Privacy Policy

NotCupid is a connection experiment operated by Lemon Labs, available across New England, the New York City metro, and northern New Jersey. The whole product only works on trust, so this page explains — in plain English — what we collect, why, who we share it with, and the control you have. Questions or requests about your data? Email match@notcupid.com.

What we collect

• Account & profile: your name, email, age, ZIP code, the gender you are and who you're looking for, your photos and gallery, your bio, interests, and (optionally) your sun sign.
• Sensitive details (you choose to share these): because we're a dating and friendship app, some of what you tell us is sensitive — who you're attracted to / seeking, whether you identify as LGBTQ+ (only if you opt to share it), your photos, your approximate location, and the personality, attachment, and values signals (including a health & fitness question) computed from your quiz. You give us these so we can match you. See "Sensitive information" below.
• Content you create: messages and group-chat posts, activities/events you post or RSVP to, date feedback you submit, and Dating Experiment entries (including the short private intro video and experiment answers).
• Activity: who you connect with, accept or pass, your friendship packs and connections, AI-feature usage, and lightweight product analytics (pages viewed, features used) so we can improve the app.
• Payments: when you pay (an AI Compatibility Read plus its person-specific Love connection, an additional friendship pack, or Pro), Stripe processes it — we never see or store your full card number. We keep a record of the transaction, digital entitlement, and subscription status.
• Notifications & technical: if you turn on push notifications, your device's push subscription; plus standard server logs (IP address, browser) that come with any website, used for security and debugging.

Sensitive information

A dating app necessarily handles information many privacy laws treat as sensitive — your sexual orientation / who you're attracted to, precise-ish location, photos, and personality data. By providing this information and using NotCupid, you consent to our using it for the matching and product purposes described here. We don't use it for anything else, we don't sell it, and you can edit or delete it at any time (see "Your rights & choices").

How we use it

• To match you — your quiz, location, age range, and preferences drive who you see and who sees you. Matching is algorithmic (see "Automated matching").
• To run the product — show your profile to your matches, deliver messages, send the emails and notifications you've opted into, and process payments.
• To keep people safe — investigate reports, enforce our community guidelines, and prevent abuse and fraud.
• To improve NotCupid — using aggregated, de-identified analytics and research. We never use this to identify you to outsiders.
• To offer optional AI decision support — such as a Love compatibility read, Friend Line move, or Love conversation prompt. These features use limited profile, match, and activity context; they never send a message or take an action for you.

We do not sell or "share" your personal information (as those terms are used in U.S. privacy laws), and we don't show third-party ads.

Cookies & analytics

We use first-party cookies only: a sign-in/session cookie to keep you logged in, and lightweight first-party analytics (which pages and features get used) to improve the app. For product emails, we may record delivery, a directional open signal, and whether the app link was clicked so we can understand whether an announcement was useful; mailbox privacy tools can make open counts imprecise. We don't run third-party advertising trackers and we don't sell data to ad networks.

Who we share it with

Only the service providers we need to run NotCupid, and only the minimum they need:

• Supabase — our database and photo/video storage.
• Vercel — hosting.
• Resend — sending email.
• Stripe — processing payments (we never see or store your full card details).
• Push delivery services — to send the notifications you opt into.
• OpenAI — to generate optional AI suggestions, Hub concierge answers, and compatibility reads from limited, bounded context through its API. We do not send the contents of your private Love/Friend conversations; the Hub concierge receives only the message you deliberately type to it, the limited live context disclosed before first use, and any visible connection-memory items you separately approved. NotCupid disables Responses API application-state storage. OpenAI does not use API inputs or outputs for model training by default, though it may retain them in abuse-monitoring logs for up to 30 days under its API data controls.
• Ticketmaster / Yelp / local event sources — to surface public events and date ideas. These don't receive your personal data.

People on NotCupid: your matches and connections see your profile (see "What your matches see"), and anyone in a group/crew chat with you sees your messages there.

Press / publications — only with your explicit consent. From time to time we may invite people who've been on a date to share their experience with a publication. We only contact you about this, and we only share what you specifically agree to — replying to such an invitation never obligates you, and we won't share a word without your okay.

We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect someone's safety.

The Dating Experiment

If you join the NotCupid Dating Experiment, we collect your entry, availability confirmation, self-described orientation, selected genders and age range, short answers, consent timestamps, rules version, any optional introduction video you choose to add, reciprocal shortlist offers, and sealed yes/pass/favorite decisions. After sealing choices, you may optionally select a structured private reason for a yes or pass. We do not collect free text in this feedback step; reasons are used in aggregate to improve matching, never shown to another shortlist participant, and never change your sealed choice or selection odds. A disclosed orientation label and your private profile preview are shown only to the people placed on reciprocal shortlists with you (up to two per round); choosing "prefer not to label" displays no orientation label. An optional experiment video is stored privately and is also available only to those shortlist participants and limited NotCupid administrators who operate or safeguard the experiment. Skipping the video does not affect eligibility, matching, or selection. Shortlist participants cannot see one another's decisions. Entering does not give us permission to use your name, photo, video, orientation, or story in advertising; any public or marketing use requires separate written consent. Experiment videos are scheduled for deletion after the round, subject to limited safety, fraud, dispute, and legal retention. Venue and time are shared only with the selected mutual dinner pairs. See the Dating Experiment Official Rules & Terms.

What your matches see

People who receive you in their Love roster can open your main photo, first name, age, bio, prompts, interests, archetype, occupation, relationship intent, metro label, and match reason before choosing. An optional paid AI Compatibility Read may show that viewer broad lower/middle/higher bands for your six HEXACO-inspired signals and a pair-specific interpretation. It does not reveal your raw quiz answers or exact trait scores. Your optional short introduction video is available inside a real connection. After you both connect, additional photos and deeper lifestyle, values, and connection-style details are included without another profile payment. We never show your exact address or ZIP — only a metro label (e.g. "Boston, MA") and a fuzzy distance band.

Your rights & choices

• Access & correct: view and update your profile any time; email us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Start fresh: wipe your quiz, profile, and matches and begin again.
• Email: unsubscribe from any email via the link in its footer, or in your settings (this also opts you out of the matching/notification pool).
• Notifications: turn push notifications on or off on your device at any time.
• Delete your account: from your profile settings — this removes your profile and takes you out of the matching pool. Email match@notcupid.com if you need help.
• No sale, no discrimination: we don't sell or share your personal information, and we won't treat you differently for exercising any of these choices.

To make any request, email match@notcupid.com from your account email and we'll take care of it.

Automated matching

Who you see, and who sees you, is decided by an auditable scoring and rotation algorithm using your quiz, preferences, age range, location, recent availability, connection capacity, and limited response-history signals. Explicit dealbreakers can exclude a pairing. Response history is evidence-shrunk and only breaks close ranking ties; it does not read or score the content of your messages. An AI model does not choose your roster or decide who is right for you. This isn't a decision with legal effects — you stay in control: you choose who to connect with, and you can refresh your roster or reset your profile any time.

AI features

AI suggestions and compatibility reads are optional, may be imperfect, and are always yours to use or ignore. Before the Hub concierge's first AI request, we ask permission to send OpenAI the words you type directly to the concierge, your first name, broad interests, city, and the people/plans/features currently available to your account. We do not include your email, exact ZIP, raw quiz answers, or private Love/Friend message contents. The visible concierge conversation is stored on your device; NotCupid stores the structured intent category, recommendation, reason codes, and whether you opened, corrected, or dismissed it—not the raw prompt text. If the concierge notices an explicit reusable goal, preference, boundary, availability, location, current context, or coaching style, it may ask whether to remember it. Nothing is saved unless you tap to approve it. Every saved item is visible and individually removable in Hub AI controls, and those approved items may also inform the Love coach and Friend recommendation. You can turn off AI permission and clear the on-device conversation from the Hub.

AI match evaluation has its own optional control. If you enable it, selected normalized personality scores, controlled values and rhythm choices, and interest labels are sent to OpenAI to create a private numeric embedding stored by NotCupid. Names, ages, gender or orientation fields, email, ZIP, photos, biographies, profile prompts, raw quiz answers, and message contents are excluded. During the evaluation phase, embeddings are compared only against people who already passed the normal reciprocal eligibility and safety rules. The result is measured beside the current matcher and cannot change your live roster order. Turning this control off deletes your stored match embeddings.

For the AI Compatibility Read, we send OpenAI a first name, the visible match score, aggregate compatibility reasons, shared interests, and broad lower/middle/higher relationship labels for the six personality dimensions. We do not send raw quiz answers or exact trait scores. For the chat Love coach, we send broad profile details you can already view, aggregate compatibility reasons, and conversation metadata such as message count and whether both people have participated. Requests use the OpenAI Responses API with application-state storage disabled. API inputs and outputs are not used for model training by default; OpenAI may retain them in abuse-monitoring logs for up to 30 days under its API data controls. We do not send private chat-message contents to these features, and no AI feature sends, accepts, posts, joins, books, or pays automatically. When an AI service is unavailable, NotCupid shows a curated non-AI fallback instead.

Retention & security

We keep your data while your account is active. When you delete your account, we remove your profile and matchability; limited records (for example, payment records, or safety, fraud-prevention, and legal needs) may persist where required. We use industry-standard measures — encryption in transit, access controls, and server-only access to our database — to protect your data, though no online service can promise perfect security.

Where your data lives

NotCupid serves the U.S. Northeast, and your data is stored and processed in the United States by our U.S.-based providers. NotCupid isn't intended for use outside our service area.

Age

NotCupid is strictly for people 18 and older (some features, like the Dating Experiment dinner, are 21+). We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18; if we learn we have, we delete it.

Changes

If we make material changes to this policy, we'll update the date above and, where appropriate, let you know in the app. Continued use means you accept the current version.

This policy is written to be readable, not to be legalese. For any question or request about your data, reach us at match@notcupid.com.