Meet Your Mate Privacy Notice

Version: privacy-2026-10-14 · Contact details updated 17 October 2026 (website and email now meetyourmate.co.za); no other change · Effective: 14 October 2026

This notice explains what personal information Meet Your Mate collects, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and your rights under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

1. Who we are

Meet Your Mate is a service and brand. It is run by MeetYourGuide (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2026/426905/07), a private company registered in the Republic of South Africa. MeetYourGuide (Pty) Ltd is the responsible party for your personal information under POPIA. "We" and "us" mean MeetYourGuide (Pty) Ltd providing Meet Your Mate.

• Address: 4 La Montagne Estate, Somerset West, Cape Town, 7130, South Africa
• Information Officer: Garry Buckland
• Privacy and support contact: support@meetyourmate.co.za · +27 81 725 8817
• Website: https://meetyourmate.co.za

Meet Your Mate is an Early Access, compatibility-first introduction service for relationships and friendships. Members can ask for Romantic introductions, Friendship introductions, or both. Early Access is also a research beta, testing whether our compatibility approach works.

2. What we collect

What we ask depends on the kinds of introduction you choose. We only ask the romantic questions if you choose Romantic introductions, and only the friendship questions if you choose Friendship introductions.

• Account details: your email address and sign-in records. We sign you in with an emailed link; we don't use passwords.
• About you (everyone): first name, date of birth (to confirm you're 18 or older and to show your age), gender, your approximate area (chosen from our list; never your exact street address or GPS location), and which kinds of introduction you want.
• For Romantic introductions only: your relationship status, the gender(s) you would date, and what kind of relationship you're looking for.
• Your compatibility questionnaire:
• everyone: your personality, how you live day to day (for example smoking, alcohol, fitness, travel and how social you are) and your interests;
• Romantic introductions: what you need from a partner, how you naturally show care, how you handle disagreements, your values, including religion or beliefs, and how important political and social alignment is to you, whether you want children, the traits that matter to you, and your dealbreakers;
• Friendship introductions: what you need from a friendship and what you naturally bring to one, how often you like to be in touch and to meet, the settings and times that suit you, your current stage of life, how much a similar stage and a shared outlook matter to you, the traits that matter to you in a friend, and an optional preference for meeting women or men as friends.
• A history of your answers: if you change an answer, we keep a record of the earlier answer and when it changed, so that our research can use the answers people first gave and understand past introductions as they were made. This history is never shown to other members.
• Your profile: bio, prompt answers, interests, photos, and optionally your occupation and education. We review photos before anyone else can see them, and a photo we don't approve is never shown.
• Your preferences: for each kind of introduction separately, the age range and distance you want and, for Romantic introductions, your dealbreakers.
• Introductions: which kind each introduction was, whether you said Interested or Not this time, and, if you choose to tell us, why not.
• Messages you send to people you've been introduced to.
• Meeting and outcome information: after an introduction becomes mutual, we may ask:
• whether you are planning to meet, with an optional planned date;
• whether the meeting happened;
• if a meeting won't happen, an optional explanation of why;
• after a meeting, your private feedback: ratings about how compatible it felt, whether you would choose to meet them again (the one required answer in that form), and optional written comments;
• a short follow-up about 14 days later.
• Safety information: blocks, reports you make or that are made about you, and moderation decisions.
• Notifications: your in-app updates and a record of the emails we've sent you.
• Referrals and credits: who invited you, who you invited, and Founding Credits earned.
• How you found us: the referral link, source or campaign you arrived through (see Cookies) and, if you tell us, how you heard about us.

Your meeting and outcome answers are private. The other member cannot see your answers or whether you have answered.

Special personal information

If you choose Romantic introductions, some answers may reveal or concern special personal information: your religion or beliefs, how important political and social alignment is to you, and the gender(s) you would date, which may reveal sensitive information such as your sexual orientation.

We process this information only after your explicit Consent B. We use it for your Romantic compatibility profile and Romantic matching. If you also give Consent C, the same information may be included in coded Romantic research data. It is never displayed on your profile or to another member, and it is never used for Friendship matching.

If you join for Friendship only, we don't ask the romantic questions or for Consent B. Your Friendship answers and preferences, including any preference for meeting women or men as friends, are ordinary personal information. We never infer romantic or sexual preferences from them, and they are used only for Friendship introductions. If you later switch Romantic introductions on, we ask for Consent B before collecting or using anything sensitive.

If you took part in our original research pilot, your pilot answers may include information about past relationships. That information stays under your original pilot research consent and is not used for introductions.

Compatibility estimates

We use software to calculate compatibility estimates and rank eligible members. Compatibility scores are experimental and are not shown to members during the Early Access validation beta.

Introductions are created or approved through our administrative process. A compatibility score alone does not automatically give or deny anyone a legal right, benefit or service.

3. Why we use it, and the lawful basis

Accepting our Terms (Consent A) is your agreement to the Terms and your confirmation that you've read this notice. It is not a blanket consent to every kind of processing. Each purpose above has its own basis.

We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for advertising.

4. Who can see your information

Other members see your profile only once we've introduced you, and only in the kind of introduction made. Someone introduced to you as a friend never learns that you also chose Romantic introductions, or the reverse.

• Before you both say yes, they see a shorter profile: first name, age, area, occupation (if you gave one), bio, up to five interests, one prompt answer and up to two approved photos, plus, in a Romantic introduction only, what kind of relationship you're looking for.
• After you both say yes, they see the rest of your profile (including education, if you gave it, and up to six approved photos) and can message you.

Other members never see your questionnaire answers, scores, special personal information, preferences, decline reasons, meeting and outcome answers, or reports.

Blocking. If you block another member, the introduction ends immediately. You keep read-only access to the existing conversation so that you can review it or report something later. The person you blocked loses access to that conversation. Neither person can send further messages, and we will not introduce the same pair again.

Closing a conversation. If either of you closes a conversation, both of you keep read-only access to it, and neither of you can send new messages.

Decline and no-meeting reasons. If you decline an introduction or tell us that a planned meeting will not happen, you may optionally tell us why. These reasons are private to the Meet Your Mate team and are never shown to the other member.

The Meet Your Mate team. Access by the Meet Your Mate team is limited to authorised administrators who need it to operate and protect the service. Sensitive administrative actions, such as moderation, account action, introduction decisions and safety removal, are recorded in an audit log. Ordinary viewing and research-export activity is not currently logged individually.

We do not routinely read private messages. The admin interface displays message content when a member includes a message in a report. Authorised administrators may technically access message data where reasonably necessary for safety, security, support, legal compliance or the investigation of a report.

Research files. Research files use a random participant code rather than your name, email, photos or messages. Written answers included in research exports are automatically screened using rules designed to redact common direct identifiers such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, links and social-media handles. Because Meet Your Mate may still be able to connect that code to your account, we treat coded research files as personal information rather than anonymous information. Results are only shared as group statistics.

Service providers (operators). Some of our service providers process information outside South Africa. We use contractual and other safeguards intended to provide an appropriate level of protection for personal information, and we use another lawful basis for an international transfer where POPIA requires it. Our current providers are:

• Supabase: database, authentication and private photo storage; Ireland (EU).
• Netlify: website and application hosting and scheduled functions; international infrastructure, including the USA.
• Resend: transactional email; USA.

We require operators that process personal information for us to handle it under written terms addressing confidentiality and security.

We will also disclose information where the law requires it, or where someone's safety is at serious risk.

5. Emails we send

We send operational emails for the service, such as a new introduction, an expiring introduction, a mutual introduction, an unread message, and questions or follow-ups about an introduction. These emails are deliberately discreet: they don't contain the other person's name, message text or the kind of introduction.

You can switch Introduction, Reminder and Message emails on or off separately in your Account settings. Essential security, account or legal notices may still be sent where necessary.

6. Cookies

Meet Your Mate uses cookies or similar browser storage needed to keep you signed in and to operate the service.

We also use three first-party attribution cookies, mym_ref, mym_src and mym_c, for up to 30 days, to remember a referral code, source or campaign. This lets us understand how a sign-up reached us and apply referral benefits correctly.

We do not currently use advertising cookies, cross-site tracking, Meta Pixel or third-party analytics cookies.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser, although doing so may affect sign-in or referral attribution.

7. How long we keep it

• While your account is open, we keep your information so that we can provide the service. If you switch one kind of introduction off, we keep your answers for it in case you switch it back on. You can delete your account to remove them.
• When you delete your account, the live service promptly removes your account, profile, photos, answers and answer history, scores, introductions, your meeting and outcome answers, and your messages (the whole conversation with each person, for both of you).
• The other person's own private answers about your introduction are kept, but no longer linked to you.
• If you tell us why you're leaving, that answer is only added to anonymous running totals.
• Backups. Copies may remain temporarily in encrypted disaster-recovery backups for up to 30 days before being overwritten or deleted. Our operator-managed encrypted backup retention is currently 30 days. Backup copies are used only for disaster recovery. If a backup is restored, information belonging to accounts that were deleted after that backup was made is not returned to active use.
• Deletion safeguard. After you delete your account, we keep a minimal encrypted deletion record for up to 45 days, containing only internal account identifiers and the deletion time. It is stored separately from our database backups and is used only to make sure that restoring an older backup cannot bring a deleted account back into active use. It does not contain your name, email, profile, questionnaire answers or messages, and it is automatically deleted after its retention period.
• Incomplete sign-ups. If you create a sign-in account but do not complete the required Terms and consent steps, we normally delete the incomplete sign-up record after 30 days.
• Notifications in your in-app updates are deleted after 90 days.
• Reports are kept while they are being reviewed and, once resolved, normally for up to 24 months, so that we can protect members, identify repeat safety issues and deal with disputes. We may keep a particular report for longer where reasonably necessary for an ongoing investigation, legal claim, regulatory requirement or serious safety matter. Access is restricted to authorised administrators.
• Serious safety removals. If we remove an account for a serious safety reason, we delete the account but may keep, for 24 months, a secret-keyed fingerprint of its email address together with a broad safety category and the relevant dates. This is used only to reduce the risk of a removed account immediately re-registering. The fingerprint is not the email address, and the secret key is stored separately. We process this limited record because of our legitimate interest in protecting members and the service. We periodically review whether the period and the record remain necessary.
• Research files. Participant-level coded research exports are kept only for as long as reasonably necessary for the Early Access research and validation work, and access to them is restricted to authorised members of our team. Our current retention target is no more than 24 months, unless a longer period is reasonably required for a defined research, legal or regulatory purpose. Genuinely anonymised aggregate statistics may be kept indefinitely.

Research after you leave or withdraw. If you delete your account or withdraw Consent C, we stop including you in new research exports. Where a retained coded research dataset under our control can still be linked to you, we remove or exclude your participant-level record as far as reasonably practicable. We may continue to keep statistics or results that have already been genuinely anonymised or aggregated so that they can no longer reasonably be linked to you.

8. Your rights

You can:

• see and correct your information (most of it directly in the app), and ask us what we hold about you;
• switch Romantic or Friendship introductions on or off at any time;
• delete your account at any time from your Account page;
• withdraw Consent B in your Account settings. This takes you out of Romantic introductions straight away, because Romantic matching can't work without it. We stop using your sensitive Romantic information, and any Friendship introductions continue;
• withdraw Consent C in your Account settings. We stop including you in new research straight away. While research participation remains a condition of Early Access, we will also stop making new introductions for you;
• object to processing based on our legitimate interests;
• complain to us at support@meetyourmate.co.za, or to the Information Regulator.

Withdrawing a consent does not affect processing that took place before you withdrew it.

Information Regulator (South Africa)
Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191, South Africa
Telephone: 010 023 5200 · Toll-free: 0800 017 160
General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
POPIA complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
Website: https://inforegulator.org.za

9. Original research-pilot participants

When you joined the original research pilot, we described research analysis as "anonymised". A more precise description is coded (pseudonymised): research files did not contain your name or email and used a random participant code, but we kept the ability to link that code back to your account where necessary.

Your pilot answers stay under your original pilot research consent. You will not be shown to another member unless you choose to upgrade and accept these Early Access Terms and consents. If you don't upgrade, you stay a research participant only.

10. Security

Your information is protected by access controls that keep each member's information private to them. Photos are private and shown only through short-lived links. Access by our team is limited to authorised administrators, and backups are encrypted. No system is perfectly secure. If a security compromise affects you, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

11. Age

Meet Your Mate is only for people aged 18 or older.

12. Changes to this notice

If we change this notice in a way that materially affects how we use your information, we will give reasonable notice in the app or by email and, where fresh consent is legally required, ask for it before the relevant processing continues.

13. Contact

MeetYourGuide (Pty) Ltd, trading as Meet Your Mate
4 La Montagne Estate, Somerset West, Cape Town, 7130, South Africa
Information Officer: Garry Buckland
support@meetyourmate.co.za · +27 81 725 8817 · https://meetyourmate.co.za