Privacy Policy
Effective: 2026-07-24
The short version
Cards Up is not interested in collecting your dating life and selling it back to you. We collect what the app needs to run, keep people safe, show the profile you chose to publish, and process purchases. We do not sell personal data, and there is no ranking algorithm to feed.
What we collect
Account data (email, first name, date of birth, and a hashed password); profile data; photos and a private verification selfie; messages and activity; reports, blocks, and accountability records; purchase records; and foreground location while you use Cards Up.
If you give us your phone number
A phone number is optional. We use it for the reason you gave it: to hold your place on the waitlist, text you when the doors open, or send a code proving the number is yours. Codes are salted hashes, not the digits we sent, and they expire. We text the United States and Canada only. Mobile phone numbers and text-message consent are never shared or sold to anyone for their own marketing. Message frequency is low: a verification code only when you ask for one, and one message when the app opens. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help. Message and data rates may apply.
Location is not a tracking beacon
Cards Up refreshes your private location when you open or return to the app and periodically while you actively use it. This keeps nearby profiles, rounded distances, country or region context, and local public-place search current. Other members see only an offset pin and rounded distance; they never receive your coordinates. Cards Up does not request background location. Venue search sends the search origin with your query to our venue provider. A venue check-in uses one fresh precise reading to check that you are near the public place you both chose. Check-in coordinates are rounded before storage, hidden from your date, and removed after the retention window. Do not put private information in a venue search.
What other members see
Members see the profile you publish, answers you mark public, online/last-active status, qualifying reply statistics, approximate distance, and the agreed public meet venue. Private lifestyle answers can filter results without appearing on your card. Your exact coordinates and verification selfie never appear to another member.
Where your data goes
We use data to operate Cards Up, prevent abuse, review safety reports, verify accounts, and support purchases. Cards Up does not sell personal data or use it for a ranking algorithm. Infrastructure, email, moderation, venue-search, payment, and app-store providers receive only what they need to do the job.
Ads do not get your dating life
Cards Up may show one persistent Google AdMob banner across the five top-level tabs, never inside a private conversation or another member's profile. AdMob does not receive your dating profile, preferences, messages, photos, email, phone number, Cards Up user ID, verification or safety history, precise Cards Up location, or meet history. Google may still process ordinary ad-delivery data such as device, network, diagnostics, ad interactions, impressions, and clicks. In the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, Google asks for the required choice before an ad request. You can reopen available choices from Ad privacy choices in the You tab.
When you leave
Deleting your account removes private files, your public profile, preferences, verification requests, direct identifiers, and authentication identity. Shared conversation and accountability history remains under a non-searchable “Departed” identity so the other participant keeps their record. Check-in coordinates are erased for the departing member and automatically pruned after 30 days.
Your choices and rights
You can choose which lifestyle answers display, edit your profile, block or report members, reopen available ad privacy choices, download your data, and delete your account in the You tab or at cardsup.app/delete-account. Location is required while using Cards Up because nearby matching and distance cannot work honestly without it; you can revoke permission by leaving the app or deleting your account. Depending on where you live, you may request access, correction, export, restriction, objection, or deletion by contacting [email protected].
18 and older
Cards Up is for adults 18 and older. We do not knowingly keep accounts belonging to minors.
When this changes
If the way we handle data materially changes, we will say so before the change takes effect.