Privacy & Cookie Policy

Last Updated: May 2026

1. Who We Are

The Platinum-Williams Company Limited (trading as FriendSift) is the “Data Controller” of your personal data. We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and our VAT Registration Number is GB403433146. You can contact us at privacy(at)friendsift(dot)com.

2. The Data We Collect

To move beyond a cold data match to a “Vibe” match, we collect highly specific profile information. This includes:

  • Basic ID: Your email, age, gender, and relationship status.
  • Location: Your postcode, city, and maximum travel distance.
  • Psychological & Vibe Data: Details such as your social battery and answers to personality questions.

3. Special Category Data (Important)

To ensure highly compatible introductions, our questionnaire asks for sensitive information regarding your Religion, Sexual Orientation, and Political Views. Under UK GDPR, this is “Special Category Data.”

  • Explicit Consent: By providing this information in the questionnaire, you give us your explicit consent to process this data solely for the purpose of matching you with compatible friends. You can delete this data at any time by deleting your account.

4. How We Process Your Data (Our Tech Stack)

We share your data strictly with trusted service providers, acting as Data Processors:

  • Google Firebase: To store user profiles and handle Single Sign-On.
  • Google Gemini AI: To analyze your questionnaire answers and generate your bio. Our AI is strictly instructed not to reveal sensitive private details or exact dealbreakers.
  • Amazon SES: To send email notifications about introductions, Handshake requests and name/email reveals.
  • Stripe: To securely process card payments.

5. International Data Transfers

Some of our service providers (like Google and AWS) may process your data outside the UK/EEA (e.g., in the United States). We ensure your data is protected by relying on UK Addendums to Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and requiring these providers to uphold strict GDPR-level security.

6. Data Retention

We keep your data only as long as your account is active. If you delete your account via the Settings page, your profile data, questionnaire answers, and identity data are permanently deleted from our active Firebase database.

7. Cookie Policy

FriendSift uses two kinds of cookies:

  • Essential cookies: secure session cookies managed by Firebase that keep you signed in. These are always used, as the platform cannot work without them.
  • Analytics cookies: Google Analytics cookies that help us understand how FriendSift is used so we can improve it. These are set only if you click “Accept analytics” on our cookie banner. If you click “Reject analytics”, no analytics cookies are set. You can change your choice at any time using the “Cookie settings” link in the site footer.

We do not use third-party advertising trackers.

8. Your Data Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to access, correct, or request the deletion of your personal data. You can exercise these rights directly via your Settings page or by contacting us at privacy(at)friendsift(dot)com.