Your privacy, in plain words.

01The short version

• We never ask for a profile photo, your real name or your phone number.
• We ask your gender and who you'd like to talk to only to match people both ways, and never show them. Your location is used only if you choose a distance, and only roughly: rounded to about a kilometre, never shown, and deleted 14 days after its last update, or at once if you go back to 50+ km.
• Your email is used only to send your login code. We keep a keyed hash of it (a scrambled code that cannot be turned back into the address), never the address itself.
• Your date of birth is checked once and forgotten. We keep only a single yes that you're 18 or over.
• Chats, voice notes and detail swaps are deleted when a season ends without both of you choosing to keep talking.
• The original recording of a voice note is deleted as soon as it has been veiled, normally within seconds.
• Sealed photos are possible only in a chat that has grown close (Kindred, five flames) when both of you switch them on. Each one is checked for nudity and stripped of its location before anyone sees it, is seen once, and is deleted with the season.
• Screenshots and screen recording are blocked everywhere in the app.
• No ads, no third-party trackers or analytics, and we never sell your data.
• Everything is stored with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Mumbai, India.
• You can delete your account in the app at any time. That erases your profile, your chats and what is in them.

02What we collect, and why

Your email address

We use your email address to sign you in with a 6-digit code, to keep one account per inbox and to make bans stick.

• When you sign in, the app sends your address to our server, which emails you a code through Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES).
• Our database keeps only a keyed hash of the address: it is tidied first (for Gmail, dots and "+tags" are ignored, so one inbox is one account), then scrambled with a secret key. The address itself is not stored, and our server logs are set to leave it out.
• The app keeps the address on your phone only until you have entered the code.
• Login codes are kept only as hashes and stop working after 10 minutes. Throwaway email addresses are refused.
• If an address can't sign in (it is banned, or locked after an under-18 date of birth), it gets the same answer on screen as any other, and an email to that inbox says why instead of a code.

Your age

• During sign-up we ask for your date of birth once. Our server checks it (in India time) and keeps only a single yes that you're 18 or over. The date itself is not stored.
• If the date shows you are under 18, the account is erased at once, with everything in it, and the keyed hash of the email is locked until your 18th birthday. The lock keeps only that hash and the date it ends.
• If something you write suggests you may be under 18, your chats pause while a person on our safety team takes a closer look (see Children).

Your profile

• Your pen name (permanent once chosen), your ink portrait (stored as the number it is drawn from), tonight's mood, your language, an optional bio of up to 150 characters (contact details are refused), the things you love and hate (chosen from a fixed list of tags) and, if you choose to add it, a broad region such as "South India", never a city.
• An optional voice intro of a few seconds, always fully veiled. Recording a new one replaces the old.
• Your settings: whose Hellos you accept (for example only people who share some of your tags), your distance filter, tonight's highest heat level (cleared each night), whether read receipts are on, whether others can see when you are online, and that you made Kuro's three promises. With Kuro Plus, also whether you are hibernating and your chat paper.
• Other people on Kuro can see your pen name, portrait, mood, bio, tags, region and voice intro, the Founder mark if you bought the Founding member pass, and the Kuro Plus mark if you have Plus. Tonight's heat level is shown to someone only when it matches theirs. No one sees your gender, who you'd like to talk to, where you are or how far away you are.
• Online or away: on Discover, in New Hellos and in a chat, others see "Online" while Kuro is open on your phone and "Away" otherwise. Switch off "Show when I'm online" in Me and no one sees yours, and you no longer see anyone else's. With Kuro Plus you can hibernate instead: you are hidden from Discover and no one sees your Online or Away, while you still see theirs.

Your gender and who you'd like to talk to

• Sign-up asks your gender (male, female or non-binary) and who you'd like to talk to (men, women or both; both includes non-binary people).
• They are used for one thing only: matching, both ways. Two people meet only if each fits who the other would like to talk to. This applies to Discover, Hellos, Talk now and voice bottles, never to rooms.
• They are never shown to anyone. Because the match works both ways, someone you meet can tell only that you fit who they'd like to talk to.
• You can change who you'd like to talk to at any time in the app. Your gender can be changed once every 30 days, so we keep the time of your last change for that and nothing else.

Your approximate location, only if you choose a distance

• Discover and Talk now have an optional distance filter: Nearby (within 3 km), 10, 20 or 50 km, or 50+ km (any distance), which is the default. Kuro asks for your location only when you choose Nearby, 10, 20 or 50 km, and only while you use the app. On Android it asks only for approximate location; precise location is blocked.
• Our server rounds it to about a kilometre before storing it, and takes a new one at most every 10 minutes, while you have a distance set.
• It is deleted 14 days after the last update. Choosing 50+ km (any distance) deletes it at once. Turning off location in your phone's settings stops updates; it is then deleted 14 days after the last one.
• On Discover it only sets the order: people inside your chosen distance come first, then everyone farther away, nearest first. Talk now pairs two people only if each is within the distance the other chose. It is used for nothing else, never shared outside Kuro and never used for ads.
• No one ever sees where you are or how far away you are. Where you appear in someone's Discover (before or after its "Farther away" note), or being paired by Talk now, tells them only whether you are inside the distance they chose.

Your conversations

• What you send: text, voice notes and sealed photos in chats, Hello notes and Sparks, messages in rooms and voice bottles.
• Rooms you start: the room's name, its mood and how many seats it has. Everyone who looks at the open rooms sees the name and the pen name of whoever started it.
• How each chat is set: heat levels and requests, your private season choice, how close the chat has grown (its trust stage), "We're comfortable" taps, voice veil choices, whether you switched photos on, read receipts (two markers per person, not one per message) and the opening times of sealed notes and photos.
• Detail swaps: if you choose to swap a detail (such as a first name, city, age band, line of work or favourite song), the server holds your card until the other card arrives, then both open at the same moment. Values that look like a phone number, a handle or a link are refused. Your own cards are remembered only on your phone, in its secure storage.

Safety records

• Reports: the reason, an optional note, and only the text of the messages the reporter picks as evidence (up to 20, from that chat). A report also records the reported person's keyed email hash, so a ban still works if they delete their account first.
• Automatic flags: if a message, Hello note, bio or room name suggests the writer is under 18, the words are kept as evidence for review, and that message is not delivered (or that room is not opened).
• Blocks; warnings, strikes and bans (a ban keeps the keyed email hash and the reason); appeals (your appeal message); private notices we send you; and your private check-in answers ("Did you feel respected? Were your limits kept?"), which are never shown to the other person.
• A record of every decision our safety team makes, and who made it.

Sparks, rooms and purchases

• How many Sparks you have left (every account starts with 2, and they don't refill) and how many rooms you can still start (the first 3 are free).
• You can buy Sparks (1 for ₹25, 5 for ₹120), rooms to start (₹50 each), Kuro Plus (₹49 a week or ₹149 a month) or the Founding member pass. Google Play takes the payment. We never see your card, UPI or bank details.
• Our server checks each purchase with Google before it adds anything, and keeps what you bought, the Google Play order number, when you bought it, how long your Plus lasts and whether it was refunded or charged back. For a one-time purchase, the purchase token is kept only as a hash.
• For a Kuro Plus subscription we also keep its purchase token itself, because that is how each renewal is checked with Google, with its plan, the time paid for and whether it renews. It is deleted with your account.
• A purchase is matched to your account by a scrambled tag, so Google is not told which Kuro account it is.

Technical data

• Sign-in sessions, kept only as hashes of their tokens, so you stay signed in. One unused for 180 days ends.
• Request counters that stop abuse: per account, or per IP address for the sign-in steps. They are cleared within a day.
• Records of open live connections (cleared within about two hours) and how often your profile was shown in Discover each day, so attention is shared fairly.
• Notifications: your phone's push address (a token), and when you last got one for each chat, so it sends at most one every few minutes.
• For our own dashboard: the last day you used Kuro, and whether you came back a day and a week after joining (two yes-or-no marks).
• For Your month in ink, a Kuro Plus page only you can open: how many conversations began, flames were lit, voice notes were sent, rooms were walked into and Hellos were written each month. Counts only, never what was said. Everyone is counted, so your month is there if you start Plus, and only the last three months are kept.
• Server logs: like any online service, our servers record requests (such as the time, the address asked for and the IP address) to keep Kuro working and secure. Email addresses, login codes and sign-in tokens are left out. Logs are deleted after 14 days.

On your phone

• The app keeps your sign-in token and your detail-swap cards in the phone's secure storage, and your preferences (such as theme, language and sign-up progress) in its own storage. Deleting the app removes them.
• The camera is used only when you take a sealed photo, and the microphone only while you record a voice note or your voice intro. Location is used only if you choose a distance, and then only approximately, while you use the app. Kuro never opens your photo gallery or your contacts.
• Kuro blocks screenshots and screen recording everywhere in the app, so what people share stays in Kuro. It can't stop someone photographing their screen with another device.
• Voice check (on Android, off unless you switch it on): before a voice note is sent, your phone turns the speech into words on the phone itself, to warn you about a name or a number. The words never leave the phone and are forgotten when the check is done.

What we never collect

Profile photos, video, photos from your gallery, ID documents, face scans, your phone number, your precise location, your contacts or advertising IDs. Kuro has no third-party advertising, analytics or tracking code.

03Voice notes

• Your phone uploads a recording straight to a private storage area (Amazon S3, Mumbai) through a link that works for 5 minutes.
• Our server then veils it: it changes the pitch, to a pitch that is yours alone (worked out from a secret key), and removes hidden information such as the device name.
• The original recording is deleted as soon as the veiling finishes, normally within seconds. As a backstop, a storage rule deletes any original left behind within a day.
• Veiled notes play through links that work for 5 minutes. Above the Friendly heat level, a note can be played once by the person it was sent to.
• Voice notes are not end-to-end encrypted, because the veiling happens on our server.

04Sealed photos

• There are no profile photos, ever. A photo can be sent only inside a one-to-one chat that has reached Kindred, the closest stage of trust (five flames): at least 24 hours after the two of you met, both active on two different days, and with no reports in that chat.
• Both of you have to switch photos on for that chat. If only one of you does, the other person is never told.
• Photos come only from Kuro's own camera, never from your gallery, so they are real photos taken there and then, not saved or made-up ones.
• The sender chooses when a photo opens: now, in an hour, tonight at 10 pm, tomorrow at 9 am, or a quarter hour of their choice before the season ends. Nobody can see it earlier; our server makes sure of that.
• Before anyone can see it, our server rewrites the photo: its location and all other hidden information are removed, and it is shrunk to at most 1600 pixels.
• Amazon Rekognition, part of AWS (our service provider, in Mumbai), checks every photo for nudity before it is stored. This check is automatic. A photo with explicit nudity or sexual activity is never delivered and is deleted, and the sender is told it wasn't sent.
• The original upload is deleted within seconds. The cleaned photo is kept in private storage (Amazon S3, Mumbai), and can be reached only through links that work for a short time.
• The person it was sent to can see it once, for a short time (10 seconds today), with their own pen name written across it while they look. Screenshots and screen recording are blocked everywhere in the app. The sender can still see their own photo.
• Photos are deleted with the rest of the chat when its season ends, and when either of you deletes your account. Each person can send up to 10 a day.
• Photos are not end-to-end encrypted, because they are cleaned and checked on our server. They are not copied into reports.

05How we use it

We use personal data only to run Kuro:

• to sign you in, show your profile and find people to talk to by mood, language and shared tags, and, both ways, by who you'd like to talk to and the distance you choose;
• to deliver messages, voice notes and sealed photos, and to run seasons, heat levels, trust stages, swaps and voice veils;
• to run rooms, and to show whether people are online or away, unless they switch it off or hibernate;
• to send you notifications that never say who wrote or what was said;
• to sell Sparks, rooms, Kuro Plus and the Founding member pass through Google Play, to check renewals, and to give or take back what they include;
• to show you Your month in ink, if you have Kuro Plus;
• to keep Kuro safe: reports and their review, blocks, warnings and bans, limits that stop floods and spam, and automatic checks for signs of a minor or a scam;
• to answer you when you contact us, and to meet our duties under Indian law.

We do not use your data for advertising, we do not build ad profiles, and we do not sell it.

Consent

You give your consent when you create an account. You can withdraw it at any time by deleting your account (see Delete your account). We may keep some data without consent where the DPDP Act allows it, for example to meet a legal duty or to keep a ban in place.

Automatic checks

Some safety checks are automatic. Words that suggest someone is under 18 pause that person's chats until a person on our team reviews them. Every sealed photo is checked for nudity by Amazon Rekognition before it is stored, and a photo that fails is never delivered. Warnings about contact details, scams or a heat level the other person hasn't agreed to appear on your phone and never block you on their own. Warnings and bans are decided by people.

06How long we keep it

Your email address

Never stored.

Keyed hash of your email

While your account exists. After that only on a ban, a report about you, an appeal or an under-18 lock (until the 18th birthday).

Your date of birth

Never stored.

Profile, settings, check-in answers and notices

Until you delete your account.

Chat messages, voice notes and detail swaps

Deleted when a season ends without two "keep talking" choices, or when either of you deletes your account.

Chats that end early (a block or a ban)

They close at once, for both of you. Their messages, voice notes and swaps are deleted when the season would have ended, so either of you can still report them first.

Sealed photos

With the chat's other messages: deleted when its season ends, or when either of you deletes your account. The original upload is deleted within seconds.

A photo that fails the nudity check

Deleted at once, and never delivered.

Voice intro

Until you record a new one or delete your account.

Your gender and who you'd like to talk to

Until you change them or delete your account. The time of your last gender change is kept only to allow one change every 30 days.

Your approximate location

Each new one replaces the last. Deleted 14 days after the last update (a daily clean-up does it), at once if you choose 50+ km (any distance), and with your account.

A detail-swap card that isn't answered

Wiped when the swap expires, after 24 hours.

Rooms and their messages

Tonight's mood rooms are deleted every night. A room someone starts is deleted when it closes, 6 hours after it opened.

Your month in ink

The last three months; older months are deleted. All of it goes with your account.

A Kuro Plus subscription

Until your account is deleted. The record of each paid period is kept with purchases.

Sign-in sessions

Until you log out, or after 180 days unused.

Voice bottles

An unanswered bottle's recording is deleted after 24 hours.

Hello notes

Until the sender or the receiver deletes their account.

Original voice recordings

Deleted as soon as they are veiled; never more than a day.

Your phone's push address

Until you log out on that phone or delete your account.

Login codes, request counters, server logs

10 minutes; about a day; 14 days.

Purchases (Sparks, rooms, Kuro Plus periods and the Founding member pass)

Kept for 8 years. They stay after an account is deleted, so that refunds and accounts can be settled.

Reports and their evidence

Kept for 180 days after the case is closed. They stay after an account is deleted, so that safety decisions and bans hold.

Bans

The keyed email hash and the reason stay on the ban list.

07Who we share it with

• Other people on Kuro see your profile, the messages you send them, the names of rooms you start and whether you are online or away (unless you switch that off or hibernate), never your gender, who you'd like to talk to or where you are.
• Our service provider. Amazon Web Services (AWS) runs Kuro for us: the database (Amazon Aurora DSQL), file storage (Amazon S3), servers (AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway), login emails (Amazon SES) and the nudity check for sealed photos (Amazon Rekognition), all in the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region. AWS handles this data only to provide those services to us.
• Notifications go through Expo's push service, which hands them to Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging to reach your phone. They get your phone's push address and a short line such as "You have a new message", never who it is from or what was said.
• Google Play distributes the app and takes payment for Sparks, rooms, Kuro Plus and the Founding member pass. We get the order number, whether it was paid or refunded and, for Kuro Plus, whether it renews, never your card or UPI details.
• Authorities, when Indian law requires it: for example a valid order of a court or government agency, or reporting sexual offences against children as the POCSO Act requires.

We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.

08Where it is stored, and security

• Kuro's data is stored and processed with AWS in Mumbai, India.
• It is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest (encryption managed by AWS).
• Emails are kept only as keyed hashes; codes and sessions only as hashes; voice notes and photos are reached only through short-lived signed links; every request is checked against what that account may see; and every safety decision is logged with who made it.
• Messages and voice notes are not end-to-end encrypted. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the Data Protection Board of India, as the DPDP Act requires.

09Your rights

Under the DPDP Act you can:

• Ask what we hold: a summary of your personal data, how we use it, and who we have shared it with.
• Correct and update it: most of your profile can be changed in the app. Your pen name is permanent, and your gender can be changed once every 30 days; ask us if either must be corrected sooner.
• Erase it: delete your account in the app at any time, or ask us by email (see Delete your account).
• Withdraw consent: deleting your account withdraws it. We then stop using your data, apart from what the law lets us keep (see How long we keep it).
• Complain: to our grievance officer (see Contact) and, if that doesn't settle it, to the Data Protection Board of India.
• Nominate someone to use these rights for you if you die or can no longer do so yourself.

To use a right, write to support@theivies.in from the email address you signed up with. Because we keep only a keyed hash, that address is the only way we can find your account, and we will ask you to confirm the request is yours. Requests are acknowledged within 24 hours and answered within 15 days.

10Children

• Kuro is only for people 18 and over. It is not meant for children, and we do not knowingly keep data about anyone under 18.
• A date of birth under 18 erases the account at once and locks its email until the 18th birthday.
• Signs that someone may be under 18 pause their chats and send an urgent report to a person on our team, who looks at it within 2 hours. If it is confirmed, the account is banned and erased.
• If you think a child is using Kuro, report them in the app or write to safety@theivies.in. Read our child safety standards.

11This website

kuro.theivies.in sets no cookies and runs no analytics or trackers. Its fonts come from the site itself, not from another company. Like any website, the service that delivers it (AWS) may keep standard technical logs, such as IP addresses and the pages asked for, for security.

12Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, we will update this page and its effective date. If a change matters to how your data is used, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.

13Contact

More ways to reach us, and how complaints are handled, are on the support page.