Effective February 14, 2023. Last Revised October 28, 2024.

Huddleverse, the Huddle app and our Services, is the place to find community, friendship and a sense of belonging in your journey to improving your mental health, and helping others on the same journey. We firmly believe in the right of all users to protect their privacy and feel comfortable sharing as much, or as little, of their information as they wish. 

To use our Services, we require the creation of an account. However, this can still be done while providing minimal information if you desire. As you begin to use our Services and wish to engage more with other users, you can add as much information as you feel comfortable. The same goes for any content you upload; if your content is not breaching any of our policies or Terms of Use, you can upload as much content as you like. We love to see our users being actively involved in the most incredible and supportive mental health community online.

If, at any time and for any reason, you decide that you would like to remove content or have some of your information changed or even deleted, you can do that. This Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use explain how you can go about removing content, changing/removing the personal information you have provided, or requesting that we delete your information entirely. For a list of Definitions, please refer to the “Definitions” section of the Terms of Use.

The primary reason we collect your Data is to learn about and understand the Huddle User experience so that we can improve and adapt it to best suit your needs and interests. We strive to create an environment where all feel welcomed, respected and understood. If you would like to learn more about what Data is collected and for what purposes, please continue reading this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Alternatively, you can contact us directly at any time for more information at hello@huddle.so.

Information We Collect

Account Creation
To use the Huddle app, you must create an account. You may choose your own unique username and password. To finalize your account creation, you will need to provide an email or phone number to which Amazon Web Services (AWS) can send a verification code. We will also use the email you provide to send occasional information regarding policy/service updates to the Huddle app and to communicate with you if you request support. Once your account has been created and verified, you will be given the option to provide additional information relating to your interests (e.g., sports, gaming, reading, nature, fitness etc.) which will enable us to create a more personalized home feed for you. If you do not wish to provide this information you can skip this step, and you may alter your selection later if desired.

Once you have selected your main interests (or opted not to), you will be given the option to provide basic information about yourself (e.g., pronouns, gender, star signs, mental health conditions etc.) to generate your unique user profile. All information that you add to your profile is optional and may be changed or removed at any time.

If you choose to add the above information, those settings and preferences will be stored to help improve your use of the Huddle app and the overall user experience. The aforementioned information may be requested prior to the final creation of your account.

Content You Create/Submit
Once you begin using the Huddle app, all content you submit will be collected and stored. This includes, but is not limited to, your posts, comments, audio, images and video you broadcast or audio, images or video you upload in a post, messages (both private and/or to group chats), creation of custom emojis, uploading or sharing files, reports of other users or content and any other communications with moderators.

All content shared during voice calls or voice channels will not be stored. This is subject to change, but all users will be notified in advance of any potential change.

Collection of your Usage Data
We collect information relating to each person’s use of, and interaction with, the Huddle app, other users, and the content shared within. This includes, but is not limited to, interactions with content, e.g. liking, awarding, saving, reporting, hiding; interactions with other users, e.g. adding or deleting friends, blocking other users; and interactions with communities, e.g. the groups you join, your role within the groups.

Purchases
To purchase products or services within the Huddle app (e.g. Huddle Super or Mochi Coins), you must submit a valid payment method and necessary billing information (e.g. full legal name, your billing address and phone number/email address). Once our payment processes have received and processed your payment information, that information will be stored within Apple for any future or recurring purchases. If you do not wish to have your payment information stored, you may opt out of this. However, if you have purchased a product (e.g. Huddle Super) that requires a subscription (e.g. monthly, annually) you will have to manually reenter your payment information at each billing interval. Failure to re-enter your payment information prior to the end of the billing period will result in the deactivation of your purchase and you may only access it by re-entering your payment information.

Optional Information you may Provide
To enhance the overall user experience, Huddleverse may, from time to time, send users surveys or feedback requests. This information will be used to potentially make changes and updates to the Huddle app. All such surveys and feedback requests etc. are voluntary and users may elect to not participate. Any feedback given will remain entirely anonymous.

Automatically Collected Information and Data

Access and Usage Data
Data will be collected from the device you use to access the Huddle app and your use of the Huddle app. This includes, but is not limited to, IP address, browser information, operating system, device settings (in relation to the Huddle app e.g., if you have enabled microphone or camera) device information, pages visited, links clicked and search terms.

Cookies and Similar Technologies
Huddleverse uses ‘cookies’ to personalize your experience within the app. A ‘cookie’ is a text file that is setup on your hard drive by a web page server, which is uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. However, cookies cannot be used to run programs on your computer.

Our cookies anonymously track users so we can improve the Huddleverse app and each user’s experience within. Cookies are also used to personalize the content and advertisements based on your interests. We also use cookies to understand each user’s unique activity and Huddleverse experience and to enhance all aspects of the Huddle app. Sharing your cookies is entirely optional and users may disable them at any time. To learn how to disable cookies, please see “Controlling Your Privacy” below.

Information We Receive/Collect from Other Sources

Information about you may be collected from other sources, including but not limited to, other Huddleverse users and third parties. This information will be combined with the aforementioned information collected about you. This information may be used to allow an advertiser to advertise to a specific audience interested in their product. Huddleverse may also receive information about you via interactions you may have with Huddleverse on another platform. 

Information Collected by Third Parties

Demographic Information
We work with service providers that perform audience measurement to learn demographic and behavioral information about the population that uses our Services.

How We Use Your Information

To Provide a Service
The information we collect about you is used to provide the service, maintain its quality and make efficient and productive updates to enhance your experience of the service. For example, any messages you send or receive are collected and stored and we display them as you direct. Similarly, when using the voice chat function, we process your audio images to ensure that service is working correctly. 

We also use any information collected about you to aid in managing your account and to facilitate any purchases you make.

By registering an account with us, you also agree that your email shall be automatically opted into our mailing list where we will send occasional newsletters about the Service. If you do not wish to receive these emails, you may opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button at the bottom of any email you receive from us.

Meeting Our Commitments to the Huddle Community
Huddleverse is a community solely focussed on the improvement of mental health and conversation about it. As such, we work tirelessly to ensure that Huddleverse is a safe, inclusive and positive environment for everybody to join and feel welcomed. To maintain this high level of safety, we monitor all users’ information to ensure that no content that violates our community guidelines, terms and conditions or any other policies is uploaded. 

Any and all breaches of the community guidelines, terms and conditions or other policies will be met with swift and effective action to remove the content and potentially ban users. Our actions may include, but are not limited to, responding to reports sent by users and proactively scanning attachments sent or received by users that contain content, which is harmful, prohibited or illegal.  We will also use information, which may have been reported to us by users, posted publicly or detected by moderators, to improve our systems for tracking, monitoring and taking action against prohibited, harmful or illegal content and conduct. 

To Personalize the Service
All information that is provided or collected is used to personalize and improve our Services. By collecting this information, we can power our discovery surfaces, letting you see the most relevant groups or content first. If you do not wish to allow us to personalize your Huddleverse experience in this way, you can disable certain Data collection. Please see the “How to Control Your Privacy” section for more information.

Contacting You
Information collected on you will be used to contact you for certain things. This may include, but is not limited to, account verification, updates to policy changes, transactions/purchases you have made, information about new products/services you may be interested in. If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may opt out of that.

Providing Customer Service
Your information will be used to remedy or respond to any queries or concerns you have with our services and to investigate any bugs or issues that may have been noticed.

Protecting Our Services
Information collected or received by Huddleverse will be used to maintain security of our services and the private information of our users, prevent misuse, and to enforce our Terms and Conditions and any other policies against violations by users.

Improving Our Services
Information that we collect is used to help understand how users interact with our app and services. It is also used to learn about the features or products that are used the most, which in turn allows us to improve and develop new products and services which continue to enhance your overall user experience. If you do not wish to have your Data used for these purposes, you may control that in your settings. To learn more about that, please see the “How to Control Your Privacy” section.

Public posts and content may be used to better inform our understanding of what most interests and engages our users.

Advertising Our Services on Other Platforms
Huddleverse aims to be a platform where everyone can openly discuss their journeys to improve their mental health with a community of like-minded individuals. To achieve the most benefit, we will continually seek to encourage more users to join our community. This will be done through advertising of our services on a variety of other platforms and mediums. Certain information that has been collected on our current users will be used to help measure the effectiveness of our advertisements and to improve the delivery of our advertisements now, and into the future.

Legal Obligations
We will use and retain any necessary information that has been collected on you when dealing with potential legal claims or for matters of legal or regulatory compliance and auditing purposes. We may also retain information when we are required to do so by law or compelled by any relevant regulatory body.

With Your Consent
We may collect or retain any of your personal information with your consent. Through our services you can revoke that consent at any time if you wish.

Protecting Someone’s Vital Interests
Huddleverse is a community centred around promoting and protecting the mental health of our users. For this reason, we may collect and or share personal information to resolve an urgent safety or medical situation if we reasonably believe that someone’s life may be in danger or they are at imminent risk of doing harm to themselves or others.

How We Share Information

Submission of Content
When you submit content of any kind to any public section of the Service, any users will be able to view that content, the usernames associated with that content and the date and time of the content’s submission.

Profile Page
Your Huddleverse profile page will be public. Your profile will contain general information about you that you have added or created, including your username, basic information (age, gender etc.) posts or content you have created, characteristics and interests.

With Our Vendors
We may share certain specific information with vendors we hire to carry out specific tasks for us as it is necessary for them to complete those tasks. For example, we work with secure payment processors like PayPal, who process transitions with the app on our behalf. They require certain information to complete your transaction. We may also share limited information with advertisers or advertising platforms to help reach a specific audience that may be interested in our Services and to measure the effectiveness of our advertising. We will only provide the necessary information to facilitate the process of improving the Huddleverse experience.

Legal Compliance
If requested by a court or regulatory body, we may have to share information. Where possible or allowed, we will attempt to give your prior notice before your information is disclosed in response to any such legal request.

Emergencies
If necessary, we may share your information to prevent serious harm from occurring to you or any person.

Enforcing Our Policies and Rights
If required, we may share information to enforce our Terms and Conditions, Community Guidelines or other policies to protect the rights and safety of yourself and others.

Aggregated or Anonymized Information
We may share information which has been aggregated or anonymized such that your identity is protected. Such information may be shared when we provide statistics to stakeholders that explains and describes our user base.

How We Protect Your Information
We take measures to ensure that your information is protected from loss, theft, misuse, disclosure, alteration of destruction. We also impose technical and administrative access limits to control which of our employees have access to your personal information. Any information that we deem necessary to collect will be collected and securely stored for as long as we deem necessary or are required by law.

Deleting Account
As mentioned throughout this Privacy Policy, you have choices and abilities to protect and limit our collection, use and sharing of your information while you use the app and our Services. We fundamentally believe in the right of our users to shape their experience of Huddleverse, no matter where they are in the world. 

As such, at any time and for any reason, you may delete your Huddleverse account. If you decide to delete your account, these actions will occur and they cannot be undone:

• Your account, personal data, posts, awards, and Mochi Coins will be permanently removed, and
• You will not be able to log in again to recover any of your content, and
• Your profile to other users will be anonymized

To avoid further charges, before you delete your account, please make sure that you cancel any active subscriptions you may have.

Data Transfers
Huddleverse is based in Singapore. Our servers used to store and process information are located in the United States. Depending on several factors, including user locations and availability of service providers, we may store information on servers in other countries. By using the Huddle app and our services or in any other way providing us with your information, you consent to the transfer, processing, and storage of that information in the United States and or other countries, wherein your rights may not be the same as they are in the country where you live.

If any of your Personal Data is stored on a server in Singapore, it will not be transferred to another country without your consent. If such data is transferred, it shall be done so in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). 

To learn more about your rights and our obligations under the PDPA, please see these websites:

https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/Overview-of-PDPA/The-Legislation/Personal-Data-Protection-Act 

https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/Overview-of-PDPA/The-Legislation/Personal-Data-Protection-Act/Data-Protection-Obligations

California Users
All Huddleverse users have the right and ability to manage and control their privacy and user experience. Information and how this can be done can be found in this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use document, or by emailing us directly at ‘hello@huddle.so’. For users in California, you also have the following additional rights. 

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) requires that we provide all residents of California with certain additional information. To understand this additional information and how it impacts you as a California resident, please read below. 

Information we have collected in the previous twelve (12) months: Identifiers (such as your Huddleverse username, the email address you signed up with, phone number if you provided it, your IP address); Commercial Information (transaction history if you have made purchases within the Huddle app); Financial Data (your payment information you used for purchases, if any were made); Internet or other Network Activity Information (how you use and interact with the Huddle app and what content you may be most interested in); Location Information (based off your IP address, or, if you authorize us to do so on your device, a more specific location); Your Messages with Other Users (such as private messages, chats, group messages etc.); Content You Post (such as photos, videos, live streams, or any other content as “Content” is defined in our Terms of Use). 

In so far as we collect and or use your sensitive personal information as it is defined by laws like the CCPA, we do so in full accordance with every applicable legal requirement. No do we use or disclose that information for any purposes other than those that are not limited by the CCPA. 

Information that is collected and used is done so for the business and commercial purposes that are explained above in the sections “Information We Collect” and “How We Share Information”. Information that is shared with third parties is also explained in the “How We Share Information” section. 

There are certain obligations set out in the CCPA that prohibit businesses selling or sharing personal information. We comply with these provisions and do not sell or share your information in any way that contravenes the CCPA. Certain information, as outlined above in the “How We Share Information” section is disclosed, however you have the right and ability to make choices concerning that information. The process for making such choices is explained in this policy in the section “Your Rights”. Before your information can be deleted, you will be asked to sign into your account to verify your identity, or potentially requestion further information if needed to verify your identity. If you have any further questions or concerns, please email us at ‘hello@huddle.so’. 

Under the “Shine the Light” law, California residents, under certain circumstances, also have the right to request information from us about the way we share certain types of personal information (as the “Shine the Light” law defines them) with third parties for their own direct marketing reasons. Huddleverse does not share your personal information with third parties for such purposes.

Your Rights
You have the following rights to the processing of your personal information under relevant privacy laws including, but not limited to, the Singapore PDPA.

Access
You have the right to access Data we hold about you, as well as certain information about how we use it and who we share it with. To obtain information on how we use your information and gain access to your personal information held by us, please contact us at hello@huddle.so.

Correcting Incorrect Information
You have the right to require us to correct any personal information held about you that is inaccurate and have incomplete Data completed. When you request a correction, you will need to explain in detailed writing why you believe the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete. We will then assess whether a correction is required.

Withdrawing Consent
If you have originally consented to our use and processing of your Data, but later wish to revoke that consent, you may do so at any time and for any reason by emailing us at hello@huddle.so.

Erasing Personal Information
You may request that we erase the personal information we hold about you including, but not limited to; 

• where you believe it is no longer necessary for us to hold the personal information; or
• we are processing it based on your consent, and you wish to withdraw your consent; or
• you believe we are unlawfully processing your Data; or
• Upon request for erasure of your Data, it will take us approximately thirty (30) days to delete your Data. We will send you an update to inform you of the deletion. It is important to note that if we delete your Data, it is permanent and we will not be able to retrieve such Data. You will be required to create a new account if you still want to access and use our Service.

Changes Made to this Privacy Policy

When required, we will make changes and updates to our Privacy Policy. We indicate the latest date when the latest changes were published. We will notify you, through email, if any important or significant changes are made or highlight where the changes were made.

Contact Us

If you have any further questions, please send us an email at hello@huddle.so.