Big Screen Soulmates

Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 2026

Data controller

Birch Bark Incense Inc. (federally incorporated in Canada; registered office 67 Third Avenue, Wawa, Ontario, P0S 1K0) is the data controller for personal information processed through Big Screen Soulmates. Our Privacy Officer is Brian Harbord, reachable at support@bigscreensoulmates.com.

What we collect

  • Account: email address, password (hashed) or OAuth identifier (Google/Apple)
  • Identity: date of birth (used to compute age and enforce 18+), display name
  • Profile: gender, who you're seeking, bio, favourite films, relatable characters, actor you resemble
  • Photos and biometric-derived data: profile avatar and pose-matched verification selfie, plus a SHA-256 hash of the selfie used solely to detect re-use of the same image across accounts. We do not build a facial-recognition template, do not run face-matching against any external database, and do not use the selfie for advertising or profiling.
  • Location: country and city, derived from your IP address or, if you grant permission, your device's precise location (used once per session to verify country and show nearby matches — not tracked in the background)
  • Activity: likes, passes, matches, messages, reports and blocks you make
  • Feedback: anything you submit via the Feedback tab

Special-category and sensitive data

Using a dating service may imply information about your sexual orientation. Where GDPR/UK GDPR applies we treat this as special-category data (Article 9) and process it only on the basis of your explicit consent, which you give by creating a profile and choosing who you are seeking. The verification selfie and its hash are treated as sensitive personal information under Quebec Law 25 and, where applicable, as biometric information under laws such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and Texas CUBI; we process them only to verify that a live person controls the account, retain them under the schedule below, and never sell, lease, trade, or share them for profit. You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account.

How we use it

To create your account, verify age and country, show compatible people, enable messaging, moderate the community, and improve the product. We do not sell your personal data, do not "share" it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and do not use it for advertising or automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

Cookies and local storage

We use a small number of first-party cookies and browser local storage entries strictly to keep you signed in, remember your preferences (e.g. cookie choice, referral code), and secure the session. We do not use advertising cookies, third-party analytics trackers, or cross-site tracking. A consent banner is shown on your first visit; you can change your choice by clearing your browser's storage for this site.

Who we share it with (subprocessors)

  • Other users: your profile, photos, and messages are visible to people you match with or appear to in Discover
  • Lovable — application hosting, server functions, and managed backend (which, in turn, uses Supabase for database, authentication, and photo storage in US & EU regions)
  • Cloudflare, Inc. — DNS, DDoS protection, and the serverless Workers runtime that executes our server functions
  • Google LLC & Apple Inc. — optional OAuth sign-in only if you use those buttons
  • ipwho.is — IP-to-country lookup (only your IP is sent)
  • BigDataCloud — reverse geocoding of coordinates to country/city (only coarse coordinates are sent)
  • OMDb API — public film metadata (no personal data sent)
  • Apple & Google (in-app purchases only): if you subscribe inside our mobile apps, Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play) processes the payment and shares a subscription status token with us. We do not receive or store your card details. No payments are collected on the website.

A current list of subprocessors is maintained on this page; material changes are announced in-app before they take effect.

Retention and deletion

  • Active account: we keep your data for as long as your account is active.
  • Paused account: your data is preserved but hidden from Discover and Matches until you unpause it.
  • Inactive account: if you do not sign in for 24 consecutive months, we send a reminder email and then permanently delete the account and all associated data.
  • Deletion (soft-delete window): you can permanently delete your account from the Home tab at any time. For 30 days after you request deletion your data is retained in a locked state so you can recover the account by signing in and confirming; after 30 days it is unrecoverable and removed from our production database.
  • Messages: messages you exchange with a match are retained for the life of that match. When either party unmatches or deletes their account, the messages become inaccessible to the other party and are purged within 30 days.
  • Verification selfies: approved verification selfies are deleted 90 days after approval; only the SHA-256 hash of the image (used to prevent re-use) and the approval decision are retained. Rejected selfies are deleted immediately after the decision.
  • Audit and safety logs: the administrative audit log (moderation actions, verification decisions, role grants) is retained for 24 months, then deleted.
  • Backups: encrypted database backups roll off within 30 days, after which no copy of your data remains.
  • Legal holds: in the narrow case of an active safety investigation or a legal obligation, we may retain the minimum records necessary to comply, and delete them once the obligation ends.
  • Reports about you: reports filed by other users about your conduct may be retained after your account is deleted for community-safety purposes, without your name or contact details.

Your rights

You can access, correct, export, or delete your data from within the app. The Home tab includes an Export my data button that generates a JSON file of everything associated with your account (GDPR Article 20 portability). If you are in Canada, you have the right under PIPEDA (and, in Quebec, under the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, as amended by Law 25) to access and correct your personal information, to withdraw consent, and to request data portability; you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in Quebec, the Commission d'accès à l'information. If you are in the EU/UK, you also have the right to restrict processing, object to processing, and lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority. If you are in California, you have the right to know, delete, correct, and opt out of sale/sharing (we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising). If you are in Illinois or Texas, you have the rights described in BIPA and CUBI in relation to biometric identifiers, including the right to know what we retain and to have it destroyed on request. For any request, contact our Privacy Officer (see Contact below).

EU / UK representative and DSA point of contact

We do not currently maintain a physical establishment in the European Union or United Kingdom. Users in the EU, EEA, or UK may contact us for GDPR/UK GDPR matters, and for matters under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), at support@bigscreensoulmates.com, which serves as our single point of contact for users and authorities. Where the appointment of an Article 27 GDPR representative or an EU/UK DSA legal representative becomes required, we will appoint one and publish their contact details on this page.

Security

Data in transit uses TLS. Data at rest is stored on encrypted infrastructure with row-level security. Photos are served via short-lived signed URLs. Passwords are hashed with a modern algorithm; we never see them in plaintext. We are not immune to breaches; do not share information you would not want another user to see.

Children

The service is 18+ only. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If we learn we have, we delete it immediately and, where an incident involves child sexual exploitation content, report to NCMEC (US) or the equivalent authority in the applicable jurisdiction as required by law.

International transfers

Big Screen Soulmates is operated from Canada. Our infrastructure providers (see subprocessors above) operate data centres in Canada, the United States, and the European Union, so your personal information may be stored or processed outside your province or country of residence and may be accessible to law enforcement or national-security authorities under the laws of those jurisdictions. Where transfers occur, we rely on the transfer mechanisms our providers offer (standard contractual clauses, adequacy decisions, or equivalents).

Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be surfaced in the app before they take effect.

Contact

Big Screen Soulmates is operated by Birch Bark Incense Inc., a corporation incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act, with its registered office at 67 Third Avenue, Wawa, Ontario, P0S 1K0, Canada.

For privacy questions, or to exercise any of the rights described above, contact our Privacy Officer:

  • Privacy Officer: Brian Harbord
  • Email: support@bigscreensoulmates.com
  • Mail: Birch Bark Incense Inc., Attn: Privacy Officer, 67 Third Avenue, Wawa, ON P0S 1K0, Canada

You may also submit privacy requests through the Feedback tab inside the app.