Privacy Policy

Last updated September 2026

Between Us takes your privacy seriously. This policy explains what information we collect, why we are allowed to collect it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. We wrote it in plain language on purpose, because a community built on trust should be honest about how it handles your information.

Who is responsible for your data

Between Us, at betweenussupport.com, is the data controller for the information described here. That means we are the ones who decide what is collected and why, and we are the ones accountable for it. You can reach us about anything in this policy at hello@betweenussupport.com, and we will answer within one month.

What we collect

When you create an account we collect your email address and your date of birth. The date of birth is checked to confirm you are 18 or over and then discarded, so we never store it.

During onboarding, to match you to the right circle, we collect:

The anonymous username you choose, which is the only name other members ever see
Which experience feels closest to where you are right now
Whether this is mostly about a parent, a partner, or someone else close to you
What was going on, such as addiction, anger or control, emotional absence, or manipulation
How long you have been carrying it
Your age range, gender, and country

As you use Between Us we also hold:

The posts and replies you write inside your circle, and any drafts you have not sent
Which posts you have read, so we can show you what is new
An optional short bio you can write or delete at any time
When you were last active, so we know whether to check in on you
Whether you opted in to marketing email, and when
Whether you gave us permission to hold the sensitive answers above, and when
Basic technical data such as browser type and pages visited
Analytics and advertising cookies, only if you choose them

The sensitive parts, and why we ask permission

Your answers during onboarding describe experiences of addiction, abuse, or emotional harm. Data protection law treats information like that as a special category, because of how much damage it could do in the wrong hands. It may not be held at all without your clear and specific permission.

That is why onboarding asks you to explicitly agree before any of it is saved, as a separate question rather than something buried in our Terms. The legal basis is your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) of the GDPR. We use these answers for one purpose, matching you to a circle. They are never shown to other members, never used for advertising, and never shared outside Between Us.

You can withdraw that permission at any time from your profile. Withdrawing it erases those answers. It does not undo the matching that already happened, and it does not affect anything done while the permission was in place.

Why we are allowed to hold each thing

Running the service — your account, username, circle membership, posts and reads. Legal basis: performance of our contract with you, Article 6(1)(b).
Your sensitive answers — what you told us about your experiences. Legal basis: your explicit consent, Articles 6(1)(a) and 9(2)(a).
Confirming your age — keeping an adults only space adult. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in protecting children, Article 6(1)(f).
Marketing email — the weekly digest and the occasional note if we have not seen you. Legal basis: your consent, Article 6(1)(a).
Analytics and advertising cookies — understanding how people find and use the site. Legal basis: your consent, Article 6(1)(a).
Keeping circles safe — reports, moderation, and error logs. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a safe community, Article 6(1)(f).

How long we keep it

Your account and profile: until you delete your account.
Your sensitive onboarding answers: until you delete your account or withdraw that permission, whichever comes first.
Your posts and replies: these stay in your circle even after you leave, shown as coming from a former member, because they are part of conversations other people took part in and cannot be removed without taking their history too.
Drafts you never sent: deleted with your account.
Error logs: twelve months, and they hold no message content.
Marketing consent records: kept for as long as we rely on them, so we can show the consent was given.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to be told what we hold about you and get a copy of it, to correct it if it is wrong, to have it deleted, to ask us to restrict how we use it, to object to processing we base on legitimate interests, to receive your data in a portable machine readable format, and to withdraw any consent you have given at any time.

Two of these you can do yourself, right now, from your profile page: download everything we hold about you as a file, and delete your account. For anything else, email hello@betweenussupport.com and we will answer within one month.

If you think we have handled your data badly, please tell us first and we will try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority. You can find the authority for your own country through the European Data Protection Board.

Deleting your account

Go to your profile and choose Delete my account. This removes your email address, the name you chose here, and everything you told us about your experiences, permanently and immediately. It cannot be undone. As explained above, the posts you wrote stay in your circle, no longer connected to you or to any name. If you would rather we did it for you, email hello@betweenussupport.com.

Marketing emails

We only send marketing emails, such as a weekly digest or a note if we have not seen you in a while, to members who explicitly opted in. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any of those emails or from your profile settings. Emails required for the service to work, such as a welcome email, a password reset, or a notice that your circle has formed, are sent regardless of this choice, because they are not marketing.

Cookies

Essential cookies keep you signed in and remember your cookie choice. They cannot be turned off, because the site does not work without them, and they are not used to track you.

Beyond those, we ask separately about two things, and nothing loads until you choose. Analytics cookies, through Google Analytics, let us count visits and see which pages actually help people. Advertising cookies, through the Meta Pixel and the X Pixel, let us see which ads brought people to Between Us, and they share data with Meta and X. You can accept one and refuse the other, and you can change your mind at any time by clicking Cookie settings in the footer.

Advertising tags never run inside your circle, your profile, or onboarding, and they never run on the sign up, log in, or password pages either. What you read and write inside the community, and the fact that you joined at all, is never shared with Meta or X.

Who else processes your data

We work with a small number of service providers to run Between Us. Each one only processes data on our instructions, under a data processing agreement.

Supabase — our database and account authentication
Vercel — hosting the website
Resend — sending our emails
Google — Analytics, and Sign in with Google if you choose it
Meta and X — advertising measurement, only with your consent and only on our public pages

We never sell your data to anyone, for any reason, and we never share the contents of your circle with any of them beyond what is needed to store it.

Where your data is held

We host your data in the European Union wherever our providers offer it. Some of the providers above are based outside the European Economic Area, or may support us from outside it. Where data is transferred outside the EEA, we rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, or on an adequacy decision such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it. You can ask us for details of the safeguards in place for any specific provider at hello@betweenussupport.com.

How we protect it

Your circle is private to its members. Everything is served over an encrypted connection and every table in our database enforces row level access rules, so one member cannot read another member’s data even if something else goes wrong. We collect as little as we can get away with, which is the most effective protection there is. Our error logs deliberately record no message content at all.

Age

Between Us is for adults. You must be 18 or over, and we check your date of birth when you create an account. If you believe someone under 18 has an account, tell us at hello@betweenussupport.com and we will remove it. If you are under 18 and going through something, findahelpline.com lists free confidential helplines in your country, including services for young people.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top of this page and tell members by email before the change takes effect. If a change means we need your consent for something new, we will ask for it rather than assume it.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or how your data is handled, reach out to hello@betweenussupport.com.