Privacy Policy
AF is only for verified ATLAS SkillTech University students. We collect what the app needs to work, we keep it encrypted, and we never sell it, show you ads, or track you across other apps or websites.
What we collect
From your university record, when you sign in. Your application ID, university email address, name, gender, date of birth, school, programme and expected graduation year. We use these to confirm you are an ATLAS student, work out your age and year, and send your sign-in code. You can start signing in with your application ID, your university email, or by scanning your ATLAS ID card; the code always goes to your university email. AF does not keep your email: your account keeps only a keyed fingerprint of it, so you can sign in with it. Your name, email and date of birth are never shown to other students.
A backup email, only if you add one. You can add a personal email in AF, so you can still sign in after your ATLAS email closes. We send a code to it to confirm it’s yours, keep it with your account so sign-in codes can reach it, and never show it to anyone (in the app it’s shown to you only partly hidden). If you change or remove it, the old address is told. It’s deleted with your account. Current students’ codes go to their ATLAS email; for alumni and others who have left ATLAS, the personal email in their university record is used instead. A parent’s email is never used.
What you add. Your handle, profile photo, pronouns and interests; the photos and videos (up to a minute), captions, polls, votes, replies and likes you post; I’mAt plans and who joins them; the people you add to Crush; messages, photos and videos you send in chats; wingman invites; reports and blocks. If you turn on Dating (18+ only): your dating photos, prompts, who you’re interested in, what you’re looking for, and your likes and passes.
If you turn on face search. Your faceprint: numbers that describe your face, made on your phone from a scan of your own face. No photo or video of your face is collected. See Face search.
Your contacts stay on your phone. If you allow contacts, AF lists the people in your address book under Chats so you can invite them, or send them a post or poll, on WhatsApp. The list is read and kept on your phone only: nothing from your contacts is sent to us. When you tap someone, AF opens WhatsApp with a chat to that person and the message typed in; WhatsApp sends it only if you do. Turn contacts off for AF in your phone’s settings at any time.
From your device. A push notification token, if you allow notifications. We do not collect your location, advertising ID or browsing activity, and we read your contacts only on your phone, as described above. The camera is used when you take a photo or video in AF’s own camera for a post, while you scan a face for face search, and when you scan your ID card to sign in: the card is read on your phone, the photo is deleted straight away, and it never leaves your phone. The microphone is used only while you record a video there, for the video’s sound, or while you record a voice note in a chat. A voice note (up to two minutes) is re-made on our server with nothing but the sound kept, stored encrypted, and played only for the two people in that chat. Stickers you make from your own photos are kept in your account until you delete them, and a sticker you send can be seen by the people in the chats you sent it to. What you take in AF’s camera is not saved to your phone’s gallery: it is held in AF’s temporary storage until you post it, then deleted from your phone, and it is never sent if you retake it or close the camera. No photo or video from a face scan leaves your phone. Location and other hidden data inside photos and videos you upload is removed before anyone else can see them: every photo and video is re-made on our server, and only the re-made copy is ever shown.
How we use it
- To sign you in and keep your account secure.
- To show your posts, polls, plans and profile to other students on your campus, as described in the app.
- To run Dating and Mutual Crush: likes and crushes are only revealed when they are mutual. We rank the Dating deck using shared poll answers, interests, school and activity on campus posts. If you allow it in Settings, the words in your posts and prompts are matched against a list of interest topics on our own servers. Your private messages are never used for matching.
- To send notifications you have allowed (new messages, message and friend requests, a mutual crush, someone joining your plan, announcements from AF, and posts from people you chose to hear about). You choose what reaches your phone in Settings → Notifications.
- To run face search, if you turn it on: so people on face search can find your profile by your face, and you theirs.
- To keep AF safe: enforcing age limits, filtering abusive words, reviewing reports, and stopping abuse such as spam or code guessing.
We rely on your consent (which you give when you create your account and can withdraw by deleting it) and on our legitimate interest in keeping AF safe and working. Face search relies only on your separate, explicit consent, which you give by scanning your face and can withdraw at any time by turning it off.
Face search (beta)
Face search is a beta feature: it works, and we are still improving it, so it can get people wrong. It lets a student find someone’s AF profile by pointing their camera at them or choosing a photo of them. It is off for everyone until they turn it on.
- Only people who turned it on can be found. You turn it on in Settings → Face search by scanning your own face, and the scan must match your profile photo, so nobody can add anyone else’s face. You can only search once you can be found too. It is for students 18 and over.
- Your face is read on your phone. A face model running on your phone turns your scan into a faceprint: 512 numbers. Only the faceprint is sent to us, never a photo or video. To check the scan against your profile photo, your phone downloads your own photo, reads it on the phone and deletes the copy.
- How we keep it. Your faceprint is stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM), apart from your other data and under its own key, on our server in Mumbai. It is used only for face search: never for Dating, advertising or training models, and never shared or sold.
- When someone searches. Their phone reads the face in the camera or photo and sends only its numbers. We compare them with the faceprints of people on face search, answer, and throw them away: a searched face is not stored or logged, and neither is the photo, which never leaves their phone. Other faces in a photo are not read.
- Who a search can show. Only people on face search who are adults on the searcher’s campus, whose account is active, and who haven’t blocked the searcher or been blocked by them. A search shows what any student can already see on that profile. When one person is a clear match, only they are shown. When nobody is, up to five people whose faces are close may be shown as “maybe”; if nobody is close, the answer is “not found”. People who are not on AF, or not on face search, are never shown, and we keep nothing about them.
- Asking to match. When a search finds someone, you can say you’d like to match with them. If you say yes, we keep that choice (who you chose, and when). For up to 30 days they may then appear in your Dating deck, about one day in three, when you swipe or a friend swipes for you as your wingman, and only if they are on Dating and suit you by their own settings. As always, it is a match only if they say yes too. They are never told that you found them by face. The choice is deleted after 30 days, once either of you decides on the other in Dating, or when either of you turns off face search or deletes your account. If you say no, nothing is kept.
- It can be wrong. Face matching is not proof of who someone is, and “maybe” means it isn’t sure. Searches are limited each day. Using face search to follow, photograph or harass people without their knowledge breaks our community guidelines and can get an account suspended. Report it in the app.
- Turning it off. Settings → Face search → Turn off deletes your faceprint from our server straight away, and so does deleting your account.
Who can see what
Other students see your handle, profile photo, pronouns, interests, streak length and, unless you’ve hidden it, your school and year. Only other adults on Dating, your matches, and a friend swiping for someone, can see your dating photos and prompts. Nobody else can see who you liked, passed or added to Crush, with one exception: when a friend swiping for someone sends them your profile and you both say yes, that friend is told it’s a match. Passes are never shared. Staff see reported content and who reported it, only to review the report. If you turn on face search, a student on face search who scans your face, or chooses a photo of you, can be shown your profile; nobody, staff included, can see your faceprint.
Where it is stored, and who helps us
- Fly.io hosts the AF server in Mumbai, India. Account data, uploaded photos and videos, and faceprints are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM).
- Supabase (Mumbai region) stores the encrypted student directory used for sign-in, and pseudonymous Dating learning data that contains no names, emails, photos or messages.
- Resend delivers your sign-in code by email; Supabase Auth generates and checks it.
- Expo and Apple/Google deliver push notifications. Message notifications never contain the message or who sent it. Two kinds name someone, because that is what they are for: when someone saves or opens a photo you sent them, and, if you chose to hear when particular people post, the post’s author and the start of what they posted.
These providers process data only on our instructions. We do not sell or share personal data with anyone else, except where the law requires it.
How long we keep it
We keep your data while your account exists. When you delete your account we erase your profile, photos and videos (including the files), named posts and polls, replies, votes, likes, crushes, plans and dating data straight away. Anonymous posts and polls lose any link to you straight away and are erased within a week. Messages you sent stay in the other person’s chat for 30 days, so they can still report them, and are then erased. Reports made about your account are kept so safety decisions can be reviewed, without your details as a reporter. We keep a keyed hash of your application ID (never the ID itself) for 7 days, so a new account can’t be made straight away. Blocks between you and other people are kept against that same hash, so they carry over if you come back; they are erased if the other person deletes their account. If a suspended account is deleted, we keep only that hash of its application ID, so it cannot sign up again. Sign-in codes expire within 10 minutes and are never stored by AF. Your faceprint is kept only while face search is on, and is deleted straight away when you turn it off or delete your account. Faces searched for are never kept. A request to match with someone you found by face is kept for at most 30 days.
Your rights
You can see and change your profile in the app, withdraw consent for post analysis or face search in Settings, and delete your account in Settings → Delete account or at ntthink.com/af/delete-account. You can also ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to erase it, and you can nominate someone to exercise your rights. Write to us at hello@ntthink.com. If you are not satisfied, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
Grievance Officer
Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, complaints about content on AF or about your data go to our Grievance Officer: Nadar Tejwani Think Private Limited, India, hello@ntthink.com (subject “Grievance”). We acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days. A request to remove content that shows you in a sexual act or nudity, or impersonates you, is acted on within 24 hours.
18 and over only
AF is only for students aged 18 or over. The records of students under 18 are left out of the directory AF uses to sign people in, so no code is sent to them and no account is made. If an account’s record shows its owner is under 18, AF closes it, and it can be deleted straight away in the app, on our website, or by writing to us.
Security
All traffic uses HTTPS. Access tokens are stored in your device’s secure storage. We limit sign-in attempts, encrypt data at rest, and give staff access only to what a report needs.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.