Privacy Policy

Introduction

Milau ("we", "us", or "our") is a social activity platform that connects people in Nepal to host and join real-world activities like coffee meetups, hikes, board game nights, and more. This policy explains what personal data Milau collects when you use our mobile app or website, how we use it, and the rights you have over it. By using Milau, you agree to the practices described below.

Data We Collect

Account & Profile

Phone number: when you sign in with OTP. This is your primary identifier.
Email address: when you sign in with Google, or optionally add it to your profile.
Google account ID: a stable identifier (the Google "sub" claim) when you sign in with Google, used to recognize you on return visits.
Full name: provided by you or pre-filled from Google.
Avatar / profile photo: uploaded by you from camera or gallery, or linked from your Google account photo URL.
Bio, interests, gender (optional): information you voluntarily add to your profile.

Location

Approximate location: used to show activities near you and calculate distances. We do not track your background location. You can set location manually instead of sharing your device location.

Photos, Camera & Media

Camera access: used when you capture a profile photo, a verification selfie, an ID document (hosts only), or a photo for an activity's shared "Photo Drop" album.
Gallery / media access: used when you choose an existing photo for your profile or Photo Drop.
Uploaded images: stored on our servers to display in the app. EXIF metadata (including GPS tags) is stripped from uploads before storage.

Activity & Social Data

Activity & booking history: activities you've joined, hosted, or cancelled.
Reviews & ratings: reviews you write about hosts and reviews written about you as a host, visible on profiles.
Safety reports: if you report another user or activity, your report (and optionally your identity, if you don't choose to report anonymously) is stored for our moderation team.
Reliability score: a computed score based on your attendance history, used by hosts to evaluate join requests.

Identity Verification (Hosts Only)

Selfie photo and government ID: required only if you apply to become a Verified Host. Stored behind authentication, accessible only to our internal review team, never shown to other users, and never used for any other purpose. If your host application is withdrawn or rejected, these documents are deleted within 90 days.

Device & Technical Data

Push notification token (FCM token): a Firebase Cloud Messaging identifier we store so we can deliver activity reminders, booking updates, and safety alerts to your device.
Device platform: whether you're on iOS or Android, so we can send platform-appropriate notifications.
App version & crash reports: to diagnose bugs and improve stability.
IP address & basic request logs: retained short-term for security, rate limiting, and abuse prevention.

How We Use Your Data

Run the service: authenticate you, show activities near you, let you join or host, deliver notifications, display reviews and host profiles.
Safety & trust: verify host identities, compute reliability scores, enforce cooldowns after repeated no-shows, investigate reports.
Aggregate safety signals: gender data (if provided) is used only to compute aggregate attendance composition and badges like "Women-Friendly Host". Individual gender is never shown to other users.
Communication: send OTP login codes, activity reminders, booking status updates, host broadcasts, and system announcements. You can opt out of most non-essential pushes in Settings.
Product improvement: understand usage patterns and fix bugs.
Legal compliance: comply with Nepalese law and respond to lawful requests from authorities.

Android & iOS Permissions

The app requests these permissions. All of them are used strictly for the purposes below.

Camera: to take a profile photo, verification selfie, ID document photo, or activity photo.
Photos / Media: to let you choose an existing photo from your gallery for your profile or Photo Drop.
Location (fine / coarse): to show nearby activities and calculate distances. Only used while the app is open; never in the background.
Notifications: to deliver activity reminders, booking updates, and safety alerts via push notification.
Internet: to communicate with our servers.

You can revoke any of these permissions at any time in your device settings. Revoking required permissions (like Internet) will disable the app. Revoking optional permissions (like Location) will disable that feature but keep the rest of the app working.

Third Parties We Share Data With

Milau uses a small set of trusted service providers. We share only the minimum data needed for each service to do its job. None of these providers is permitted to use your data for their own purposes.

Google Firebase (Cloud Messaging, Core): used to deliver push notifications. We send Google your FCM token, notification title/body, and associated data payload (e.g. an activity ID for deep linking).
Google Sign-In: if you choose Google as your login method, Google provides us your email, name, profile picture URL, and a stable Google ID. We do not receive your Google password.
Google AdMob (advertising): Milau displays banner ads inside the app, served by Google AdMob. AdMob uses your Advertising ID (a resettable identifier on your device), approximate location derived from your IP address, device information (model, OS version, language), and ad interaction data (impressions, clicks) to serve ads and measure their performance. You can control personalized ads and reset or delete your Advertising ID at any time in your device settings (Android: Settings → Google → Ads; iOS: Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Advertising and the App Tracking Transparency prompt the first time you open the app). See Google's privacy policy and AdMob user data policy for details.
SMS provider: used to deliver OTP codes to your phone. Only your phone number and the code are sent.
Hosting & CDN (Cloudflare, VPS provider): used to run our backend servers and deliver the website / uploaded images. Standard server logs (IP address, request path, timestamp) are retained short-term.
Payment processor, when payments launch: Milau is currently free to use. When we introduce paid activities, we'll use NPX OnePG for Nepali payment rails. Your payment credentials will go directly to NPX and never be stored on Milau's servers. This policy will be updated before that feature ships.

We do not sell your data, and we never share your phone number, verification documents, or private messages with advertisers or any third party not listed above.

What We Don't Do

We never sell your data.
We never show your individual gender: only aggregate composition such as "30% female attendees".
We never expose your phone number to other users. Hosts see only your display name.
We never expose your verification documents: selfies and ID photos uploaded during host verification are accessible only to the Milau review team.
We do not track your behavior on other apps or websites. The only advertising SDK we include is Google AdMob, which serves banner ads inside Milau and is covered in the Third Parties section above. We do not share your data with any cross-app tracking network.

Data Security

All traffic between your device and our servers is encrypted with TLS (HTTPS).
Passwords and tokens are stored using industry-standard hashing / encrypted storage.
Sensitive uploads (selfies, ID documents) are served only behind authenticated URLs accessible to the Milau review team.
EXIF data (including any GPS tags) is stripped from uploaded images before storage.
Access to production data is limited to essential personnel.

No system is perfectly secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, email us immediately at the address below.

International Data Transfer

Milau's primary servers are hosted in the region closest to Nepal, but some of our service providers (notably Google Firebase) process data on servers located outside Nepal. By using Milau, you acknowledge that your data may be processed in countries whose data-protection laws may differ from Nepal. We require all third parties to apply equivalent safeguards to your data.

Data Retention & Deletion

You can delete your account at any time from within the app (Settings → Delete account) or by emailing us.
After you request deletion, your personal data is permanently removed within 30 days.
Content you contributed to shared spaces (such as public reviews or activity Photo Drops) may be anonymized ("Deleted user") rather than deleted, to preserve other users' shared context.
Anonymized, aggregate statistics may be retained indefinitely for product improvement; they cannot be linked back to you.
Identity verification documents are deleted within 90 days if your host application is rejected or withdrawn. Approved hosts' documents are retained for the duration of the host relationship and deleted within 90 days after the account is closed.
Basic server logs are retained for up to 30 days for security purposes.
Records required by Nepalese financial or tax regulations (once payments launch) may be retained longer where legally required.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

Access a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Correct inaccurate data: most profile fields are editable in the app; for anything else, email us.
Delete your account and associated data.
Restrict processing or object to specific uses.
Export your data in a portable format.
Opt out of non-essential push notifications (Settings → Notifications).

To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected]. We'll respond within 30 days.

Minimum Age

Milau is intended for users aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If we learn that we've collected data from a user under 18, we will delete that data. If you believe an under-18 user has created an account, please email us.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the product evolves (for example, when payments launch). If changes are material, we'll notify you in the app or by email before they take effect. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects the current version.

Contact

Privacy questions, data requests, or anything else: reach us at [email protected].