Privacy Policy

Who we are

Talkpositive is operated by Talkpositive Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17445123); our registered office is on the public record at Companies House. Talkpositive Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described here. Talkpositive Ltd is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), registration reference ZC245016. You can reach us about privacy at privacy@talkpositive.app.

The short version

• Talkpositive is a private, members-only community for people living with HIV.
• We ask for as little as possible: an email, a nickname, and an approximate area.
• We do not ask for your real name, and we do not store your date of birth.
• We do not show ads, and we do not sell or share your data for marketing.
• Your messages, including photos and voice messages you send in a chat, are encrypted at rest, and your data is stored in the EU.
• You can export your data or delete your account, yourself, at any time.

What we collect and why

To create and secure your account

• Email address, to sign you in, send a verification code, and reach you about your account. It is also held as a one-way fingerprint used only to enforce safety limits and blocks.
• Password, stored only as a secure hash. We never see it.
• Sign-in sessions. While you are signed in on a device we keep a record of that session, including the IP address and the type of browser or device it started from, to keep your account secure and spot misuse. It is deleted when you sign out or the session ends, and never kept longer than 30 days.
• Age (18+) confirmation. You enter a date of birth once so we can confirm you are 18 or over. The date of birth is checked and then discarded; we keep only a record that the check passed.
• Membership declaration. You confirm you are living with HIV to join. We store only that you declared this. It is never displayed to anyone.

Your profile (all optional beyond a nickname)

A nickname, an approximate area (a region, never a precise location or address), a broad age band if you choose to show it, languages, what you are here for, a short bio, interests, and any profile photo you add (photos are reviewed before they appear).

Your activity

Private messages (including any photos and voice messages you send in a chat), community messages, posts and replies, all encrypted at rest; reports you make or that are made about content; and basic technical logs needed to run and secure the service. Message content is encrypted at rest but is not end-to-end encrypted, so we can access it to operate the service and act on reports. Photos sent in a chat have their location and camera details stripped before they are stored, and only the two people in that conversation can open them. Voice messages are converted into a standard audio format with all device details removed, and likewise only the two people in that conversation can play them. Bear in mind that your voice can help someone recognise you, so only send voice messages to people you are comfortable with. We only use your microphone while you are recording. You can edit a message you sent for 15 minutes; the other person sees it marked “Edited”. We keep the earlier wording, encrypted, only so it can be reviewed if the conversation is reported. It is never shown in the app, it is included in your data export, and it is deleted when the message is. When you send a link, our server fetches a short preview (the page title, a description and a small image) from that website, so the website sees a request from Talkpositive, never your phone or the other person's. The preview is stored encrypted with the message and deleted with it. You can remove a preview before sending.

Events and news

If you mark an event as “interested”, we store that mark so you can find the event again. Only you can see it: other members never see who is interested, and we only see how many people are. Marks are deleted 30 days after the event, and are included in your data export. Events are run by other organisations; we never tell them who is interested. News headlines are collected by our server from HIV organisations' public feeds, so those websites don't learn anything about you unless you open an article, and even then we don't tell them you came from Talkpositive.

Health data

Because Talkpositive is exclusively for people living with HIV, your membership implies information about your health. We process this on the basis of your explicit consent, given when you join (UK GDPR Article 9(2)(a)). You can withdraw it at any time by deleting your account.

Our legal bases

Consent, for creating your account and for health-related membership data (you can withdraw at any time); contract, to provide the service you asked for; and legitimate interests, to keep the community safe (moderation, abuse prevention, security). Only in an emergency, vital interests: to protect someone's life (UK GDPR Articles 6(1)(d) and 9(2)(c)), as described under “Who we share it with”.

What other members can see about your activity

• Delivery ticks. When you send a message, it shows one tick once it is sent and two ticks once it has reached the other person's phone. So the person you are talking to can tell when a message reached your phone. This is always on, as in most messaging apps, and says nothing about whether you have read it.
• Read receipts. Off unless you switch them on. When on, the person you are talking to sees blue ticks, and the time, once you have read their messages.
• “Online now and happy to talk”. Only if you switch it on. For the next hour, members who can see you in Discover, and people you already chat with, see that you are online and happy to talk, including a green dot in their Chats. When it is off, nobody can see whether you are online. We do not show when you were last active.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of processors, all bound by contract and located in the EU: Scaleway (Amsterdam) stores profile photos, photos and voice messages sent in chats (encrypted) and our encrypted backups; Brevo sends our transactional emails, which are deliberately discreet and never mention HIV; and Hetzner (Helsinki) runs the servers and database.

If you turn on notifications on a device, a short alert (“New message”, never HIV and never a name) is delivered through the push service your browser or phone uses, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft or Mozilla. These services may be outside the EU. The alert is encrypted so they cannot read it; they only see that a notification was sent to that device. You can turn notifications off at any time in the app.

We do not sell your data and we do not share it for advertising. We may disclose data if legally required.

To keep someone safe. What you share here stays confidential, with two exceptions. If we believe someone's life is in immediate danger, or a child is being harmed or put at risk, we may contact the emergency services or the police. We share only what they need (for example what was said and when), record why, and where it is safe we tell the member what we did. We do not do this for anything else.

Where your data lives, and how long

Your data is stored and processed in the European Union. Account and profile data is kept until you delete your account; messages and posts until you or the author delete them; report evidence is purged after 180 days; and safety records tied to a moderation case after up to 730 days. If you delete your account we remove your personal data promptly, except the minimum we must keep for legal or safety reasons. Messages you sent stay in the other person's chat, shown as from “a deleted member”; any photos and voice messages you sent in chats are deleted. Backup copies are locked so they cannot be altered, and are deleted within 35 days.

Your rights

At any time you can access and export your data, correct it, delete your account and data, object to or restrict certain processing, and withdraw consent, using the tools in the app or by contacting privacy@talkpositive.app. You can also complain to the UK regulator, the ICO (ico.org.uk).

Security

We use encryption in transit (HTTPS), message content, chat photos and voice messages encrypted at rest, and passwords hashed with a strong algorithm. Access to systems is restricted and logged. No system is perfectly secure; we will notify you and the ICO of a qualifying breach as required.

Children

Talkpositive is for adults aged 18 and over only.

Changes

We will post any changes here and, for significant changes, tell you in the app.