Privacy Policy

Kindred is a voice-first relationship platform. We ask you to share something intimate — your voice, your story, your real identity — and in return we promise stewardship, not surveillance. This policy explains exactly what we collect, why, who else touches it, how long we keep it, and the control you have. We never sell your data and never share it with advertisers.

1. What we collect

Phone number — for verification and login (via Twilio).
Identity details — your legal name, date of birth, and the city, state, and ZIP code from your ID, verified through Stripe Identity (which also processes a government ID and selfie). Kindred stores only these details — never your street address — and uses your city to plan dates near you. The ID image and selfie are held by Stripe, not us.
Your Sage interview — the transcript of your onboarding conversation with Sage, our AI matchmaker, and the matching dimensions drawn from it. The audio is held by our voice partner, ElevenLabs, until you delete your account (section 5).
Call recordings — Your calls with other members are not recorded today. If that ever changes, both of you will be asked first, every time; the audio is deleted within 24 hours and only a transcript stays, so Sage can keep learning. Section 5 describes the rules that apply when recording is on.
Match & activity data — your matches, date metadata (start/end times, durations), reveal outcomes, date-suggestion interactions, and the psychological dimensions Sage extracts to match you.
Gender and who you want to meet — your gender and the gender of the people you want to be introduced to, asked once in About you, used only to pair you.
Your notebook, debriefs and check-ins — the private note you may write after an evening, what you tell Sage about a date (typed or spoken), your day-after check-ins and your rankings of the evenings Sage plans. Notes are never shown to the other person and never read by matching; what you tell Sage about a date helps her choose for you next time.
Messages between you and a Connection — the private, text-only thread that opens once you have both chosen to see each other, or once an evening together is set. Messages you send a Connection stay inside Kindred. Sage never reads them and matching never uses them. A person reads them only if one of you reports the other. They leave with your account; if you were reported or blocked, your messages are kept for 90 days first.
Feedback you send us — the note, its kind, whether you are happy to be contacted about it, and the app version and screen you sent it from (Profile → Send feedback).
Subscription state — your membership status, derived from Apple's in-app purchase receipts. We never see your card or bank details.
A push token for your phone — so Sage can reach your lock screen. It is Apple's notification token for this device, never the advertising identifier, and it is removed when you sign out or delete your account.
Text delivery receipts — for each text we send, Twilio tells us whether it was delivered, with the message id, an error code and the last four digits of the number, so we can tell you when a text did not arrive. Never the text itself.
Days active — the days you opened Kindred and the moments of each introduction (accepted, a date started, a reveal chosen), kept on our server. There is no analytics SDK in the app.
Diagnostics — crash and performance data (and a device identifier) through Sentry, to fix problems. No IP addresses or request bodies.

2. Why we collect each thing

Verification — phone and identity confirm you are a real, of-age human. "Verified humans only" is a core promise.
Matching — your interview and the dimensions extracted from it are how Sage finds people whose inner life might fit yours.
Sage's continuous learning — your interview, and (when recording is on and both of you have agreed) the transcripts of your calls, make future matches better, for you and across the platform.
Safety — when someone is blocked or reported, having the actual conversation lets us review accountably rather than guess.
Membership — purchase state gates access to matching.

We use your data only for App Functionality — never for analytics products, never for advertising, never for cross-app tracking, never sold to data brokers.

3. Who else sees it (subprocessors)

We share the minimum necessary with vetted service providers who act on our behalf and not for their own purposes:

Provider	What they handle
Twilio	Sends our text messages — verification codes and service notifications — on our behalf. Never for its own purposes.
Stripe Identity	Verifies your government ID + selfie; holds the ID image (we don't).
ElevenLabs	Powers Sage's voice and processes the interview audio. Does not train on your audio under our tier.
Anthropic (Claude)	Extracts matching dimensions and analyzes transcripts. Does not train on what we send (API terms).
OpenAI (Whisper)	Transcribes recorded calls. Does not train on submitted audio (API terms).
LiveKit	Relays real-time call audio/video. Not stored by them.
Amazon Web Services (S3)	Stores call recordings, encrypted at rest.
Railway	Hosts our database and servers.
Apple	Processes your subscription payment (StoreKit). We never see payment details.
Sentry	Crash/error monitoring, if enabled.

We never sell your data, never share it with advertising networks, and never permit any third party to train external AI models on your conversations beyond the processing described above. How Sage and our AI partners work, in plain language: How Kindred uses AI.

4. Text messages (SMS)

Kindred runs on your phone number, so we text you — always about your own account, never marketing. By entering your phone number in the app and tapping "Send Code," you agree to receive text messages from Kindred:

Verification codes — to sign you in securely.
One confirmation text the first time you sign in, saying what we text about and how to stop.
Service notifications about your matches and dates — a note when your matchmaker has an introduction ready, invitations and reminders for the voice dates you plan, and confirmations of evenings you arrange in the app.

If you joined the waitlist at akindredlove.com and ticked the text permission box there, we will text you once when Kindred is ready in your city, with the download link; that box is unchecked until you tick it, and the exact sentence you agreed to is stored with your number.

Message frequency varies with your activity. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP at any time to opt out of notifications, or HELP for help (you can also email support@akindredlove.com). Opting out does not close your account, but verification codes are required to sign in.

We do not share your phone number, your SMS consent, or any mobile opt-in data with third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent are not shared with any third party. Twilio delivers these messages strictly on our behalf as a service provider (see the table above). Our full messaging program is described at /sms-consent.

5. How long we keep it

Call recordings (when recording is on; it is not today) — raw audio is kept for 24 hours, then permanently deleted. The transcript of the call is retained — it's how Sage keeps learning to match you better, and what we review if a safety concern is reported. If either participant reports a call, we place a safety hold that preserves that call's audio for up to 90 days so it can be reviewed; otherwise the audio is gone within a day. The recording itself is irrecoverable after deletion.
Sage interview — the audio and its transcript are held by our voice partner ElevenLabs (who do not train on it under our tier) until you delete your account, when we ask them to erase it. Kindred keeps the transcript and the dimensions extracted from it while your account exists.
Account data — kept while your account exists. Deleting your account removes it immediately (section 6).
You can ask us to delete any single recorded call. Deleting a call removes its audio, its transcript and the insights Sage drew from it; nothing from that call is kept anywhere else.

6. Your rights and controls

Delete your account — in-app (Settings → Delete Account). Deletion is immediate: your profile, phone number, interview transcript, Sage's notes about you, your matches, recordings and transcripts are removed from Kindred, and we ask ElevenLabs and Stripe to erase what they hold for you. The people you were introduced to keep their own record of your evenings together, without your name. If you were ever reported or blocked, recordings under a safety hold are copied to a safety record for up to 90 days, and a one-way hash of your phone number is kept so the same number cannot open a new account.
Delete a single call recording — when recording is on, email us naming the call and we remove its audio, transcript and insights.
Data export — download everything we hold about you in the app (Settings → Download my data), or email us; we respond to export requests within 30 days.
Decline recording — when recording is on, either of you can decline at the start of any call; the call is then cancelled.

7. Children's data

Kindred is strictly for adults 18 and older. Identity verification (Stripe Identity, with date of birth) gates access — we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18, and we have no under-18 users.

8. California & EU/UK disclosures

If you are a California resident (CCPA/CPRA) or in the EU/UK (GDPR), you have rights to access, correct, delete, and port your personal data, and to object to or restrict certain processing. We do not "sell" or "share" personal information as those terms are defined under California law. Our lawful bases under GDPR are performance of our contract with you (providing the service), your consent (call recording), and our legitimate interests (safety and service improvement). To exercise any right, contact us below.

9. Data breach notification

If a data breach affects your personal information, we will notify you promptly, consistent with applicable law.

10. How to contact us

Email privacy@akindredlove.com for any privacy question or request.

11. Changes to this policy

If we make a material change, we'll notify you with an in-app banner and, where appropriate, by email, before the change takes effect.

12. Effective date

This policy is effective as of October 16, 2026.