Privacy Policy

Last updated: 10 June 2026

frends ("we", "the app") lets you share photos, messages and plans inside private groups with your friends. This policy explains what we collect and why.

Information we collect

• Account info — your email address and a display name/username, created when you sign up with email, Apple, or Google.
• Content you create — photos and videos you post, captions, the drink you select, comments, replies and emoji reactions.
• Messages in a group's chat — the text you send, photos you send, polls you create and vote in, and voice notes, which are audio recordings made when you hold the record button. Recording only ever happens while you are holding it.
• Shared expenses — what you say something cost, who you say was in on it, and the resulting balances between members of that group. These are amounts you type in. frends does not process payments, is not connected to your bank or card, and never moves money.
• Places your group keeps — the name, address and coordinates of a restaurant, bar or café somebody adds to a group's map, the star rating you give it, and comments left on it. If you import a shared Google Maps list, we fetch that list from Google using the link you paste and keep only what is described here.
• Social graph — the groups you join and the friends you add.
• Location — only if you choose to share it (iPhone only). Two separate things, both switched on by you:
  • A place on a post. When you attach a place, we store that place's name and coordinates as part of the post, so your group can see where you were. Collected only at the moment you tap to add it.
  • Sharing where you are on a group's map. You choose one group and how long — an hour, until 6am, or until you stop, which still ends by itself after eight hours. While it runs, your location updates including when the app is in the background, and iOS shows an indicator the whole time. Only the members of that one group can see it. It is deleted when you stop, and deleted automatically when the time you chose runs out. It is never shared with your other groups, never kept as a history of where you have been, and never used for anything else.
  The Android app does not use location at all.

We do not collect your contacts, browsing history, or any advertising identifiers. We never track your location for advertising or analytics, never build a history of where you have been, and never collect it unless you have switched sharing on for a group and the time you chose has not yet run out. frends contains no ads and no third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.

How we use it

Solely to make the app work: to authenticate you, show your groups' photo feeds to their members, deliver invites, friend requests, reactions and comments, and keep your account.

Who can see your content

Inside the app, posts, chat, expenses and places are visible only to members of the group they belong to. Groups are private and invite-only, and we never make your content public, never show it in a discover feed, and never sell or licence it.

One detail worth stating plainly rather than burying: the photo and video files themselves are served from long, unguessable web addresses. The app only ever hands those addresses to members of the right group, but anyone you forward such a link to can open it without being in the group — the same way an attachment link works in most apps. If that matters for a particular photo, send it as view-once.

Service providers

We use Google Firebase — Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions and Cloud Messaging — to store data, run our backend and deliver push notifications on our behalf. Firebase processes data under Google's terms.

Two things leave the app on your instruction and nobody else's. Tapping Directions on a place hands its coordinates to whichever maps app you have installed, or to Google Maps in your browser if you have none. Importing a Google Maps list asks Google for the contents of the link you pasted; that request is made by our server, so your device's address is not sent to Google. Nothing else is shared with anyone, and your data is never sold.

Data retention & deletion

Disappearing photos are hidden after 24 hours. You can delete your own photos and comments at any time. In-app account deletion is provided in the app's Profile screen.

When you delete your account it is deactivated immediately and then permanently deleted after 30 days. During those 30 days you can restore it by signing back in; after that, your profile and associated personal data are erased and cannot be recovered. Photos you posted to a group remain with that group (they are shared with its members), attributed to “Deleted user”. We may, during the 30-day window, contact you once to ask why you left; you can ignore that message.

Children

frends is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country). We don't knowingly collect data from them.

Contact

Questions or deletion requests: hello@frends.app.