StayKnown Data Retention Policy for safety records, location logs, abuse reports, and legal holds.

1) Retention summary

StayKnown is a safety and communication service. Some records may be needed after a safety event ends because users may need history, contacts may need context, support may need to troubleshoot delivery, and safety review may need records to investigate misuse. Retention does not mean StayKnown keeps every possible record forever.

2) Retention principles

• Purpose-based retention: records should be retained only where reasonably connected to service operation, user history, safety, legal compliance, fraud prevention, support, dispute resolution, or platform integrity.
• Safety-aware retention: emergency, SOS, location, contact-consent, abuse-report, and minor-safety records may need more careful handling.
• Privacy-aware retention: records should not be kept longer than reasonably necessary unless legal, safety, security, or operational reasons require it.
• Deletion with safeguards: user deletion requests may be honored where possible, but some records may need to remain where law, safety, fraud prevention, or abuse prevention requires it.
• No covert tracking purpose: retaining records does not authorize stalking, hidden monitoring, harassment, or unlawful surveillance.

3) Records StayKnown may retain

The exact records available depend on the user’s plan, device permissions, settings, region, feature use, retention rules, provider behavior, and whether the record was generated in the first place.

• Account identifiers such as email, user ID, username, profile identifiers, and account metadata.
• Profile information the user provides, such as display name, avatar, first name, last name, safety gallery information, and recognition-related content where enabled.
• Account status, enforcement status, plan state, subscription state, and feature entitlements.

• Visit start and stop events.
• LIVE safety session state and related safety lifecycle events.
• SOS activation, SOS state changes, notification attempts, and verified-stop events where available.
• Manual Capture events and related safety update metadata.
• History records shown to the user for review and safety awareness.

• Trusted contact identifiers the user provides.
• Contact approval, invite, acceptance, decline, expiration, removal, blocked-add, and consent-related records where applicable.
• Notification delivery events, timestamps, alert types, delivery status, email metadata, and push metadata where available.
• Support context needed to understand whether an alert was sent, delayed, failed, blocked, or delivered.

• Message metadata, message content where retained, thread state, read/delivery status, reactions, reply metadata, and location context where supported.
• Media, voice note, sticker, story, file, profile, and safety gallery references where enabled.
• Translation metadata, source language, target language, translated text, or retry state where a translation feature is used.
• Blocking, reporting, removal, and enforcement records connected to communication safety.

• Rate-limit events, suspicious usage patterns, and anti-abuse signals.
• Device, network, VPN, fake GPS, reliability, or platform-integrity signals where used for security or safety integrity.
• Reports, enforcement actions, appeals, and support communications.
• Logs needed to detect repeat abuse, harassment, fraud, stalking attempts, false alerts, or attempts to bypass safeguards.

4) Why retention matters

Safety products need a careful retention posture. Removing every record immediately may harm users who need history, prevent abuse review, or make it harder to respond to legal requests. Keeping records unnecessarily may also create privacy risk. StayKnown aims to balance both needs.

• To show users their own Visit, SOS, Manual Capture, and safety history.
• To troubleshoot missed, delayed, or failed alerts.
• To support contact approval and safety relationship review.
• To investigate reports of stalking, harassment, false SOS events, fraud, contact abuse, or unsafe chat/media behavior.
• To prevent repeat abuse by the same account, device, network, payment method, contact pattern, or identifier.
• To comply with valid legal process, preservation requests, emergency safety review, tax obligations, payment records, or applicable law.
• To resolve disputes, enforce policies, and protect users, contacts, minors, vulnerable people, and the public.

5) Location, Visit, LIVE, SOS, and manual capture records

Location data is sensitive. StayKnown should only process it where the user grants permission and where location is needed for active safety features. Some location-related records may be retained to support history, abuse prevention, legal obligations, safety audits, and troubleshooting.

• Visit sessions may retain start time, end time, state, destination context, and related safety events.
• Location points may be retained where generated during active sessions and permitted by the user’s settings.
• Readable place labels or reverse-geocoded context may be retained where created for a safety event.
• Location accuracy, network reliability, VPN interruption, or device-permission state may be retained where relevant to safety integrity.
• SOS and manual capture records may be retained because they can involve urgent safety context.
• Location updates may be delayed, incomplete, or unavailable depending on device, GPS, battery, VPN, and network conditions.

6) Notifications, contacts, approval, and delivery records

Notification records help users and support teams understand what happened during safety events. For example, a user may need to know whether an alert was sent, failed, delayed, or delivered.

• StayKnown may retain contact identifiers selected by the user.
• StayKnown may retain delivery attempts, timestamps, delivery status, and alert type.
• StayKnown may retain email or push notification metadata needed for troubleshooting and abuse prevention.
• StayKnown may retain contact approval records to confirm whether safety access was consent-based.
• If a contact reports abuse, relevant contact and delivery records may be retained for review.
• Blocked-add settings, removal records, and decline records may be retained to prevent repeated unwanted contact requests.

7) Chat, stories, stickers, media, and profile records

If StayKnown includes chat, stories, stickers, voice notes, media, translation, or profile-trust features, related records may be retained where needed to operate the service, show user content, enforce policies, prevent abuse, or comply with law.

• Message metadata may be retained to show conversations, delivery state, read/delivered status, reactions, reply context, or safety-related context.
• Sticker, media, story, voice-note, file, safety-gallery, or profile records may be retained while the content is active or needed for account history.
• Translation status, source language, target language, retry state, and translated text may be retained where the feature is used.
• Reports involving chat, stories, stickers, media, or profile misuse may require preservation of relevant records.
• Blocking, reporting, removal, and enforcement records may be retained to prevent repeated abuse.
• Deleted or removed content may still have limited metadata, backups, abuse-review records, or legal-hold records retained where allowed or required.

8) Payment, subscription, wallet, receipt, and billing records

Payment and subscription records may be retained because they can be needed for receipts, taxes, refunds, chargebacks, fraud prevention, account support, and legal compliance.

• Plan state, renewal state, expiry, downgrade, payment failure, and entitlement records may be retained.
• Payment provider references, receipt metadata, transaction IDs, chargeback records, refund records, and support notes may be retained.
• Wallet, coins, withdrawals, ledger entries, outbox records, and anti-fraud records may be retained where those features are available.
• StayKnown does not need to retain full card numbers; payment providers may handle sensitive payment details under their own rules.
• Payment-related deletion requests may be limited by tax, accounting, chargeback, fraud-prevention, dispute, and legal obligations.

9) Abuse prevention and enforcement retention

Retention is important for stopping repeat abuse. A user who abuses one account may attempt to return with another account, device, contact list, payment method, or network. Safety logs can help identify patterns without exposing unnecessary data.

• Reports of stalking, harassment, contact abuse, fraud, false emergencies, threats, impersonation, or unsafe media may be retained.
• Enforcement actions, warnings, restrictions, suspensions, bans, and appeals may be retained.
• Suspicious device, network, payment, wallet, account, or identifier patterns may be retained where needed for safety and fraud prevention.
• Records related to attempts to bypass plan limits, VPN rules, safety gates, contact approvals, device restrictions, or account restrictions may be retained.
• Repeated mass messaging, unusual session behaviors, and reported abuse patterns may be retained for investigation.

10) Legal preservation, government requests, and legal holds

StayKnown may preserve or retain records where required by law, valid legal process, emergency safety needs, abuse investigation, fraud investigation, or official preservation requests. Preservation does not automatically mean disclosure.

• Records may be preserved when StayKnown receives a lawful preservation request.
• Records may be preserved when there is credible risk of death, serious injury, kidnapping, trafficking, exploitation, fraud, child-safety concern, or imminent harm.
• Records may be retained longer where needed to comply with law, court orders, regulatory requirements, tax requirements, accounting duties, or valid legal process.
• StayKnown may disclose information if required by law or if necessary to protect rights and safety, prevent fraud, prevent harm, or enforce policies.
• StayKnown does not support covert surveillance or unlawful monitoring.
• Legal holds may delay deletion until the hold is released or the preservation need ends.

11) Deletion requests and limits

Users may request deletion where applicable. However, deletion rights can be limited by legal, security, safety, fraud prevention, child safety, abuse investigation, dispute resolution, billing, tax, and platform-integrity needs.

• Some records may need to be retained to comply with law.
• Some records may need to be retained to investigate abuse, threats, fraud, stalking, false emergencies, or contact misuse.
• Some records may need to be retained to enforce bans, device restrictions, payment restrictions, contact restrictions, or account restrictions.
• Some records may need to be retained to resolve disputes, payment issues, refund issues, chargebacks, or support requests.
• Some records may need to be retained to protect minors, vulnerable users, contacts, or the public.
• Records that were never collected, were already deleted, or were not generated cannot be recovered later.
• Backup copies may remain for a limited period until overwritten or expired according to operational systems.

12) Minor-related records

Reports or records involving minors may require more careful handling. StayKnown may preserve relevant records where needed for child safety, abuse prevention, legal compliance, emergency review, or guardian-related disputes.

• Records involving suspected grooming, exploitation, coercion, trafficking, kidnapping, unsafe contact, or threats to a minor may be preserved.
• Guardian consent and minor-use reports may be retained where relevant.
• Deletion may be limited where records are needed to protect a minor or comply with legal obligations.
• If a minor is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services or the proper local authority first.

13) Security logs and platform integrity

Security logs help protect StayKnown, users, contacts, and the public from misuse. Some security records may be retained even after account changes or deletion requests where retention is necessary for safety and platform integrity.

• Authentication, device, network, and abuse-prevention signals may be retained where needed.
• Rate limits, suspicious activity, blocked attempts, VPN safety gate events, fake GPS concerns, and fraud-prevention events may be retained.
• Security reports and vulnerability communications may be retained to protect the Service.
• Records related to reverse engineering, scraping, API abuse, bot activity, credential attacks, storage abuse, or bypass attempts may be retained.
• Platform integrity records may be retained to prevent banned users, abusive devices, or fraudulent payment identifiers from returning.

14) Nigeria, United States, United Kingdom, EU, and global retention

Retention laws, privacy rights, emergency expectations, tax obligations, child-safety rules, and legal process requirements differ by country. StayKnown may adapt retention handling to applicable law, user location, event location, service availability, provider requirements, and safety risk.

• In Nigeria, StayKnown may retain safety, contact, location, abuse-report, support, and payment records where needed for lawful safety, dispute, fraud-prevention, or compliance purposes.
• Network issues, power supply, road conditions, rural coverage, device quality, and provider delays may affect whether records exist or how complete they are.
• If immediate danger exists, use appropriate local channels, which may include trusted family, local police, medical help, FRSC, NSCDC, NEMA, state emergency agencies, private security, child-safety authorities, or nearby responsible responders depending on the situation.
• StayKnown does not replace Nigerian police, ambulance, hospitals, fire service, road safety, civil defence, disaster management, child-protection authorities, or any official authority.

• In the United States, retention may be affected by state privacy laws, legal holds, law-enforcement process, child-safety concerns, fraud-prevention needs, billing requirements, and tax obligations.
• In the U.K. and EU, retention may be affected by data minimization, lawful basis, user rights, legal obligations, legitimate interests, and child-safety responsibilities.
• In any country, StayKnown may limit deletion or preserve records where law, safety, security, child protection, fraud prevention, or legal process requires it.
• Users and contacts must not treat retention records as permission for stalking, harassment, coercion, retaliation, or unlawful surveillance.

15) Retention limits and practical expectations

StayKnown may not always have every record a user, contact, support person, lawyer, regulator, or authority expects. Records depend on technical generation, feature use, permissions, network state, retention schedules, provider systems, and legal requirements.

• If location permission was off, location records may not exist.
• If a notification failed before delivery metadata was created, the record may be limited.
• If a user did not start a Visit, SOS, chat, story, or manual capture, related records may not exist.
• If a record has expired under retention rules and was not preserved, it may not be available.
• If a device was offline, data may be delayed, incomplete, or missing.
• If a third-party provider failed, deleted, rejected, or did not create a record, StayKnown may not have that provider-level information.

16) Contact and related policies

For privacy, deletion, retention, legal preservation, billing records, or abuse reporting questions, contact StayKnown support. If you are reporting immediate danger, contact your local emergency number or proper local authority first.

• Support: support@stay-known.com
• Use Abuse Reporting for stalking, harassment, unwanted contact, false emergencies, impersonation, unsafe media, or safety misuse.
• Use Law Enforcement & Emergency Requests for official requests, preservation, emergency disclosure, or urgent legal concerns.
• Use Security Disclosure for vulnerability reports or platform-integrity concerns.