Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and how to contact us

Wingd is operated by Wingd Ltd (“Wingd”, “we”, “us”, “our”). We are the “data controller” for the personal information described in this policy, which means we are responsible for deciding how and why it is used.

2. Who this policy applies to

This policy covers the Wingd mobile app. It applies to everyone who downloads, registers for, or uses Wingd. Our website (wingd.co.uk) has its own separate privacy notice that covers website visitors and anyone who signs up there. You must be 18 or over to use Wingd. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18 (see Section 16).

3. The information we collect

We collect information in three ways: information you give us, information we collect automatically when you use the app, and information we generate about you to run the service. Most of what we hold comes directly from you. We may also receive limited information from the app stores you download Wingd through, and from other users (for example, if someone reports or blocks you).

3.1 Information you give us

3.2 Information we collect automatically

If you turn off location permission on your device, we stop collecting new precise location data. Some location-related information, such as your last saved city and country or your distance settings, may remain in your account until you update it or delete your account.

Crash and error diagnostics. We use technical reports to find and fix faults and keep Wingd secure and stable. Wingd’s internal crash-report system is separate from Sentry. Sentry is active and receives the limited diagnostic data described below.

Sentry is configured to receive redacted error messages, stack traces (technical details of where an error occurred), app version and build number, operating system version and device model. We remove account-user details and request data before sending an event. We also disable session replay and performance tracing, and remove network and console activity trails. These controls are intended to keep private messages, photos, access links and other personal information out of crash reports. If our redaction process fails, the event is discarded. We do not use crash reports for advertising or tracking.

These restrictions describe the crash reports Wingd sends; they are not a guarantee that technical data is anonymous or that a provider never processes an IP address when receiving an internet connection. We do not deliberately attach account identifiers to Sentry events or use them to identify you. See Sections 8 and 10 for the provider and retention information.

3.3 Information we generate about you

3.4 What other users can see

Wingd is a social app, so some of your information is shown to other people by design. Other users can see the parts of your profile you choose to make visible: your photos, display name, age, star sign, and any profile fields and prompts you have not hidden. When you match and chat with someone, they can see the messages and voice notes you send them.

Other users never see your exact date of birth (only your age and star sign), your precise location (only a rough distance), your phone number or email, or the internal ranking we use to order profiles. You control what appears on your profile using the show/hide toggles, and you can change or hide most fields at any time.

4. Sensitive (“special category”) information

Some of the information you can share is treated as especially sensitive under UK data protection law, called “special category” data. For Wingd this means:

• Your sexual orientation: both the “sexuality” field and the “interested in” setting, which together can reveal your orientation; and
• Your religion.

We handle this information with extra care:

• We ask for explicit consent in separate, clear statements. The required “interested in” consent is not bundled with the Terms. Optional sexuality and religion consent is requested only if you choose to add those fields. We record when and which version of the consent you gave.
• Your sexuality label and religion are optional: you can leave them blank, and your sexuality label is hidden on your profile by default. Your “interested in” preference is required for reciprocal dating matching and may reveal information about your sexual orientation.
• Every sensitive field has a show/hide toggle, and hidden fields are blocked at our server so they are never sent to other users.
• We use your “interested in” preference only because it is objectively necessary to provide reciprocal dating matching: you must be interested in the other person’s gender and they must also be interested in yours. We use performance of a contract as the Article 6 lawful basis for the matching service and explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) for the sexual-orientation information the preference may reveal. We do not use this information for advertising or unrelated purposes.
• You can remove an optional sexuality label or religion field at any time. Hiding a field only changes whether other users see it; removing the field withdraws consent for Wingd to keep using that optional field. You can withdraw the required matching consent through the in-app privacy and matching controls or by contacting us. If you withdraw it, Wingd removes or stops using the preference and pauses discovery and matching until you choose to consent again. Withdrawal does not affect processing that was lawful before it.

We do not collect biometric data to identify you. Our automated photo checks detect only whether an image contains a face and whether it is explicit; they do not use facial recognition to work out who you are. We do not use your voice notes to identify you either.

5. How and why we use your information

Under UK data protection law we must have a valid “lawful basis” for everything we do with your information. The table below sets out what we use your information for and the lawful basis we rely on.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, this means we use your information in ways you would reasonably expect and that have a minimal privacy impact, for purposes that are in our and our users’ interests (mainly safety and a well-functioning service). You can object to this. See Section 15.

6. The AI Wingman

Wingd includes an AI “Wingman” powered by Anthropic (the Claude AI model). The AI Wingman helps with conversation and gives dating advice. It works in three ways:

• In a chat, on request: you can call the AI into a conversation (for example by typing “@ai”) to ask it for questions, to start a game (such as “would you rather” or “truth or dare”), or to help the conversation along. When you do this, both people in the chat can see the AI is active.
• Stepping into a quiet chat: if a conversation goes quiet, the AI may add something to the chat to get things going, such as a question or a game. It does this to help matches keep talking.
• Private advice: you can open a private chat with the AI Wingman from your settings to ask for dating advice. This conversation is between you and the AI only.

For in-chat Wingman, we send messages from the relevant conversation to Anthropic only when a manual request or an automatic quiet-chat nudge is triggered, and only after checking that both participants have opted in. We rely on consent for both types of in-chat processing. We do not send profile fields such as your name, age or location, your photos or phone number, or messages from other conversations as part of that request. However, any personal information you type into the conversation may be included in the messages sent.

Anthropic states that commercial API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default. Wingd uses Anthropic’s standard API retention setting: inputs and outputs are normally deleted from Anthropic’s backend within 30 days. If content is flagged by Anthropic’s trust and safety classifiers for a Usage Policy issue, Anthropic may retain the relevant inputs and outputs for longer under its safety rules, and information may also be kept where required by law.

In-chat Wingman is off by default. On first entry to the app after sign-up, a separate prompt explains the in-chat features, including quiet-chat nudges, and that conversation text is sent to Anthropic. You can choose yes or no. If you do not answer, in-chat Wingman stays off. Both people in a match must have opted in before either manual @ai requests or automatic nudges can send that conversation to Anthropic. We check both choices on our server immediately before sending the messages.

We store your current choice and the date we first asked you on your account, so your choice applies across devices and reinstalls. To keep evidence of your choices, we also record each answer and later change, including withdrawals: your account identifier, the date and time, whether you answered through the prompt or Profile settings, the version of the consent wording you saw, and whether you enabled or disabled in-chat Wingman. We retain the corresponding wording so we can establish what you were told. Your setting and its consent record are saved together. These account-linked consent records are deleted when you delete your account, subject to the database-backup period in Section 10. You can change your mind at any time in Profile using “Wingman in your chats”. If either person withdraws consent, manual requests and quiet-chat nudges stop for that match for both people, and no further messages from that conversation are sent for those features. The chat shows that Wingman is off without identifying who declined or withdrew. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing or automatically remove content already received by Anthropic; that content remains subject to the retention described above.

The separate private advice chat in Settings is unaffected by the in-chat choice. If you choose to use it, we send your advice messages to Anthropic to provide the response you request, as part of performing our contract with you. Your match does not receive that private advice conversation.

The in-chat AI does not receive your hidden profile fields. Conversation text can nevertheless reveal personal or sensitive information that you or the other person has written, including health, religion or sexual orientation. Do not include unnecessary sensitive information or another person’s private details in AI requests. The AI’s responses in a match are visible to both participants.

Your private advice chats with the AI Wingman are not stored in Wingd’s own database. This means Wingd has no private-advice transcript to include in a data export or delete from its own systems. Messages sent to Anthropic remain subject to the provider retention described above, and Anthropic does not generally support ad-hoc deletion of individual paid-API requests.

The AI Wingman is designed to support natural conversation, not replace it. Please do not share information through it that you would not be comfortable being processed by an AI provider.

7. Matching, Exclusive Mode and automated decisions

We first use your age, distance, gender and “interested in” preferences to decide which profiles are mutually eligible. We then use an internal interaction score to order eligible profiles by score proximity, so profiles with closer scores are generally shown to one another first. Sexuality labels and religion are not used to calculate the score. This is “profiling” under data protection law.

• The ranking is never shown to you or to anyone else, and is never referred to in the app.
• The score affects ordering only. It does not block a profile from being shown, permanently exclude anyone, decide access to Wingd, or make a decision with a legal or similarly significant effect.
• We periodically check that the score and ordering work as intended, do not rely on inaccurate information, and do not create unjustified adverse effects. Any material change to how the score is used requires a privacy and fairness review.
• We do not carry out solely automated decision-making of the kind that requires special safeguards under Article 22 of the UK GDPR.

You can object to this profiling by contacting us, though it may affect how well the matching works for you.

7.1 Exclusive Mode

Exclusive Mode is optional and applies only between two users who are already matched. One person can send an Exclusive request and the other can accept or decline it. If the request is accepted, both users are hidden from Discovery and can access and message only each other while Exclusive Mode is active. Existing matches, chats and pending incoming likes are kept but temporarily unavailable. Likes sent before Exclusive Mode remain in the recipient’s inbox and can still be accepted; if this creates a new match, that match is kept but will not become visible to the user in Exclusive Mode until Exclusive Mode ends.

Either person can end Exclusive Mode at any time. It ends immediately, normal Wingd access is restored subject to any other account settings or restrictions, and the other person is notified. We process only the request, status and related records needed to operate this feature. Exclusive Mode changes how the two accounts behave inside Wingd; it does not verify or guarantee exclusivity in real life or on any other service.

8. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with trusted service providers who help us run the app (“processors”), and each only receives the minimum it needs. We may also share information where the law requires it, or to protect people’s safety.

Where a provider acts as our processor, we use its applicable data-processing terms or agreement and keep a provider record covering the service, the data involved and the relevant international-transfer mechanism. Apple, Google and other providers may also act under their own platform or developer terms for particular services. We review this register when providers or processing change.

Sentry is included here for transparency about the active integration. We are confirming the storage region, applicable data-processing agreement, retention period and any international-transfer safeguards, and will update this notice accordingly.

We may also share your information where we are legally required to, for example to comply with a court order, subpoena, or a valid request from the police or another authority, and where it is necessary to protect the safety, rights or property of our users, the public or Wingd.

If Wingd is ever involved in a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. If it becomes subject to a different privacy policy, we will let you know (for example in the app or by email) beforehand.

If and when real in-person event sign-ups are enabled, and you choose to sign up for an event hosted by a partner business, we share with that business only the information it needs to run the event and manage your place, such as your name, age, gender and the fact that you signed up. Before you confirm, we identify the host, state exactly what will be shared and provide or link to the host’s privacy information. For an event intended for a particular sexual orientation, we ask for separate explicit consent before sharing information that reveals your sexual orientation. The host uses the information as a separate data controller under its own privacy terms.

9. Sending information outside the UK

Some of our providers are based outside the United Kingdom, including providers used for AI, communications, app distribution and website services, so your information may be transferred and stored in other countries. Our Cloudflare R2 media-backup bucket uses an enforced European Union (EU) jurisdiction restriction, so the backup objects are stored and processed within the EU. Transfers to the EU are covered by the UK adequacy regulations; for other international transfers, we use the applicable UK transfer mechanism or adequacy route and require appropriate contractual and security protections.

• Our main database is in the European Union (Frankfurt). The UK recognises the EU as providing an adequate level of protection, so no extra safeguards are needed for these transfers.
• For providers in the United States and elsewhere, we use an available UK transfer mechanism. This may be an adequacy regulation (including the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the receiving US organisation has an active, applicable certification) or appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Where safeguards are used, we complete the required transfer assessment and keep the position under review.

You can ask us for more information about these safeguards using the contact details in Section 1.

10. How long we keep your information

We keep your information only for as long as we need it. In general, your profile and content are kept while your account exists and are deleted when you delete your account, with limited exceptions for safety and legal reasons.

Deleted database information may remain in Supabase backups for up to 7 days. Our media backup process runs hourly and copies profile photos, daily photos and voice notes to Cloudflare R2. It also checks for deleted originals. Deleted media remains in R2 for the 30-day recovery period after that check detects its removal, followed by scheduled deletion; it does not disappear from backup immediately. This recovery window allows us to restore media after accidental or malicious deletion. If the original is restored, its backup is no longer treated as awaiting deletion. Backup copies are restricted to recovery use, and information restored after its normal retention period is re-deleted. Safety evidence is subject to the separate rules in Section 12.

11. How we keep your information secure

We take the security of your information seriously and use a range of measures to protect it:

• Your information is encrypted both in transit and when stored.
• Photos and voice notes are stored privately and only shared through temporary, expiring links, never public web addresses.
• Strict access rules mean each person can only see their own information plus the public parts of other people’s profiles; hidden fields are blocked at our server.
• Your precise location is never shared with other users. Distance is calculated on our server and only a rough distance is shown.
• Your exact date of birth is never shown to others; only your age and star sign are.
• No secret keys or AI credentials are stored inside the app itself.
• We apply limits to prevent abuse, such as caps on verification texts and AI requests.
• Whether you have been active recently is shown only as a rough indicator, rounded to the hour, so your exact times of use are never revealed.

No service can be completely secure. If a data breach occurs that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify the ICO within 72 hours where required, and we will tell you if the risk to you is high.

12. Safety: blocking, reporting and bans

Keeping people safe is central to Wingd, and some of our safety measures affect how we handle data:

• Blocking is mutual in effect and stays in place until the person who placed the block removes it from their Blocked Users list. While the block is active, the two people disappear from each other’s experience and any existing likes or match between them are removed. A separate restricted conversation-evidence copy may still be retained for 6 months from the block as explained above, even if the block is later removed.
• Reporting removes that person from your experience and alerts our team. We keep a record of the report, including the phone number and email of the people involved, so that deleting an account cannot erase the safety trail.
• Bans follow the phone number: a banned or blocked number cannot simply re-register, and numbers are re-verified at sign-up.
• Photo moderation: uploaded photos are automatically screened for nudity and explicit content, and explicit images are removed.

When someone unmatches, the ordinary conversation disappears from both people's apps immediately, but a restricted server-side safety copy may be kept for 30 days from the unmatch. If one person blocks the other, that restricted copy is kept for 6 months from the block. If a report is made, the relevant report and evidence are kept for 24 months from report closure. These copies are not visible in either person's app and only authorised safety or moderation personnel can access them. Longer retention applies only where a documented investigation, legal claim, regulator or law-enforcement requirement, or another specific safety duty requires it.

Reports may sometimes contain sensitive information, including about sexuality, religion, abuse, threats or other safety concerns. Where this happens, we use that information only for safety, safeguarding, abuse prevention, legal claims and legal obligations, and we keep only what is necessary.

This is why we keep some safety information even after an account is deleted. UK data protection law allows this where it is needed to protect people and to meet our legal duties (including under the Online Safety Act 2023). We keep only what is necessary for these purposes.

13. Cookies, device identifiers and push notifications

The Wingd app does not use advertising or third-party analytics trackers. We use standard device identifiers needed to run the app securely. Cookies and similar technologies on our website are covered by the separate website privacy notice.

13.1 Push notifications

To deliver notifications, we collect a device push token, which is a device identifier and personal data. Notifications pass through Expo Push Service, which forwards them to Apple Push Notification service (APNs) on iOS, or Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) if the Android app is released. Expo and the relevant platform provider receive the device push token and notification content needed for delivery. Notifications may include messages, likes, matches and Exclusive Mode requests or status changes. If message previews are enabled, the notification body may include up to 120 characters of the message.

Our lawful basis is consent. You choose whether to allow notifications and can turn them off at any time in the app settings or device system settings. Transfers to Expo, Apple or Google outside the UK are protected as described in Section 9. We keep the push token while your account is active, or until you disable notifications or the device is removed.

14. Marketing

At launch we only send you messages needed to run the service, such as SMS sign-up or log-in codes, receipts, support replies and other service notifications. If we later send marketing messages, we will only do so where we are allowed to and, where required, with your consent. You will always be able to opt out of marketing.

15. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have a number of rights over your personal information. The table below explains each right and how to use it in Wingd.

Our in-app 'Download my data' export provides ordinary account and service data. Restricted moderation and safety evidence, including the temporary server-side copies in Section 12, is not included in that automatic export. If you make a formal access request, we consider restricted safety material case by case and may withhold or redact information where the law permits or requires it, including to protect another person's rights or safety. As noted in Section 6, private AI advice chats are not stored in Wingd's database.

16. Age and under-18s

Wingd is strictly for people aged 18 and over. The app is rated 18+ on the relevant app store, and at sign-up we require a date of birth and block anyone whose date shows they are under 18. Phone-number verification is also required. We may suspend an account and request additional age evidence if we reasonably suspect the user is under 18. These controls do not mean that every user’s identity or exact age has been independently verified. If we learn that an under-18 has created an account, we remove it.

17. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example if we add new features or providers. When we make significant changes, we will let you know through the app or by email, and we will update the “Last updated” date at the top. Please check back from time to time.

18. Availability outside the United Kingdom

Wingd is launching for users in the United Kingdom. We will review and update this policy, our legal arrangements and any required local representatives before deliberately offering the service in another country. If you access Wingd while temporarily outside the UK, UK data-protection law continues to govern Wingd’s processing and local mandatory rights may also apply where the law requires.