Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 19, 2026

Girl Dinner Social Technology LLC (“GDS,” “we,” “us”) is based in Chicago, Illinois and runs a women-only friendship and event community — for all women, including trans women. This policy explains what we collect through the Girl Dinner Social app and website, why we collect it, and what you can do about it. We aim to collect only what we need to run a safe women-only community. We do not sell your personal information.

Information we collect

Account & profile: your name, email address, date of birth (to confirm you're 18 or older), photos, interests, neighborhood, and the profile details you choose to add — such as occupation, bio, Instagram handle, and pronouns. You sign in with email and a password; your password is stored securely by our sign-in provider, Amazon Cognito, and we never see it in plain text.
Optional sensitive details: you may choose to add a relationship status or an LGBTQ+ tag to your profile. These are entirely optional, are shown on your profile only if you add them, and you can remove them at any time.
Verification selfie: a selfie used to confirm you're a real person and a woman — see “Selfie verification & biometric information” below.
Events & payments: your RSVPs, tickets, attendance history, and answers to event questionnaires you choose to fill out. Payment for paid events is processed directly by Stripe — we do not see or store your card number, though we keep records of your purchases and refunds.
Phone number (optional): we never require a phone number to use GDS. Some event hosts ask for one when you RSVP to their event — if you enter it, it's saved to your profile and shared only with that event's host for event logistics. We don't use it for anything else: no calls, no texts, no marketing. You can remove it anytime in Settings.
Messages & community content: your direct messages, group chats, and community Q&A posts, which we store to deliver the Service and review for safety as described below.
Approximate location (only when you turn on the Active Map): the Active Map is opt-in. When you activate it, the app asks for foreground location permission on your device to suggest your neighborhood — only your neighborhood (never your precise coordinates) is sent to and stored on our servers. A session lasts about 30 minutes and expires automatically; expired session data is deleted from our servers shortly after. We never track your location in the background.
Your calendar (we never read it): event screens offer an “add to calendar” shortcut. Tapping it hands the event details to your phone's own calendar app, which asks you to confirm before saving anything. We do not read your calendar, we can't see what else is in it, and nothing about it is sent to us.
Device & usage data: a push-notification token issued by your device's platform, Apple or Google (so we can send you notifications you've enabled), standard server logs (such as IP address and requests), and product analytics described below. Our website uses basic cookies; you can disable them in your browser.

Selfie verification & biometric information

Because GDS is a women-only community, we ask every member to take a verification selfie. Our full retention schedule and destruction guidelines are in the Biometric Data Policy. Here's exactly what happens:

What we do: your selfie is analyzed by an automated service (Amazon Rekognition, run on our behalf by Amazon Web Services) that detects whether the image contains a single, clear human face, estimates facial attributes including perceived gender, and compares the selfie to your profile photo to confirm the account is really you. This involves a scan of your facial geometry.
Human review: the automated check only approves clear results. If the result is ambiguous, a trained reviewer looks at the selfie and decides — we never auto-reject anyone based on the automated gender estimate alone.
Purpose: verification is used solely to keep GDS a women-only community and to prevent impersonation and fake accounts. It is never used for advertising, never sold, and never shared except with AWS as our processor.
Retention & deletion: your selfie and the facial-geometry scan taken from it are destroyed within 24 hours of your verification decision. Where a person needed to review your photo, it is destroyed as soon as they decide and never later than 7 days. We never build or keep a face template, so nothing we hold afterwards can be used to recognise you. What remains is the result of the check — whether it passed, its confidence score, the perceived-gender reading and its confidence, and when it was decided — which we keep while your account is open and in no case longer than three years after your last interaction with GDS. It is deleted when your account is deleted, and you can request earlier deletion at hello@girldinnersocial.com. Full detail is in the Biometric Data Policy.
Consent: by submitting your selfie in the app, you consent to this collection and processing. If you don't want to provide a selfie, you can choose not to — but the selfie check is a required step of signing up, so we won't be able to complete your account.

How we use information

We use your information to create and secure your account, verify identity, show you relevant people and events, process ticket purchases and refunds, enable messaging and community posts, send the notifications and emails you've enabled, keep the community safe (including automated and human content moderation and handling reports), improve the product, and comply with legal obligations.

Product analytics

We use PostHog, a product-analytics service hosted in the United States, to understand how the app is used — for example, which screens are viewed and which features are used. These events are associated with your account identifier. We use this only to improve GDS: we don't use advertising SDKs, we don't track you across other apps or websites, and we never sell analytics data.

Who we share it with

We don't sell your data. We share it only as needed to run GDS:

Stripe — payment processing for paid events.
Amazon Web Services — hosting, database, photo and media storage, Cognito sign-in, SES email delivery, and Rekognition for the selfie check. AWS processes data on our behalf under contract.
PostHog — the product analytics described above.
Expo — delivery of push notifications to your device. Expo passes each notification to your device's platform push service — Apple Push Notification service on iPhone, Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) on Android — which is what actually delivers it to your phone.
Apple and Google — we distribute the GDS app through the App Store and Google Play, and they operate the push services above. When you download or update the app, that store handles the transaction under its own privacy policy; we don't receive your store account details.
Map providers — when you open the Active Map, the map itself is drawn by your phone's map service: Apple Maps on iPhone, Google Maps on Android. Displaying a map means your device requests map imagery from that provider, which it handles under its own privacy policy. We only ever send our servers your neighborhood, never your precise coordinates, and we don't share your location with either provider.
Event hosts — when you RSVP or buy a ticket, the host can see that you're attending and any answers you submitted to their event questions.
Other members — your profile information is visible to other verified members as part of how GDS works; in-app privacy controls let you manage things like whether other attendees can see you on an event's guest list.

We may also disclose information when required by law or to protect the safety of our community.

Emails and notifications

We send transactional and event emails — such as verification codes, ticket confirmations, receipts, event reminders, and updates from organizers you follow — through Amazon SES, and push notifications through Expo. You can control both in the app's notification settings, including a master toggle for email and per-category push preferences.

Security & retention

We encrypt data in transit (TLS) and at rest, keep our database off the public internet, and limit who can access personal data. We keep your information for as long as your account is active. Active Map session data is deleted shortly after each session ends, and verification selfies are handled as described above. When your account is deleted, we retain only what we must for legal, safety, or payment-dispute reasons (for example, records of blocks and safety reports, and payment records held by Stripe).

Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app at Profile → Settings → Delete Account. Deletion takes effect after a 30-day grace period, during which you can reactivate by signing back in. After the grace period, we permanently delete or de-identify your personal data: your name, email, and profile details are erased; your photos, verification selfie, and uploaded media are deleted from storage; your message contents are redacted; your device push tokens are removed; and your sign-in identity is deleted from Amazon Cognito. One thing is deliberately kept: any record that you agreed to biometric verification, when, and to which policy version. That record is proof the collection was lawful, cannot be used to recognise you, and is held for at least five years — see the Biometric Data Policy. You can also email hello@girldinnersocial.com to request a copy of your data or its deletion.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (including under GDPR, CCPA, and Illinois law), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal information, and to object to certain processing. Use the in-app account controls or email us to exercise these rights. We don't sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of in that respect.

Children

Girl Dinner Social is not directed to anyone under 18. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or purchase tickets, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes & contact

We'll update this policy as the product evolves. When we do, we'll change the “Last updated” date above and, for significant changes, notify you in the app or by email. Questions, requests, or complaints: hello@girldinnersocial.com.