BrainMatch — privacy and how your data is used

Run by: Turing Creative LLC Questions: zachary@brainmatch.app

What BrainMatch is

A place to get to know yourself, one ordinary day at a time. If you're with someone, you watch the two of you grow. If you're single, you work out what you actually want. Nothing here gives you a compatibility number or scores your relationship.

How your data is used

• To help you get to know yourself. Everything you answer builds your own record: your brain map, your journal, your monthly recap. It's there so you can see your own journey, and it's yours to export or delete at any time.
• To help you and your partner now. If you're in a couple, the reports, things to say, and songs work from what each of you chooses to share. Your partner never sees anything you haven't shared.
• To match future couples well. Questionnaire and check-in answers are analysed together to learn what good matches look like and to build BrainMatch's matching. We call this **matching data**. It's filed under a random id, never your name or email, alongside your birth year, whether you're single or in a couple, when your relationship started, how you met (if you meet someone here). That makes it pseudonymised, not anonymous: the id links your answers over time and to your partner's, so it's still treated as your personal data. It never includes your writing, your email, or who you're looking for. "Help build matching" controls whether yours is used to build matching features.

What you'll do

• A 15-minute personality questionnaire now, and again every few months.
• A daily check-in: four quick questions, about 30 seconds. If you're in a couple, it also covers the state of us: three taps once a week on how the two of you are doing (how close you feel, time together, and what would help). Your partner sees yours only once they've given theirs. Both are under the check-in permission, and turning it off deletes both.
• If you choose: open questions, what-would-you-do scenarios, Two things a day, Taste, and the questions the app builds from your own answers.

If you're in a couple, your partner joins separately on their own phone. Neither of you can see the other's answers unless one of you shares something.

Optional: what you're looking for

You can answer eight questions about what you need from a partner (or, if you're in a couple, how your relationship actually runs). You can also say your gender and who you're looking for.

Gender and who you're looking for are sensitive information (under GDPR they can reveal sexual orientation). They are stored separately from everything else, never included in matching data, never shown to your partner, and entirely optional. Turning this section off deletes all of it.

The archive, the journal, and Two things

One question a day, answered by tapping, writing, or dropping a pin on a grid, kept with its date so you can look back. Two things a day: something you did, an idea, or something to get better at, with an optional mood. All of it collects in your journal, a day at a time. Only today's archive entry can be changed. Each archive entry has its own share switch, off by default; Two things are never shown to a partner.

Bucket list

Things you'd like to do one day with a partner, each tagged with the kind of thing it is, and ticked off with the date when you do them. It's covered by the "Writing and scenarios" permission, private to you (never shown to a partner, never in matching data), and it stays with you if you meet someone.

Things to say, and the answers you write back

The app takes answers you've already given and hands them back as a question. You can write an answer to any of them. They're covered by the "Writing and scenarios" permission, private by default, and your partner sees one only if you turn on its share switch.

Sending a song

If you're in a couple, you can send your partner a song with a reason and a short line. It goes to them and nobody else, is not included in matching data, and the app never counts how many songs go each way.

If you're single and meet someone

• How you met (through friends, online, at work, out somewhere, or elsewhere) is recorded with the date and included in matching data: how people meet, and how it goes from there, is how BrainMatch learns what good matches look like. Nothing else about the person is asked.
• What you had said you were looking for is sealed, dated, and opens on a date you choose. It is yours alone: the person you met can never see it, it is not in matching data, and the app never compares them with it.

Question of the day, time capsules, nudges and appreciations

A short either/or question each day; in a couple, you also guess your partner's answer and neither of you sees anything until you've both answered. Time capsules (a letter to later) stay sealed until the date you choose, at least a week ahead; the server keeps the words and hands them back only on or after that day by its own clock, once, when you open the envelope, and it remembers when you did. After that the letter is a keepsake in your journal. A capsule is one of your written answers (that permission), and is deleted with it. A nudge is a wave with no message, at most once a day, and can be switched off in Reminders. An appreciation is one of our fixed kind lines ("Thank you for today"), one a day, sent to your partner. For nudges and appreciations we keep who sent it, the day, and when it was seen; your "nudges off" choice is kept as a setting.

Notes to your partner

In a couple, you can leave a short note (up to 140 characters) on your partner's Today. It's your own words, so it's under the writing permission: only your partner can read it, and turning writing off deletes the notes you sent. Notes your partner sent you are theirs, and go if they turn writing off or delete their account.

Optional: Moments (couples)

You can keep photos of moments you want to remember, each with a title, a date and an optional note. Only you and your partner can see them. They are stored for the two of you alone, never used for matching, never analysed, never in matching data, and never shared or sold. You can delete any moment you added, and turning Moments off deletes every moment you added, photos included.

Optional: Notifications from your partner

If you turn on "Tell me when my partner sends something" in Reminders, your phone is told when your partner sends a heartbeat, a note, a letter or a song, or answers today's question. The notification only ever says that something is waiting, in fixed words we wrote; nothing anyone wrote is in it. To reach your phone it passes through Expo's push service and Apple or Google. Reminders are different: they're scheduled on your phone and never touch the server.

Couples: thank-yous, your next date, and long distance

Under the writing permission: the thank-yous you write to your partner (they see them; you never see whether they've been read) and the next date you set (both of you see it; it's deleted two days after). Turning writing off removes your thank-yous from their jar and a date you set. If you switch on long-distance mode, each phone sends its time zone offset (how many hours it is ahead of or behind UTC, like "+1"), so the other can see your local time and a "good night" can arrive in their evening (and a "good morning" in their morning). It's the offset only, never the name of your time zone or anything about where you are. It's only kept while the mode is on: it's deleted when either of you turns long-distance mode off, or when you delete your account. A good night or good morning itself carries no words and is deleted 30 days after it's sent.

Singles: dealbreakers and green flags

Under "What you're looking for": your private list of dealbreakers and green flags. Only you see it. It's never shared or used for matching; if dating ever uses it, that will be a separate choice you make. The profile in your words is stitched only from what you've already given (your trait headlines, Taste picks, a line you wrote, a bucket-list item, your green flags) and is shown only to you.

Couples: firsts, surprises, the Sunday ritual and your shared garden

Under the writing permission: firsts you log (shared with your partner's timeline unless you switch that off for one) and surprises you plan (your partner never sees any of it until you choose to reveal it, and then only its title). The Sunday ritual stores only a yes for each week each of you did it, nothing about what you said. The shared garden is drawn only from what both of you have already chosen to share on the "two of you" map.

Optional: your birthday

If you add it, we keep only the month and day (your birth year is already known from sign-up), so Today can celebrate with you. Your partner sees only "It's their birthday today", and only if you tick "let my partner know"; never the date. Remove it any time in Settings; it's included in your export and deleted with your account. We also remember which look you chose for your own brain drawing; only you see it.

Rooms and chapter titles

Under the questionnaires permission: your answers in Rooms (question packs). The sensitive rooms (money and security, family and roots, health and energy) are taps only: no free text, and never amounts, accounts, employers, diagnoses, medication, names or places. Those answers are stored encrypted with their own key, never go into matching data, and can each be deleted. Under the writing permission: your monthly chapter titles, made only from your own words and days; words that look like names, numbers or places are never used.

Asking your friends, and BrainMatch on a computer

If you ask your friends about today's this-or-that, we make a link that shows only the question: never your name, your pick or anything about you. Friends' picks come back to you only as counts. We don't keep a visitor's internet address: to allow one pick per visitor, we keep a scrambled code made from their address and the link, with a random key that changes daily, so it can't be turned back into the address. Links close after 7 days and the picks and codes go with them; each day's key is deleted a day after that. The links are under the writing permission. If you sign in on a computer (brainmatch.app/me), we keep a scrambled record of that browser's session for up to 30 days, deleted when you sign out or delete your account. The web shows only your own journal and brain map.

What matters to you

Under the questionnaires permission: a "What matters to you" card sort (16 values, your top three), kept with dates so you can redo it every few months. Your "really matters" values light spots on your own brain map; they're filed with the trait they're closest to, which is a layout choice, not a claim about your personality. Turning the permission off deletes them.

Passkeys

If you add a passkey (sign in with Face ID or your phone's lock), we store only its public key, a label you choose, and when it was added and last used. The private key never leaves your phone. Passkeys are deleted with your account, and you can remove any of them in Settings.

Small things you keep

Under the writing permission: the notes in your gratitude jar, and the days you star in your journal. Only you see them, and turning the writing permission off deletes them. If you take a break (pause mode), we keep only the dates of the break, so the app knows to stay quiet; reminders pause on your phone and partner notifications pause on the server.

Things with no switch of their own

A few small records aren't anything you've said; they're how the app keeps track, like settings. They're part of your account (the "Join BrainMatch" permission), you can see them all in your export, and they're deleted with your account:

• Settings and choices: nudges on or off, long-distance mode on or off and the day you'll next be together, whether your bucket list is on your shared wall, the look you chose for your brain drawing, your birthday (month and day, if you added it), and pause dates.
• What's already been shown: which milestones, occasions (anniversaries, months together, seasons) and "waiting for you" cards you've seen, and the pulls you've earned in the gratitude jar, so nothing is shown twice.
• Small wordless signals: evenings you tapped Lights out, Sunday-ritual yeses, heartbeats (deleted once seen, or after 30 days), good nights and good mornings, nudges and appreciations.
• How you met, if you were single and met someone (see above; it's in matching data).
• Tell a friend: your six-character code, if you've opened "Tell a friend", and a count of friends who joined on it. If you joined on a friend's code, we keep that link (their account and yours) so that, after your first day, each of you gets one extra pull from the gratitude jar. Neither of you is ever shown the other: the friend never learns whose code it was, and the referrer sees only a number of friends, never who. There's no money or credit in it.
• Suggestions and bug reports you send us (see "Bug reports, suggestions, crash reports and our website forms" below).
• A letter you gave your partner. Once given, like a posted letter, it's theirs: turning writing off deletes your own copy and anything not yet given, but not the one you handed over. Deleting either account deletes it.

Optional: A photo a day

You can keep one photo a day in your journal, in place of writing. Only you can see them, unless you're in a couple and tick "share with my partner" on a particular photo, in which case your partner sees that one. They are never used for matching, never analysed, never in matching data, and never shared or sold. You can delete any photo, and turning this off deletes all of them.

Optional: Connecting by code

You can have a code of your own (a QR on the You tab, separate from your Tell-a-friend code) to show someone in person. Only the BrainMatch app can read it, and you can replace it with a new one at any time. When someone scans it, each of you says why, on your own phone: plan a date, share a hobby, or you're in a relationship. Nothing is set up until you both picked the same thing; until then you both see only "You've connected. Nothing's set up yet.", and neither of you is ever told what the other picked. What we store, under this permission:

• Your code, and each connection: the two accounts, what each of you picked, when it was made and last used.
• Share a hobby ("Alongside"): one short hobby tag each, and the small posts you each add about it. The two of you see one list; there is no chat and no reply thread. Today, no AI reads these posts.
• Plan a date: which of your Taste picks you chose to show that one person. Each pick has its own switch, off until you turn it on, and they see only what you switch on. From those, the app shows one thing you both picked (never how many, never a score), a kind of place from the bucket-list kinds, and one fixed question for the walk home. It predicts nothing. While a plan-a-date connection is open, the app asks you once a day "Still good?" (yes, not sure, or end this); your answer is yours and is never shown to them. A short first-date note (meet somewhere public, tell a friend, keep your own way home) is shown once.
• "You're in a relationship" hands you to the ordinary partner link, described above.
• Ending and blocking: either of you can end a connection at any time, with no reason asked; it ends for both of you at once, everything under it is deleted, and the other person sees only "This connection has ended." Blocking does the same and also keeps that person's account id so their code can never connect to yours again, in either direction. A connection nobody has touched for 14 days closes itself the same way.
• Logging a date puts a private note in your own journal (under the writing permission), and a photo if you add one (that day's photo, under "A photo a day"). Nobody else sees it: not them, and not a partner.

A partner never sees any of this, none of it is used for matching or in matching data, and turning this off ends every connection you're in and deletes all of it.

Optional: monthly Complementary Report

A PDF comparing your personality results with your partner's.

• It only works if both of you turn it on.
• Your partner will see your five trait levels in their copy, written as words (for example "Planning ahead" or "Going with the flow"). There are no numbers, scores or percentages in it, and it never ranks one of you against the other.
• It never includes your check-ins or relationship answers.
• It describes your answers. It does not predict whether your relationship will last.

Megan, and how AI is used

Megan is not an AI. She's a set of written replies picked by simple rules that look at the shape of what you wrote. Nothing you write is sent anywhere to produce them. She can be turned off anywhere.

• Her voice is AI-generated: a text-to-speech voice, recorded in advance from lines the BrainMatch team wrote. It never hears or reads anything you write.
• Today, no AI reads your answers. Nothing you write is sent to an AI service yet.
• Matching models: only if you turn on "Help build matching", your pseudonymised answers (under a random id, never your name or email) may be used to train the models behind future matching.
• Coming: deeper trait analysis with AI. We plan to use AI to look deeper into your answers, for richer insight into your traits and more. Before any of it starts, this document will say exactly what is analysed, by which service, and what is kept, and you'll get a separate permission to say yes or no. Nothing changes for you until you say yes.
• Keep out of AI: no AI reads anything today, but under Settings, "Keep out of AI", you can already list whole sections (your journal, day notes, photo captions, Taste, brain answers, letters, things you wrote for the two of you) or single things (one journal day), and whatever is listed stays out of any AI analysis; the list is kept with your account, included in your export and deleted with it.
• Megan follows up: if something you write in Two things names a day ahead ("interview Thursday", "big day tomorrow"), Megan asks how it went on that day. It's a simple rule that looks only for "tomorrow" or a day's name. Your answer is kept in your journal, under the writing permission, and deleted with it.

Bug reports, suggestions, crash reports and our website forms

• Bug reports you send from the app: what you wrote, which screen you were on, the app's build and your phone type, and, only if you tick "you can reply", your email address. We keep it with your account (deleted with it), and email a copy to our inbox so we can fix it.
• Suggestions you send from "Suggest something": what you wrote, the app's build and your phone type, and, only if you tick "you can email me about it", your email address. Kept with your account (deleted with it, and in your export, with the status we gave it: new, planned, done or no), and emailed to our inbox the same way as a bug report.
• "Something my partner sent": if your partner sends you something that isn't ok, you can tell us from the report screen or from Settings. It's kept and emailed exactly like a suggestion, marked so we read it first. A person reads it, never a machine, and nothing you write there is ever used for anything else. **Your partner is never told you wrote it and never sees it.** If you'd like the link with them ended, say so and we'll end it; you can also end it yourself at any time (see "Your choices").
• Counting, not tracking: brainmatch.app uses no analytics service, no pixels and no advertising cookies. We count, on our own server, how many times a shared this-or-that link was opened each day, how many times a page of our site was opened from each printed QR code (a poster, a card), and how many beta sign-ups came through which page of our site or which friend's code. These are daily totals with nobody in them: no address, no name, no id is kept with a count.
• Crash reports: if the app crashes, it sends what went wrong (with anything that looks like an email, a code, a number or a sentence removed), the screen, the app version, your phone type and a random id made only for crash reports. They're not linked to your account and are deleted after 90 days. The first report of each crash each day is emailed to us.
• The beta and investor forms on brainmatch.app: what you type in (name, email, and your answers or message). It's emailed to us, we send you one welcome email, and the form entry is deleted automatically after 12 months, or sooner if you ask.
• Our inbox (currently Gmail, run by Google) is where these copies arrive, along with alerts about the service. Emails there aren't deleted automatically; ask and we'll delete yours.

The newsletter

If you give us your email for the newsletter on brainmatch.app, we send one confirmation email, and you're on the list only once you tap the link in it. An address that's never confirmed is deleted after 7 days. Every issue carries a one-click unsubscribe link and our postal address; an unsubscribed address is deleted within 30 days. The list is its own thing: email only, kept apart from the app and never linked to an app account, even if you added the same address in the app, and never used for sign-in or matching. Issues are sent through Resend. We never sell or share the list.

Security and backups

• Signing in: we store only a scrambled form (a hash) of each phone's sign-in, never the sign-in itself. A phone that hasn't used BrainMatch for 180 days is signed out and has to sign in again; phones in use are never affected. Signing in on a computer lasts up to 30 days.
• Limits on repeated tries use your internet address, held in memory only and forgotten within a day.
• A security log records when the owner-only tools were used (pulling matching data, the sign-up list, the owner's dashboard), with a scrambled code in place of the internet address, and a few internal events. It holds no answers. One kind of entry, that we emailed you your own personality PDF, carries your random account id so the app can show it was sent. The log is built so that nobody, including us, can edit or delete an entry for 12 months; after that it's deleted automatically. Once your account is deleted, that random id links to nothing.
• Backups: the database and photos are copied every 6 hours into encrypted backups (AES-256), each kept for 35 days. If we ever restore one, accounts deleted since it was made are deleted again before it's used. Data removed by switching a permission off isn't yet re-applied automatically after a restore.

How long we keep things

• Your account and everything in it: until you delete it. We don't delete accounts for being inactive, so if you stop using BrainMatch, delete your account (or email us) to have it removed.
• Anything under a permission: until you switch that permission off or delete your account.
• Sign-in codes: 15 minutes. Couple invite codes: 7 days, or until used.
• Heartbeats: until seen, or 30 days. Good nights: 30 days. Your next date: until the day after it. Ask-your-friends links: 7 days.
• Time zone offset: only while long-distance mode is on.
• Connections by code: until either of you ends it, or 14 days after both of you last touched it. The "this connection has ended" line: until you tap it away.
• Computer sign-ins: 30 days. Phone sign-ins: 180 days without use.
• Crash reports: 90 days. Beta and investor form entries: 12 months.
• Newsletter: an address never confirmed, 7 days; an unsubscribed one, 30 days; otherwise until you unsubscribe. Daily counts of link opens and sign-ups (nobody in them): 24 months.
• Backups: 35 days. The security log: 12 months (see above).

Risks

• Some questions about your relationship may feel personal. Every question can be skipped.
• As with any stored data, there's a risk of a breach. We limit it by collecting as little as possible: no names in matching data, no messages, no location, no contacts.

What we collect and what we don't

We collect: your birth year, whether you're single or in a couple, the month your relationship started, your email address, your questionnaire answers, your daily check-ins and state-of-us taps, anything you write in the app (including notes to your partner), and, if you turn them on, the photos you add to Moments, and your photo a day. In long-distance mode, your phone's time zone offset (not your location). And the small records described under "Things with no switch of their own", bug reports and suggestions you send, and crash reports.

Your email address is used for signing in, sending you your own PDFs, and replying if you contact us. If you turn on Follow-up, we may also email you about new features and occasional follow-up questions; turning it off stops that. It is never part of matching data, never shared, and never used for advertising. Signing in uses a six-digit code; there's no password to steal.

We never collect: your messages, contacts, location, microphone, or what you do in other apps, and no photos except the ones you choose to add to Moments or as your photo a day. We read nothing from Apple Health, Health Connect, a watch or any other health app or device: no sleep, no steps, no readings of any kind.

Who it's shared with

• We don't sell your data or share it with advertisers or data brokers.
• Service providers process data only on our instructions and only to run BrainMatch: Cloudflare (the secure connection to our server, and serving the pages of this website), Resend (email, like sign-in codes, and the copies of bug reports, crash alerts and form entries sent to us), Expo and Apple or Google (push notifications, if you turn them on; fixed words only), Expo's update service (the app checks it for updates, which shares your phone's internet address and app version with Expo), Apple or Google (app delivery), and Google (Gmail, our inbox, where those copies arrive). Each of them may use what passes through it only to provide its service to us, under its own data-processing terms, and we'll name the formal agreements here as they're signed. Our server and these providers are in the United States; if you're outside the US, your data is transferred there, with safeguards we'll name here as they're put in place.
• Anything reported outside BrainMatch is group-level only, never about an individual.

Help build matching: the trade-off

BrainMatch learns what makes a good match from couples who are already together. Your questionnaire and check-in answers, under a random id rather than your name or email, are the only way it can learn, and it's how the app stays free: nobody's data is ever sold.

• Where the law and the app stores allow it, this is part of using BrainMatch: the switch is on and can't be turned off; if you'd rather not, you can delete your account at any time. We tell you this before you join.
• Where consent must be freely given (the EU/EEA, the UK and Switzerland), it's a plain choice, off until you turn it on, and nothing else in the app depends on it.
• Everywhere else, until that's settled, it's on by default with the reason shown, and you can turn it off in Privacy (that deletes your matching data).

Which of these applies is decided by the country your internet connection comes from when you join (we don't collect your location), and the app tells you which.

Your choices

• Every kind of data is its own switch under Privacy. Turning one off stops collection and deletes what we already have of that kind.
• Leave this couple (Privacy) ends the link between you and your partner. It ends it **for both of you**, straight away: everything that took the two of you (notes, thinking of you, the state of us, the Complementary Report, Moments and the shared list) stops for both. It deletes nothing either of you wrote: your check-ins, journal, questionnaires and photos stay with you, and theirs stay with them. Your partner is told the couple has ended, and nothing else. Either of you can link with someone new afterwards.
• Delete my account and data removes your account and everything in it at once, and the encrypted backups that still hold it age out within 35 days. Your partner's data stays unless they delete theirs too.
• Show everything you store about me shows your full record at any time: your email and whether it's confirmed, your couple link and relationship start, your settings, what you've written and tapped, nudges and appreciations, where you're signed in, and a list of your photos (each photo can be downloaded in the app, or email us for a copy of them all). It never includes anything your partner hasn't shared with you.
• You can also email zachary@brainmatch.app to have everything deleted.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can:

• see everything we keep about you (Privacy → Export), and get it in a portable format;
• correct anything that's wrong: most things you can edit yourself, and for anything else, email us;
• delete any kind of data (turn its switch off) or everything (Delete my account);
• withdraw consent at any time, for any switch, without affecting anything done before;
• object to or ask us to restrict any use of your data, by emailing us.

We answer requests within one month. If you're in the EU, the UK or elsewhere with a data protection authority, you can also complain to it. We don't make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects. The rights Washington, Nevada and Connecticut give you over health-related data (your mood check-in and the like) are the same ones listed above; brainmatch.app/health-privacy says what changed on 24 September 2026.

Contact: Turing Creative LLC, zachary@brainmatch.app. [An EU/UK representative will be named here before BrainMatch is offered in the EU/UK.] More help: brainmatch.app/support · Terms: brainmatch.app/terms.

Agreeing

By tapping Join BrainMatch, you confirm that you're 18 or older, have read this, and agree to BrainMatch using your data as described above.

If you sign up as a beta tester

The form on the beta testers page collects your first name, email, whether you're single or in a relationship, your phone type, whether a partner would join, and anything you choose to tell us. Turing Creative LLC uses it only to invite you to the beta and to tell you when BrainMatch launches. It is kept apart from the app's data, never sold, and never shared. Email zachary@brainmatch.app and we'll delete it.