Privacy policy

Last updated 4 November 2026.

This Privacy Policy explains how Socialise collects, uses, shares, and protects personal data when you use the Socialise platform (the "Service"). It also explains your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

We take your privacy seriously. This policy is written in plain language. If anything is unclear, please contact us at privacy@socialise.events.

1. Who We Are

Socialise is an events and community platform connecting people through local, in-person gatherings. Socialise Events Ltd is the controller of your personal data. We are registered in England and Wales, company number 17273016, at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ.

Contact: privacy@socialise.events

This is a notice of how we use your data. When you sign up you confirm you have read it, but you are not asked to agree to it, and nothing in it relies on that confirmation as your consent.

2. Data We Collect

Account data. When you register, we collect your name, email address, and a password (stored as a one-way hash, so we never store your password in plain text). You may optionally provide a location (city or area), profile photo, short bio, and interests.

Age confirmation. When you sign up we ask for your date of birth to check that you are 18 or over. We use it only for that check and then discard it, keeping a record that you are 18 or over and when you confirmed it.

Google sign-in. If you sign in with Google, Google sends us your name, your email address and whether Google has verified that address. We do not get your Google password or anything else from your Google account.

Agreement records. When you accept our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines, and our Host terms if you host, we record which versions you accepted, the exact wording of the box you ticked, how you signed up, the date and time, and your IP address and browser details (user agent). This lets us show what you agreed to.

Marketing choice. If you tick the box to receive marketing emails, we record that you did, when, and the wording you saw.

Content you create. Posts, comments, event listings, RSVP records, community memberships, and any other content you submit to the Service.

Community chat. Some hosts switch on a community chat. If you follow such a host and choose to join, the other members of that chat can see your name and profile picture and the messages you send there, and the people running the host can see who has joined. The host team can mute or remove a member, and can see messages that members report. A report sends a copy of the reported message to us and to the host team, and the host team never sees who reported it. We process this to run the chat you asked to join, and to keep it safe (see Section 3, Article 6(1)(b) and Article 6(1)(f)).

Event chat. Every event has a chat. Any signed-in member who can see the event can read it, whether or not they have a ticket, and can see the name and profile picture of each person who posts there, along with a small mark showing who holds a ticket. People without an account cannot read it, and someone a host has removed from their community cannot read or post in that host's event chats. If you report a message, a copy of it comes to us. We process this to run the chat for the event, and to keep it safe (see Section 3, Article 6(1)(b) and Article 6(1)(f)).

Usage data. When you use the Service, our infrastructure providers may log your IP address, browser type, device type, and the pages or features you access. These logs are used for security monitoring and debugging. We also count how the app is used, in anonymous totals described in Section 11. We do not run behavioural advertising. Meta and Google advertising and analytics services see how you use the app only if you switch on Advertising in Cookie choices, and it stays off until you do. PostHog, our product analytics provider, sees which screens and buttons you use, where you tap and scroll, and an anonymised replay of how the app is used, only if you switch on Usage analytics there, and it stays off until you do (Section 5).

Communications. If you contact us by email or through the support function, we retain that correspondence to resolve your query.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

We rely on four lawful bases under Article 6 of the UK GDPR:

Article 6(1)(b), contract performance. We process your account data and usage history to operate the Service and fulfil our obligations to you as a User. This includes creating and maintaining your account, displaying your events and posts, enabling you to RSVP or join communities, processing your bookings, and giving the lead host of an event you book, and any co-owners of their host account, your name and booking email.

Article 6(1)(f), legitimate interests. We process IP addresses, device information, and security logs to protect the Service and its Users from fraud, abuse, and unauthorised access. Our legitimate interest is the security and integrity of the platform. We also rely on it to find and fix errors in the app (Section 5, Sentry), to check you are 18 or over, to keep the agreement records described in Section 2, to handle reports and moderation, and to measure bookings and sign-ups from records that show you only as a hashed member ID (Section 5, PostHog). We also keep a minimal booking record after you delete your account, for as long as someone could bring a legal claim about that booking. We have weighed these interests against your rights and concluded that they do not override them. You may object at any time (see Section 8).

Article 6(1)(c), legal obligation. We keep booking and payment records, and records we must hold under online safety law, for as long as the law requires.

Article 6(1)(a), consent. We ask for your consent for five optional choices: Statistics, Advertising, Usage analytics and Help Mango learn, in Cookie choices, and marketing emails, at signup or when you book as a guest. All five are off until you switch them on, and you can withdraw any of them at any time.

Marketing emails. We send marketing emails only if you tick the box to receive them. Every one has an unsubscribe link, and you can switch them off at any time in Settings, under "Email me about new events".

4. How We Use Your Data

To create and manage your account
To display your profile, posts, and event listings to other Users in line with your privacy settings
To give the host of an event you book, and any co-owners of their host account, the email address you booked with, so they can reach you about that event outside the app's own messaging. When an event is run by more than one host, only the lead host (the seller of your ticket) gets your email address. The other hosts named on the event see your name on the guest list and can check you in, and lose that access as soon as they leave the event.
To personalise your event recommendations from how you use the app. When you search or ask Mango, our in-app assistant, for a kind of event (for example techno nights or hikes), we record which category you looked at and gently weight future recommendations toward it. This learning is optional: it only runs after you say yes to Help Mango learn, in Cookie choices or when Mango asks in the chat (Section 11), it adjusts recommendation ranking alone, and it never changes the interests you set on your own profile.
To improve Mango. If you say yes to Help Mango learn, then when you close the chat Mango sends us a copy of the conversation. We keep it for 90 days, linked to your account if you are signed in. We use it to improve Mango and fix problems. When a conversation shows a fault, the ticket in our issue tracker, Linear, refers to it by report number. The conversation is not copied into Linear: it stays with us and is deleted after the 90 days. We may keep a short excerpt of a conversation as a test case, with anything that identifies you removed, so Mango does not make the same mistake twice. The excerpt is not linked to you or to a report, and it is not deleted with the conversation. While Help Mango learn is on, Mango also keeps a small score on your account of how your chats with her have gone, so her tone fits you. If you switch Help Mango learn off, we stop updating the score and set it back to the starting score every account has. If you say no, or Mango has not asked you yet, your chats are not sent. When you ask Mango to pass something on to the team, that conversation is sent because you asked.
To send transactional service emails (e.g. RSVP confirmations, account security alerts). These are not marketing emails and cannot be unsubscribed from without closing your account
To send marketing emails, only if you ticked the box to receive them
To investigate reports of abuse, spam, or violations of our Community Guidelines
Authorised staff can access your account for support, safety and legal reasons, and each access is logged.
To monitor for fraud and security threats

We do not sell your personal data to third parties, and we do not use it for advertising profiling unless you switch on Advertising in Cookie choices (Section 11).

5. Third Parties We Work With

Cloudflare. Our frontend is hosted on Cloudflare Pages and our backend API runs on Cloudflare Workers, both served via Cloudflare's global edge network. Cloudflare processes IP addresses and request metadata as part of normal CDN and DDoS-protection operations. On our website, Cloudflare Web Analytics counts visits and page loads without setting cookies or identifying you.

Supabase. Our database is hosted on Supabase (PostgreSQL). Your account data and all content you create is stored in Supabase's managed database, in its London region. The same database serves the app and our website.

Email delivery. We send account and booking emails, and marketing emails if you chose them, through Cloudflare's email sending service, with Resend as a back-up when Cloudflare cannot send. The provider that sends an email receives your email address and the content of that email. Our emails and our unsubscribe page load their fonts from Google Fonts, so when you open one your device may contact Google, which sees your IP address.

Hosts. When you book, the lead host of the event, and any co-owners of their host account, get your name and the email address you booked with. Other hosts named on a collab event see your name but not your email address (Section 4). They are responsible for it under data protection law in their own right. Our Host terms limit what they may use it for.

Sentry. We use Sentry to find and fix errors. When something breaks, it receives the error and the screen it happened on. The report can also include a recording of the screen from up to a minute before the error until the end of that visit, with all text, typed values and images hidden, so we can see what went wrong. That recording is included only if you have switched on Usage analytics in Cookie choices, and a recording is only sent when an error happens. The error report itself does not depend on your cookie choices: we rely on legitimate interests for it (Section 3). When nothing has gone wrong, it still receives timings for a sample of page loads and requests, and the web address of each. It also receives any warnings or errors the app logs. We do not attach your name, email address or account to any of it. When a card payment on our website fails, the website tells our server which step failed and the short error code Stripe or our server gave, and our server passes that to Sentry, so we can find and fix the fault. That report holds no name, email address, account or card detail and stores nothing on your device. Like the error report above, it is sent whatever your cookie choices, and we rely on legitimate interests for it (Section 3).

PostHog. PostHog Inc. is our product analytics provider, and keeps what it receives in its EU cloud, in Frankfurt. If you switch on Usage analytics in Cookie choices, it receives which screens you open and which buttons you tap, where on the screen you tap and how far you scroll, taps that do nothing or that you repeat quickly, errors the app hits, and anonymised session replays of how the app is used, with the date and time and the kind of device and browser. A replay hides all text, everything you type and all photos, including profile pictures and the photos on listings, so it shows the layout of the screens and where you went. Replays, like the rest, are kept in PostHog's EU cloud for PostHog's retention period. Those events are tied to a random ID kept on your device and, once you sign in, to a pseudonymous analytics ID: a one-way code made from your account. It never receives your name, email address or phone number. Before anything is sent, the app also removes the exact web address of the page, the words and links on the buttons you tap, and any campaign tags from the link that brought you here, and it records and sends nothing from a page whose address holds a secret, such as a password reset or ticket link. If you switch Usage analytics off, the app stops recording and sending at once and deletes that ID from your device. Separately, our servers send PostHog a record of each booking and sign-up, so we can measure how people get from signing up to booking. In that record you appear only as a one-way hashed member ID, with no name, email address or phone number. This happens on our servers and stores nothing on your device, so the Usage analytics switch has no effect on it. We rely on legitimate interests for it, and you can object to it at any time (see Section 8).

Linear. Our issue tracker. It receives a reference to a Mango conversation that shows a fault (the report number, not the conversation), and what you report to us about problems with the app.

Address search. When a host types an event address, the app looks it up with OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service, which receives what was typed and the host's IP address. Maps in the app use map tiles we host ourselves.

Push notifications. If you switch on notifications, your browser's push service (Google for Chrome and Android, Apple for Safari, Mozilla for Firefox) delivers them, so it receives the text of each notification.

Images. Pictures on some older event listings load from Unsplash, which sees your IP address when your browser fetches them.

Stripe. We use Stripe for payment processing. Stripe processes payment details under its own privacy policy. Stripe does not have access to your full Socialise account data, only the information necessary for payment.

Anthropic (Claude). When you say yes to Help Mango learn, we use Claude, an AI model from Anthropic, to read the conversations Mango sends us and find where Mango got something wrong. The text of the conversation goes to Anthropic for that reading.

Venue directory sources. Our venue directory draws factual listings from the Food Standards Agency's food hygiene register (Open Government Licence) and OpenStreetMap (Open Database Licence). We rely on Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR, legitimate interests, to publish this data: it is already public, business-level rather than private, and helps people find places to meet locally. Every venue page names its source and carries a report-or-request-removal action that works without an account, so you can object to this processing or ask for a listing to be corrected or erased at any time. The full venue directory privacy notice, linked from every venue page, has the detail.

We use no data brokers. Meta and Google advertising and analytics services are used only if you switch on Advertising in Cookie choices (Section 11).

6. Data Retention

Active accounts. We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active.

Account deletion. When you delete your account, your profile and associated data are removed from active systems. Copies in our database backups are covered under Backups below.

Backups. Our database is backed up by our database provider. Anything we delete from the live database, such as an account you delete or a Mango conversation at the end of its 90 days, stays in those backups only until they are overwritten in the normal cycle. Backups are kept for a limited period and deleted on a rolling basis.

Security logs. IP address logs and security event records are retained for up to 90 days for fraud investigation and incident response.

Statistics and Mango conversations. Each statistics event is kept in Cloudflare's Workers Logs for up to 7 days, and the daily totals we count from them for 40 days. Mango conversations you have agreed to share are kept for 90 days.

Bookings and payments. We keep booking and payment records for 6 years from the end of the company financial year they relate to, or longer where tax law requires it, for example during an HMRC check. After you delete your account we keep only a minimal record of each booking: payment references, amount, date and event.

Agreement records. We keep the record of which terms you agreed to while you have an account, and afterwards for as long as a legal claim could be brought about them.

Marketing consent records. We keep the record of your marketing choice while you receive marketing emails from us, and afterwards for as long as we may need to show that we had your consent.

Community chat messages. Your messages in a host's community chat are kept until you delete them, the host deletes them, or your account is deleted. If you leave the chat, your earlier messages stay unless you or the host delete them.

Event chat messages. Your messages in an event chat are kept until your account is deleted, or until we remove them.

Reports and moderation records. We keep these for as long as we need them to keep Socialise safe and to respond to appeals, complaints or legal requests, and then delete them.

Inactive accounts. We do not currently delete accounts automatically because nobody has signed in to them. You can delete your account at any time.

Legal holds. We may retain data for longer if required to comply with a legal obligation, court order, or regulatory requirement.

7. Children's Data

Socialise is for people aged 18 and over, and our terms say so. When you sign up you confirm you are 18 or over, and we keep only that yes or no answer, not your date of birth. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If we find that we have collected data from someone under 18, we will close the account and delete that data promptly, except the booking and payment records we must keep by law. If you believe the data of someone under 18 has been collected, please contact privacy@socialise.events.

8. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights:

Access. You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Rectification. You may ask us to correct inaccurate data we hold about you.
Erasure. You may ask us to delete your personal data. You can also delete your account directly from Settings, under Legal, then Delete account.
Restriction. In certain circumstances, you may ask us to restrict how we process your data.
Portability. You may request a copy of your data in a machine-readable format. You can also download it yourself from Settings, under Email & Privacy, then Download my data.
Objection. You may object to processing based on our legitimate interests (Section 3). We will stop unless we have compelling grounds to continue.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@socialise.events. We will respond within one month. For complex requests, we may extend this by a further two months, and we will tell you if that is the case.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe we have not handled your data lawfully. The ICO can be contacted at ico.org.uk or by post at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

9. International Data Transfers

Our main database is stored in London. Some of our providers, or the companies that own them, are based in or can reach your data from the United States or other countries outside the UK: Cloudflare, Resend, Sentry (which holds our error reports in its EU region), PostHog (a US company that holds our usage analytics in its EU region), Linear, Stripe, Anthropic, Google (for Google sign-in, the fonts in our emails and push notifications on Chrome and Android), Apple and Mozilla (for push notifications on their browsers), Unsplash, and Meta and Google advertising services if you switch Advertising on.

Where we transfer personal data outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations, including the UK-US data bridge for US companies certified to it, or on the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, with a transfer risk assessment where one is needed. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards that apply by emailing privacy@socialise.events.

10. Changes to This Policy

If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will tell you by email and by a notice in the app before they take effect. This policy is a notice, so we will not ask you to accept it again. Where a change means we want to use your data in a new way that needs your consent, we will ask for that consent separately. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the current version.

11. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a small number of browser storage mechanisms to make the Service work. These are described below.

Strictly-necessary storage (no consent required). These are essential for the Service to function and are placed automatically when you use the app:

Key	Purpose
`socialise_token`	Stores your authentication JWT so you remain signed in between sessions. Removed on sign out.
`socialise_user`	Caches your profile object to avoid an extra network round-trip on startup. Removed on sign out.
`socialise_preferences`	Stores onboarding preferences (interests, location intent) set during first-run setup.
`socialise_onboarding_shown`	Boolean flag so the onboarding flow only plays once.
`socialise_tribes`	Left over from a retired feature. The app no longer saves anything to it and clears it when you sign out.
`socialise_theme`, `socialise_reduce_animations`	Stores your appearance settings (theme, accessibility motion preference).

None of these keys are used for advertising, profiling, or tracking across other websites.

Statistics (off until you switch it on). We count how the app is used so we can make it better, in anonymous totals. We count which screens are opened, where people give up, which errors show and how fast the app feels. We never count your name, your email address, your account or an identifier for your device. What the app sends is a short list of fixed words and numbers, checked in the app and again on our server, and anything that is not on that list is thrown away. The only thing kept on your device for this is the date of your last counted visit (socialise_stats_last_seen). It lets the app tell whether you are new, were here earlier today, or last visited within a week, within four weeks or longer ago. The date itself is never sent, only that band. Each individual count is kept for up to 7 days, without names, ids or IP addresses, in Cloudflare's Workers Logs (Cloudflare being our infrastructure provider), and as daily totals for 40 days. We count only if you agree, by choosing Accept all on the cookie notice or by switching Statistics on in Cookie choices. We rely on your consent under Article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR. To stop it, go to Settings, then Cookie choices, switch Statistics off and save. It stops at once on that device, and the date is removed. On another device, do the same there.

Advertising (off until you switch it on). If you switch this on, Meta (the Meta Pixel) and Google (Google Analytics) are loaded in the app and receive what happens while Advertising is on, such as which screen you open and that you booked, so we can see whether an ad led to a booking. They handle it under their own privacy policies. We also keep the campaign details from the link that brought you here, which are its UTM tags, the kind of page you landed on and the website you came from, for 30 days under the key socialise_attr, so a booking can be credited to the ad behind it. Switch Advertising off in Cookie choices and Meta and Google are not loaded again, and that key is removed.

Usage analytics (off until you switch it on). If you switch this on, the app loads PostHog, which receives what you do in the app while it is on: which screens you open, which buttons you tap, where you tap and scroll, and an anonymised replay of how the app is used, with all text, everything you type and all photos hidden. PostHog Inc. handles it for us as our processor and keeps it in its EU cloud, in Frankfurt, for PostHog's retention period. The events are tied to a random ID that the app stores on your device and, once you sign in, to a pseudonymous analytics ID, a one-way code made from your account. They never carry your name, email address or phone number. The app removes the exact web address of the page, the words and links on the buttons you tap, and any campaign tags from the link that brought you here before anything is sent, and it records and sends nothing from a page whose address holds a secret. The ID is kept in localStorage under keys that start with ph_, and a key starting __ph_opt_in_out_ records that you switched it off. PostHog sets no cookie. We rely on your consent, under Article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, because this stores an ID on your device. To stop it, go to Settings, then Cookie choices, switch Usage analytics off and save. It stops at once on that device and the ID is deleted from it. On another device, do the same there. On our website the cookie banner offers Accept all, Reject all and Customise, and Customise has a switch each for Statistics, Advertising and Usage analytics. All three are off until you choose. With Usage analytics on, PostHog loads on the same terms, except that the website does not record sessions. With Statistics on, the website counts checkouts and failed payments in anonymous totals, sent to our own server. With Advertising on, it keeps the campaign details from the link that brought you here, as described under Advertising. The Cookie choices link in the page footer reopens the banner, and switching a category off there stops it and removes what it stored.

Booking attribution. When you book in the app after following a link from one of our ads, we note the campaign on your booking (the link's UTM tags, the kind of page you landed on and the website you came from) so we can see which ads pay for themselves. It stays with us and our payment processor, Stripe, and goes to Google or Meta only if Advertising is on.

Help Mango learn (off until you say yes). Mango asks you in the chat, and you can change your answer in Cookie choices. See Section 4 for what it shares.

Your cookie choices are stored under the key socialise_cookie_consent in your browser's localStorage. The record stays on your device. The one answer that travels is Advertising, which goes with a booking so we know whether to tell Google or Meta about it. If it is cleared, the notice appears again and your choices go back to their defaults: Statistics, Advertising and Usage analytics off, and Help Mango learn not yet asked.

HTTP cookies. Our server sets one cookie, socialise_session, when you sign in or register. It keeps you signed in, so it is strictly necessary and needs no consent. Scripts in your browser cannot read it, it is sent only to our API, and it expires after 30 days or when you sign out. If you switch Advertising on, Meta and Google set their own cookies in your browser (_fbp and _fbc for Meta, _ga and a _ga_ cookie for Google), and switching Advertising off removes them. Stripe, which handles card payments, sets two cookies of its own on the app when the card payment step opens, to help it spot fraud: __stripe_mid, which lasts one year, and __stripe_sid, which lasts 30 minutes. All other storage uses localStorage and sessionStorage, both scoped to the app's origin. Your browser does not attach either to requests the way it attaches a cookie. The app itself sends some stored values to our API when it needs them. For example, older sessions keep their sign-in token in localStorage and send it to keep you signed in.

12. Contact

For any privacy questions or to exercise your rights, contact us at privacy@socialise.events.