StayKnown Privacy Policy for safety, location, SOS, approved contacts, and secure communication.

1) Privacy summary

StayKnown is a safety-awareness and trusted-contact service. The app is designed to help people voluntarily share safety context with approved contacts during visits, live location sessions, SOS events, secure chat, and related safety communication. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, who may receive it, how long we may keep it, and what rights may apply to you.

2) Scope and who this policy applies to

This Privacy Policy applies to StayKnown’s website, mobile applications, web pages, safety map pages, live map flows, chat map flows, emails, notifications, account features, and related services together called the “Service.”

This policy applies when you create an account, use StayKnown as a visitor or approved contact, start or end a Visit, use LIVE sharing, trigger SOS, send manual safety captures, use chat, upload safety media, contact support, report misuse, request deletion, or interact with StayKnown legal and safety pages.

3) Privacy and safety principles

• Minimum necessary: StayKnown aims to collect and keep only what is reasonably needed to operate safety features, prevent abuse, support users, and meet legal obligations.
• Consent-first safety: safety visibility should begin from user action, approved contact relationships, and lawful purpose.
• No hidden tracking: StayKnown is not designed for covert monitoring, stalking, harassment, intimidation, or controlling another person.
• Purpose limitation: safety data should be used for safety, account operation, abuse prevention, support, compliance, and reliability.
• Transparency: users and approved contacts should understand what safety information is being shown and why.
• Security by design: StayKnown applies account, device, network, and operational safeguards to reduce unauthorized access and misuse.
• Civil respect: StayKnown must not be used to discriminate, threaten, intimidate, exploit, impersonate, or violate protective orders, restraining orders, or civil rights.

4) Information StayKnown may collect

• Account identifiers such as email address, user ID, username, display name, and authentication status.
• Profile information you choose to provide, such as first name, last name, avatar, phone number, safety gallery image, and selected preferences.
• Subscription and plan state, including Starter, Pro, Pro Max, active, expired, failed, downgraded, or restored status.

• Visit session records, including start time, end time, active status, destination context, safety notes, and visit state.
• SOS records, including activation time, stop/verification events, escalation status, and notification delivery events.
• Manual emergency capture records sent during active safety sessions.
• Safety history records used for user review, reliability, abuse prevention, and safety auditing.

• Precise or approximate coordinates when permission is granted and the feature requires location.
• Accuracy, captured time, location source, place labels, map display context, and reverse-geocoded area descriptions.
• Live map and chat map context shown only through permitted StayKnown flows, such as active Visit, SOS, manual capture, or approved-contact chat.
• Signals affecting location reliability, including network conditions, GPS availability, VPN detection, battery behavior, and device permission state.

• Emergency contact and SOS responder identifiers that you provide, including email or other supported contact details.
• Contact approval status, consent records, pending, approved, declined, expired, removed, or blocked-add state.
• Notification delivery metadata, including sent time, delivery state, recipient identifier, and event type.
• Chat thread participants, approved-contact state, message metadata, reactions, media references, translation state, read/delivery status, and safety location metadata where required by the feature.

• Images, videos, files, voice notes, stickers, safety gallery content, and related metadata you choose to upload or send.
• Media type, storage path, size, duration, thumbnail, moderation or abuse-report metadata, and delivery state.
• Translation or transcription-related metadata where supported and permitted.

• Device type, app version, operating system, language preference, push notification tokens, and limited diagnostic logs.
• Security signals used to protect accounts, detect abuse, enforce limits, prevent spam, and protect safety flows.
• Approximate network and reliability signals, including failed delivery, VPN safety gate events, and high-risk behavior patterns.

• Plan purchase or renewal state, payment provider reference, subscription expiry, payment failure, refund state, and receipt metadata.
• Wallet or coin ledger records where supported, including transaction type, amount, time, and fraud-prevention status.
• StayKnown does not need to store full card numbers. Payment processors may handle card or bank details under their own security and compliance obligations.

5) How StayKnown uses information

• To create, authenticate, secure, and maintain user accounts.
• To operate Visit sessions, live location sharing, SOS alerts, manual capture, approved contact notifications, and safety history.
• To provide approved-contact safety visibility and context when a user has permitted or triggered a supported safety flow.
• To support secure chat, chat location context, media delivery, read/delivery status, message reactions, translation handling, and abuse reporting.
• To enforce contact approval, consent, blocked-add settings, and trusted contact responsibilities.
• To send service notifications, safety alerts, approval emails, support replies, receipts, subscription messages, and critical policy notices.
• To prevent stalking, harassment, impersonation, fraud, false emergency use, spam, coercive monitoring, and other misuse.
• To troubleshoot location accuracy, notification delivery, app crashes, map reliability, translation issues, and device behavior.
• To comply with law, respond to valid legal process, preserve relevant records, protect rights, protect safety, and enforce StayKnown policies.

6) Location data, live map, chat map, and accuracy

Location information is sensitive. StayKnown uses location to support safety features such as Visit sessions, LIVE sharing, SOS alerts, manual emergency capture, approved contact maps, chat map context, and safety history.

• Location sharing depends on permissions, device settings, app state, GPS, network access, battery settings, and supported plan features.
• Approved contacts may see location-related safety context only through permitted flows, such as a user-started Visit, SOS alert, manual capture, or approved-contact chat map.
• Location may be delayed, approximate, incomplete, or unavailable because of device, network, VPN, battery, permission, or third-party map provider limitations.
• StayKnown may use place labels, reverse geocoding, and map providers to help contacts understand an area, but labels may not always be exact.
• The VPN safety gate exists because VPN use can reduce reliability, confuse routing, or affect safety-location accuracy.
• StayKnown does not guarantee exact lane-level, building-level, room-level, or real-time emergency positioning.

7) Approved contacts, consent, and notifications

StayKnown is built around trusted relationships. Emergency contacts and SOS responders should be added only for lawful, safety-focused purposes. Where approval is required, contacts must approve before receiving certain safety responsibilities or access.

• You must not add a person as a contact to harass, intimidate, spam, impersonate, monitor, pressure, or control them.
• If a contact declines, asks to be removed, or blocks being added, you must respect that choice.
• Contacts may receive email, push, web, live map, chat map, SOS, manual capture, or safety status notifications depending on feature and approval state.
• Contact approval records may be retained to prove consent, reduce disputes, prevent abuse, and protect users.
• False contact information, repeated unwanted notifications, or abuse of approval flows may lead to feature limits, suspension, or permanent removal.

8) Secure chat, media, translation, and safety context

StayKnown Chat is designed for approved-contact communication, safety context, and responsible coordination. Chat features may include text, media, files, voice notes, stickers, reactions, translation, read/delivery status, and location metadata.

• Messages may include safety metadata such as sender, recipient, thread ID, delivery/read status, location context, place label, and captured time.
• Chat location context helps approved contacts understand where a message or safety update came from when the feature requires it.
• Translation may process message text, media captions, voice note text, or language metadata through approved providers where enabled.
• Users must not use chat to threaten, exploit, harass, impersonate, stalk, intimidate, or coordinate harm.
• Reported chat content may be reviewed for safety, policy enforcement, legal compliance, and abuse prevention.
• Deleted or removed content may remain in backups, logs, legal holds, safety records, or abuse-review systems where permitted or required.

9) Third-party service providers

StayKnown may use trusted service providers to operate the Service. These providers process information only as needed for hosting, authentication, storage, notifications, email, payments, maps, translation, security, logging, and support.

• Supabase or similar infrastructure providers may support authentication, database, storage, edge functions, and security rules.
• Resend or similar email providers may deliver safety alerts, approval emails, receipts, and account notices.
• Paystack or other approved payment processors may process subscription, wallet, receipt, or payment information.
• TomTom, OpenCage, Mapbox, or similar map/geocoding providers may process coordinates or place data to show maps and readable place labels.
• DeepL or similar translation providers may process supported text or language data where translation features are enabled.
• Apple, Google, device operating systems, and push notification providers may process device tokens and notification routing data.

Third-party providers may have their own privacy and security obligations. StayKnown aims to use providers that support secure, lawful, and reliable operation of safety features.

10) Sharing, disclosure, and access

When you trigger a StayKnown safety flow, approved contacts or selected recipients may receive the information needed to understand the safety event. This may include your name, profile information, safety gallery image, live map session, location, place label, destination context, message context, timestamps, and emergency status.

StayKnown may share information with providers that help us deliver the Service. These providers are expected to process data for operational purposes such as hosting, storage, maps, email, push notifications, payments, translation, logs, and security.

StayKnown may review, preserve, or disclose information where reasonably necessary to investigate misuse, protect users or contacts, prevent harassment, prevent stalking, prevent fraud, enforce restrictions, or reduce credible safety risks.

StayKnown may disclose information when required by valid legal process or where disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect life or safety, enforce terms, protect rights, prevent fraud, investigate abuse, or respond to lawful emergency requests.

11) Data retention and deletion

StayKnown keeps information for as long as reasonably needed for the purpose collected, including safety history, service operation, legal compliance, abuse prevention, dispute resolution, account management, payment records, and security.

• Account data may be kept while your account is active and for a reasonable period after closure where needed for legal, security, or abuse-prevention reasons.
• Safety session logs may be retained so users can review history and so StayKnown can investigate safety incidents or misuse.
• Contact approval and consent records may be retained to prove authorization, resolve disputes, and protect contacts.
• Security logs may be retained longer to prevent repeated abuse, fraud, stalking, harassment, or bypass attempts.
• Payment and receipt records may be retained as required for tax, accounting, chargeback, refund, and legal compliance.
• Deletion requests may be limited where records must be preserved for law, safety, legal claims, fraud prevention, or legitimate security reasons.

12) Security controls

• StayKnown uses access controls, authentication, database rules, service restrictions, and operational safeguards designed to protect safety data.
• StayKnown may use rate limits, device checks, VPN safety gates, session validation, approval checks, plan checks, and abuse monitoring.
• StayKnown may restrict accounts, devices, sessions, contact flows, or safety features where misuse, fraud, stalking, spam, or safety risk is detected.
• No system is perfectly secure. Users must protect their devices, passwords, email accounts, phone numbers, and app access.
• Security researchers should report vulnerabilities responsibly and should not access, extract, destroy, publish, or expose private user data.

13) Children, teens, guardians, and vulnerable users

• Under 13: not permitted to create an account or use StayKnown.
• Ages 13–15: permitted only with active permission and supervision of a parent or legal guardian and only for lawful safety use.
• Ages 16–17: permitted with permission or consent of a parent or legal guardian, and only for lawful safety use.
• If local law requires a higher age, guardian consent, school approval, workplace approval, or special protection, the stricter rule applies.
• Adults must not use StayKnown to exploit, pressure, secretly monitor, or unlawfully control minors or vulnerable persons.
• Reports involving minors, coercion, exploitation, stalking, or credible safety threats may receive heightened review and enforcement.

14) Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have privacy rights under laws such as U.S. state privacy laws, California privacy laws, GDPR, UK GDPR, Nigerian data protection law, or other local laws. Rights may vary by jurisdiction.

• Access: request information about personal data StayKnown holds about you.
• Correction: request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Deletion: request deletion of eligible personal data.
• Portability: request export of certain information in a usable format where required.
• Restriction: request limits on certain processing where applicable.
• Objection: object to certain processing where applicable.
• Appeal: appeal certain privacy decisions where local law provides that right.
• Non-discrimination: you should not be punished for exercising legally protected privacy rights.

• StayKnown does not sell personal data.
• StayKnown does not use safety-location data for hidden surveillance advertising.
• StayKnown aims to use sensitive data only for safety, service operation, security, compliance, support, and fraud or abuse prevention.
• Verified requests may be required before releasing, deleting, or changing account data.
• Some records may be kept where needed for safety, legal compliance, fraud prevention, dispute handling, or security.

Contact support@stay-known.com. StayKnown may ask you to verify your identity, prove account ownership, provide required details, or clarify the scope of the request before acting.

15) Law enforcement, emergency requests, and civil safety

StayKnown respects lawful process and user privacy. We do not provide private user data to random individuals, unsafe requesters, or unofficial parties simply because they ask. Law enforcement, government agencies, courts, emergency authorities, or authorized legal representatives should use the proper request channel and provide sufficient legal basis.

• StayKnown may require valid legal process before disclosing account, location, chat, contact, or safety records.
• Emergency disclosures may be considered only where permitted by law and where there is a credible risk involving death, serious physical harm, exploitation, or urgent safety threat.
• Requests should be limited, specific, lawful, and connected to a real investigation, emergency, court matter, or safety need.
• StayKnown may preserve relevant records when legally required or where preservation is reasonably necessary to prevent harm or investigate abuse.
• StayKnown may reject, narrow, or challenge requests that are overbroad, unlawful, unclear, unsafe, or inconsistent with user privacy and civil rights.
• Where legally permitted and appropriate, StayKnown may notify affected users of legal requests. Notification may be delayed or withheld if prohibited by law, court order, safety concern, or emergency circumstance.

16) Contact, reports, and policy cross-references

For privacy questions, account requests, abuse reports, safety concerns, or legal concerns, contact StayKnown support.

• Privacy and support: support@stay-known.com
• Abuse or misuse reports: use the Abuse Reporting page or contact support.
• Security vulnerabilities: use the Security Disclosure page.
• Law enforcement and emergency requests: use the Law Enforcement & Emergency Requests page.