Privacy policy.
Last updated October 27, 2026
Kin is a small, private app for sharing photos and messages with people you actually know. This page says plainly what Kin collects, why, and what it never does.
The short version
- No ads. No selling or renting your data. No data brokers.
- No tracking across other apps or websites, and no advertising identifiers.
- Your photos and messages are visible only to the people you choose. They are stored privately and are never public.
- Every photo is checked by an automated moderation service before anyone else sees it.
- You can delete your account from inside the app at any time, and everything goes with it.
What Kin collects
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Account: email address and password (hashed), or your Apple ID token and the name Apple shares when you use Sign in with Apple | To create your account and let you sign in |
| Profile: display name, username, bio, profile photo, your confirmation that you are 18 or older, and the date you accepted the community rules | So your friends know it is you; to meet age and conduct requirements |
| Photos you share: Moments, chat images, group photos, and the blurhash placeholders, captions and optional location labels you add | That is the app. Moments leave the feed after 24 hours and stay in your private archive until you delete them |
| Messages, comments, likes, reactions and who has seen a Moment | To deliver them to the people you sent them to |
| Friendships, friend requests, close-friends list, blocks, group memberships and mutes | To decide who can see what |
| Invite links and QR codes you create | So friends can join your circle |
| Push notification token and device model | To send you notifications about messages, requests and comments, if you turn them on |
| Song you pin to your profile: Spotify track id, title, artist and artwork URL | To show it on your profile. Kin does not connect to your Spotify account or see your listening |
| Reports you file and moderation records (content ids, automated labels and scores, timestamps; never the image itself) | To keep Kin safe and to review decisions |
| Basic server logs (IP address, request time) kept briefly by our hosting provider | Security and abuse prevention |
Kin does not collect your contacts, your precise location, your browsing history, or analytics about how you use the app. Camera and photo library access are used only when you choose to take or pick a photo.
Who can see what
Only your friends can see your Moments. You can narrow a Moment to close friends, or widen it to friends of friends if you turn that on. Messages are visible only to the people in the chat. Your profile is visible to friends and, depending on your settings, to friends of friends. Nothing on Kin is public or indexed by search engines.
Services Kin relies on
Kin runs on a few providers that process data on our behalf, under their own security and privacy commitments:
- Supabase (hosted on Amazon Web Services, United States)
- Database, file storage, authentication and the server functions behind the app.
- Sightengine
- Automated image moderation. Each photo you upload is sent to Sightengine to check for nudity, sexual content, violence and gore before it is shown to anyone. Sightengine returns scores and does not keep the image.
- Expo push service, Apple Push Notification service
- Delivering push notifications to your phone.
- Resend
- Sending account emails (confirmation, password reset) and report alerts to the Kin team.
- Spotify
- Searching for a song to pin to your profile. Only your search text is sent.
- Apple
- Sign in with Apple, if you use it, and TestFlight during the beta.
Safety and moderation
Photos that fail the automated check are deleted and never shown. Reports you file are reviewed by a person. Kin keeps a record of rejected uploads and reports (ids, labels, scores, timestamps) so decisions can be reviewed and abuse can be stopped. Kin will report content involving the sexual exploitation of minors to the relevant authorities as required by law.
How long data is kept
Everything is kept while your account exists. Moments leave the feed after 24 hours but remain in your archive until you delete them. Unused invite links expire after 48 hours. When you delete your account, your profile, photos, messages, comments, friendships, push tokens and everything else attached to you are deleted immediately. Moderation and report records are kept without any link to a deleted account.
Your choices
- Delete your account from Settings → Delete account. This is immediate and permanent.
- Turn notifications on or off, by type, in Settings → Notifications.
- Block anyone instantly from their profile. They will not be told.
- Ask us to export or correct your data by emailing the address on the support page.
Age
Kin is for people 18 and older for now. Accounts of people who tell us they are under 18 are not completed, and we delete anything collected along the way.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, Kin will say so in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Questions about privacy go to the email on the support page.