Privacy Policy

Effective date: April 12, 2026 · Last updated: November 1, 2026

Sincerus is offered to residents of the United States and Türkiye. Residents of Türkiye: see Section 18 and our Turkish-language KVKK Aydınlatma Metni.

1. Who we are

Sincerus (“Sincerus,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is the operator of the Sincerus mobile application and the website located at sincerus.app (together, the “Service”). Sincerus is a premium social networking service for iOS in which every post is verified as written by a human through on-device biometric authentication (Face ID or Touch ID) and Apple App Attest.

For the purposes of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), Sincerus is a “business.” For the purposes of the other state privacy laws listed in Section 13, Sincerus is a “controller.”

Contact: privacy@sincerus.app for privacy requests, and support@sincerus.app for general questions.

2. Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how Sincerus collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal information about users of the Service who are residents of the United States or Türkiye. The Service requires users to be at least 18 years old in both the United States and Türkiye, and is not offered in any other country. If you are not a resident of the United States or Türkiye, please do not create an account or submit personal information. Sections 10 to 13 describe rights under US state privacy laws; Section 18 describes how we process the personal data of users in Türkiye under the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (“KVKK”).

3. Personal information we collect

We collect only the information needed to operate the Service. Specifically, in the last twelve (12) months we have collected, or may collect, the following categories of personal information as defined by the CCPA:

Identifiers — username, display name, email address (including Apple private-relay addresses), Sincerus user ID, the push-notification device token Apple issues to your installation, and the IP address and source port recorded in our traffic log (see “Internet or Other Network Activity” below). If you allow tracking in Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, Google's ad SDK in the app reads your device's advertising identifier (IDFA) to show you personalized Google ads (Section 9); it never reaches our servers. We do not collect the identifier for vendors (IDFV).
Personal Records (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)) — account credentials (passwords are stored only as salted Argon2 hashes), your date of birth and country (used to confirm that you meet the minimum age and live in a country where the Service is offered), the time zone you select, and optional profile fields you provide (bio, location, links, avatar and banner photos).
Commercial Information — your Sincerus Premium subscription status and renewal dates as reported to us by Apple. Payment is processed by Apple; we never see your card details.
Age verification records (Türkiye only) — if your account is a Turkish account (your country is Türkiye, or you created it from the Turkish App Store), the age group read from the e-Devlet age verification token you give us (under 15, 15 to 17, or 18 or older), the date it was verified, and a one-way fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) of the token, kept so that one token cannot open more than one account. We never store the token itself, and the token carries no name, T.C. identity number, date of birth, or username. We use it only to verify your age. See Age verification (Türkiye).
Internet or Other Network Activity — your interactions with the Service: posts, replies, quotes, reposts, likes, bookmarks, follows, follow requests (sent, approved and declined), whether your account is private, blocks, and mutes; per-post impressions, meaning which posts you viewed and for how long (dwell time), used to rank your feed and to show authors aggregate view counts (if you are under 18, we do not store your in-feed dwell time); and a traffic log. The traffic log records the IP address, source port, timestamp, user agent, and request ID of account and content events: sign-up, sign-in, session refresh, posting, replying, reposting, following, blocking, reporting, profile updates, photo uploads (post, avatar, banner and group photos), and sending a chat message. For chat messages it records only that a message was sent — never the recipient or the content, which is end-to-end encrypted. We keep the traffic log because Türkiye Law No. 5651 requires us to retain this traffic data, and to respond to lawful requests and protect the safety of the Service.
Advertising interactions — on the free tier, which ads were shown to you and whether you viewed, opened, hid or reported them (Section 9). Ads you hide or report are remembered so you don't see them again; everything else is kept only as hourly counts per ad.
App usage sessions — when you open the app and how long it stays on screen: the start and end time of each session, the seconds it was in the foreground, and the app and iOS version. Nothing about what you read, write or tap is included. We use these only to count, in aggregate, how many people use Sincerus and whether they come back. Collection is on by default and you can turn it off at any time with “Share usage analytics” in Settings → Privacy Rights; turning it off also deletes the sessions already recorded. We never collect usage sessions from users under 18.
Post and account statistics — counts about each account's own posts and profile: how many times a post was seen and by how many people, how long it stayed on screen, which screen of the app it was seen on, how many of the views came from followers, and how many profile visits, link opens, post opens and follows it led to. These are counts only: we do not record who viewed a post or a profile. To count each person once a day, we keep a one-way code made from the viewer and what they opened (not their identities) in memory for 26 hours, after which it expires; it is never stored in our database or shown to anyone. We never count views by users under 18. Sincerus Premium members see their own statistics in Insights; for a Premium account with at least 100 followers, Insights also shows its followers by country, language and the hours they use the app, as counts in which a group smaller than 10 people is never shown on its own. People who turned off “Share usage analytics” are never included in those audience counts.
Enforcement records — if an account is permanently banned, we keep keyed one-way hashes (HMAC) of the Sign in with Apple user identifier and the email address in a ban list, so the same person cannot simply sign up again. We also ask Apple's DeviceCheck service to set a flag for the banned device; that flag is held by Apple, not by us, and contains no personal information we can read.
Typing signals — while you compose a post or reply, the app measures how it is typed, as aggregate numbers only: keystroke count, deletions, elapsed time, characters per minute, the variance between keystrokes, the largest single insert, how much was dictated, long pauses, how often and for how long you left the app while writing, and whether a hardware keyboard was used. Raw keystrokes and the text you type are never part of these signals. They are sent with the post and kept for 90 days, and are deleted with your account. We use them only to keep AI-written and automated posts off Sincerus: they never block or delay a post, and a post whose signals look unusual goes to a human moderator for review. We also keep a short fingerprint of each post's text for 30 days to spot the same text posted from several accounts.
User Content — the text of your posts, replies, quotes, bio, and links; the photos you add to posts (up to 2 per post) and their alt text; any avatar or banner photo you upload; and the text of any report, appeal, or support request you send us (including the text of any chat messages you choose to attach to a report). Before a photo is stored we remove its metadata (EXIF), including any GPS location.
Photo checks — every photo you add to a post, and every avatar, banner or group photo, is checked automatically for nudity, sexual content, violence and self-harm before it is accepted (see OpenAI in Section 7). We also read whether the file's metadata (IPTC or C2PA) says it was generated with AI, and refuse the photo if it does. We keep the result of each check (the scores and the decision) for 90 days. A rejected photo is not stored. We also keep a short fingerprint (perceptual hash) of each posted photo, and of photos removed for breaking the rules, so a removed photo can't be uploaded again.
Chat messages — chats are end-to-end encrypted, so we never collect their content. Until a message is delivered, our servers hold only an opaque encrypted envelope together with the routing information needed to deliver it (the recipient's device and a server timestamp); the envelope is deleted as soon as the recipient's device confirms delivery, and after 30 days at the latest if it is never collected. We also store the public encryption keys your device publishes so that others can send you encrypted messages. We do not keep a record of who messaged whom: the traffic log notes only that you sent a chat message (IP address, source port, and time), never the recipient or the content.
Group chats — messages in a group are end-to-end encrypted like any chat. To run the group we store, in plain form, its name, description and photo, who is in it or invited and with which role (admin or member), when each person was invited and joined, whether you muted it, and the group's disappearing-message setting. Members and invitees can see the name, photo and member list, and anyone in the group can report them.
Place tags — if you tag a place on a post, the venue you picked (its name, category, area, country and the venue's coordinates) is stored with the post and shown with it. The venue is a public point of interest from Apple Maps, never your own location (see Section 4).
Professional or employment-related information — only if you choose to add it to your profile bio.
Inferences — feed-ranking signals derived from your activity (for example, which posts you dwelt on or liked) together with the interest topics you select, used solely to order the feed and discovery surfaces you see; and, only if you agree to personalized ads, up to ten ad interests (topics and $SYMBOLs) worked out from your last 30 days on Sincerus and used to choose Sincerus' own ads (Section 9). Sensitive topics such as politics and health are never ad interests. You can see and remove them in Settings › Privacy › Ad preferences.
Sensitive Personal Information (as defined by CPRA) — the contents of chat messages are sensitive personal information, but because chats are end-to-end encrypted we cannot read them and never collect them. The only message text we ever receive is what you choose to attach to a report, which we use solely to review that report.

We collect this information directly from you (when you create an account, post, message, or update your profile), automatically (through your device's interaction with the Service), from Apple (when you sign in with Apple or purchase a subscription), and, for Turkish accounts, from the e-Devlet age verification token you give us.

4. What we deliberately do not collect

Sincerus does not collect, store, or transmit any of the following:

Biometric identifiers or biometric information. Face ID authentication happens entirely on your device inside Apple's Secure Enclave. We receive only a cryptographic pass/fail signal confirming that on-device authentication succeeded. We never see, store, or transmit your facial geometry, fingerprint, voiceprint, iris scan, or any other biometric identifier. This cryptographic signal cannot be reversed into biometric data.
Identity data from e-Devlet. When a Turkish account verifies its age, we receive only an age group. We never receive your name, T.C. identity number, or date of birth from e-Devlet, we never ask for your e-Devlet password, and we do not keep the token.
Your location. The app asks for your location only when you tag a place on a post, to list venues near you. It is used on your iPhone, with Apple Maps, and never sent to us; we store only the venue you pick (Section 3).
Contacts, calendar, or health data. We do not access these.
Your photo library, or video. The app receives only the photos you pick for a post, your profile or a group, and never reads the rest of your library. Sincerus does not accept video.
Tracking without your permission. Nothing tracks you across other companies' apps and websites unless you allow it in Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, and then only Google's ad SDK uses the advertising identifier, for Google ads (Section 9). We do not use third-party analytics or crash-reporting services.
Raw keystrokes or the text you type while composing. Only the aggregate timing metrics described in Section 3 are sent, and only when you publish a post.

5. Purposes for which we use personal information

We use the personal information we collect for the following business purposes:

To provide, operate, and maintain the Service;
To create and manage your account and authenticate your sessions;
To publish your posts and to relay your encrypted chat messages to the recipients you choose;
To check every photo for nudity, sexual content and violence before it is posted, and to stop a removed photo from being uploaded again;
To rank and personalize the feed and discovery surfaces you see;
To verify that posts are authored by real humans, using on-device authentication, Apple App Attest, and typing signals that are reviewed by people;
To verify the age of Turkish accounts with an e-Devlet age verification token, as Türkiye Law No. 5651 requires, and to stop one token from opening more than one account;
To send transactional email (one-time verification codes, security and account notices) and the push notifications you enable; we do not send marketing email;
To moderate content, respond to reports, and enforce our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines;
To comply with legal obligations, respond to lawful requests, and protect the rights, property, and safety of Sincerus, our users, and the public;
To prevent fraud, spam, abuse, and security incidents, and to investigate and respond to them;
To generate aggregated and de-identified analytics for product improvement (counts of daily, weekly and monthly users, session length, and how many new users come back), computed by us from app usage sessions and never shared with a third party;
To show Sincerus Premium members statistics about their own posts and account (Insights), to point out patterns in their own numbers, such as the hours their posts do best, and, if they allow it, to send them up to three notifications a week about them. These observations are produced by statistical calculations over the member's own counts, not by a generative AI model, and are never used to make decisions about anyone;
Only if you have opted in, to include the text of your public posts (never posts from a private account) in pseudonymized language corpora licensed to AI research partners (see Section 8).

6. Legal basis and retention

We retain personal information for as long as your account is active and for a limited period thereafter as described in the following table. These retention windows are the maximum; we may delete information sooner when no longer needed.

Account profile — until deletion + 30-day grace period.
Posts, replies, reposts, quotes, likes — until you delete them, or until account deletion + 30-day grace period.
Follow requests — a pending request until it is approved, declined or withdrawn. A record that a request was declined is kept until either account is deleted.
Post photos and their alt text — deleted with the post, or with your account after the 30-day grace period. Copies cached by our content delivery network expire within an hour. Photos under a child-safety report are preserved for 1 year from the report.
Photo check records — 90 days. Rejected photos are not stored; only the record of the check is kept.
Encrypted chat envelopes — until the recipient's device confirms delivery, and no longer than 30 days. Chat history is kept only on your devices.
Moderation reports and preserved content — reports concerning child safety, trafficking, or terrorism are preserved for at least 1 year from the report, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A and the REPORT Act of 2024; longer if required by law.
Traffic log (IP address, source port, timestamps, user agent, and request ID for the account and content events described in Section 3) — 24 months from the event, as required by Türkiye Law No. 5651 (art. 5). This log is kept after account deletion until its 24-month period ends. Legal basis: compliance with a legal obligation, and our legitimate interest in responding to lawful requests and keeping the Service safe.
Ban list (keyed hashes of the Sign in with Apple identifier and email address of permanently banned accounts) — kept indefinitely, including after account deletion, for the sole purpose of enforcing permanent bans. The DeviceCheck flag for a banned device is held by Apple.
Typing signals — 90 days from the post, or until you delete your account, whichever comes first. Post fingerprints are kept for 30 days.
App usage sessions — 90 days, or until you turn off “Share usage analytics” or delete your account, whichever comes first. The daily and cohort counts computed from them contain no identifier and are kept.
Post and account statistics — hourly counts for 90 days; daily counts for as long as the post or the account exists. A deleted post's statistics are removed within a day. Insights observations are kept for 90 days; audience counts are recalculated every day and only the latest are kept.
Age verification records (Türkiye) (age group, verification date, and token fingerprint) — for as long as the account exists, and deleted with it. A Turkish account found to be under 15 is closed and its data is deleted 14 days after the decision unless an appeal is pending, or after an appeal is decided against it. A Turkish account found to be 15 to 17 is hidden and deleted after 90 days unless an appeal is pending. Nothing is deleted while an age appeal is pending. Legal basis: compliance with a legal obligation.
Age appeals — kept after the account is deleted, without the link to the account, so that the yearly appeal figures the age verification regulation requires are complete. [Retention period to be added.]
Security and audit logs — 24 months.
Privacy request records — 24 months from the date of the request (as required by the CCPA regulations).
Data export files — the download link for a “Download your data” export is valid for 7 days after the export is ready.
Subscription records — 7 years from the last transaction, for tax and accounting purposes.

Legal holds. When we receive a valid preservation request, court order, or other legal process, or need to preserve records for an investigation, we place the relevant records on a legal hold. Records under a legal hold are kept until the hold is released, even if the retention periods above have ended or the account has been deleted. Legal requests and holds are logged, and staff access to legal records is audited. See our Law Enforcement Guidelines.

7. Disclosure of personal information

We disclose personal information only in the circumstances described below.

Other Sincerus users and private accounts

What you post is visible to other Sincerus users. If you make your account private (Settings → Private account), your posts, replies, reposts, likes and follow lists are seen only by you and the followers you approve. Anyone else sends you a follow request, which you can approve or decline; declining is silent. You can also remove a follower, and they are not told. Others cannot repost or quote a private account's posts, and those posts never appear in recommendations, trends or topic feeds. If you make your account public again, pending follow requests are approved.

Some things stay public on a private account: your name, bio, profile photo, and follower and following counts, and your account still appears in people search and suggestions. Photo files are served from web addresses that are not access-checked, so a photo's address works for anyone who has it, and followers can take screenshots.

Public web pages

A public account's posts (text, photos and their like, reply and repost counts) and profile (name, @username, bio, location, website, profile photo, banner and follower and following counts) can be shown on sincerus.app to anyone who has the link, including people without the app, and in search engines when we allow indexing. Private accounts are never shown. To turn this off for a public account, use Settings → Account privacy → Show on the web. Deleting a post or making your account private also removes it. Pages are cached for up to about a minute, and search engines may keep copies for a while.

Service providers

Sincerus runs the Service on servers we rent from a hosting provider, who stores the data for us and has no other use for it. We share personal information with a small number of vendors acting as “service providers” under the CCPA and “processors” under other state laws. Every service provider is under a written contract that restricts their use of the information to providing services to Sincerus. They are:

Our server (VPS) hosting provider, where the Service's database and files are stored;
A transactional email (SMTP) provider, used only to deliver one-time codes and account notices to your email address;
Cloudflare (R2), which stores and serves post photos and scans them with its CSAM Scanning Tool, which compares images with known child sexual abuse material;
OpenAI, whose moderation service checks each photo for nudity, sexual content, violence and self-harm before it is accepted. Photos are sent to OpenAI only for this check;
Apple, for the platform services described below;
Google (AdMob), which delivers Google ads on the free tier where we use them: a service provider for non-personalized ads, and a third party receiving your advertising identifier and ad interactions for personalized ads, which you only get if you allow tracking (Section 9).

We do not use third-party analytics or crash-reporting vendors. Sincerus' own ads are chosen on our servers; advertisers who buy them get only totals (views, opens, reach by country and language), never who saw an ad.

Legal compliance and safety

We may disclose personal information to law enforcement, courts, or other authorities where required by US federal, state, or local law or by the law of Türkiye (where Sincerus is operated), or where we have a good-faith belief that disclosure is necessary to prevent imminent harm. We voluntarily report suspected child sexual abuse material and child exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A and the REPORT Act of 2024, and we preserve the associated content for a minimum of 1 year to support law enforcement investigations. Because chats are end-to-end encrypted, we cannot disclose their content to anyone.

Apple

Apple provides Sign in with Apple, App Attest, DeviceCheck, the Apple Push Notification service, and In-App Purchase infrastructure to the Service. Your use of these Apple services is also governed by Apple's Privacy Policy.

AI research partners

Only if you have opted in (see Section 8), Sincerus may include the pseudonymized text of your public posts in language corpora licensed to AI research organizations. Under the broad CCPA/CPRA definition, this licensing may constitute a “sale” or “share” of personal information, which is why it is off by default and why the “Do Not Sell or Share” control also switches it off.

Business transfers

If Sincerus is involved in a merger, acquisition, asset sale, or bankruptcy, your personal information may be transferred to the successor entity, which will be required to honor the commitments made in this Privacy Policy.

No sale of sensitive personal information

Sincerus does not sell or share chat messages, under any circumstance, to any third party. We cannot read chat content because it is end-to-end encrypted, and chat messages are never included in AI-research corpora. Message text you attach to a report is used only to review that report and is disclosed outside Sincerus only where the law requires it (see “Legal compliance and safety” above).

8. Language corpus licensing (opt-in)

Sincerus' core business thesis is that human-written text is increasingly valuable as AI-generated content proliferates. With your permission, we may license pseudonymized collections of text from public posts to AI research organizations so that they can train and evaluate language models on verified-human writing.

Off by default

Corpus licensing is opt-in. Your posts are never included unless you turn on “Include my posts in anonymized corpora” in Settings → Privacy Rights. If you never touch that setting, nothing of yours is licensed.

What is included

Only the text of public, top-level posts by adult users with public accounts who have opted in, together with the post's topic and tone labels and aggregate engagement counts (likes, reposts, replies, bookmarks, impressions). Before export, your identity is replaced by a one-way pseudonym (a keyed hash that cannot be reversed to your account), @mentions of other users are replaced with a placeholder, and timestamps are rounded to the month.

What is never included

Chat messages; profile information (username, display name, email address, bio, location, links, photos); replies; posts by users under 18 or whose date of birth we do not have; posts from frozen accounts or accounts pending deletion; hidden or removed posts; posts from private accounts; and any post by someone who has not opted in.

Making your account private keeps your posts out of every export from then on. Text already licensed in an earlier export, made while your account was public, cannot be recalled.

How to withdraw

Turn off “Include my posts in anonymized corpora” at any time in Settings → Privacy Rights, or turn on “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information,” which forces corpus licensing off. Every export honors both switches. You can also withdraw by emailing privacy@sincerus.app. Withdrawal takes effect immediately for all future corpus exports. We cannot retroactively remove your content from corpora that have already been licensed, but licensees must honor deletion against future dataset versions (see below).

Contract terms with AI partners

Every licensee is required by contract to (i) use the corpus solely for training or evaluating language models, (ii) not attempt to re-identify any individual, (iii) honor deletion requests against future dataset versions, and (iv) not re-sell or redistribute the corpus.

9. Advertising

Sincerus is free, and is paid for by Premium and by ads. Premium members see no ads. On the free tier, ads appear in feeds, on topic pages and next to search results, always marked “Ad” or “Sponsored”, and now and then full-screen between screens. There are never ads in chats or on market pages, and Sincerus is only for people aged 18 and over.

Sincerus' own ads

We sell some ads directly. A sponsored post is a real post from the advertiser's own Sincerus account. We choose which of our ads to show on our servers, from the context — your country and language, the topic page you are on or what you searched for — and, only if you agree to personalized ads, from your ad interests (Section 3). To count each ad's views, opens and reach once, the app sends us a signed token with each event; the link between a token and your account lasts 24 hours, after which only hourly totals remain. Advertisers receive totals only.

Google ads (AdMob)

Some ad slots may be filled by Google AdMob. Google's ad SDK in the app receives device and usage information, such as your IP address, device model and how you interact with ads, to deliver, measure and protect those ads, under Google's privacy policy. Google ads are personalized only if you allow tracking in Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, keep Personalized ads on, and have not turned on Do Not Sell or Share. Otherwise we ask Google for non-personalized ads, and with Do Not Sell or Share on we also ask Google to restrict how it processes your data. Where the law requires it (for example in the EEA, the UK and some US states), Google's consent form appears first.

Your choices

Settings › Privacy › Ad preferences: turn personalized ads off, see and remove your ad interests, and show advertisers you hid again.
On any ad, “…”: why you see it, hide it, hide that advertiser, or report it.
iOS Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking: allow or stop tracking at any time.
Do Not Sell or Share (Section 10) turns off all personalized ads.
Premium removes every ad.

Withdrawing consent deletes your ad interests at once. Our own usage analytics (the app usage sessions described in Section 3) stay on our servers, are never given to advertisers or combined with data from other companies, and can be turned off in Settings. Besides personalized Google ads, the only disclosure that may count as a “sale” or “share” under state privacy law is the opt-in corpus licensing described in Section 8.

10. “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information”

California residents, and residents of other states with equivalent rights, have the right to direct Sincerus not to “sell” or “share” their personal information. To exercise this right:

In-app: Settings → Privacy Rights → toggle on “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information.” Your request is honored immediately and you will see an “Opt-Out Request Honored” confirmation. The switch also forces corpus licensing off, and every corpus export honors it.
By email: privacy@sincerus.app with the subject “Do Not Sell” and the email address or username of your account.
Online: See our dedicated page at sincerus.app/do-not-sell.
Via universal opt-out mechanisms: We treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal as a valid opt-out request. The website runs no third-party tracking, so there is nothing there for the signal to turn off; in the app, the Do Not Sell or Share switch does the same and turns off personalized ads.

We do not discriminate against users who exercise their privacy rights. Free and premium features remain fully available whether or not you opt out.

11. “Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information”

Sincerus does not collect the contents of chat messages: they are end-to-end encrypted, and our servers relay only encrypted envelopes that they cannot read. The only sensitive personal information we may receive is message text that you choose to attach to a report, which we use solely to review that report. Because Sincerus does not use sensitive personal information for secondary purposes such as profiling or cross-context advertising, the CCPA right to “limit the use of sensitive personal information” is honored by default. No action on your part is required.

12. Your privacy rights

Depending on the state where you reside, you may have the following rights under US privacy law:

Right to know / access — confirm whether Sincerus processes your personal information and obtain a copy of it.
Right to correct — request correction of inaccurate personal information.
Right to delete — request deletion of your account and associated personal information.
Right to portability — obtain a copy of your personal information in a structured, machine-readable format.
Right to opt out of sale or sharing — see Section 10.
Right to opt out of targeted advertising — turn off Personalized ads in Settings › Privacy › Ad preferences, deny tracking in the iOS prompt, or turn on Do Not Sell or Share (see Section 9).
Right to opt out of profiling in furtherance of decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects — Sincerus does not conduct such profiling.
Right to limit use of sensitive personal information — see Section 11.
Right to non-discrimination — Sincerus will not deny service, charge different prices, or provide lower quality of service because you exercised a privacy right.
Right to appeal — if we deny your request, you may appeal by replying to our response email. We will respond to appeals within 45 days.

How to exercise your rights

Most rights can be exercised directly inside the app:

Access and portability: Settings → Privacy Rights & Do Not Sell → Download your data. We assemble a JSON file containing your profile, posts, likes, follows, reports, privacy requests, and subscription records. Chat messages are not included, because we never hold their content; your chat history is on your devices. It is usually ready within a few minutes, and the download link stays valid for 7 days.
Correction: edit your profile and posts in the app at any time.
Deletion: Settings → Delete Account. Your account enters a 30-day grace period during which you can log in to cancel. After 30 days your account and personal information are permanently deleted, and we revoke your Sign in with Apple authorization at that point. The traffic log, the ban list, and records under a legal hold are kept for the periods described in Section 6.
Opt out of sale or sharing: see Section 10.

For rights that are not available in-app, email privacy@sincerus.app with the subject “Privacy Request” and identify which right you are exercising. We will verify your identity (usually by sending a confirmation email to the address on file) and respond within 45 days, with a single 45-day extension if reasonably necessary. The first request in any twelve-month period is free of charge.

Authorized agents

California residents may designate an authorized agent to submit a request on their behalf. The agent must provide signed written permission from you, and we may still contact you to verify the request.

Shine the Light

California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents to request information about a company's disclosure of personal information to third parties for direct marketing purposes. Sincerus does not disclose personal information for third-party direct marketing, so no such information is available.

13. State-specific disclosures

In addition to the rights described above, the following state-specific points apply:

California (CCPA/CPRA): In the last twelve months we have disclosed the categories of personal information listed in Section 3 for the business purposes listed in Section 5. We may “share” identifiers (the advertising identifier) and internet activity (ad interactions) with Google for cross-context behavioral advertising, only for people who allowed tracking and have not opted out (Section 9), and may “sell” user content (the pseudonymized text of public posts) to AI research partners solely for users who have opted in under Section 8. We do not sell or share any other category, and we do not “sell” or “share” any information of consumers we know to be under 16 years of age.
Colorado (CPA): We honor the Universal Opt-Out Mechanism recognized by the Colorado Attorney General, to the extent technically feasible within a mobile app.
Virginia (VCDPA), Connecticut (CTDPA), Utah (UCPA), Texas (TDPSA), Oregon (OCPA), Montana (MCDPA), Delaware (DPDPA), Iowa (ICDPA), Indiana (ICDPA), Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Maryland (MODPA), Minnesota (MCDPA): You may exercise the rights listed in Section 12 by contacting us as described. In states that provide a right to appeal, appeals may be submitted as described in Section 12.
Maryland (MODPA): We do not sell sensitive personal information. We collect and process personal information only where reasonably necessary and proportionate to the purposes for which it is processed.
Texas (TDPSA): We do not sell biometric personal data. We do not sell sensitive personal data as defined by the TDPSA.
Washington (My Health My Data Act): Sincerus does not collect consumer health data as defined by Washington law.
Illinois (BIPA): Sincerus does not collect, capture, or otherwise obtain biometric identifiers or biometric information as defined by 740 ILCS 14. Face ID authentication happens entirely on-device in Apple's Secure Enclave; Sincerus receives only a cryptographic success signal.

14. Data security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. These include transport-layer encryption (TLS) for all network traffic, Argon2 password hashing, rate limiting, token-based authentication with automatic expiration, on-device biometric confirmation (Face ID or Touch ID) plus Apple App Attest before you can post, reply, or message, and audit logging of privacy-relevant events. Chats are end-to-end encrypted: messages are encrypted on your device and can only be decrypted on the recipient's device. Our servers hold only the opaque encrypted envelope until it is delivered, deleting it once the recipient's device confirms delivery (or after 30 days if it is never collected), so Sincerus cannot read message content; message history is kept only on your devices. Routing information is used only while an envelope is waiting for delivery and to enforce blocks and messaging settings at the moment a message is sent; we keep no lasting record of who messaged whom. If you report a message, the text of the messages you report is sent to us with the report so we can review it. No system is perfectly secure. If a security incident affects your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable US state breach-notification laws, including the 30-day timeline required by California, and, for users in Türkiye, notify the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority within 72 hours as required by KVKK.

15. Children's privacy

Sincerus is only for people aged 18 and over, in the United States and in Türkiye. The Service includes an age gate at sign-up that asks for your date of birth, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18 (and, in particular, from children under 13 as defined by COPPA). If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a user in the United States under 18, we will delete it and close the account promptly. If you believe someone under 18 has provided personal information to Sincerus, please contact privacy@sincerus.app.

In Türkiye, a typed date of birth is not enough: a Turkish account verifies its age with an e-Devlet age verification token when it is created, and we only learn its age group. If the token shows the person is under 18, no Turkish account is opened. If an existing Turkish account is shown to be under 15, we close it and delete its data 14 days after the decision unless an appeal is pending, or after an appeal is decided against it; signing in does not reopen it. If it is shown to be 15 to 17, we hide it and delete it after 90 days unless the person appeals or verifies again once they are 18. If there is reasonable doubt about a Turkish account's age, we may ask it to verify again and hide it until it does. Age appeals are free, in Turkish, and reviewed by a person. See Age verification (Türkiye).

Sincerus does not sell or share the personal information of any user we know to be a minor, and does not use minors' personal information for targeted advertising or profiling in furtherance of decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects. Users under 18 are not shown account suggestions, and we do not store their in-feed dwell time.

16. Content reporting and child safety

Sincerus takes child safety seriously. If you become aware of content on the Service that depicts, solicits, or promotes the sexual exploitation of a child, tap the three-dot menu on the content, choose Report, select Child Safety / CSAM, and submit. We review child-safety reports as the highest priority and file a CyberTipline report with NCMEC in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 2258A and the REPORT Act. We preserve reported content for at least 1 year to support investigations. Post photos are also scanned with Cloudflare's CSAM Scanning Tool.

17. Where the Service is offered and where data is processed

The Service is offered in the United States and Türkiye only. The App Store distribution of Sincerus is restricted to the US and Türkiye storefronts, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals located in other countries. If you are located elsewhere, please do not create an account or submit personal information through the Service.

Sincerus is operated from Türkiye. Your personal information may be processed by our systems and by our service providers in Türkiye, the United States, and other countries where those providers operate. For users in Türkiye, transfers abroad are made under the safeguards described in Section 18.

18. Users in Türkiye (KVKK)

This section applies to users in Türkiye and is given under Article 10 of the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (“KVKK”). The Turkish-language version, KVKK Aydınlatma Metni, has the same content; if the two differ, the Turkish version prevails for users in Türkiye.

Data controller

Data controller: Mehmet Ata Kartal (individual, sole operator of Sincerus)
Address: [Address to be added]
Email: privacy@sincerus.app
KEP address: [KEP address to be added]

How we collect personal data

We collect the personal data described in Section 3 electronically, directly from you through the app and the website, automatically while you use the Service, and from Apple when you sign in with Apple or buy a subscription, and from the e-Devlet age verification token you give us when you create a Turkish account. We do not process special categories of personal data (KVKK Article 6): Face ID and Touch ID run only on your device, and we never receive biometric data. Chat content is end-to-end encrypted and is not available to us.

Purposes and legal bases (KVKK Article 5)

Creating and running your account, publishing your posts, relaying your encrypted chat messages, push notifications and transactional email, and your subscription (account profile, credentials, date of birth and country, content, device tokens, subscription status) — necessary for the establishment and performance of the contract with you (Art. 5(2)(c)).
Ranking your feed (likes, follows, interests, post impressions; never stored for users under 18) — performance of the contract (Art. 5(2)(c)) and our legitimate interest in showing you relevant content (Art. 5(2)(f)).
Keeping the Service human and safe (App Attest device keys, human-proof challenges, typing signals and post fingerprints, automatic photo checks and photo fingerprints, rate limiting, moderation reports, the permanent-ban list and the DeviceCheck flag) — our legitimate interest in preventing fraud, spam, AI-generated content and abuse, provided it does not override your fundamental rights and freedoms (Art. 5(2)(f)).
Traffic log (IP address, source port, time and event for account and content actions, kept 24 months) — compliance with a legal obligation under Law No. 5651, Article 5 (Art. 5(2)(ç)).
Verifying your age and stopping one age token from opening more than one account (the age group from your e-Devlet age verification token, the verification date, and a one-way fingerprint of the token; never the token itself or any identity data; kept for as long as the account exists, or for an account closed because its holder is under 15, until its data is deleted as described in Section 15) — compliance with a legal obligation under Law No. 5651, Additional Article 4, and the Cybersecurity Directorate's age verification regulation (Art. 5(2)(ç)).
Answering courts, prosecutors and authorities, content-removal orders, child-safety reports, and legal holds — compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 5(2)(ç)) and the establishment, exercise or defence of a right (Art. 5(2)(e)).
Handling your privacy requests and keeping a record of them— compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 5(2)(ç)).
Aggregated usage analytics (app usage sessions: start and end time, foreground seconds, app and iOS version; never for users under 18; kept 90 days) — our legitimate interest in understanding how many people use the Service and improving it (Art. 5(2)(f)). You can object at any time by turning off “Share usage analytics” in Settings, which also deletes the sessions already recorded.
Statistics about posts and accounts (counts of views, read time, profile visits, link and post opens and follows, by post, hour and app screen; never who viewed; no viewer under 18 is counted) — our legitimate interest in showing people how their posts are received and running the Service (Art. 5(2)(f)); showing them to a Premium member in Insights is necessary for the performance of that subscription (Art. 5(2)(c)). You can object by contacting us (below).
Including your public posts in pseudonymized language corpora licensed to AI research partners (Section 8) — only with your explicit consent (Art. 5(1)), which is off by default and can be withdrawn at any time in Settings.
Showing public accounts' posts and profiles on sincerus.app (the content and profile fields you have already published; Section 7, “Public web pages”; no new data is collected) — data made public by you (Art. 5(2)(d)) and our legitimate interest in letting shared links open for people without the app (Art. 5(2)(f)). You can turn it off in Settings → Account privacy → Show on the web; private accounts are never shown.

Who we transfer personal data to

In Türkiye, we disclose personal data to courts, prosecutors, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) and other authorized public bodies only when the law requires it (KVKK Article 8).

Some of our service providers are located outside Türkiye, so using the Service involves transferring personal data abroad (KVKK Article 9):

Apple (United States) — Sign in with Apple, the Apple Push Notification service (APNs), App Attest, DeviceCheck, and In-App Purchase;
Our server (VPS) hosting provider — [provider and country to be added], where the Service's database and files are stored;
Our transactional email provider — [provider and country to be added], used only to deliver one-time codes and account notices;
Cloudflare (United States) — storage and delivery of post photos (R2) and scanning them for known child sexual abuse material;
OpenAI (United States) — the automatic check of each photo for nudity, sexual content, violence and self-harm; photos are sent only for this check;
Google (United States) — when Google ads (AdMob) are used on the free tier, device and ad-interaction information to serve and measure the ad; the advertising identifier only if you allowed tracking;
AI research partners — only if you have opted in to corpus licensing, and only pseudonymized public posts.

Where there is no adequacy decision for the destination country, these transfers are made under the standard contracts published by the Personal Data Protection Board, and each signed contract is notified to the Personal Data Protection Authority within five business days, as required by KVKK Article 9.

Retention

We keep personal data for the periods listed in Section 6 and then delete, destroy or anonymize it (KVKK Article 7). Scheduled deletion runs automatically every hour.

Your rights (KVKK Article 11)

You have the right to:

learn whether your personal data is processed;
request information about the processing if it is;
learn the purpose of the processing and whether the data is used for that purpose;
know the third parties in Türkiye or abroad to whom your data is transferred;
request correction of incomplete or inaccurate data;
request deletion or destruction of your data under the conditions of KVKK Article 7;
request that corrections and deletions be notified to the third parties to whom the data was transferred;
object to a result against you that arises from analysis of your data exclusively by automated systems;
claim compensation for damage you suffer because your data was processed unlawfully.

How to apply to the data controller

Many requests can be made in the app (Section 12: Download your data, profile editing, Delete Account). Otherwise, send your request in Turkish or English with your name, the email address or username of your account, and the right you are exercising: by email from the address registered to your Sincerus account to privacy@sincerus.app, by KEP to our KEP address, or in writing to the address above. We answer within 30 days and free of charge, unless the request requires a separate cost, in which case the fee set by the Personal Data Protection Board may apply. If your request is rejected, the answer is insufficient, or we do not answer in time, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Board within 30 days of our answer, and in any case within 60 days of your request (KVKK Article 14).

19. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will revise the “Last updated” date at the top of the policy and, where required by law, notify you in the app or by email before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the revised policy takes effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated terms.

20. How to contact us

For any privacy question, request, or complaint, please contact us at:

Privacy requests — privacy@sincerus.app
General support — support@sincerus.app
Child safety — safety@sincerus.app
DMCA copyright — dmca@sincerus.app

Our postal address is available on request by emailing privacy@sincerus.app.