Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

We try to collect only what we need to run Vibn.

• Account information: your email address, display name, and profile photo, plus how you sign in (email and password, Google, or Apple). Sign-in is handled by Firebase Authentication (Google).
• Content you create: the photos and videos you upload, their captions, your comments, chat messages, the groups you create or join, group names, and invite codes.
• Photo location and labels: when a photo you upload contains location data (EXIF GPS), we read those coordinates on your device and turn them into a place label (for example, a city) using your phone's own geocoder, so your group can browse by place. We also run on-device image labeling to detect whether a photo contains a pet. We also read the time the file says it was taken — EXIF for a photo, the container's own creation stamp for a video — so your group's timeline can place it when it happened rather than when it was uploaded. The coordinates, the label and the capture time are sent to our servers; the copy of the photo we store has its EXIF metadata stripped.
• Face data (only if you turn it on): facial recognition is opt-in, and everything that looks at your face runs on your device. Your phone detects your face and computes a numeric face signature (a mathematical embedding) from your enrollment photos. Only that signature is sent to us — the photos never leave your device. See “Facial recognition” below.
• Usage and diagnostics: which screens you visit and basic usage metrics (such as how many photos you've shared and how many groups you're in), plus crash reports — through PostHog and Sentry. Your account name, email, and sign-in method are attached to these so we can understand and support your account.
• Technical information: your IP address, app version, device and language, and app-integrity attestations (Firebase App Check).
• Purchases: if you subscribe to Vibn+, the store purchase token, which our servers validate with Apple or Google.
• Advertising: ads are currently switched off in Vibn, and no advertising identifier is read. If we turn ads on for the Free plan, they will be served by Google AdMob, which may use advertising identifiers — on iOS only if you allow tracking when we ask, and in Europe only with your consent.
• Support messages: if you write to us from Settings → Help, we store your message and email address so we can reply.
• Group activity: when you join or leave a group we record that event, and who invited you, so the group's owners and managers can see how the group grew. If a group turns on download history, saving or sharing an item is recorded there too.
• Reports you send: the reason you choose, anything you write, and — when you report a photo or video — a decrypted copy of that item, so a person can review it. The app tells you this before you send it.

2. How we use your information

• To run Vibn: create your account, host your groups, and share your photos and videos with the members of those groups.
• To match you in photos, only if you opt in to facial recognition.
• To send you notifications you’ve asked for (for example, a new comment, or a request to delete your account).
• To keep Vibn safe: prevent abuse, spam, and bots. On our website, the “request account deletion” page uses Cloudflare Turnstile to stop automated abuse.
• To provide support and respond to your requests.
• To understand and improve the app through analytics.
• To show ads on the Free plan, and to validate subscriptions on Vibn+.
• To comply with the law and enforce our Terms.

3. Who can see your content

There is no public feed and no discovery. A group exists only for the people invited into it, and its photos and videos are shown only to the members of that group.

End-to-end encryption: for encrypted groups, the key that unlocks a group's media lives on members' devices and inside the invite link you share. If you keep a recovery backup, we also store a copy sealed under a key derived from your ten-word recovery phrase — the phrase never reaches us, so we still cannot open that media, generate previews from it, or hand it to anyone else, including if we were compelled to.

If you choose to create a public share link for a group, anyone with that link can view that album until you remove it.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use the content of your photos, videos, or messages to target advertising.

How media is stored: photos and videos in groups created since our end-to-end encryption rollout are encrypted on your device before they are uploaded. We store only the encrypted bytes and we cannot read them — anyone who obtained a direct file URL would get an unreadable blob. Older groups created before that rollout are stored unencrypted on Cloudflare R2, and for those, access is controlled at the app level rather than on each individual file, so a determined person who obtained a direct file URL could reach that file. Please keep that in mind for anything especially sensitive in an older group.

4. Service providers we share data with

We use a small set of trusted providers to run Vibn. They process data on our behalf, under their own security and privacy terms.

• Google Firebase (Authentication, App Check) — sign-in and app-integrity checks.
• Railway — hosting for our API, our real-time chat server, our PostgreSQL database, and a Redis cache, where your account, your chat messages, and content metadata (and, if you enable facial recognition, your face signature) live. Redis holds only short-lived operational data — rate-limit counters and cached copies of what is already in PostgreSQL — and expires it automatically.
• Cloudflare R2 — storage and delivery of photos, videos, and avatars. For encrypted groups we store only encrypted bytes.
• Cloudflare Turnstile — bot protection on our website's account-deletion page, running in invisible mode. Your use of Turnstile is subject to the Cloudflare Turnstile Privacy Addendum (https://www.cloudflare.com/turnstile-privacy-policy/) and Cloudflare's Privacy Policy (https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/).
• OneSignal — push notifications. We identify your device by your Vibn account ID and share your email and name so notifications can reach you and be organized.
• Resend — delivery of the emails we send you: sign-in and verification mails, notifications, and our replies to your support messages. We share your email address, your name, and the content of the message so that it can be delivered.
• PostHog — product analytics, sent through our proxy at a.vibn.space to PostHog’s United States cloud. We share your account info (name, email, sign-in method) and usage metrics (such as how many photos you've shared and how many groups you're in), and we record which screens you visit using names that deliberately exclude group, media, and invite IDs.
• Sentry — crash and error reporting for the app, our servers, and our website. Reports include your account name, email, and an account identifier so we can trace a problem back to the session that hit it. Photos, videos, messages, and encryption keys are stripped before a report is sent.
• OpenAI — translation. If you write to us in support, or write free text in a report, in a language we do not read, we send that text to OpenAI to be translated into English so that a person here can read it and answer you. We send the text and nothing else — no name, no email address, no account identifier, no photos and no videos — and we keep the translation alongside your original message. Photos and videos are never sent to OpenAI or to any other AI service; the sensitive-content check runs entirely on your device.
• Google AdMob — ads, shown only on the Free plan.
• Meta (Facebook) — advertising measurement. On our website, Meta is told which page you viewed. In the Android app, Meta is also told when the app is first opened, when an account is created and when a subscription is purchased, so we can tell which of our ads work; it is never told who you are, what you shared or which groups you are in. None of this happens in the iOS app. Where consent is required, it happens only after you accept, and never on invite, guest-upload, live or shared-gallery links.
• Google Ads and Google Analytics for Firebase — advertising measurement in the Android app. We report that the app was opened, that an account was created and that a subscription was purchased, with the amount paid. On iPhone we use Apple's SKAdNetwork instead: it gives an advertiser a single number about an install, aggregated and delayed by Apple, with no identifier of any kind and nothing that can be tied back to you.
• OpenAI Ads — advertising measurement. Unlike everything else in this list, this one is reported by our servers rather than by your device. We report that the app was installed, that an account was created, that you opened the plans screen, that you tapped to subscribe, and that a subscription was purchased, so we can tell which of our ads work. If you have agreed to advertising measurement, we also send a scrambled, one-way form of your email address so that OpenAI can match the purchase to an ad you saw; if you have not agreed, or were never asked, we send no identifier at all. We never send your name, your photos, your videos, your messages, or which groups you are in.
• Apple and Google — processing and validating Vibn+ subscription purchases. We never see your card details.
• Shorebird — over-the-air updates to the app's code. Your device tells Shorebird which app version and which update it is running so the right one can be delivered; no account details, photos, videos, or messages are shared.

5. Facial recognition

Facial recognition is entirely optional and off until you enable it. It works on both the Free and Vibn+ plans.

Everything that looks at your face runs on your device. During enrollment your phone detects your face and computes a mathematical signature from it — a list of 512 numbers. Only that signature is sent to us. Your enrollment photos never leave your device and we never receive, store, or see them.

The same is true for matching: when media is uploaded to a group, your device computes signatures for the faces in it and sends only those numbers. Our servers compare numbers to numbers and record which members appear. This is how face matching works even for encrypted groups, where we cannot see the media at all.

Your signature is never sent to any other user and is never returned to any app. A face signature cannot be turned back into a photograph of you.

You can turn off discoverability so others can't find you through the People filter, and you can delete your face data at any time from the app, which removes your signature and the tags derived from it.

6. Sensitive content and reporting

Media can be flagged as sensitive so it appears blurred until someone chooses to view it. You can mark an item yourself when you send it, or afterwards.

Vibn also checks media automatically, and that check runs entirely on your device: your phone classifies the image and sends us only a true/false flag. The media itself is never sent anywhere for scanning, and we do not use any third-party moderation service.

You can also report a photo or video, another member, or a group. Reporting media sends us a decrypted copy of that item so a person can review it; the app tells you this before you send the report. The item is hidden from its group while we review it, and comes back on its own after seven days if we have not. We never tell anyone who filed a report.

Reporting a person or a group sends only the reason and anything you write. If a review results in action, the account concerned may be suspended for a period or permanently. A suspension deletes nothing: their photos, groups and subscription are untouched.

7. Data retention

• Your content stays until you delete it, the group owner deletes it, you delete your account, or it is removed under the storage rule below.
• Chat messages are stored on our own servers, with no time limit: they stay until you delete them or the group is deleted. In encrypted groups we hold only encrypted text we cannot read.
• Face embeddings are kept until you delete your face data or your account.
• When you delete your account, it is deleted immediately — hidden from everyone else, the groups you own become read-only, and your face data is erased at once and is not restored. For 30 days you can still recover the account by signing back in and choosing Recover; we keep it during that window for that purpose only. After 30 days the account, the groups you own and all their media are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. Residual copies may persist briefly in backups before being overwritten.
• Support messages you send us — and the English translation we make when they are in another language — are kept until we've resolved your request and for a reasonable period afterwards.
• Group activity records (joins, leaves, and — where enabled — saves and shares) are kept for as long as the group exists.
• Storage is charged to the owner of each group. If an owner's Vibn+ subscription ends and the groups they own are still over the free storage limit 30 days later, we delete media from those groups — oldest first, and regardless of who uploaded it — until they fit within the limit. We notify the owner before the deadline, and renewing Vibn+ or freeing up space stops it.
• A copy of media attached to a report is deleted 90 days after we have settled that report.

8. Your rights and choices

Under Brazil’s LGPD and similar laws, you can ask to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, ask about how it’s shared, object to certain processing, and withdraw consent (for example, by turning off facial recognition).

Many of these are built into the app: edit your profile, toggle face discoverability, delete your face data, leave a group, or delete your account. You can also request account deletion from our website. To make any other request, email [email protected]. You may also contact Brazil’s data protection authority (ANPD).

9. Security

We protect Vibn with app-integrity attestation (App Check), server-side authorization so only group members can list a group's media, and encryption in transit. Media in encrypted groups is additionally end-to-end encrypted, so we hold only ciphertext. No system is perfectly secure, and as noted above, media in older unencrypted groups is delivered from storage in readable form, so please treat the most sensitive content accordingly.

10. Children

Vibn is not intended for children under 13, and you must be at least 13 (or the minimum age of digital consent in your country) to use it. Where the law requires it, minors need verifiable parental consent. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact [email protected] and we will remove it.

11. International transfers

Vibn is a global app and our providers operate in various countries, including the United States. By using Vibn, you understand that your data may be processed outside your country, with appropriate safeguards.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Vibn evolves. If we make a material change, we’ll update the date above and, where appropriate, let you know in the app.

13. Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns? Email [email protected].