Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

Account info: the username you choose, a securely hashed password, and a unique account identifier. Linking an email address or phone number is optional and used only for 2-step verification codes and account recovery.

Profile info: the display name, avatar, bio, and interests (genres, shows, and onboarding answers) you choose to add.

Content you create: takes, photos, videos, voice messages, stories, polls, reactions, messages, and live streams you post through the app.

Contacts (optional, consent required): if you choose to use "Find Friends," we first show you a full disclosure screen and you must actively tick a consent box before anything is read or sent. Only then does the app hash your contacts' email addresses on your device (SHA-256) and upload those scrambled hashes to Krowd's servers, where we store them and match them against Krowd members' hashed account emails so we can show you which of your contacts already use Krowd. Names, phone numbers, postal addresses and readable email addresses are never uploaded. The hashes are used only for friend matching — never for advertising, never sold, and never shared with third parties — and you can erase them at any time from Settings → Privacy & Safety → Delete Uploaded Contact Data.

Usage basics: which rooms you join and what you react to, used to rank your home screen and power features like the Hot Takes badge.

Push notification tokens: if you allow notifications, we store the device token Apple gives your iPhone, plus your time-zone offset so "daytime only" alerts stay in the daytime. Tokens are used only to deliver Krowd notifications and are deleted when you sign out, turn notifications off, or delete your account.

Referrals: if you join with a friend's invite code, we record which member invited you. When you subscribe to Krowd Premium, the app sends us the Apple-signed receipt for that subscription (product, purchase and renewal dates, and whether it was a free trial) so we can confirm the referral qualifies. We never receive your payment details. The member who invited you sees only a count of friends who joined and subscribed — never your purchase details.

2. How we use it

To run the service: showing your posts to other members, syncing threads in real time, delivering messages and calls, and personalizing your home screen with the genres and shows you picked.

To keep the community safe: processing reports, enforcing suspensions, and honoring blocks and mutes.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use your data for third-party advertising or cross-app tracking.

3. What other members see

Your profile (name, avatar, bio, favorite shows, stats) and your public takes are visible to other members. Friends-only takes are visible only to mutual friends. Private threads and direct messages are visible only to their members. Blocking someone hides you from each other.

4. Notifications

If you opt in, we send push notifications for the things you chose during onboarding (mentions, friend activity, thread openings, air-time reminders, and Invite & Earn reward updates). You can change or disable these anytime in Settings or in iOS Settings.

Friends-watching alerts: when you open a public program room, your mutual friends (people you follow who follow you back) who also follow that program can be told that you're watching it. This only happens if you turn on "Let friends know what I'm watching" — it is off until you choose. Alerts name the program and your display name only, are never sent for private threads, are never sent to anyone you've blocked or who has blocked or muted you, and are limited so friends aren't flooded. You can turn sharing off, or stop receiving these alerts, at any time in Settings → Notifications → Friends Watching.

To throttle these alerts we keep a short record of which programs you opened and which alerts you received; it is deleted automatically after 48 hours.

5. Data retention and deletion

Stories expire after 24 hours. Deleting your account from Settings permanently removes your profile, takes, stories, messages, followers, and friends. Content removed by community reports is deleted for everyone.

Uploaded contact hashes can be deleted on their own, without deleting your account, from Settings → Privacy & Safety → Delete Uploaded Contact Data. Doing so erases every hash we hold for you and withdraws your consent, so Find Friends will ask again before any future upload. Deleting your account erases them too.

Deleting your account also erases your push tokens, alert settings, invite code, and any unclaimed or claimed rewards. If you joined with someone's invite code and subscribed, that friend keeps the credit, but it is no longer connected to your account.

6. Children

Krowd is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child is using the app, contact us and we will remove the account.

7. Security

All traffic between the app and our servers uses HTTPS/TLS encryption. Passwords are never stored in readable form — they are salted and hashed before they reach our database, so nobody (including us) can read them. You can turn on 2-step verification in Settings under Security to require a one-time code at sign-in.

8. Changes and contact

We may update this policy from time to time; material changes will be reflected in the effective date above. Questions? Reach out through the App Store support link on the Krowd listing.