← Back to MEAT

Privacy Policy

Last updated July 1, 2026

MEAT is built for a community that has real reasons to care about privacy. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices and rights you have.

1. Who this applies to

This policy applies to your use of MEAT. By using the service you consent to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use MEAT.

2. Information we collect

  • Account information: your email address, used to sign you in and to send you service and safety messages.
  • Profile information: what you choose to add — display name, age, bio, tags, and optional details such as height, weight, body and identity details, relationship status, and, if you choose, sexual-health information (for example HIV status). Some of this is sensitive; you decide what to share and can hide any optional field.
  • Photos and video: the images and clips you upload to your profile, messages, the board, or the video feed.
  • Location: your device's location, used to show you people nearby. See Section 4.
  • Messages and content: the messages, posts, and interactions you create on the service.
  • Device and usage data: basic technical data such as device/browser type and how you use the app, used to operate, secure, and improve it, and to power our own in-house analytics.
  • Notification tokens: if you enable push notifications, the token needed to deliver them.

3. Sensitive information

Because MEAT is a service for gay, bi, and queer men, your use of it may reveal information about your sexual orientation, and you may choose to share health-related information such as HIV status. We treat this as sensitive and use it only to provide the service to you. By providing it, you explicitly consent to our processing it for that purpose. You can remove it at any time by editing your profile.

4. How location works

We compute distances on our servers from your device's location, but we never share your exact coordinates with other users. The position other people can see is deliberately fuzzed — offset to an approximate area — and you choose the precision level (or hide yourself from the map entirely) in your settings. Distances shown to others are rounded.

5. How we use your information

  • to operate discovery — showing you nearby people and letting them find you;
  • to deliver messages, notifications, and the features you use;
  • to keep the community safe: moderation, reviewing reports, and enforcing our Terms;
  • to understand and improve the product through our own first-party analytics;
  • to communicate with you about your account, security, and service updates;
  • to comply with legal obligations and protect our rights and users.

6. Analytics and advertising

We do not use Google Analytics or third-party advertising trackers, and we do not run behavioral ad tracking across other sites. Our analytics are computed in-house from our own data and are designed to be privacy-preserving. We do not sell your personal information.

7. How we share information

  • With other users: your profile, photos, and approximate location are visible to other users as part of how the service works. Anything you send in a message or post is shared with its recipients.
  • With service providers: we use trusted vendors to run MEAT— including cloud hosting and storage, our database provider, an email delivery provider, a mapping provider, push-notification delivery, and, for any paid features, a payment processor. They may process your information only to provide services to us.
  • For legal and safety reasons: we may disclose information if required by law, to respond to lawful requests, or to protect the safety, rights, or property of our users, the public, or us.
  • In a business transfer: if we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

8. Cookies and local storage

We use a small number of essential cookies and browser storage — principally to keep you signed in and to remember your preferences. We do not use them for cross-site advertising.

9. Data retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the service. When you delete content or your account, we remove it within a reasonable period, except for limited copies retained for legal, safety, dispute-resolution, or backup purposes.

10. Your rights and choices

  • Access and correction: you can view and edit most of your information directly in the app.
  • Deletion: you can delete your account, which removes your profile from the service.
  • Data export: you can request a copy of your personal information.
  • Notifications: you can control push and email notifications in your settings, and unsubscribe from non-essential emails.

Depending on where you live (for example, under the EU/UK GDPR or California's privacy laws), you may have additional rights, such as the right to object to or restrict certain processing, or to lodge a complaint with your data-protection authority. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@meat.cc.

11. How we protect your information

We take security seriously: sign-in secrets and session tokens are stored hashed, connections are encrypted in transit, uploaded images are re-encoded to strip embedded metadata (including GPS location) before they are stored, and we keep encrypted backups. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to improve continuously.

12. Children

MEAT is strictly for adults 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we learn that a user is under 18, we terminate the account. We remove and report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and/or law enforcement as required by law. If you believe a minor is using the service, report it to privacy@meat.cc.

13. International users

MEAT is operated from the United States, and your information may be processed in the United States and other countries where our providers operate, which may have different data-protection laws than your own. By using the service you consent to that processing.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app.

15. Contact

For any privacy question or request, contact us at privacy@meat.cc.