Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal data we collect when you use the Friendzone website and app, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it. It is written to meet the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who we are

Friendzone is made by Instauratio Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16290185, with its registered office at 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA, United Kingdom. We are the data controller for the personal data described here.

For anything about your data, email [email protected].

2. What Friendzone does

Friendzone helps you arrange time with your friends. On your instruction, an assistant in the app contacts the friends you choose by text message (SMS) to arrange a plan. Your friends do not need the app: they take part over SMS as guests.

That shape decides most of what follows. We hold data about two kinds of people: members, who have an account, and guests, who are contacted on a member’s behalf and may never have heard of us. Section 5 is written for guests.

3. The data we collect

On this website

• Waitlist email address. If you join the waitlist we store the address you enter, the date you entered it, and whether we have sent you an invite. Nothing else. We do not store your IP address with it.
• Bot protection. The waitlist form may use Cloudflare Turnstile to tell people from scripts. Turnstile processes technical signals from your browser; see Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
• Server logs. The site is served by Cloudflare, which keeps short-lived request logs (IP address, browser, pages requested) for security and reliability.

This website sets no analytics or advertising cookies.

In the app

• Account. When you sign in with Google or Apple we receive your name, email address and a unique identifier from that provider. We do not receive your password.
• Phone number. We ask for your mobile number and verify it by SMS. It is used to identify you to the friends we contact and to recognise friends who also use Friendzone. It is not used to sign in.
• Your friends. The names and phone numbers of the friends you add, and any preferences you set about them. You can type these in or, if you allow it, pick them from your phone’s contacts. We only receive the contacts you choose, never your whole address book.
• Plans. The details of each plan: who it is with, what it is, when and where, the venues suggested and chosen, and whether it went ahead.
• Location. The area you choose for a plan. We do not track your location in the background. If you ask the app to use your current location, it requests it once and we keep only the area it resolves to.
• Messages. Everything the assistant sends and receives by SMS while arranging a plan, including guests’ replies.
• Subscription. Whether you have an active subscription, the product, and the store’s transaction identifier. Payment is taken by Apple or Google; we never see your card details.
• Device and diagnostics. A push notification token so we can notify you, a device identifier used to prevent abuse, such as claiming a free allowance repeatedly, and crash and error reports, which may include technical details of your device and what the app was doing when it failed.
• Support. Anything you send us when you get in touch.

4. Why we use it, and the lawful basis

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for advertising. We will not send you marketing email unless you have separately agreed to it, and you can stop it at any time.

5. If you are a guest

A member of Friendzone has asked the assistant to arrange something with you. Here is what that means for your data.

• What we hold. Your first name as the member entered it, your mobile number, the messages sent to you, and your replies. Nothing else. We do not look you up elsewhere or build a profile.
• Why we can do this. The member has a legitimate interest in making plans with a friend, and we have one in providing that service. We judge that a short, clearly labelled message from a friend’s assistant, which you can stop with one word, is something most people would reasonably expect from a friend who has your number. The assistant always says who it is, who asked it to get in touch, and that it is an assistant rather than a person. It never markets to you.
• How to stop. Reply STOP to any message and we will not text you again from any member, and we keep your number on an opt-out list so that stays true. Reply HELP for a reminder of how it works.
• How to have your data deleted. Email [email protected] from any address, or reply to a message asking us to delete your details. We will remove your number and messages from every member’s account. If you want to stay contactable by a particular friend, say so and we will only remove the rest.
• Your other rights are the same as a member’s; see section 10.

If you are a member: only add people who would welcome hearing from you, and make sure you have the right to share their number with us. The terms of service ask this of you, and it is what keeps the arrangement above fair to your friends.

6. How we use AI

The assistant is built on large language models supplied by Anthropic (the Claude models) through their commercial API. While the assistant works on a plan, the following is sent to that service so the model can respond: the plan details you have entered, the first names of the people involved, the area and venue options, and, during outreach, the text of messages to and from guests. Anthropic processes this data on our instructions as a processor. Under the terms we use, Anthropic does not use our data to train its models, and it deletes the inputs and outputs after a short retention period except where it must keep them for safety or legal reasons. Anthropic’s servers are in the United States; see section 8 on transfers.

Some things the AI does not do:

• It does not make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you. It suggests; you decide, and you can stop a plan at any time.
• It does not read your contacts, your calendar, or your other messages. It only sees what you and your guests put into a plan.
• It does not act as a person. It says it is an assistant on first contact with every guest.

We may review a small number of conversations ourselves to check the assistant is behaving well and to investigate a complaint. We also use the AI service to help interpret guests’ replies. Where a reply is unclear, a person on our side may look at it, and the member is asked.

7. Who we share data with

We use a small number of service providers to run Friendzone. Each processes data only on our instructions, under a contract, and only for the purpose shown.

We may also disclose personal data when the law requires it, to protect someone’s safety, or to a buyer if the business is sold, in which case this policy still applies to the data transferred. We do not share data with advertisers or data brokers.

8. International transfers

Some of the providers above are outside the UK. Where they are, we rely on one of the safeguards UK law recognises: the UK’s adequacy regulations (including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for certified US providers), the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You can ask us for details of the safeguard used for a particular provider.

9. How long we keep data

Backups are kept for a further short period and are overwritten on a rolling basis.

10. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you, and get a copy.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete your data (“the right to be forgotten”). You can delete your account inside the app; guests can email us or reply to a message.
• Restrict how we use it while a question is sorted out.
• Move it: receive the data you gave us in a common machine-readable format.
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including guest outreach.
• Withdraw consent where consent is the basis, at any time, without affecting what was done before.

To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. We will reply within one month. We may need to confirm it is you; for guests, replying from the number we have on file is usually enough.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to sort it out first.

11. Security

Data travels encrypted (TLS) between your device, our servers and our providers, and is stored encrypted at rest. Phone numbers and other sensitive fields are additionally encrypted in our database. Access to production systems is limited to the people who need it and protected by multi-factor authentication. The waitlist form is rate limited and bot checked, and the API never confirms whether an email address is already on the list. No system is perfectly secure; if we discover a breach that puts you at risk we will tell you and the ICO as the law requires.

12. Children

Friendzone is for adults. You must be 18 or over to have an account. We do not knowingly hold data about anyone under 18, and if you tell us we do we will delete it.

13. Cookies

This website sets no cookies of its own. If Turnstile is shown on the waitlist form, Cloudflare may set a cookie strictly needed to complete the bot check. The app does not use cookies.

14. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our practices change and will tell members in the app about any change that matters. The date at the top is the date of the current version.

15. Contact

Instauratio Ltd, 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]