Privacy Policy
This policy explains what we collect when you use the Marabou app and maraboudating.app (together, the "Service"), why we collect it, who else can see it, and what you can make us do about it. We have written it against the actual code that runs the app, not from a template.
The short version. Your profile is public to other members. Your messages are not. We never sell your data. We show ads, and you can turn personalised ads off. You can download everything we hold and delete your account permanently from inside the app, without asking us.
On this page
1. Who we are
Lenoir Group LLC is the controller of the personal information described here. You can reach us at support@maraboudating.app for any privacy question, request or complaint.
2. What we collect
Information you give us
| Category | Examples | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Name and email address, and the account identifier from Google or Apple if you sign in with one of them. | Yes |
| Profile basics | Date of birth (we store day, month and year and show only your age), gender, photos, and what you are looking for. | Yes |
| Profile detail | Bio, prompts, job title, school, education, height, star sign, languages, interests, relationship status, children, pets, smoking, drinking, religion, personality, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality. | No — every one is optional |
| Content | Chat messages, photos and gifts you send, Pulse posts, comments, polls, likes and follows, and anything you report to us. | Only what you choose to send |
Sensitive data, named honestly. Ethnicity, sexuality, religion and health-adjacent lifestyle answers are "special category" data under UK and EU law. They are entirely optional, you enter them yourself, and you can clear them at any time from Edit Profile. We use them only to build your profile and to apply the matching preferences you set. We do not use them for advertising.
Information we collect automatically
- Location. With your permission, your device's coordinates, which we store as a geographic point plus a town and country, to show distances and people nearby. If you refuse the permission the app still works — you lose distance sorting and Nearby.
- Device and diagnostics. Device model, operating system, app version, language, time zone offset, a push notification token, and crash reports — through Firebase Crashlytics.
- Advertising identifier and attribution. Your device's resettable advertising ID is used by Google AdMob and, once ad mediation is enabled, by a mediation partner (currently planned: AppLovin) that may fill an ad, to show and measure adverts and to confirm that a rewarded video you chose to watch actually completed. It is also used by AppsFlyer to work out which campaign, if any, led you to install Marabou, and by the Meta SDK to send Meta a small set of app events — install, sign-up, paywall views, checkout, match, purchase and ad-view events, some with an estimated advert value — so we can measure our own advertising. These events never include message content, photos, names or your location. You can reset the advertising ID, or limit its use, in your device settings; VIP Plus removes adverts entirely; see Advertising for opt-outs.
- Usage. Which screens you open and which features you use, through Firebase Analytics. These events are deliberately built to carry no message content, no photos, no names and no location.
- Activity records. Likes, passes, matches, profile visits, blocks, reports, and your last sign-in time — the state the app needs to work at all.
Information we do not collect
- Card numbers. Purchases run entirely through Google Play or the App Store. We receive a purchase token and whether it is valid. We never see your card, bank details or billing address.
- Your phone number. Marabou does not offer phone sign-in and never asks for a number.
- Your contacts, calendar or call history.
- Your photo library or camera roll as a whole. When you add a photo we receive only the images you pick, and each one is screened automatically (see "Photo checks" below). On iOS the microphone permission exists solely for recording a video for your own gallery; we never listen otherwise.
- Precise background location. We only read your location while the app is open and you have asked for something that needs it.
3. Why we use it
- To run the Service — building your profile, showing you people, recording likes, creating matches, delivering messages and notifications.
- To keep people safe — screening posts and comments for hate, harassment and sexual content, acting on reports, enforcing blocks, and applying suspensions.
- To investigate safety reports — reviewing reported conversations to investigate safety reports (see Safety review of reported conversations).
- To operate purchases — verifying a subscription or credit purchase with the store, and granting exactly what you bought.
- To show and count adverts, including rewarded videos you choose to watch.
- To fix and improve the app — crash reports and aggregate usage.
- To meet legal obligations and to respond to lawful requests.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with data brokers.
4. Legal bases (UK and EU users)
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Providing the Service you asked for | Performance of a contract |
| Optional profile details, including special category data | Your explicit consent |
| Location | Your consent, given through the device permission |
| Safety, moderation and fraud prevention | Legitimate interests, and legal obligation where applicable |
| Reviewing a reported conversation | Legitimate interests (member safety, enforcing our Terms) |
| Personalised advertising | Your consent |
| Non-personalised advertising and basic analytics | Legitimate interests |
| Install attribution and advertising measurement (AppsFlyer, Meta SDK) | Legitimate interests on Android; on iOS, your consent through the App Tracking Transparency prompt |
You may withdraw any consent at any time; see Your rights.
5. What other people can see
This is the part that matters most on a dating app, so we will be exact.
| Shown to other members | Not shown to other members |
|---|---|
| Your photos, first name, age, town, and every profile field you fill in. Your approximate distance from the viewer. Whether you are online now. Your Pulse posts, comments and follower counts. | Your email address, precise coordinates, date of birth (only your age is shown), device information and purchase history. Your private messages are shown only to you and the person you are talking to, except as described under Safety review of reported conversations below. |
An honest limit on that. "Not shown" means the app does not display it. Marabou is not end-to-end encrypted, and account records are held in a database that the app reads directly, so we cannot promise that a determined person using modified software could never read a field the interface hides. We are tightening this, and we would rather say so than imply a guarantee we cannot currently keep. Put nothing in your profile you would not want a stranger to have.
One exception worth naming: if you pass on someone, that record is associated with both of you. It is not surfaced anywhere in the app.
- Incognito mode (VIP Plus) hides you from browsing and Nearby; only people you like or match with can see you.
- A private Pulse account means your posts are visible only to followers you approve.
- Blocking removes you from each other's view in both directions.
Safety review of reported conversations
If a member reports someone, a Marabou administrator may read the conversation between the member who reported and the member who was reported, limited to the most recent 200 messages and any photos in it, to investigate the report and enforce our Terms.
- We do this only when a report is made, never at random, and only authorised administrators can do it.
- When a member is reported, we automatically keep a copy of up to the last 200 messages and the photos shared in that conversation (very large files may be left out), so the evidence is still there if messages are deleted. The copy sits in a restricted store that only our safety staff can open, and every opening is logged. It is kept until the report is closed and deleted within 180 days after that, and once closed it is never kept beyond a year from when it was saved. If the reported member deletes their account in the meantime, the copy is still kept on that schedule. If the person who made the report deletes their account, their report is deleted, and so is the copy unless the other member has also reported the conversation.
- Each time an administrator opens a reported conversation we record who opened it, when, and for which report, and we keep that record for two years.
- Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in keeping members safe and enforcing our Terms.
Messages on Marabou are not end-to-end encrypted.
6. Who we share with
We share information with service providers who process it on our instructions, and for no other purpose:
| Provider | What it handles |
|---|---|
| Google Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Storage, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging, App Check) | Accounts, your data, photos, notifications and server logic |
| Google Firebase Analytics & Crashlytics | Aggregate usage and crash diagnostics |
| Google Cloud Vision | Automatic screening of every photo for explicit or violent content, before and after upload. Images are processed in memory, not stored by Google, and not used to train anything. |
| Google AdMob | Adverts, including rewarded videos. Receives your advertising ID, approximate location derived from your IP address, and device details. Privacy policy |
| AppLovin (planned AdMob mediation partner) | Planned mediation partner. When enabled, may fill an advert when AdMob asks it to and would receive your advertising ID, IP address and device details for that request. Privacy policy |
| AppsFlyer | Install attribution: which advert or link, if any, led you to install the app, and the value of adverts shown to you. Receives your advertising ID, IP address, device details and a small set of app events. Privacy policy (see "Opt-out" in it) |
| Meta Platforms (Meta SDK / App Events; Meta Audience Network if enabled) | Measuring our own advertising on Meta's services: install, sign-up, paywall view, checkout, match, purchase and ad-view events with your advertising ID and device details, never message content. Meta Audience Network may be added later as an ad partner; if it is, it would receive the same data as AdMob. Privacy policy |
| Google Play Billing / Apple App Store | Payments, subscriptions and refunds |
| Google Sign-In / Sign in with Apple | Signing you in, if you choose one of them |
| KLIPY | The GIF and sticker picker in chat and Pulse. When you search for a GIF, your search words, your account identifier, your language and basic device details are sent to KLIPY so it can return results and, on the free plan, an advert. |
KLIPY is an advertising-supported service. If you never open the GIF picker, nothing is sent to them.
Photo checks
Every photo you add is sent to Google Cloud Vision, a screening service, before it goes up and again after. It tells us whether the image looks explicit or violent; it does not recognise who you are. Explicit photos are refused. A refused photo is kept in a locked area only our moderators can see, together with a fingerprint of the file so the same image cannot be uploaded again. Nothing else is done with it.
Strikes and bans
Each explicit photo you try to add counts as a strike, and you are warned every time. Five strikes close your account permanently. When that happens we keep a one-way scrambled (hashed) version of your email address so the same email cannot open a new account. We do not keep or ban IP addresses for this. If you think a ban was a mistake, email support@maraboudating.app from the address you signed up with and a person will review it.
We may also disclose information where the law requires it, to enforce our Terms, or to protect someone's safety. If the business is ever sold or merged, your information may transfer with it, and this policy will continue to apply until you are told otherwise.
7. What stays on your phone
Marabou's message translation, language detection and suggested replies run entirely on your device, using on-device models. The text of your messages is not sent to us, to Google, or to any translation service in order to produce them. Language models download once and then work offline.
Some preferences — your theme and your language choice — are stored locally on your device. Your daily like count is held on our servers, with a copy on the device so the app can answer instantly and work offline.
8. Advertising
- Ads are supplied by Google AdMob and shown to members on the free plan. AdMob may hand an ad request to a mediation partner; we plan to enable AppLovin, and Meta Audience Network may follow. This policy will say so when either is live. VIP Plus removes them.
- Measurement. Each ad shown or tapped is counted, with its estimated value, and that count is sent to AppsFlyer and Meta so we can tell which of our own advertising campaigns bring in members who use the app. It tells those companies that an ad was shown; it does not tell them what you did in the app beyond the events listed in section 2.
- Rewarded videos are always optional. Nothing in Marabou requires you to watch an advert. They are a way to earn credits or unlock something faster if you would rather spend time than money.
- On iOS you will be asked, through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, whether Marabou may track you across other companies' apps and websites. If you say no, we do not.
- On Android you can limit ad personalisation, or reset or delete your advertising ID, in Settings → Google → Ads.
- Partner opt-outs: AppsFlyer (see "Opt-out" in its Services Privacy Policy), Google ads settings, Meta ad preferences, AppLovin.
9. How long we keep it
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Your profile and content | Until you delete it or delete your account |
| Messages | Until you or the other person deletes them, or either account is deleted |
| Moderation and safety records (strikes, bans, reports) | Kept after deletion where needed to enforce a ban or handle a legal claim |
| Hashed email of a permanently banned account | Kept indefinitely, only to stop the same email re-registering |
| Refused photos and their fingerprints | Kept in a locked moderation area for review and to block re-uploads |
| Purchase and transaction records | As required by tax and accounting law, typically 7 years |
| Crash and analytics data | Per Firebase defaults, up to 14 months |
| Install attribution data (AppsFlyer) | Up to 24 months, per AppsFlyer's retention terms |
| Saved copy of a reported conversation (up to 200 messages and its photos) | Until the report is closed, then deleted within 180 days (and, once closed, never beyond a year from when it was saved); kept on that schedule if the reported member deletes their account, deleted with the report if the person who reported deletes theirs (unless the other member has also reported it) |
| Record of administrator access to a reported conversation | Two years |
10. Deleting your account
You can delete your account yourself, at any time, from Profile → Account → Delete account, or from this page. You do not need to email us and we will not try to talk you out of it.
Deletion is run by a server function that removes:
- your user record and every profile field;
- your photos and uploaded files from storage;
- likes, passes, profile visits, blocks and notifications, in both directions;
- your matches and conversations, including the copies held on the other person's side, so your messages disappear from their chat list too;
- your Pulse posts, and the comments and likes you left on other people's posts;
- your sign-in credentials.
What we keep, and why. A small amount of information survives deletion, because deleting it would defeat a legal or safety obligation:
- Safety and moderation records — reports made about you or by you, strikes, suspension records and, if your account was permanently banned, a hashed copy of your email. Without these, someone removed for harassment could delete and immediately return.
- Purchase and transaction records — required by tax and accounting law, and to handle refund or chargeback disputes. These identify a transaction, not your profile.
- Anything we are legally required to preserve, such as material subject to a law enforcement request.
These are kept for the periods in the table above and are not used to contact you, to build a profile, or for advertising.
Deletion is permanent and immediate. There is no recovery window, and nothing we can restore an account from. Residual copies can persist in encrypted infrastructure backups for up to 30 days before they are overwritten; those backups cannot be used to bring an individual account back. Download your data first if you want to keep it — the app offers this on the same screen. Unused credits, Super Likes and subscription time are forfeited; see the Terms.
11. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can:
- See and download your data — Profile → Account → Download my data, which produces a file containing your profile and activity;
- Correct anything wrong, by editing your profile;
- Delete your account, as above;
- Withdraw consent — turn off location in your device settings, decline tracking, or clear optional profile fields;
- Object or restrict — write to us and we will consider it and respond;
- Complain to your data protection authority. In the UK that is the ICO; in the EU, your national regulator.
We answer rights requests within 30 days. We will never charge you for one or treat you worse for making one.
12. US state privacy rights
If you live in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas or another state with a comprehensive privacy law, you have the right to know, delete, correct, and to opt out of sale, sharing, or targeted advertising.
We do not sell personal information. Because the app sends your advertising ID and app events to advertising and measurement partners (Google AdMob, AppsFlyer, Meta and, if enabled, AppLovin — see section 6), that may count as "sharing" for cross-context behavioural advertising under the CCPA. You can opt out by limiting ad personalisation in your device's ad settings (Android: Settings → Google → Ads; iOS: decline the tracking prompt or turn off tracking in Settings → Privacy → Tracking), or by emailing support@maraboudating.app with "Do not share" in the subject line. To exercise any other right, use the in-app tools above or email us. You may use an authorised agent. We do not discriminate against anyone who exercises a right.
We use personal information for the purposes listed in section 3, including reviewing reported conversations to investigate safety reports.
13. Security
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our infrastructure provider. Access to production data is restricted. Server-side rules govern every read and write, so that one member cannot read another's private data, alter someone else's profile, or grant themselves paid features. App Check is used to reject traffic that does not come from a genuine Marabou app.
No service can promise perfect security. If a breach affects your rights we will notify you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
14. Children
Marabou is strictly 18+. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to a minor we delete it immediately. See our Child Safety Standards. To report a suspected minor, use the in-app report tool or email us with the profile name.
15. International transfers
We are based in the United States and our infrastructure runs on Google Cloud in the United States. If you use Marabou from outside the US, your information is transferred there. Where required, transfers rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum.
16. Changes
If we change this policy materially we will update the date above and notify you in the app before the change takes effect. Continuing to use Marabou after that means you accept the updated policy.
17. Contact
Lenoir Group LLC
Privacy enquiries: support@maraboudating.app
Put "Privacy request" in the subject line and we will route it correctly.
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