Last updated: May 30, 2026

Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this Policy covers

This Privacy Policy explains how How I Met collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data when you use the How I Met mobile application, website, account features, profile discovery, conversations, safety tools, notifications, and optional AI-assisted features. For privacy questions, contact contact@howimet.com.

We aim to collect only what is useful for operating a contextual dating experience, keeping users safe, improving the Service, and complying with legal obligations. This Policy is written for users globally, with a GDPR-first approach for people in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and similar privacy jurisdictions.

2. Personal data we collect

Depending on how you use How I Met, we may collect or generate the following categories of data:

• Account data, such as email address, user ID, public ID, first name, account status, locale, sign-in codes, and authentication session data.
• Profile data, such as date of birth, age, introduction, prompts, teasers, selected moments, connection modes, photos, and display assets derived from photos.
• Dating and preference data, such as relationship goals, relationship mode, gender identity, sexual orientation, spoken languages, lifestyle choices, family preferences, job or industry, origin city, and discovery filters.
• Location data, such as latitude, longitude, approximate position, and location-derived discovery information when you grant or provide location access.
• Interaction data, such as connection requests, request messages, profile elements referenced in requests, conversations, message status, blocks, reports, report reasons, and report details.
• Device and permission data, such as push notification tokens, device permissions, app or browser storage, technical logs, IP-derived information, and diagnostics needed for security and reliability.
• AI and voice feature data, such as audio you submit, transcripts, profile context, selected app context, conversation history provided to a feature, generated text, generated audio, and processing metadata.
• Support and safety data, such as emails or requests you send us, moderation decisions, abuse-prevention signals, and records needed to respond to reports or enforce our Terms.

3. Sensitive data and explicit choices

Because How I Met is a dating and social discovery service, some information you choose to provide may reveal sensitive or special-category data, including sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnic origin, religious affiliation, political opinion, relationship preferences, or other intimate aspects of your life. You control whether to provide many of these fields and can update or remove them in the app where the feature allows.

Where applicable law requires explicit consent for sensitive data, your decision to provide and use those fields in the Service is treated as that consent. You may withdraw that consent by deleting the relevant field, changing your settings, deleting your account, or contacting us. Some discovery or profile features may work less effectively if you remove information that the feature depends on.

4. How and why we use data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

• create accounts, authenticate users, manage sessions, and prevent unauthorized access;
• build, display, search, filter, rank, and update profiles and profile discovery results;
• enable connection requests, conversations, message delivery, and push notifications;
• process photos, audio, text, profile prompts, and generated assets that you submit or request;
• provide AI-assisted features, such as voice interactions, profile suggestions, moments selection, transcription, and generated audio;
• operate moderation, blocking, reporting, abuse prevention, fraud prevention, and safety workflows;
• respond to support, privacy, security, and legal requests;
• debug, secure, maintain, measure, and improve the Service and its availability.

Our legal bases may include performance of a contract with you, your consent or explicit consent, our legitimate interests in operating and securing the Service, compliance with legal obligations, and protection of users or the Service. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider your rights and expectations, especially because the Service can involve sensitive social and dating context.

5. Profile visibility and interactions with other users

How I Met works by showing certain profile information to other users. Other users may see information such as your first name, age, photos, introduction, selected moments, prompts, compatible fields, and other profile elements depending on your settings, connection mode, discovery eligibility, and product behavior. If you send a connection request or message, the recipient may see the message and the profile element associated with it.

Blocking can prevent further interactions and may remove or limit conversations between users. Reports may be reviewed by How I Met for safety and moderation. Do not share information in your profile or messages that you do not want another user to see, copy, remember, or disclose.

6. AI-assisted processing

Optional AI-assisted features may process profile data, preferences, photos, prompts, audio, transcripts, conversation history supplied to the feature, current screen context, visible contact references, draft messages, or other information needed to perform the feature you start. Examples include voice profile coaching, moment selection, transcription, generated audio, podcast-style playback, and app-context assistance.

AI outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or inappropriate. You should review suggestions before using them. We may send feature inputs and outputs to specialized service providers that process text, audio, images, or model requests. These providers receive the information needed for the feature and may process it outside your country, subject to applicable safeguards.

7. Service providers and sharing

How I Met does not sell your personal data. We may share data with service providers and technical partners that help us operate the Service, including hosting, databases, file storage, search, email delivery, push notifications, maps, diagnostics, content processing, AI, transcription, text-to-speech, image generation or editing, security, and infrastructure providers.

We may also share data when needed to comply with law, respond to valid legal requests, enforce our Terms, protect users or the public, investigate abuse, prevent fraud or security incidents, complete a corporate transaction, or act with your direction or consent.

8. International transfers

The Service and its providers may process data in countries other than where you live. When personal data is transferred internationally, we use appropriate safeguards where required, such as contractual protections, provider commitments, technical controls, and other transfer mechanisms recognized by applicable law.

9. Retention and deletion

We keep personal data for as long as needed to provide the Service, maintain your account, show your profile, deliver messages, operate safety tools, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our Terms, and maintain security. Retention periods may differ by data type. For example, authentication codes are short-lived, account/profile data is generally kept while your account exists, and safety or diagnostic records may be kept for a limited period after deletion where needed.

You can delete your account from the app settings. Deletion is designed to remove the account and associated profile, photos, filters, selected moments, messages, connections, push tokens, authentication codes, and safety records tied to the account, subject to limited retention required or permitted for legal, security, backup, dispute, fraud-prevention, or user-safety reasons.

10. Security

We use technical and organizational measures intended to protect personal data against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, and disclosure. These measures may include authentication controls, access restrictions, provider controls, logging, moderation workflows, and separation of public and private data. However, no online service can guarantee absolute security.

11. Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live and the laws that apply, you may have the right to request access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, objection, withdrawal of consent, or information about how your data is processed. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

You can exercise many choices directly in the app by editing profile fields, changing device permissions, managing notifications, blocking users, reporting concerns, or deleting your account. For privacy requests, contact contact@howimet.com using the email address associated with your account when possible.

12. Device permissions

The app may ask for permissions such as location, photos, camera, microphone, notifications, or motion where a feature needs them. You can grant, deny, or withdraw permissions through your device settings. If you withdraw a permission, the related feature may stop working or become limited.

13. Minors

How I Met is for adults only. We do not knowingly allow people under 18 to use the Service. If you believe a minor has created an account or appears in content on the Service, contact us or use the in-app reporting tools so we can review the issue.

14. Cookies and similar technologies

The public website and web-based parts of the Service may use cookies, local storage, or similar technologies that are strictly necessary for operation, authentication, security, preferences, diagnostics, or availability. The mobile app may use local device storage for session and feature state. See the Cookie Policy for more details.

15. Changes and contact

We may update this Privacy Policy when the Service, data practices, legal requirements, or security practices change. The "Last updated" date shows when the current version was posted.

For any privacy request: contact@howimet.com.