or other third parties (aside from the cloud infrastructure that hosts it on our behalf, or where required by law). Only combined, aggregate insights would ever be used in the product — never one person's individual record shown to anyone. We also do not use protected characteristics (such as ethnicity or religion) to steer or suggest anyone's preferences.

When you delete your account, we do not delete these research records outright; instead we de-identify them — we remove your account identifier so the remaining snapshot can no longer be tied back to you, and once both people in a match have left, the record is fully anonymous. If you answer the optional "why are you leaving?" question, that answer is stored without your name or account identifier. This retention of de-identified research data is one of the two limited exceptions to the deletion described in "Your rights" below.

6. Security of your information

We use administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your personal information. We use Firebase services (Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Storage) which provide industry-standard security. While we have taken reasonable steps to secure the personal information you provide to us, please be aware that despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable.

7. Your rights

You may at any time review or change the information in your account or terminate your account by:

Accessing your account settings and updating your profile.
Deleting your account — see our account deletion instructions.
Contacting us using the contact information provided below.

Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases. Two limited exceptions survive deletion: (1) safety and moderation records, as described in "Content moderation & safety" above, and (2) de-identified matching research data, as described in "Matching research & analytics" above — this is stripped of your identifier so it is no longer linked to you.

8. Contact us

If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:

support@dovetail.dating