Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

CornerTalk is an app that helps small groups of people meet face to face in public café venues to discuss topics that matter to them. It is not a social media platform. It has no feeds, no followers, no user profiles visible to others, and no online communities.

2. What data we collect

When you create an account, we collect:

• Email address — obtained via Google Sign-In. We use this to identify your account.
• Nickname — a display name you choose. This is the only name visible to other users.
• Suburb or city — used to show you meetings in your area.
• Topic preferences — subjects you indicate an interest in discussing. Used to match you with relevant meetings.

We do not collect your real name, a photo or profile image, precise GPS coordinates, your contacts, your device ID, or any financial information.

3. How we use your data

We use your data solely to operate the app:

• To authenticate you and maintain your account
• To match you with meetings in your area
• To apply safety and compatibility rules (see Section 6)

We do not use your data for advertising. We do not sell or share your personal data with third parties for any commercial purpose.

4. Data shared with venues

Café venues that partner with CornerTalk may receive aggregated, anonymised statistics — for example, the number of confirmed attendees at their venue during a given period. No personal data is shared. Individual user identities are never disclosed to venues.

5. Account deletion

You can delete your account at any time from within the app.

Deletion means anonymisation, not the erasure of all records. Specifically:

• Your email address, nickname, and all identifying information are permanently removed from our systems.
• Records of your past meeting participation are retained, but are de-linked from your identity and displayed to other participants as "Deleted User". This preserves the integrity of shared meeting histories for other people who attended those meetings.

This approach is consistent with GDPR and similar data protection frameworks, which permit retention of data where there is a legitimate purpose and where that data is no longer linked to an identifiable individual.

6. Safety records and ban enforcement

CornerTalk operates a fully algorithmic safety system with no human moderators. If a user is reported and accumulates a sufficient number of independent reports, their account may be suspended.

In the event of a suspension, a safety record is retained and linked to the user's Google authentication identifier (a technical identifier, not personal data such as a name or email). This record is retained after account deletion to prevent a suspended user from circumventing a ban by creating a new account.

No other personal data is retained for this purpose.

7. Data retention

8. Third-party services

CornerTalk uses Google Sign-In for authentication. By signing in with Google, you are also subject to Google's Privacy Policy. We do not use any advertising networks, analytics services that collect personal data, or other third-party data processors.

9. Children

CornerTalk is intended for users aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a user under 18 has created an account, please contact us and we will remove it.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights including:

• The right to access the data we hold about you
• The right to correct inaccurate data
• The right to delete your account and personal data (see Section 5)
• The right to object to certain uses of your data

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details below.

11. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you within the app before the changes take effect.

12. Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at: support@devcentre.nz