This policy explains how Members Of Us Limited (“YouPOLL”, “we”, “us”) handles personal information when you use the YouPOLL apps for iPhone and Android and the website youpoll.app (together, the “Service”). We are the data controller. Contact us at [email protected].
The short version
- Your username, profile picture and public posts are public. Your email, year of birth, gender, place and occupation are not.
- Voters’ details only appear in statistics as totals, never next to a name, and never for groups smaller than 5 people.
- Anonymous posts hide your name from other users, but not from YouPOLL’s administrators.
- We never sell your personal information, and never give your email to anyone for marketing.
- Personal accounts see ads; you choose whether ads are personalised.
- You can download or delete your data, and you must be 16 or older to use YouPOLL.
Information you give us
- Account: email address (confirmed with a code), password (stored only in scrambled, hashed form), username, profile picture, year of birth, gender, occupation or business type, and city or region.
- Content: polls, surveys, answers, opinions, comments, “write your own” answers, files you attach (pictures, video, audio, PDFs, links), likes, bookmarks, reports and messages to us.
- Votes: which answers you chose, and when.
- Friends and groups: who you connect with, and email addresses you enter to invite friends (used once to send the invitation).
- Payments: your PayPal email if you withdraw cash. Purchases are handled by Apple and Google; we receive a receipt, not your card details.
Information collected automatically
- Device: an app-generated device identifier and, where switched on, Apple App Attest / DeviceCheck or Google Play Integrity results. We use them to keep one personal account per phone, which keeps votes fair.
- Notifications: a push token, if you allow notifications.
- Usage and diagnostics: app version, the time of requests, IP address, crash reports and basic analytics (Firebase Crashlytics and Analytics).
- Ads: Google AdMob may use your device’s advertising identifier and similar data to show and measure ads, as you allow in the consent form (and Apple’s tracking prompt on iPhone).
On the website: cookies and storage
The website needs no account. The first time you visit, a small notice asks about cookies. Whatever you choose, the essential items below stay on, because the site cannot work without them and they never leave your browser except as described. You can change your choice at any time with "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page.
Essential (always on)
- yp_voter (cookie and local storage, 2 years): a random voter number set when you open or vote on a poll, so the site can show your vote and allow one vote per browser. We store only a scrambled form of it, with a scrambled form of your IP address for abuse limits.
- yp_theme (local storage): your light or dark mode choice, only if you use the toggle.
- yp_browse (session storage, 30 minutes): your place on the Browse page, so "back" returns you there.
- yp_consent (local storage): your cookie choice, so we do not ask again.
- We may use Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a web vote comes from a person, not a bot.
Only if you choose "Accept"
- The TrustedSite certification mark: a small script from TrustedSite that shows the site is checked for security. TrustedSite may receive your IP address and browser details when it loads.
The website shows no ads and uses no advertising or tracking cookies.
Why we use it (and our legal basis)
- To run the Service you asked for: your account, posting, voting, statistics, notifications, rewards and payments (contract).
- To keep it fair and safe: one account per phone, fraud and abuse prevention, moderation, security (legitimate interests, legal obligations).
- Sponsored polls: to send a sponsored poll to people who match the audience a creator picked (age range, gender, place, occupation). When more people match than the creator paid for, it goes to the most recently active. The creator never learns who received it (legitimate interests).
- Ads and analytics to fund and improve a free Service (consent where required, otherwise legitimate interests).
- Emails such as sign-up codes, password resets and important account notices (contract). Any newsletters only with an easy way to unsubscribe.
- Legal reasons: to meet our legal obligations and answer lawful requests.
What other people can see
- Your username, profile picture and the polls, surveys, opinions and comments you post publicly can be seen by other users, on the website when shared, and may be found by search engines. A private account limits your profile to friends.
- Your year of birth, gender, place and occupation are never shown with your name. When you vote, they count in the poll’s statistics as totals only, and filters that would show fewer than 5 people show nothing.
- “Write your own” answers are shown without names.
- Anonymous posts hide your name from other users only. YouPOLL keeps who posted them, its administrators can see it, our rules apply to them in the same way, and we may disclose it when the law requires.
- Other users never see your email address, PayPal email or cash balance.
Moderation
- Posts and comments are checked automatically by an outside moderation service (OpenAI’s moderation check). Only the text and pictures being checked are sent, not your account details. A post it flags is hidden until a person on our team reviews it.
- Our team also reviews content that users report. Automated checks only hide and flag; a person decides, and only a person can confirm an offence. Confirmed offences are recorded against the account (see theTerms for the three-strike rule).
- Removed accounts: after three confirmed offences an account can be deleted and its phone and email blocked from new accounts. To stop removed users coming back, we keep a record of the removed account (username, email, phone identifiers, date, reason and number of offences), without its posts, until the block is lifted. You can appeal by emailing [email protected].
- Our administrators use a private admin panel. Every action they take there is logged (who did what, and when) so it can be checked later.
Who we share it with
We share personal information only with service providers who help us run the Service, under contracts that protect it:
- Hosting, storage and email: Amazon Web Services.
- Notifications, analytics and crash reports: Google Firebase.
- Ads: Google AdMob (personal accounts only).
- Purchases: Apple App Store and Google Play. Cash withdrawals: PayPal.
- Phone checks: Apple and Google. Bot checks on web votes: Cloudflare. Email forwarding: Cloudflare.
- Automatic content checks: OpenAI (moderation check only).
We may also disclose information to comply with the law or a valid legal request, to protect people’s safety, to prevent fraud, or as part of a sale or reorganisation of our business (you would be told). We never sell your personal information.
International transfers
Some providers process data outside the European Economic Area. Where they do, we rely on safeguards such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or adequacy decisions.
How long we keep it
- Your account information and content: for as long as your account exists.
- When you delete a post or your account, we delete it and its files from our servers. Backups roll over within a short period.
- We keep limited records longer when we must: payment and withdrawal records (for tax and accounting), a record of moderation offences without the content itself, the record of removed accounts described under Moderation, and the admin action log. Votes on other people’s polls stay as anonymous totals.
Your rights
You can access, correct, download or delete your personal information, object to or restrict some uses, and withdraw consent at any time (for example for personalised ads, in the app’s settings). Many of these you can do yourself in the app. To get a copy of your data, or for anything else, email [email protected]from the email on your account; we will reply within one month. You can also complain to the Irish Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie) or your local data protection authority.
Age
YouPOLL is for people aged 16 and over. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone younger; if we learn that we have, we delete the account.
Security
We protect your information with encryption in transit, hashed passwords, access controls and regular updates. No service can be perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires. Keep your password private.
Links to other sites
Polls and ads may link to other websites. Their own privacy policies apply there, not this one.
Changes
We will post any changes here with a new date, and tell you in the app or by email about important ones.
Contact
Members Of Us Limited, Dublin 2, D02 EY47, Republic of Ireland. Company number 577038.
Email: [email protected]
