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Data Retention Policy

Effective Date: October 22, 2025

Oathian, United Kingdom

Young users: If you're under 16 or anything here is confusing, grab a parent, guardian, or trusted adult to help you understand this policy before using Oathian.

1. Data Control Philosophy

Your information belongs to you. At Oathian, we're committed to collecting only what's essential for the app to function, while ensuring you maintain complete control—including the ability to view, export, or erase everything whenever you choose.

This document outlines our data collection practices, retention periods, and the tools you have to manage your information directly from your device.

Quick summary:

  • Data collection limited to what's genuinely needed
  • Full data export available instantly through app settings
  • Account deletion is permanent and takes just moments
  • Full compliance with UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018

2. What Data We Collect and Why

Here's everything we collect about you and why we need it:

What We Collect Why We Need It
Email & Password To let you sign in and recover your account. Your password is encrypted—we never see it in plain text.
Profile Info
(name, handle, photo, bio)
To create your public profile that others can see when you make oaths or interact with friends.
Your Oaths & Fulfilments
(text, photos, timestamps)
This is the core of Oathian—your commitments and proof of completion. Without this, the app wouldn't work.
Comments Your thoughts on oaths and fulfilments, visible to you and others.
Social Activity
(follows, encouragements, awards)
To connect you with friends and show support for their achievements.
Privacy Settings
(blocks, mutes, feed visibility)
To respect your privacy choices and control who sees your content.
Audit Records
(anonymized)
Legal compliance—to prove we honor data requests. These are anonymized when you delete your account.

What we DON'T collect:

3. How Long We Keep Your Data

3.1 Active Accounts

While your account remains active, we retain all associated data to ensure full app functionality. Individual content (oaths, fulfilments, comments) can be removed at any time using the delete option in the app.

3.2 Account Deletion

Choosing permanent account deletion triggers the following data handling process:

✓ Permanently Deleted (Gone Forever):

  • Your email and login credentials
  • Your profile (name, handle, bio, photo)
  • All your oaths and fulfilment photos
  • Your notifications
  • Your follows, blocks, and mutes
  • Your encouragements and awards
  • Your privacy settings

Comment Handling:

Comments undergo anonymization rather than deletion to preserve conversation continuity. The text becomes "[deleted]" and all identifying information—your name, username, and internal ID—is permanently removed, making it impossible to trace these comments to you.

Regulatory Compliance Records:

We maintain anonymized logs showing when deletion requests occurred. This creates an auditable trail demonstrating compliance with data protection regulations. These records contain no personally identifiable information. Your user ID is stripped out, preventing any connection to your identity.

Warning: Deletion is irreversible and final. Once completed, your account and data cannot be recovered or restored.

4. Controls You Have

You're in charge. Here's what you can do with your data:

4.1 Download Your Data

You can download everything we have about you as a file (in JSON format). This includes your profile, oaths, fulfilments, comments, follows.

How: Oathian app → Settings → Account → Data & Privacy → Download My Data

4.2 Delete Your Account

You can permanently delete your account and all your data anytime. See Section 3.2 above for what gets deleted and what gets anonymized. This is permanent—there's no undo button.

How: Oathian app → Settings → Account → Data & Privacy → Delete Account

4.3 Edit Your Content

You can edit or delete individual oaths, fulfilments, and comments whenever you want. Just tap the edit or delete button on any of your content in the app.

4.4 Control Your Privacy

You have full control over your privacy settings:

How: Oathian app → Settings → Privacy

4.5 Your Legal Rights (UK GDPR)

Under UK law, you have these rights:

If you can't do something through the app, email us at privacy@oathian.com and we'll help within 30 days.

5. How Account Deletion Works

When you tap "Delete Account," here's what happens behind the scenes:

  1. We log your deletion request (anonymized after completion)
  2. All your personal data gets permanently deleted from our servers
  3. Your comments get anonymized to "[deleted]" so conversations stay intact
  4. Your login credentials are erased—you can't sign in anymore
  5. The audit record of your request gets anonymized (your ID is removed)
  6. You're automatically signed out of the app

This happens in seconds and can't be reversed.

6. Special Data Retention for Safety & Legal Compliance

6.1 Illegal Content Reports & Moderation Records

Under the UK Online Safety Act, we retain certain records for safety and compliance purposes:

Important: If you delete your account, these records are anonymized—your personal information is removed, but the anonymized record of the incident is preserved for legal compliance.

6.2 Law Enforcement Preservation Requests

If UK law enforcement requests data preservation (for example, during an active investigation), we may be legally required to retain data longer than our standard retention periods. We will:

We cannot notify you if your data is subject to a preservation request due to legal restrictions.

7. How We Protect Your Data

Security matters. Here's what we do to keep your data safe:

8. Age Requirements

Oathian is available only to users 16 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect or retain data from individuals under 16.

Upon discovering any user under the age of 16, we will immediately terminate their account and delete all associated data.

9. Changes to This Policy

We might update this policy occasionally to reflect new features or legal requirements. When we make big changes, we'll let you know through the app.

The "Effective Date" at the top shows when this policy was last updated.

10. Questions?

If you have questions about this policy, how we handle your data, or need help exercising your rights:

We'll respond within 30 days (as required by UK GDPR).

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