Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 28, 2026

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1. About this policy

This policy explains how SnowPea Studios LLC (“SnowPea,” “we,” “us”) collects, uses, and shares personal information when you use the Elsewhere app, elsewheredating.com, and related services (“Elsewhere”). SnowPea is responsible for your information as its controller.

2. Information we collect

We collect information you give us, information created when you use Elsewhere, and information from others.

Information you give us

• Account information: your phone number, or the name and email address from your Google or Apple account if you sign in that way (Apple may give us a private relay email instead); and your birthday.
• Profile information: your name, photos, bio, prompts, interests, gender, who you're interested in, sexuality, religion, your country, your language, the countries you want to see, and your preferences. Some fields are optional, and some aren't offered in every country.
• Messages and comments: the messages you send, the comments you leave on photos, and their translations.
• Photo verification: a live selfie, which we use to create temporary face scans (see Section 4).
• Reports, appeals, and support requests: what you tell us when you report someone, appeal a decision, or contact us.

Information created when you use Elsewhere

• Activity: likes, swipes, matches, blocks, and when you use the app.
• Device and technical information: device identifiers, device model, operating system, app version, device language and region setting, IP address, push notification tokens, and error logs.
• Safety information: results of our automated checks, flags, visibility limits, reports about you, and records of bans.
• Purchase information: what you bought, when, the price, and your subscription status. We never see your full card details, because Apple or Google handle payment.

Information from others

• Apple and Google: your sign-in details, age range information where available, and purchase and subscription records.
• Other users: reports about you, and messages or comments they send you.
• Service providers: results of moderation checks on your photos and text.

We set your country from what you enter and your device's region setting.

3. Sensitive information

Some information on a dating app is sensitive, and we treat it with extra care.

• Sexual orientation and religion. Your gender and who you're interested in can reveal your sexual orientation. You can also choose to add your sexuality and religion, which are optional. We ask for your explicit consent before you add this information, and it appears on your profile for other users to see. You can remove optional fields at any time, which withdraws your consent for them. In some countries, we don't offer these fields at all.
• Biometric information. Photo verification uses face scans, which are biometric information. See Section 4.
• Using a dating app. The fact that you use Elsewhere may itself be sensitive. We don't share it with advertisers or data brokers.
• No precise location. We don't collect GPS or other precise location. We only use your country.

We use sensitive information only to provide Elsewhere, keep it safe, and meet legal obligations. We don't use it to infer things about you, and we never sell it.

4. Photo verification and biometric information

This section is our biometric information policy, including our retention and destruction schedule.

What we collect and why. When you verify, you take a live selfie. Our system checks that the selfie shows a live person. It then creates face scans, which are measurements of face geometry, from the selfie and from your profile photos, and compares them. We use this only to confirm that you match your profile photos and to prevent fake accounts.

Consent. We ask for your written consent in the app before we collect any biometric information. If you don't consent, you can skip verification, but some features may not be available.

Where it's processed. The check runs on our own servers, hosted for us by Render in the United States. We don't share your selfie or face scans with anyone else. We never sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from biometric information.

Retention and destruction. We permanently delete your selfie and all face scans immediately after the check is complete. We keep only the result: whether you passed, and when. We will never keep biometric information after the purpose of the check is fulfilled, or longer than the law allows.

Security. We protect biometric information with at least the same care we use for our other most sensitive information. If it were ever compromised, we would notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

Your rights. You can ask whether we hold any biometric information about you. Because we delete it right away, the answer will normally be none.

5. How we use information

We use your information to run Elsewhere, keep people safe, and follow the law. The last column shows our legal basis under EU, EEA, and Swiss law.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object (see Section 10). Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, without affecting earlier processing. We don't use your information for advertising.

6. AI and automated decisions

We use AI to translate content and to help keep Elsewhere safe. We don't use your content to train AI models, and our AI providers don't use it for training either.

• Translation. Profile text, photo comments, and messages are sent to DeepInfra, which translates them with an open-source DeepSeek model running on DeepInfra's servers in the United States. Nothing is sent to DeepSeek the company. DeepInfra doesn't store this content after translating it, apart from limited short-term logs for debugging.
• Text moderation. Messages and other text you write are checked for scams, harassment, and other rule breaks by Jev, a model from TypeSafe AI that we run through Cloudflare Workers AI with zero data retention.
• Photo moderation. Profile photos are checked by Sightengine for nudity, violence, and other prohibited content. Sightengine deletes each photo after checking it.
• Photo verification. Our own system checks liveness and compares faces, as described in Section 4.

Automated decisions. Our automated tools can flag content for review, or limit the visibility of content or accounts on their own. They can't ban anyone; only a person on our team can. Automated tools make mistakes, so you can always ask for a person to review a decision by emailing hello@elsewheredating.com. If you're in the EU, we'll tell you when an automated tool restricts your account or content.

Your feed. We decide which profiles to show you mainly from the countries you choose and the preferences you set. This doesn't have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

7. How we share information

We don't sell your information or share it for targeted advertising, and we haven't done so in the past 12 months. We share it only as described here.

With other users. Your profile, including your photos, country, and any sensitive fields you add, can be seen by Elsewhere users who choose your country, wherever they live. Messages and comments go to the people you send them to, translated into their language. Other users can take screenshots or share what they see, so share carefully. If we ban an account for fraud, we may send a fraud alert, including that account's profile name, to users who messaged with it.

With service providers. These companies help us run Elsewhere. They process information only on our instructions and under contracts that protect it.

We also use standard tools for email and running our business.

Apple and Google. When you sign in with Apple or Google, or buy through their stores, they handle your information under their own privacy policies.

For safety and legal reasons. We may share information with law enforcement, courts, regulators, or others when the law requires it; to protect anyone's safety; to prevent fraud or abuse; to enforce our Terms; or to report child sexual exploitation to NCMEC, which works with law enforcement worldwide.

Business transfers. If SnowPea is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of the deal, and it will stay protected by this policy.

With your consent. We may share information in other ways if you ask us to or agree to it.

8. International transfers

SnowPea is based in the United States, and we process your information there and in the other countries where our providers operate. These countries may have data protection laws that differ from yours.

Elsewhere is built to connect people across borders. Your profile, comments, and messages are shown to users in other countries, including countries with weaker data protection laws. This is necessary to provide the service you ask us for.

When we transfer personal information from the EU, EEA, Switzerland, or other places with transfer rules, we use safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified. You can ask us for a copy of the relevant safeguards.

9. How long we keep information

We keep information only as long as we need it. When you delete your account, your profile, photos, and conversations are deleted immediately from our live systems.

We may keep information longer when the law requires it, to preserve evidence for a legal claim, or when law enforcement asks us to. For example, US law requires us to preserve reports of child sexual exploitation.

10. Your rights and choices

Everyone can:

• see and edit most of their information in the app;
• remove optional profile fields at any time;
• turn off push notifications in their device settings;
• delete their account in the app's settings; and
• ask us for a copy of their information, or ask us to correct or delete it.

How to make a request. Email our data protection contact at hello@elsewheredating.com with “Privacy request” in the subject, the phone number or email on your account, and what you're asking for. We may need to confirm your identity, for example by sending a code to your phone number. We'll respond within the time the law requires: usually one month in the EU and 45 days in the US. We won't treat you differently for using your rights.

EU, EEA, and Swiss users. You have the right to access, correct, and delete your information, to restrict its use, and to receive a portable copy. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests, withdraw consent at any time, and ask not to be subject to decisions based only on automated processing that significantly affect you. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

US state privacy rights. Depending on where you live, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia, you may have the right to know, access, correct, and delete your information, and to get a portable copy. You may also have the right to opt out of the sale of your information, targeted advertising, and certain profiling, but we don't do any of those. We use sensitive information only for purposes the law allows. In California, you can use an authorized agent. If we deny your request, you can appeal by replying with “Appeal” in the subject. If we deny your appeal, you can contact your state attorney general.

California notice. In the past 12 months, we collected these categories of personal information: identifiers; customer records; protected characteristics such as age, gender, sexual orientation, and religion; commercial information; biometric information; internet or network activity; general location (country only); photos; and sensitive personal information, including message contents, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and biometric information. We collect them from the sources in Section 2, use them for the purposes in Section 5, disclose them to the recipients in Section 7, and keep them as described in Section 9. We don't sell or share them.

Washington residents. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy at elsewheredating.com/health-data-privacy explains how we handle consumer health data, including biometric information from photo verification.

11. Security

We protect your information with technical and organizational measures, including encryption in transit, access controls, and limiting who on our team can see personal information. Our storage providers encrypt data at rest.

Messages are not end-to-end encrypted. Our systems and providers process them for translation and safety, and our team may review them when they're reported or flagged.

No system is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee security. If a breach affects your information, we'll notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

12. Children

Elsewhere is only for adults 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If we learn that we have, we'll delete the account and its information, except what we must keep to report child exploitation or meet other legal duties.

If you believe a minor is using Elsewhere, report the profile in the app or email hello@elsewheredating.com.

13. Country-specific information

South Korea

• Overseas transfers. To provide Elsewhere, we transfer your personal information outside Korea to SnowPea in the United States and to the providers listed in Section 7, which shows what each receives, why, and where. Information is sent over encrypted connections whenever you use Elsewhere, and kept as described in Section 9. You can refuse these transfers by not using Elsewhere or by deleting your account, but we can't provide Elsewhere without them.
• Destruction. When information is no longer needed, we permanently delete electronic files so they can't be recovered.
• Privacy office. SnowPea Studios LLC Privacy Office, hello@elsewheredating.com.
• Help and complaints. You can also contact the Personal Information Infringement Report Center (privacy.kisa.or.kr, call 118) or the Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee (kopico.go.kr, call 1833-6972).

Thailand. You have rights under the Personal Data Protection Act similar to those listed for EU users in Section 10, and you can complain to the Personal Data Protection Committee.

Brazil. You have the rights in Article 18 of the LGPD, which include those in Section 10. To use them, or with any question about your data, contact our data protection contact at hello@elsewheredating.com. You can also complain to the ANPD, Brazil's data protection authority.

Other countries. You may have more rights under your local law. Email hello@elsewheredating.com to use them.

14. Changes and contact

We may update this policy. If we make material changes, we'll notify you in the app or by email before they take effect. The “Last updated” date at the top shows the current version. If we provide a translation of this policy and it conflicts with the English version, the English version controls, unless local law requires otherwise.

Contact us. SnowPea Studios LLC, 1048B Sagamore Pkwy W #1064, West Lafayette, IN 47906, United States. Email: hello@elsewheredating.com.