Twin Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 22, 2026
Twin is an app for college students to find friends nearby. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, and how to get rid of it.
We do not sell your data. We do not show ads. We do not use third-party advertising or tracking SDKs.
You must be 18 or older to use Twin.
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What we collect
Account
- Email address — used to sign you in with a one-time code, and to enforce that Twin is limited to University of Maryland students.
- First name, date of birth, gender, year in school. Your first name, age and year are shown to other students. Your date of birth itself is not shown — only the age calculated from it. Gender is used for matching (see below) and cannot be changed once set.
Photos
- Profile photos (2–4). Shown to compatible students near you.
- A verification selfie — this is biometric data. To confirm you're a real person and that your photos are of you, Twin has you take a selfie and compares it automatically against your profile photos. The selfie does leave your device: it is sent to our server and on to Amazon Web Services, which performs the comparison. No person ever sees it. It exists only for the few seconds the comparison takes and is then discarded — we do not store it, and neither we nor AWS create or keep a facial template or "faceprint" from it. You'll be asked for a new selfie if you later change your photos.
Location
- Your approximate position, captured when you go "live." Twin is off by default. When you're not live, we are not collecting your location.
- You choose how long you stay live — about an hour, a few hours, or until midnight. Your position is recorded when you go live, and refreshed while the app is open so it stays current. You can end it at any time, or change how long it lasts.
- Your location is never shown to anyone. Twin has no map, no distance readout and no coordinates in its interface. Other students can only ever learn that you are somewhere within a radius — never where.
- Your live window ends automatically when the time you chose runs out — nothing keeps you visible indefinitely, and you do not have to remember to turn it off.
- For up to about five hours after your window ends — or after you turn yourself off — you can still be found, and you are clearly labelled as no longer live (for example, "Live 2h ago"). This exists because Twin is new and a campus can be quiet; people who were out earlier are still worth knowing about. Nobody is ever shown as present when they are not, and you are never sent a "nearby right now" notification about someone in this state.
- Turning yourself off ends both of these immediately.
- We keep a low-precision area code (not a street address or exact position) with anonymous usage statistics, to understand which parts of campus are active.
Your activity on Twin
- Answers to the interest questions, used to calculate what you have in common with someone. Some answers appear on your profile as tags.
- Waves you send and receive, and the connections they create.
- Messages you exchange with people you've connected with.
- Reports and blocks you submit.
- A device token, if you turn on notifications, so we can send them.
- Basic usage events (for example, that you went live, or that you completed your profile) so we can tell whether Twin is working.
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How we use it
- To run the app: showing you compatible students nearby, letting you wave, connect and message.
- To keep Twin safe: verifying that people are real, checking photos and profile text for content that isn't allowed, and acting on reports.
- To send notifications you've asked for.
- To understand, in aggregate, whether the app is useful.
We do not use your information to build advertising profiles, and we do not share it with advertisers.
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Who we share it with
Twin runs on a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf:
| Provider | What it handles |
|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in, encrypted file storage, and server functions |
| Amazon Web Services (Rekognition) | Compares your verification selfie against your profile photos, and screens uploaded photos for explicit content. Images are analyzed in real time and are not retained by AWS, and no facial template is created or stored |
| Expo | Delivers push notifications to your device |
| Resend | Sends your sign-in code by email |
We may also disclose information if we are legally required to, or where we believe it is necessary to prevent serious harm.
Other students only ever see what's on your profile: your photos, first name, age, year, what you've written about yourself, your interest tags, whether you're verified, and how much you have in common with them.
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Matching is same-gender
Twin only ever matches you with students of the same gender. This is enforced in the database, not just in the app's design. It's why gender can't be changed once you've set it.
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How long we keep it
- Your profile and content: until you delete your account.
- Your verification selfie: not retained. It exists only while the comparison runs, then is discarded — no image and no facial template is kept.
- Live location: the window you chose (up to the end of the day), plus up to about five hours afterwards during which you appear as no longer live. It then expires on its own.
- Messages: until you or the other person deletes their account. When either of you deletes, the conversation is removed for both of you.
Two things deliberately outlive a deleted account, for safety:
- Reports made about an account. If someone reported you, that report is kept so a deleted account can't be used to erase a record of harmful behaviour. It keeps the email address the report concerned.
- Ban records. If an account is banned, we keep the email address so the ban can be enforced if someone tries to sign up again.
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Deleting your account
You can delete your account at any time from inside the app: My Profile → Delete account.
This permanently removes your profile, your photos (including the files themselves), your answers, your waves, your connections and every message in them — for both people in the conversation. It cannot be undone, and signing up again starts from scratch.
The two safety exceptions above are the only things that remain.
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Your choices
- Location: Twin is off by default. You choose when you're visible and for how long, you can change or end that at any time, and you can revoke location access in iOS Settings.
- Notifications: entirely optional, and you can change them in iOS Settings.
- Your profile: you can edit your photos, what you've written and your answers at any time. Changing your photos requires verifying again.
- Blocking and reporting: available on every profile and in every conversation.
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Security
Your data is stored on Supabase's infrastructure and protected by access rules that restrict each person to their own information. Photos are kept in a private bucket and served only through short-lived links to students you're compatible with. Verification and account deletion run on the server so they can't be faked by a modified app.
No system is perfectly secure, but we've tried to limit what's exposed in the first place — most notably by never showing anyone's position, and by keeping no verification selfies and no facial templates once a check has run.
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Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll update the date at the top and let you know in the app.
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Contact
Questions about this policy, or about your data: support@twinapp.org