Last revised on August 31, 2022

Welcome to Hedone’s Privacy Policy. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

We appreciate that you trust us with your information and we intend to always keep that trust. This starts with making sure you understand the information we collect, why we collect it, how it is used and your choices regarding your information. This Privacy Policy explains how Squad Five Corporation (“Squad Five” “we”, “our”, or “us”), the company that operates Hedone, collects, uses, shares, and stores your information when you use the Hedone website and/or the mobile applications that link to this Privacy Policy (“Services”). When you use our Services, you are agreeing to our rules and policies, including this Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and you consent to our collecting, processing and storing your information as described below. You must not access or use the Services if you do not agree with our Privacy Policy.

1. Information We Collect

When you use our Service we may collect Personal Information and other information from you, as described below:

Information you give us

You choose to give us certain information when using our services. This includes:
When you create an account, you provide us with your email address, as well as some basic details necessary for the service to work, such as your gender and date of birth.
When you complete your profile, you can share with us additional information, such as details on your post and other details about you, as well as content such as photos and videos. To add certain content, like pictures or videos, you may allow us to access your camera or photo album.
When you subscribe to a paid service or make a purchase directly from us (rather than through a platform such as iOS or Android), you provide us or our payment service provider with information, such as your debit or credit card number or other financial information.
When you participate in surveys, focus groups or market studies, you give us your insights into our products and services, responses to our questions and testimonials.
When you choose to participate in our promotions, events or contests, we collect the information that you use to register or enter.
If you contact our customer support team, we collect the information you give us during the interaction.
If you share with us information about other people (for example, if you use contact details of a friend for a given feature), we process this information on your behalf in order to complete your request.
Of course, we also process your chats with other members as well as the content you publish, as necessary for the operation of the services.

Information we receive from others
In addition to the information you may provide us directly, we receive information about you from others, including:

Members Members may provide information about you as they use our services, for instance as they interact with you or if they submit a report involving you.
Social Media You may decide to share information with us through your social media account, for instance if you decide to create and log into your Hedone account via your social media or other account (e.g., Google or Apple)
Other Partners We may receive information about you from our partners where Hedone ads are published on a partner’s service (in which case they may pass along details on a campaign’s success). Where legally allowed, we can also receive information about suspected or convicted bad actors from third parties as part of our efforts to ensure our members’ safety and security.

Information collected when you use our services
When you use our services, this generates technical data about which features you’ve used, how you’ve used them and the devices you use to access our services. See below for more details:

Usage Information Using the services generates data about your activity on our services, for instance how you use them (e.g., when you logged in, features you’ve been using, actions taken, information shown to you, referring webpages address and ads that you interacted with) and your interactions with other members (e.g., members you connect and interact with, when you exchanged with them, number of messages you send and receive).
Device informationWe collect information from and about the device(s) you use to access our services, including hardware and software information such as IP address, device ID and type, apps settings and characteristics, app crashes, advertising IDs (which are randomly generated numbers that you can reset by going into your device’ settings), identifiers associated with cookies or other technologies that may uniquely identify a device or browser.
Other information with your consent If you give us permission, we can collect your precise geolocation (latitude and longitude). The collection of your geolocation may occur in the background even when you aren’t using the services if the permission you gave us expressly permits such collection. If you decline permission for us to collect your precise geolocation, we will not collect it. Similarly, if you consent, we may collect photos and videos (for instance, if you want to publish a photo or video or participate in streaming features on our services).

2. Cookies and Other Similar Data Collection Technologies

We use and may allow others to use cookies and similar technologies (e.g., web beacons, pixels, SDKs) to recognize you and/or your device(s). You may read our Cookie Policy for more information on why we use them and how you can better control their use.

Some web browsers (including Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) have a “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) feature that tells a website that a user does not want to have his or her online activity tracked. If a website that responds to a DNT signal receives a DNT signal, the browser can block that website from collecting certain information about the browser’s user. Not all browsers offer a DNT option and DNT signals are not yet uniform. For this reason, many businesses, including Hedone, do not currently respond to DNT signals.

3. How We Use Information

The main reason we use your information is to deliver and improve our services. Additionally, we use your info to help keep you safe, and to provide you with advertising that may be of interest to you. Read on for a more detailed explanation of the various reasons for which we use your information, together with practical examples.

A. To administer your account and provide our services to you

Create and manage your account
Provide you with customer support and respond to your requests
Complete your transactions
Communicate with you about our services

B. To help you connect with other users

Recommend you other members to meet
Show members’ profiles to one another

C. To provide new Hedone services to you

Register you and display your profile on new Hedone features and apps
Administer your account on these new features and apps

D. To operate advertising and marketing campaigns

Administer sweepstakes, contests, discounts or other offers
Perform and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns on our services and marketing campaigns promoting Hedone off our services
Communicate with you about products or services that we believe may interest you

E. To improve our services and develop new ones

Administer focus groups, market studies and surveys
Review interactions with customer care teams to improve our quality of service
Understand how members typically use the services to improve them (for instance, we may decide to change the look and feel or even substantially modify a given feature based on how members react to it)
Develop new features and services (for example, we may decide to build a new interests-based feature further to requests received from members).

F. To prevent, detect and fight fraud and other illegal or unauthorized activities

Find and address ongoing, suspected or alleged violations of our Terms of Use, notably through the review of reports and interactions between members
Better understand and design countermeasures against violations of our Terms of Use
Retain data related to violations of our Terms of Use to prevent against recurrences
Enforce or exercise our rights, for example our Terms of Use
Communicate to individuals who submit a report, what we’ve done as a result of their submission

G. To ensure legal compliance

Comply with legal requirements
Assist law enforcement

To process your information as described in this Privacy Policy, we rely on the following legal bases:

Provide our service to you: The reason we process your information for purposes A, B and C above is to perform the contract that you have with us. For instance, as you go about using our service to build meaningful connections, we use your information to maintain your account and your profile, make it viewable to other members and recommend other members to you and to otherwise provide our free and paid features to you and other members.
Legitimate interests: We process your information for purposes D, E and F above, based on our legitimate interest. For instance, we analyze users’ behavior on our services to continuously improve our offerings, we suggest offers we think might interest you and promote our own services, we process information to help keep our members safe and we process data where necessary to enforce our rights, assist law enforcement and enable us to defend ourselves in the event of a legal action.
Comply with applicable laws and regulations: We process your information for purpose G above where it is necessary for us to comply with applicable laws and regulations and evidence our compliance with applicable laws and regulations. For example, we retain traffic data and data about transactions in line with our accounting, tax and other statutory data retention obligations and to be able to respond to valid access requests from law enforcement. We also keep data evidencing consents members give us and decisions they may have taken to opt-out of a given feature or processing.
Consent: If you choose to provide us with information that may be considered “special” or “sensitive” in certain jurisdictions, such as your sexual orientation, you’re consenting to our processing of that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. From time to time, we may ask for your consent to collect specific information such as your precise geolocation or use your information for certain specific reasons. In some cases, you may withdraw your consent by adapting your settings (for instance in relation to the collection of our precise geolocation) or by deleting your content (for instance where you entered information in your profile that may be considered “special” or “sensitive”). In any case, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at the address provided at the end of this Privacy Policy.

4. How We Share Information

With other members

You share information with other members when you voluntarily disclose information on the service (including your public profile). Please be careful with your information and make sure that the content you share is stuff that you’re comfortable being visible.

If you choose to limit the audience for all or part of your profile or for certain content or information about you, then it will be visible according to your settings.

If someone submits a report involving you (such as a claim you violated our Terms of Use), We may communicate to the reporter actions, if any, we took as a result of their report.

With our service providers and partners

We use third parties to help us operate and improve our services. These third parties assist us with various tasks, including data hosting and maintenance, analytics, customer care, marketing, advertising, payment processing and security operations. We also share information with partners who distribute and assist us in advertising our services. For instance, we may share limited information on you in hashed, non-human readable form to advertising partners.

We follow a strict vetting process prior to engaging any service provider or working with any partner. Our service providers and partners must agree to strict confidentiality obligations.

For corporate transactions

We may transfer your information if we are involved, whether in whole or in part, in a merger, sale, acquisition, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, bankruptcy or other change of ownership or control.

With law enforcement / when required by law

We may disclose your information if reasonably necessary: (i) to comply with a legal process, such as a court order, subpoena or search warrant, government / law enforcement investigation or other legal requirements; (ii) to assist in the prevention or detection of crime (subject in each case to applicable law); or (iii) to protect the safety of any person.

To enforce legal rights

We may also share information: (i) if disclosure would mitigate our liability in an actual or threatened lawsuit; (ii) as necessary to protect our legal rights and legal rights of our members, business partners or other interested parties; (iii) to enforce our agreements with you; and (iv) to investigate, prevent, or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing.

With your consent or at your request

We may ask for your consent to share your information with third parties. In any such case, we will make it clear why we want to share the information.

We may use and share non-personal information (meaning information that, by itself, does not identify who you are such as device information, general demographics, general behavioral data, geolocation in de-identified form), as well as personal information in hashed, non-human readable form, under any of the above circumstances. We may also share this information with third parties (notably advertisers) to develop and deliver targeted advertising on our services and on websites or applications of third parties, and to analyze and report on advertising you see. We may combine this information with additional non-personal information or personal information in hashed, non-human readable form collected from other sources.

5. Data Transfers

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EEA. These countries may not have similar data protection laws.

If we transfer your information outside of the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

6. Your Rights

We want you to be in control of your information, so we want to remind you of the following options and tools available to you:

Access / Update tools in the service. Tools and account settings can help you access, rectify or remove information that you provided to us and that’s associated with your account directly within the service. If you have any questions about those tools and settings, please contact our customer support team for help here.
Device permissions. Mobile platforms can have permission systems for specific types of device data and notifications, such as phone contacts, pictures, location services, push notifications, and advertising identifiers. You can change your settings on your device to either consent or oppose the collection or processing of the corresponding information or the display of the corresponding notifications. Of course, if you do that, certain services may lose functionality.
Uninstall. You can stop all information collection by an app by uninstalling it using the standard uninstall process for your device. Remember that uninstalling an app does NOT close your account. To close your account, please use the corresponding functionality on the service.
Account closure. You can close your account by using the corresponding functionality directly on the service.

We also want you to be aware of your privacy rights. Here are a few key points to remember:

Reviewing your information. Applicable privacy laws may give you the right to review the personal information we keep about you (depending on the jurisdiction, this may be called right of access, right of portability, right to know or variations of those terms).
Updating your information. If you believe that the information we hold about you is inaccurate or that we are no longer entitled to use it and want to request its rectification, deletion, object to or restrict its processing, please contact us here.

For your protection and the protection of all of our members, we may ask you to provide proof of identity before we can answer the above requests.

Keep in mind, we may reject requests, including if we are unable to authenticate you, if the request is unlawful or invalid, or if it may infringe on trade secrets or intellectual property or the privacy or other rights of someone else. If you wish to receive information relating to another member, such as a copy of any messages you received from them through our service, the other member will have to contact us to provide their written consent before the information is released. We may also ask them to provide proof of identity before we can answer the request.

Also, we may not be able to accommodate certain requests to object to or restrict the processing of personal information, notably where such requests would not allow us to provide our service to you anymore. For instance, we cannot provide our service if we do not have your date of birth and thus cannot ensure that you are 18 years of age or older.

7. How Long We Retain Your Information

We keep your personal information only as long as we need it for legitimate business purposes and as permitted by applicable law. If you decide to stop using our services, you can close your account and your profile will stop being visible to other members. After your account is closed (deleted or banned), we will delete your personal information in 14 days.

8. Children's Privacy

Our services are restricted to individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We do not permit individuals under the age of 18 on our platform. If you suspect that a member is under the age of 18, please use the reporting mechanism available on the service.

9. Privacy Policy Changes

We may occasionally modify this Privacy Policy. When we do, we will let you know by changing the “last revised” date within this Privacy Policy, and your continued use of the Service shall indicate your agreement with the terms of the revised Privacy Policy.

10. Contact Us

Hedone welcomes comments, questions, concerns, or suggestions. Please contact us at [email protected]