Last updated 3 September 2026

Who we are

Joyn is a hyperlocal social activity app operated by Datapuls AI Services Private Limited ("Joyn", "we", "us"), a company registered in India with its office at Building No. 60, EG Block, Inderpuri, New Delhi 110012, India.

This Privacy Policy applies to the Joyn mobile app, the joynhub.com website, and every related service we offer. By using Joyn, you agree to how we handle your data as described here.

We are the Data Fiduciary under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ("DPDP Act") for the personal data you share with us.

What we collect

We only collect what Joyn actually needs to work. Here's the full list:

Information you give us

Phone number — for sign-up via OTP. This is your login. We never show your number to other users.
Profile details — your display name, date of birth (to confirm you're 18+), gender, city, short bio, profile photo, interests, languages, and optional Instagram handle.
Activities you create or join — title, description, location, date, time, participants.
Reports and support messages — anything you send us when reporting a user, an activity, or contacting support.
Verification selfie — if you choose to verify your profile (required for hosting some plans and for women-only or men-only plans), you take a short selfie video in the app. It is used only to confirm you are a real, live person who matches your profile photo, and it is not stored by Joyn. See Identity verification below.
Messages — what you write in an activity's group chat or in direct messages with people you've connected with on Joyn.
Attendance, check-ins, and reviews — whether you showed up to plans you joined, host attendance marks, safety check-in reminders you set, and reviews you leave after a plan.

Information we collect automatically

Location data — your approximate location is used to show you plans and people nearby. You control this via OS-level permissions (see Your choices below).
Device information — device model, operating system version, language, and a unique app install ID for debugging and fraud prevention.
Usage data — which screens you open, which activities you tap, which buttons you press. We use this only to improve the product. We do not sell it.
Cosmos log data — server-side logs of API requests (with your user ID and timestamp) for security, debugging, and rate-limiting.

Information from third parties

Firebase Authentication (Google) — for OTP sign-in and Google Sign-In.
Google Maps / Places — for location search and map rendering.
Firebase Cloud Messaging — for push notifications.

We never buy personal data about you from data brokers.

How we use your data

Every use below maps to a specific purpose. We don't keep data "just in case".

Purpose	What we use	Legal basis (DPDP)
Create and secure your account	Phone number, device ID	Performance of contract
Show plans and people nearby	Location, interests, city	Your consent
Let you create and join activities	Profile, activity data	Performance of contract
Send push notifications	FCM token, notification preferences	Your consent
Verify that profiles belong to real people	Verification selfie, profile photo	Your consent
Run activity chats and direct messages	Messages, profile basics	Performance of contract
Safety check-ins and reminders	Check-in time you set, notification token	Your consent
Show reliability (attendance, reviews)	Attendance records, reviews	Performance of contract
Keep Joyn safe — block, moderate, review reports	Report data, activity data, profile data	Legitimate interest + legal obligation
Prevent fraud, spam, and abuse	Device ID, IP, usage patterns	Legitimate interest
Respond to support requests	Support messages, contact info	Performance of contract
Improve Joyn	Aggregated usage analytics	Legitimate interest
Comply with law	Any of the above when legally required	Legal obligation

We do not use your data to train generative AI models. We do not sell your data. We do not share your data with advertisers for cross-site targeting.

Who sees what

What other Joyn users see

Your display name, profile photo, city, bio, interests, languages, and Instagram handle (if you added one).
Approximate distance from them (rounded to ~100 metres — never exact).
Activities you created or joined that they can see.
Your verification badge (verified or not), the number of plans you've hosted or joined, your attendance reliability, and reviews others left about you. Never the selfie itself.
Messages you send in an activity chat (visible to the participants of that activity) or a direct message (visible to that person).

What other Joyn users never see

Your phone number. Ever.
Your exact location.
Your date of birth (only age in years is visible if you opted in).
Who you blocked, reported, or swiped past.
Your email or any external account info.

Microsoft Azure — cloud hosting (Cosmos DB, Azure Functions, Blob Storage). Data stored in the India region where available.
Google Firebase — authentication, push notifications, crash reporting.
Google Maps Platform — when you search places or view maps.
Microsoft Azure AI Vision (Face Liveness) — processes your verification selfie to confirm a live person matches your profile photo. It returns a result to us; we do not use it to identify you against anyone else's photos.
OpenAI Moderation API — user-submitted text (activity descriptions, bios, chat messages, reports) is sent for automated classification only, to catch harassment and abuse before it reaches other users. It is not used to train models on your content.
Law enforcement — only when legally compelled by a valid Indian court order or a legally-issued notice under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Identity verification

Verification is optional for browsing and joining most public plans. It is required to host certain plans and to join women-only or men-only plans, because those depend on knowing a profile belongs to a real person.

You take a short selfie video in the app. It is sent directly from your device to Microsoft Azure AI Vision's liveness check, which confirms a live person is present and that the face matches your profile photo. Joyn's own servers never receive or store the selfie.
We store the outcome (verified or not) and the date. We do not build or keep a face template, and we never use your selfie to search for or identify you elsewhere.
Microsoft processes the selfie only to return the result and handles it under Azure's data-protection terms. If we ever change the flow so that a selfie passes through our storage, it will be deleted within 30 days of verification and this policy will say so before that happens.
You can ask us to remove your verification at any time from Settings or by emailing privacy@joynhub.com. Removing it will also remove your access to plans that require it.

Where your data lives

We primarily store data in Microsoft Azure's India regions. Some sub-processors (e.g. Firebase, Google Maps) may process data outside India — where this happens, it is governed by contractual safeguards compliant with the DPDP Act.

How long we keep it

Active account data — as long as your account exists.
Activity history — 24 months after the activity ends.
Verification selfies — never stored by Joyn; only the outcome and date are kept.
Chat messages — while the activity or conversation exists; removed when you delete your account.
Safety check-ins — 90 days after the check-in resolves.
Reports and moderation records — up to 3 years, for safety audit trails.
Support tickets — 18 months.
Server logs — 90 days.
Marketing/analytics data — aggregated and stripped of identifiers after 12 months.

When you delete your account, we remove your profile within 30 days. Some records (moderation, legal, fraud-prevention) may be retained longer where required by law.

Your choices

Location — turn off via Settings → Privacy in the app (or your phone's OS settings). Joyn will still work; you'll just need to set your city manually.
Notifications — toggle per-category in Settings → Notifications.
Profile visibility — hide from "Nearby People" in Settings → Privacy.
Instagram handle — remove or hide at any time.
Block someone — bidirectional block, takes effect immediately.

Your rights under the DPDP Act

You have the right to:

Know what personal data we hold about you.
Correct or update it.
Erase your data — request at privacy@joynhub.com or via the in-app delete account flow.
Withdraw consent you previously gave (for location, notifications, etc.).
Nominate another individual to exercise your rights if you are incapacitated or deceased.
Complain to the Data Protection Board of India if you believe we've mishandled your data.

Email us at privacy@joynhub.com to exercise any of these. We respond within 30 days.

Children

Joyn is strictly 18+. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe we have, email grievance@joynhub.com and we will delete it within 72 hours.

Security

All traffic between your device and our servers is encrypted with TLS 1.2+.
Passwords are never stored — we use OTP-based authentication via Firebase.
Photos are stored with restricted access tokens; URLs are signed and time-limited.
We run automated moderation on user-generated text before it goes live.
We do periodic security reviews of our cloud infrastructure.

No system is 100% secure. If we ever become aware of a breach affecting your data, we will notify you and the Data Protection Board as required by law.

Privacy Policy