1. What this policy covers
This policy explains what Maaya knows about you, why we need it, and what you can do about it. It covers the Maaya app, and the event sign-ups and tickets that the app shares with our website. Maaya, we and us mean the team that builds and runs the app. We look after your information with care and follow the law of Nepal, including the Individual Privacy Act, 2075 (2018).
2. What you give us
You sign in with your Nepali mobile number and a code we send by SMS. There is no password.
Your profile holds what you add to it: your name, birth date, gender, photos, bio, height, habits, interests, a prompt answer, what you are looking for, and the gender, age range and distance of the people you want to meet. You may also give us an email address for tickets and account notices (we do not verify it), up to five emergency contacts, phone numbers you want to stay hidden from, whatever you write or attach in a report, and, if you verify your profile, a short selfie taken in the app. For a paid event you pay the organiser outside the app and may upload a screenshot of the payment on our website, which we store privately so the payment can be confirmed.
3. What using Maaya creates
Using the app creates more information: who you like and who you pass, your matches, your messages (text, voice notes and photos), the people you block or report, the events you save, your tickets, and when you were last active. While Maaya is open on your screen, and only then, it reads your phone’s location so it can show you people nearby. We keep that point and the nearest city on your profile. If you allow notifications, we store a token for your phone and the language you use the app in. Your phone also keeps an encrypted copy of what you last loaded so the app opens quickly, and logging out clears it.
4. How we use it
We use your information to run Maaya: to show you people who fit your preferences and show you to them, to make matches, to deliver messages, to send the notifications you allow, and to issue and check event tickets. We use it to keep people safe: to review reports, stop fake accounts and scams, and enforce our Terms. We may use tools that tell us about crashes and how the app is used, so that we can fix and improve it. We do not record your screen, we do not show ads, and we do not sell your information. The microphone is used only while you record a voice note, your photo library only when you pick a photo, and the camera only when you take a photo or verify your profile. Verification is automatic, with no person in the loop: as you look straight, turn your head, blink and smile, the app takes three stills, and our server checks them with Amazon Rekognition or Google Cloud Vision for one real face turning as asked, and that it is the person in your photos. The stills are never shown on your profile and are deleted within 30 days of the check. Each new photo you add is also checked automatically: OpenAI’s moderation looks for sexual or violent content, and Amazon Rekognition or Google Cloud Vision look for a face, for the same person as in your other photos, for sexual or violent content where OpenAI is unsure, and, for your main photo, for copies of it elsewhere on the web. A photo that breaks our photo rules is removed and you are told why.
5. What other people see
People who are shown your profile see your name, age, gender, photos, bio, the details and interests you added, your city, and how far away you are, rounded to the kilometre. Someone you like can see your profile in their Likes. A match can read your messages and, unless you turn these off, see when you were last active and whether you have read their messages.
Nobody on Maaya ever sees your phone number, your email address, your birth date, your exact location, who you blocked or what you reported. Profile photos sit at long web links that are very hard to guess, and the app hands those links only to people who can see your profile, but anyone who gets a link can open that photo.
6. Your choices and controls
You can change your profile and photos at any time. In Settings you can pause your profile with Show me on Maaya, hide your active status, turn off read receipts, switch off notifications, and change the app’s language. Active status and read receipts work both ways: if you hide yours, you do not see other people’s. The singles map stays off until you turn it on, shows only an area of about one kilometre and never your exact spot, and lets you hide whenever you like. You can also refuse location, notifications, the microphone, photos or contacts in your phone’s own settings, but without location Maaya cannot show you people nearby.
7. Blocked contacts
Block Contacts, under Privacy & discretion in Settings, hides you from people you already know, such as family, colleagues or an ex. Maaya never uploads your address book. You pick one person at a time from your phone’s own contact picker, or type a number, and we store only those numbers and the names you saved them under. If one of them is on Maaya, or joins later, you are not shown to them and a like from them cannot match you. What you are shown does not change, and a match you already have with them stays until you unmatch or block them. They are never told, and we never tell you whether a number you blocked has an account.
8. Safety, reports and moderation
You can unmatch or block anyone, and you can report a person or a problem with the app, with up to five photos if they help. Our team reviews reports and may look at the profile, the photos and the messages involved to decide what to do. The person you report is not told that it was you, and you can follow your report under My Reports, though we do not share what was done about another person. If you tell us why you unmatched someone, only the team sees the reason. Emergency contacts (up to five, each with a name, a number and how you know them) are kept for the Safety Center features you turn on and used for nothing else.
9. Who we share it with
We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for advertising. We share it only with the services Maaya runs on, and only as far as each one needs: Supabase, which hosts our database, sign in and some files; Cloudflare, which stores your photos and the files you send in chat, relays calls and hosts our website; Sparrow SMS and Twilio, which receive your number to send your code; Expo, Apple and Google, which deliver notifications (a notification carries the sender’s name and the start of the message); Apple Maps or Google Maps, which draw the singles map; OpenAI, Amazon Rekognition and Google Cloud Vision, which check new photos and verification selfies (OpenAI sees new photos only); and OpenAI, or Cloudflare when OpenAI is unavailable, which write Wingman’s suggestions when you ask for them.
If you sign up for an event, the organiser’s team sees your name, number and email for the guest list, your name may appear on the public page of a free event, and anyone who scans your ticket’s code sees the name on it. We may give information to the police or a court when the law of Nepal requires it and the request is valid, or when it is needed to protect someone from serious harm.
10. Where it is kept and for how long
Your information is stored on Supabase servers in Mumbai, India, so it leaves Nepal. It travels between your phone and those servers over an encrypted connection. Messages are kept on the servers so that you and your match can both read them: they are not end to end encrypted, and the voice notes and photos in a chat sit in private storage that no other user can open. We keep your information for as long as you have an account, and a chat you unmatched or blocked is hidden from you both but stays stored until one of you deletes their account. On the singles map, your area stops showing 8 hours after you last opened Maaya.
11. Deleting your account
You can delete your account in Settings, under Account, with Delete Account. It happens at once and cannot be undone: your profile, photos, likes and passes, matches, messages, blocks and blocked numbers, emergency contacts, notification tokens and the reports you sent are removed, and your matches lose those conversations too. A few things stay: reports that other people made about you, with the name you used, so that we can keep the community safe, and event sign-ups and tickets, which are held under your phone number for the organiser. Two things are also kept by phone number alone, so that leaving and coming back, or changing number first, changes nothing: if someone had blocked you, their block returns when that number signs up again, and if an account was banned, its number stays banned. Copies in our host’s backups and logs may take a little longer to disappear. If you only want a break, turn off Show me on Maaya instead, and if you want an event sign-up removed, ask us through Report an issue in Settings.
12. Not for anyone under 18
Maaya is for adults only. You must be 18 or older to make a profile, and the app does not accept a birth date that makes you younger. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you think someone on Maaya is under 18, report the profile and we will check it and remove it.
13. Changes and how to reach us
We will update this policy when Maaya changes, for example if we add paid plans, new safety features or new tools. The date at the top shows the latest version, and we will tell you in the app before an important change takes effect. You can see, correct and delete most of your information yourself in the app. For anything else, such as a copy of your information or a question about this policy, open Settings, tap Report an issue and write to us under Report a problem. Add an email address under Account so that we can write back.