Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 2026

1. Who We Are

HobbyMatch ("we", "us", or "our") is an app that helps people discover hobbies they'll love. If you have any questions about this policy, you can contact us at hobbymatchofficial@gmail.com.

2. What Data We Collect

When you use HobbyMatch, we collect the following information:

• Account information — your email address and password (encrypted)
• Profile information — your display name, location, postcode, age range, and profile photo
• Interests and preferences — the interests, hobbies, energy level, budget, and availability you provide during onboarding
• Activity data — hobby sessions you log, sessions you share to the community, likes, comments, and saved hobbies
• Challenge data — weekly challenges you accept and complete
• Community interactions — posts you like, comments you make, users you follow or block, and content you report
• Photos — profile photos, banner photos, and session photos you choose to upload
• Location data — your postcode or location, used to find nearby hobby venues

3. How We Use Your Data

We use your data to:

• Generate personalised AI hobby recommendations based on your profile and interests
• Find hobby venues near your location using Google Places
• Show you a weekly personalised hobby challenge
• Enable community features — sharing sessions, likes, comments, and following other users
• Send you account-related emails (email verification, password reset)
• Display your profile to other users (subject to your privacy settings)
• Improve the app and fix issues

4. AI-Generated Content

HobbyMatch uses Claude (by Anthropic) to generate personalised hobby recommendations and weekly challenges. To do this, we send a summary of your profile and interests to Anthropic's API. We do not send your name, email address, or any directly identifying information — only your preferences and interests.

Anthropic's privacy policy is available at anthropic.com/privacy.

5. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate HobbyMatch:

• Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage. Your data is stored securely in Supabase's EU infrastructure. Privacy policy
• Anthropic (Claude) — AI hobby matching and challenge generation. Privacy policy
• Google Places API — finding nearby hobby venues based on your location. Privacy policy
• Unsplash — hobby images displayed in the app. Privacy policy
• Resend — sending transactional emails (verification, password reset). Privacy policy
• Railway — hosting our backend API. Privacy policy
• Upstash Redis — caching and rate limiting. Privacy policy
• Expo — app distribution and push notifications. Privacy policy

6. Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal data to any third party. We only share your data with the third-party services listed above, and only as necessary to operate the app.

Some of your data is visible to other users by design:

• Your display name, profile photo, and interests are visible to other users on your public profile
• Sessions you choose to share are visible to all users in the Community tab
• Completed challenges appear in the Community tab
• You can set your profile to Private in Account settings to limit visibility

7. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we permanently delete all your personal data including your profile, interests, saved hobbies, sessions, comments, and photos. This cannot be undone.

8. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access your data — contact us to request a copy of your data
• Correct your data — update your profile information in the app at any time
• Delete your data — delete your account from the Account screen in the app. This permanently removes all your data
• Withdraw consent — you can stop using the app and delete your account at any time
• Lodge a complaint — if you're in the UK or EU, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk

9. Children's Privacy

HobbyMatch is not intended for children under the age of 17. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 17. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

10. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your data, including encrypted storage, Row Level Security on our database, and secure HTTPS connections. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by email or through the app. Continued use of HobbyMatch after changes means you accept the updated policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at:
hobbymatchofficial@gmail.com