LynqSeat Privacy Policy

Version 3.0 · How we process personal data when you use LynqSeat as a member (on the website, in the web app or in the LynqSeat mobile app for Android and iPhone), visit lynqseat.com, run a Venue account or contact us. Greek is the authoritative language for users in Greece.

1. Controller and contacts

The controller is RocketSavvy IT& T, established in Canada (business number 5154894123), 20 Greencrest Circuit, [email protected].

• Representative in the EU (Article 27 GDPR): Panagiotis Peter F. Athens, Greece.
• Data protection contact: [email protected]. Write to this address to exercise your rights or for any question about this policy.

We apply Regulation (EU) 2016/679 ("GDPR"), Greek Law 4624/2019, Greek Law 3471/2006 on electronic communications and, where relevant, Canada's PIPEDA.

2. Our approach

LynqSeat is built so that people meet in public places and are visible to each other only while they are at the same event. We collect what the service needs, we do not sell personal data, we do not show advertising, we do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not build marketing profiles.

3. What data we process, why, and on what legal basis

3.1 Account and sign-in

• Data: mobile phone number; one-time SMS codes (stored only as a cryptographic hash, valid 5 minutes); preferred language; account status; session records (a random device identifier, IP address, browser type, time of sign-in and last use; in the mobile app also the device model, operating system and app version). In the mobile app your sign-in tokens are kept in the secure storage of your phone (iOS Keychain or Android Keystore) and are removed when you sign out.
• Purpose: to create your account, let you sign in without a password, keep your account secure and prevent abuse (rate limits on codes, detection of stolen sessions).
• Legal basis: performance of our contract with you (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and our legitimate interest in securing the service (Art. 6(1)(f)).

3.2 Profile

• Data: display name, date of birth (to confirm you are 21 or older, and to show your age), gender, what you are looking for (friends, dating, networking or open), short bio, interests, languages, city, up to three icebreakers, profile photo.
• Gender preferences ("interested in"): this optional field can reveal information about your sexual orientation, which is a special category of data. We process it only on the basis of your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR), which you give by filling it in, and only to show you relevant people at events. You can clear it at any time.
• Photos: we re-encode every photo you upload; this removes embedded metadata such as GPS location and device details. Photos are served only through short-lived signed links.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); explicit consent for the preferences field (Art. 9(2)(a)).

3.3 Selfie check and profile photo

• Data: a selfie you take with your phone's front camera while following an on-screen instruction (for example "look to the left"), the instruction, the result, and whether the decision was automatic or made by a person. A selfie cannot be uploaded from a computer or from a saved file. Your profile photo is checked in the same way before other members can see it.
• Purpose: to confirm that the profile belongs to a real adult who matches the photo, and to refuse exposed genitals, exposed breasts, sexual acts, violence and hate symbols. Swimwear and ordinary body photos are allowed.
• How it works: an automated check compares the face in the selfie with the face in your profile photo. It also checks that the requested instruction is visible, that the selfie looks like a live photo from the camera rather than a picture of a screen or a print, and that neither image contains exposed genitals, exposed breasts, a sexual act, violence or hate symbols. Swimwear is allowed. It estimates only whether the person appears under 21 or 21 or older. We do not create a biometric template or a face database, and we do not use the images to train models or for advertising. The selfie image is deleted as soon as there is a final decision. If the check is not confident, if the person may be under 21, or if the automatic check is unavailable, a trained member of our team decides. You can ask for that human review at any time, state your view, and contest the result. When a selfie is refused for a reason you can fix (too dark, blurry, pose not followed), the app asks you to try again at once with a new instruction. A refusal does not by itself suspend or close your account.
• Legal basis: the check is required to use LynqSeat. You give your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR, because the image of your face is used to verify that the profile is yours) by accepting the Terms and this Privacy Policy when you create your account. The acceptance screen names this check. It is not a separate optional setting. You can withdraw that consent only by deleting your account in Settings, because we cannot provide the service without the check. Deleting the account erases the selfie image as described in this policy.
• Transfer: the images are sent only for this check to a service provider acting on our instructions. That provider is in the United States. The transfer relies on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified. You can ask us for the provider's name and for a copy of those safeguards.

3.4 Events, check-in and location

• Data: RSVPs and waiting-list positions; check-ins (event, time, method, and the distance in metres between you and the Venue at the moment of check-in); when you leave.
• Location: with your permission, the app reads your device location once, at the moment you check in, to confirm you are inside the Venue's area. The coordinates are used for that check only and are not stored. We never track your location in the background.
• Purpose: to manage places at events, confirm physical presence and make you visible only to people at the same event.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); for the location reading and for being visible to other attendees, your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you give in the app and can withdraw in Settings.

3.5 Interest signals, matches and chat

• Data: interest signals you send (visible only to you unless they become mutual), matches, chat messages and read receipts, your choice to keep a chat after an event, and what you add to a message: emoji reactions, photos, short videos (up to 10 seconds) and voice notes (up to 15 seconds).
• Photos, videos and voice notes: a file is stored privately and delivered only to the people in that chat, only while they are signed in as themselves; it has no public or shareable link. Photos are re-encoded and lose their location and camera data. We do not analyse the content of these files. They are deleted automatically 30 days after they were sent (the message stays and shows that the file has expired), at once when you unsend the message, and when you delete your account. You can unsend your own messages at any time, except a message that has been reported while the report is open.
• Purpose: to let people who are mutually interested talk.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).
• Confidentiality: our staff do not read chats, except messages that a member has reported, which are reviewed only to handle that report.

3.6 Κέρασμα (drink gifts) and payments

• Data: the order (event, Venue, item, price, the platform fee we deduct from what we pay the Venue (the percentage shown in the venue dashboard, currently 15%), optional pre-written note, status, timestamps, ticket code), the identifiers of sender and recipient, wallet credit entries, and the reference of the payment at Stripe.
• Payment methods: card, or a digital wallet such as Google Pay or Apple Pay where your device offers it, and Link. The wallet or card details go to Stripe, never to us or to the Venue.
• Who receives the money: the payment is collected by us on our own Stripe account and, after the Venue has served the item, paid on to the Venue by bank transfer minus our fee (section 3.10).
• Card data is entered directly into Stripe's secure form. We never receive or store your full card number. Stripe processes payment data as an independent controller for fraud prevention and its legal obligations (Stripe's privacy policy: stripe.com/privacy).
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); legal obligations for accounting and tax records (Art. 6(1)(c)); legitimate interest in preventing fraud and chargebacks (Art. 6(1)(f)).

3.7 Safety, reports and moderation

• Data: reports and notices (including from people without an account: name, e-mail, description), blocks, "I don't feel comfortable" alerts to Venues, moderation cases, decisions, statements of reasons, appeals.
• Purpose: to keep members safe, enforce our Terms, comply with the Digital Services Act and defend legal claims.
• Legal basis: legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c), DSA Articles 16 to 23) and our legitimate interest in a safe service (Art. 6(1)(f)). Data about suspected criminal offences is processed only as permitted by Art. 10 GDPR and Greek law.

3.8 Notifications

• Data: in-app notifications, your notification preferences and quiet hours, and, if you enable them, web push subscriptions (a technical endpoint and keys provided by your browser) or, in the mobile app, a push token issued by Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging, Android) or Apple (Apple Push Notification service, iPhone) together with the platform and app version. We use these only to deliver the notifications you allowed; they are removed when you sign out, uninstall, the push service reports them invalid, or you delete your account.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract for service notifications (Art. 6(1)(b)); your consent for marketing notifications (Art. 6(1)(a)), which are off unless you switch them on.

3.9 Consent and policy records

• We keep a record of each consent you give or withdraw (purpose, version of the document, time, IP address and browser) to demonstrate compliance (Art. 7(1) GDPR; legal obligation, Art. 6(1)(c)).

3.10 Venue accounts and sales

• Venue owners and staff: name, phone, role, the Venue's business details (legal name, VAT number checked through the EU VIES service, address, opening hours, photos, menu), subscription and invoicing data and, for payouts, the bank account details the owner enters (account holder, IBAN and bank name). These are encrypted at rest, shown only in masked form, used only to pay the Venue its Κέρασμα earnings by bank transfer, and changed only after an SMS code sent to the owner. Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) and legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)).
• Prospective Venues contacted by our sales partners: business name, contact person, business phone, address and notes on contacts. Legal basis: legitimate interest in offering our service to businesses (Art. 6(1)(f)). You can object at any time and we will stop contacting you.
• Venue enquiry form on our website: the data you enter, to answer you (Art. 6(1)(b), steps prior to a contract).

3.11 The mobile app (Android and iPhone)

• Permissions it can ask for: the camera (selfie check and QR check-in), the photo library (to choose a profile photo), your location while the app is open (read once at check-in, never in the background, see 3.4) and notifications. The app asks for the microphone only when you record a voice note in a chat; it never listens in the background, and a recording is kept only if you send it (see 3.5). Each permission is optional at the operating-system level and you can withdraw it in your phone settings; features that need it then stop working.
• App diagnostics: each time the app starts, and when it hits an unexpected error, it sends the app version, the phone's operating system and version, the app language, the screen where it happened, the error message, and a random install code that we keep only as a one-way hash (plus your member ID when you are signed in). We use this to keep the app stable, fix crashes and see which versions are in use. It contains no phone number, contacts, location or message text; anything that looks like a token or a number is masked before it leaves the phone. Legal basis: legitimate interest in running a secure and reliable service (Art. 6(1)(f)). Kept 30 days.
• What it does not contain: no advertising identifier, no advertising or analytics SDK and no tracking of your activity in other apps.
• Stores: Google Play and the Apple App Store provide the download under their own terms; we do not receive your store account data.
• The sections above apply to the app in the same way as to the website.

3.12 Website and security logs

• Data: IP address (with the last part removed in access logs), time, requested page, browser type and error data.
• Purpose: to deliver and protect the website, detect attacks and fix errors. Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)).

3.13 Support requests

• Data: what you write, the screenshots you attach, the topic you chose, the item the request is about (an event, Κέρασμα order, invoice, subscription or payout, with its basic details), whether you write as a member or for a Venue (and its plan), in the app the device model, operating system and app version, timestamps, notes written by our team and the rating you give.
• Purpose: to answer you, solve problems, keep a record of what was agreed and improve the service.
• Automated assistant: an automated assistant (artificial intelligence) may suggest replies to our team or reply to you while you wait. Its replies are always labelled as coming from the automated assistant. It makes no decision with legal or similarly significant effect for you and never acts on your account, payments or data: questions about money, your account, your data or safety are handled by a person. You can ask for a person at any time. The assistant receives the text of the conversation and the request details above, but no screenshots, phone number or payment data. The provider acts on our instructions (see section 5).
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); our legitimate interest in good service and in preventing abuse (Art. 6(1)(f)); legal obligations for billing questions (Art. 6(1)(c)).

3.14 Inviting friends to an event

• What it does: after you register for an event you can invite friends from your phone's contacts. A friend who is already a member gets a notification. A friend who is not a member gets one text message with the event, your first name and a link to LynqSeat. If the friend is already going, you are told so.
• Your contacts: the app reads your contacts only on your phone, only after you allow it and only when you open the invitation screen. We never upload or store your contact list. For the people you select, the app sends us a one-way hash of the phone number to find out who is already a member, and then the numbers of the people you choose to invite so that we can send the message.
• People who receive an invitation and are not members: we received your number from the member who invited you. We use it once, to send you this message, and we do not store it. To stop us inviting the same person twice we keep only a keyed hash of the number (it cannot be turned back into the number without a secret key we hold) for the cooldown period (90 days by default), and a record of the invitation for 30 days after the event. If you register later with that number, the invitation is linked to your account and the member who invited you is told that you joined. You can object at any time by following the opt-out instruction of the text message or by writing to [email protected], and we will make sure you are not contacted again.
• Members who are invited: the invitation is a notification you can switch off under Settings > Notifications ("Invitations from friends"). If you switch it off, your number is not matched when a friend invites contacts. Blocked members cannot invite you.
• Limits and safeguards: only members who are going to the event can invite; there are daily and per-event limits; nobody is invited twice to the same event; invitations are rate limited and logged (without phone numbers).
• Legal basis: our legitimate interest and that of the inviting member in a one-off, personal invitation (Art. 6(1)(f)); the invitation message is sent at the choice of the member, who is responsible for inviting only people they know (see the Terms). Members' notifications follow your notification settings.

3.15 Seat + welcome drink

• Data: the order (event, Venue, item, price, platform fee, status, ticket code, refund or forfeit and its reason) and the payment reference at Stripe, exactly as for a Κέρασμα (3.6). The Venue sees the item, the code and your first name to serve you.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); accounting obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)).

3.16 Tables (going with friends)

• Data: which table you belong to, who hosts it, and the messages of the table chat. Members of your table see your first name and profile photo. Venue staff see first names grouped by table on the night, to seat you together.
• Joining by invitation: when a friend who sits at a table invites you and you already have a seat, we place you (and your own table, if you have one and everyone fits) at their table and send you and the inviter a notification; you can leave at any time.
• Retention: table membership follows the event (see 3.4); chat messages are deleted 90 days after the event ends, and photos, videos and voice notes after 30 days (see 3.5).
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).

3.17 Your night, staying in touch and the shows-up badge

• Data: the list of people you met at an event (from matches, Κέρασμα and your table), your "stay in touch" requests (visible to the other person only when they made the same request), your rating of the night with optional tags and comment, and your check-in history against your reservations.
• Ratings reach the Venue only as anonymous totals and averages, never with your name. The shows-up badge is computed from your own reservations and check-ins and shown as a word ("new here", "regular", "reliable") on your card to co-attendees; the numbers behind it are visible only to you. It is not used for any decision with legal or similarly significant effect.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); our legitimate interest in reliable events and in venues knowing how nights went (Art. 6(1)(f)).

3.18 LynqSeat Plus

• Data: your subscription status, price, period and the Stripe customer and subscription identifiers. Payments are handled by Stripe as described in 3.6; we never see your full card number.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); accounting obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)).

3.19 Calendar and map in the app

• Adding an event to your calendar writes it to the calendar you choose on your phone, through the phone's own calendar access; we do not read your calendar. The map in the app loads tiles from our own server; your position is not sent for this.

4. Automated decisions and profiling

The selfie and profile-photo check in section 3.3 can approve or refuse an image automatically, using the criteria described there. It does not suspend or close your account by itself. You can ask a person to review the result, state your point of view and contest it (Art. 22 GDPR). A person decides whenever the automatic check is uncertain, whenever the person may be under 21, and on every account suspension or termination. Other automated rules only help us (for example rate limits, blocking obviously fake sign-ups, flagging duplicate payment cards). We do not profile you for advertising.

5. Who receives your data

• Other members see your profile card only while you are both checked in at the same live event, and afterwards only if you matched. They never see your phone number, exact age data, location or interest signals you sent.
• Venues see aggregated statistics of their events (places taken, check-ins, Κέρασμα totals). Venue staff see a Κέρασμα ticket (item and ticket code) to serve it, and the alerts you choose to send them.
• Service providers (processors) acting on our instructions under data processing agreements:
• Hostinger International Ltd (server hosting; data centre in Germany);
• Cloudflare, Inc. (content delivery, security and protection against attacks);
• smsnet.gr (sending SMS codes, service SMS and friend-invitation SMS; Greece);
• Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and Apple (Apple Push Notification service), to deliver push notifications to the mobile app: they receive the push token and the notification content;
• the bank we use to pay Venues by transfer, which receives the payee's name and IBAN and the amount;
• our e-mail provider for messages to administrators and to people who submit notices (Hostinger e-mail or Google Workspace, Google Ireland Ltd);
• Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. (payments, including card, Google Pay, Apple Pay and Link; also an independent controller as described above);
• a provider of automated analysis, for the selfie and profile-photo check (images) and for the support assistant (conversation text only). The provider acts on our instructions, is established in the United States, and receives the data solely for these purposes. You can ask us for the provider's name.
• Authorities and courts when the law requires it or to defend legal claims.
• A successor if the service is transferred to another company, which must respect this policy.

We do not sell or rent personal data and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.

6. International transfers

Our servers are located in the EU. The controller is established in Canada, which benefits from a European Commission adequacy decision for commercial organisations subject to PIPEDA (Decision 2002/2/EC, confirmed in January 2024). Where a provider may access data from the United States (for example Cloudflare, Google, or the image-analysis provider in section 5), the transfer relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, or on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses with additional safeguards. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards.

7. How long we keep data

When you delete your account, we delete your profile and photos, replace the content of your messages, remove your phone number (keeping only a one-way hash so that a banned person cannot immediately re-register) and end all sessions. Records we must keep by law are kept separately and only for the period above.

8. Your rights

You have the right to access your data, to rectification, to erasure, to restriction of processing, to data portability and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting earlier processing.

• In the app: edit your profile, change consents and notification settings, download a copy of your data (Settings > Privacy > Download my data) and delete your account.
• By e-mail to [email protected]. We answer within one month, extendable by two months for complex requests. We may ask you to confirm your identity through your registered phone number.
• You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (Αρχή Προστασίας Δεδομένων Προσωπικού Χαρακτήρα, Kifisias 1-3, 115 23 Athens, www.dpa.gr) or with the authority of the EU country where you live or work.

9. Security

We use encrypted connections (TLS), encryption of sensitive data at rest (for example payout details, integration keys and two-factor secrets), database rules that restrict every query to the data the requesting person is allowed to see, short-lived sessions with automatic rotation, mandatory two-factor authentication for administrators, firewalls, intrusion prevention, encrypted backups and access logging. The mobile app blocks screenshots and screen recordings of its content and hides it in the app switcher. If a personal data breach is likely to result in a risk to you, we notify the competent authority within 72 hours and inform you without undue delay when the law requires it.

10. Age

LynqSeat is only for people aged 21 or over. We do not knowingly process data of younger people. If you believe a younger person is using LynqSeat, please report it; we will close the account.

11. Cookies and local storage

We use only storage that is strictly necessary to provide the service. The mobile app does not use cookies; it stores sign-in tokens and your choices on your phone. Details are in the Cookie Policy.

12. Changes

We will publish any changes to this policy here, update the version number and, for significant changes, inform you in the app before they take effect.