Draft — to be reviewed by the community admin

Privacy notice

This notice explains, in plain language, what Simply Linked knows about you, who can see it, and how to remove it. “We” means the people who run this community's directory.

What we collect

• Your name and email address, from Google, LinkedIn or the sign-up form.
• Your phone number, verified with a code sent by text message.
• Your date of birth, so admins can check you are old enough to join and so members can see your age. Members only ever see your age in years, never the date.
• A photo of yourself and a proof of identity (a photo or PDF of an identity document), which you upload before your request is reviewed. The photo becomes your profile photo. The identity document is stored privately, is never shown to other members, and is not part of your profile.
• Your profile: job title, company, profession, specialisation, services, description, any special offer, and your country, state and city.
• Your photos: a profile photo and any gallery images you add.
• An approximate location, so members can search for people near them. If you press “Use my current location” we store a deliberately blurred version of where you were — rounded to about a kilometre. If you do not, we use the centre of the city you chose. We never store your exact position.
• An area map, only if you say so. After sharing your location you are shown exactly what members would see — a circle about 2 km across, drawn on a map around the blurred point, with no pin — and asked whether to show it on your profile. Say no and no map appears; distance search still works. You can change your answer at any time under Location in your profile. Your precise location is never shared with anyone in any case.
• Your enquiries: the messages you send and receive through the directory.
• Your saved list and your blocked list: which members you have saved for reference and which you have blocked. Both are private to you. Nobody is told that you saved or blocked them, and nobody can see who has saved or blocked them.
• Reports: if you report a member, we keep who you reported, the reason you chose and what you wrote, so an admin can act on it.
• A notification address for each device you turn notifications on for. It is a code from your browser that lets us send that device a notification, and nothing else. It is never shown to other members, and it is deleted when you turn notifications off on that device, sign out there, or delete your account.
• Basic activity: when you signed up, when you were last active, and a record of admin decisions about your account.

We do not use advertising trackers, and we do not sell or rent anything about you to anyone.

Who sees what

• Other approved members see your profile: name, photo, what you do, your offer, your city, state and country, and roughly how far away you are as a rounded distance. They never see your coordinates.
• Your phone number and email are never shown on your profile. A member sees them only if you press “Share my contact details” inside a conversation with them, and then only that member sees them. Sharing cannot be undone.
• Community admins see your name, email and phone number so they can verify and approve you, and may call you before approving your request. They also see your date of birth and can open your proof of identity. Each time an admin opens it is recorded, the link they get stops working after ten minutes, and an admin can delete the document once you are approved.
• Your messages are private to you and the other member. An admin can read a conversation only after one of you reports it, or reports the other member from inside it.
• Reports are seen by admins only. The member you report is not told who reported them, or that anyone did. Admins can see how many reports and blocks a member has received, to spot a pattern.
• People who are not approved members see nothing. The directory is not public and is not indexed by search engines.

Approval

Every request to join is reviewed by an admin, who may approve it, decline it with a reason, or later deactivate an account that breaks the Terms. While your request is waiting, only admins can see your details.

Services we rely on

• Google Firebase handles sign-in and sends the verification text message. It uses reCAPTCHA to stop automated abuse.
• LinkedIn, if you choose to sign in with it, tells us your name and email address.
• Microsoft Azure hosts the database and your photos.
• Google Maps draws the area map on profiles, for members who chose to show one. Google receives the blurred centre of the area from the viewer's browser, never your exact position.
• Google Firebase Cloud Messaging delivers notifications to your phone or computer, through the notification service of your browser (Apple, Google or Mozilla). A notification says who wrote to you and, unless the admin has switched that off, the first words of their message. Contact details are never put in a notification.
• We send you email when you receive a new enquiry.

How long we keep it

We keep your information for as long as you have an account. You can edit your profile at any time, hide it from the directory without deleting it, or delete your account. Your proof of identity is kept until an admin deletes it or you delete your account, whichever comes first.

Deleting your account

Go to Account and choose “Delete my account”. This removes your profile, photos, phone number and email straight away and frees them to be used again. Messages you sent stay visible to the members you sent them to, shown as from a deleted member, because those conversations belong to them too.

Your choices

• Location access is optional and asked for only when you press the button.
• Notifications are optional, asked for only when you press the button, and can be turned off per device from Account. Your enquiries are saved whether or not you have them on.
• Installing Simply Linked on your home screen is optional. It adds an icon; it does not give the app access to anything more on your device.
• Sharing your contact details is always your choice, one conversation at a time.
• You can block any member. They can no longer send you an enquiry or reply to you, and you cannot write to them, until you unblock them from Account.
• You can ask an admin for a copy of what we hold about you, or to correct it.

Questions

Contact the community admin.