Effective date: June 5, 2026

Last updated: October 13, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains, in plain words, what information Hanshek ("Hanshek," "we," "us," or "our") collects when you use hanshek.com, the Hanshek mobile apps, and related services (together, the "Services"), why we collect it, who we share it with, and what choices you have.

This Policy applies worldwide. Some places give you extra rights, and we explain those in Section 12.

On this page

1. Who we are and how to contact us
2. What this policy covers
3. Information we collect
4. How we use information
5. Ads and analytics
6. AI and automated safety checks
7. Who we share information with
8. Cookies and similar technologies
9. Mobile app details
10. How long we keep information
11. Deleting your account
12. Your choices and rights
13. Security
14. Age requirement (18+)
15. International transfers
16. Our legal reasons for using information
17. Links to other websites and services
18. Changes to this policy

1. Who we are and how to contact us

The Services are operated by Ghazanfar Ali ("Hanshek"). Hanshek is the "controller" of your personal information, which is the legal term for the party that decides how it is used.

Privacy contact: [email protected]. You can also use the in-app or on-site support system.

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers personal information we handle through:

• Our website and web app
• Our mobile apps
• Spaces, Space pages, memberships, moderation, and content shared in Spaces
• Accounts, login, profiles, posts, notifications, reporting, and support
• Advertising, analytics, security, and day-to-day running of the platform

3. Information we collect

3.1 Information you give us

• Account information: email address, username, display name, password (stored only in scrambled, "hashed" form), date of birth, and account settings.
• Profile information: your description, profile photo, country, city or region, and other profile preferences.
• Content and activity: posts, comments, likes, reports, Space descriptions and rules, Space memberships, search terms, "Intents," and anything else you submit. Search terms are used to return results. They are not kept as part of the long-term recommendation record described in Section 10.
• Photos: pictures you choose to upload for your profile or posts. The app asks for camera or photo-library access only when you choose to take or pick a photo, and you can refuse. We do not read your other photos.
• Contact details you choose to publish: if you put an email address, phone number, WhatsApp number, or similar detail in a post or profile, other people can see it. Only publish what you are happy to share.
• Support messages: what you send us by email, contact form, or in-app support.

3.2 Information collected automatically

• Device and technical data: IP address, browser, device model, operating system, app version, language, crash and diagnostic data, security logs, and the push-notification token used to deliver notifications to your device.
• Usage and recommendation data: which pages or screens you view, posts shown to you or opened, roughly how long you view a post, and your likes, comments, saves, hides, "Not interested" taps, search-result clicks, and feed activity.
• Approximate location: your country, worked out from your IP address, plus any location preference you choose. We do not ask for your precise GPS location.
• Cookies and similar storage: see Section 8.

3.3 Information from other sources

• Sign-in providers: if you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive basic profile details such as your name and email, based on the permissions you give that provider.
• Service providers: our vendors may tell us about delivery status, security events, and technical performance.

3.4 Comments and discussions

When you write a comment or reply, we store the text, your account, the time it was posted or edited, and the post and conversation it belongs to. We also record related actions such as likes and reports.

Comments and replies can be seen by anyone who can see the post. We use them to run discussions and notifications, stop spam and abuse, enforce our rules, and support moderation. You can edit or delete your own comments. A deleted comment disappears from public view, but a placeholder or internal record may remain when needed to keep a reply thread readable, investigate abuse, keep the service secure, or meet legal duties.

Authorized moderators may review reports. They can hide, remove, or restore comments and can act against accounts that break our Terms.

4. How we use information

• Create, secure, and manage your account
• Send you sign-in codes (OTP) and important account emails. We do not send marketing emails.
• Show you relevant content, rank your feed, and adapt it to your region
• Let you post, comment, search, report, follow Spaces, and receive notifications
• Check that users are 18 or older
• Prevent and investigate fraud, spam, abuse, security problems, and rule-breaking
• Monitor and improve speed, reliability, and safety
• Show and measure ads where ads are enabled (Section 5)
• Answer support requests
• Follow the law and enforce our Terms

5. Ads and analytics

5.1 Website

The website uses Google AdSense to show and measure ads, and Google Analytics and Ahrefs to understand how the site is used. These providers may receive your IP address, browser and device details, cookie identifiers, pages viewed, interactions, and approximate location.

5.2 Android app

The Android app uses Google AdMob (Google Mobile Ads) to show banner ads. Google and its advertising partners may receive your Android advertising ID (AAID), device and app details, IP address, ad views and clicks, crash and diagnostic data, and approximate location. They use this for ad delivery, measurement, limiting how often you see an ad, fraud prevention, and, where you allow it, personalized ads. The app declares the standard Android "advertising ID" permission for this purpose. You can reset or delete your advertising ID, or turn off ad personalization, in your Android settings.

Where the law requires consent (for example in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland), the app shows a Google consent form before ads load. You can change your choice later in the app under Privacy Choices.

5.3 iOS app

The iOS app does not currently show ads, does not include Google AdMob, does not ask for Apple's App Tracking Transparency permission, does not use Apple's Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), and does not track you across apps or websites owned by other companies. If we add ads to the iOS app in the future, we will update this policy first and ask for any permission Apple requires before doing so.

5.4 App usage analytics

The mobile apps can use Google Analytics for Firebase to learn how the app is used and to improve it. This may include app opens, usage timing, device and app details, country, whether you are a guest or signed-in user, and selected feature events. We do not send your password, the full text of your posts or comments, or payment card details as analytics events.

Analytics is off until you allow it. You can turn it on or off at any time in the app under App Settings > Privacy & Notifications.

6. AI and automated safety checks

6.1 How we use AI to run the service

When you publish a post, its title, its body, and any short feed-preference text you add may be processed by automated or AI systems. This is used to sort the post into categories, spot attributes relevant to our rules, create "embeddings" (a numeric summary used for search and feed matching), and help with moderation. Search text is processed on our own servers to return results. It is not sent to outside AI providers. We do not send AI providers your password, payment details, or sign-in credentials.

6.2 Sending posts to our AI provider requires your agreement

We send your post to an outside AI provider only after you explicitly agree. Hanshek asks for your agreement before you publish or edit a post.

• If you agree: we send the post title and body to OpenRouter for automated review, classification, and embeddings used for search and feed relevance. Any short feed-preference text you add is also sent, to create embeddings for feed matching. Relevant Space context may also be sent for review and classification.
• If you do not agree: we do not send your post title, body, feed-preference text, or Space context to OpenRouter or its providers. You can still use your account, but you cannot publish or edit posts until you agree.
• If you withdraw your agreement in Settings: we stop sending future posts. We cannot undo requests that were already processed.

OpenRouter passes requests to approved providers: DeepInfra or DigitalOcean for review and classification, and DeepInfra or Nebius Token Factory for embeddings, depending on availability. We ask for endpoints with zero data retention and exclude providers that collect submitted content to train their models. If no approved endpoint is available, the request fails instead of going to another provider.

6.3 Personalizing your feed

To personalize your feed, we use signals such as the first-page results of a keyword search, posts you open from search or the feed, how long you view posts, likes, comments, saves, hides, "Not interested" taps, reports, your location preferences, and your onboarding choices. When you are signed in, these signals are linked to your account and combined with summaries of post content and interest information we derive from them (such as topic affinity, intent preferences, location affinity, and confidence scores). We use them to rank and diversify what you see. They are not used to make decisions that have legal or similarly serious effects on you.

6.4 Automated safety checks

We check submitted profile photos, post images, post titles and bodies, comments, and replies for possible rule violations. The automated safety models for this run on our own servers. Images waiting for review stay private, and staff may review flagged items before deciding whether to publish or remove them. Private images waiting for a decision are not shown to other users.

If an image is flagged as a suspected violation, we may keep the private image, related text, and review record for up to 90 days after you withdraw or delete the submission, so we can review repeated attempts and prevent abuse. Ordinary unflagged images that you withdraw are removed sooner. Material under a documented child-safety or legal hold may be kept longer, until authorized staff release the hold.

7. Who we share information with

We do not sell your personal information for money. We share information in these cases:

Some privacy laws describe certain advertising and analytics arrangements as "sharing" or "targeted advertising." Our ad and analytics partners above may fall under those terms. See Section 12 for your choices.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar storage (such as local storage) for:

• Essential functions: signing in, security, sessions, and core features.
• Analytics: understanding use and improving performance.
• Preferences: remembering your settings.
• Advertising (website): showing, measuring, and protecting ads.

Google and other partners use cookies or device identifiers to show ads based on your earlier visits to Hanshek or other sites and apps. You can opt out of personalized ads at Google Ads Settings, and through your browser or device controls.

For visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, we ask for consent before using cookies or local storage that are not essential, and before using personal data for personalized ads. We may use a Google-certified consent tool or Google's User Messaging Platform for this. You can withdraw or change consent at any time.

9. Mobile app details

You can change app privacy and notification choices in the app under App Settings > Privacy & Notifications. Notification permission itself is controlled by your device's operating system.

9.1 App version check

To count which app versions are in use and decide when an update is required, the app sends a randomly generated installation ID, the app version, and the platform to Hanshek over an encrypted connection. We store only a cryptographic hash of that ID and keep it for no more than 90 days. It is not your device's IMEI, serial number, advertising ID, or account ID.

9.2 App store privacy labels

The privacy information we give Apple (App Privacy) and Google (Data safety) is meant to match this policy and to include data collected by the tools built into each app version, such as sign-in, analytics, push notification, and (on Android) advertising tools. We update those disclosures whenever the app's features or tools change.

10. How long we keep information

• Account data: kept while your account is active, and deleted when you delete your account (Section 11). We do not keep backup copies.
• Posts and comments: public content stays visible until you or we remove it. You can delete your own posts and comments at any time. If Hanshek or a Space admin has already removed a post, it is no longer public, but we may keep a private copy and review record for up to 90 days, as described in Section 6.4.
• Server logs: kept in small files that are overwritten automatically on a rolling basis. We do not keep old logs.
• Support messages: kept so we can answer and follow up. You can ask us to delete them at any time.
• Personalization signals: account-linked activity records used for your feed (search-result signals, opens, viewing time, likes, comments, saves, and feedback) are generally kept for about 90 days where practical. Interest profiles and vectors derived from them may stay until refreshed, deleted, or de-identified, subject to account deletion, security, legal, and backup needs.
• Ads and analytics data: kept by us and our partners according to their retention practices, our settings, your consent choices, and the law.
• App version check data: no more than 90 days (Section 9.1).
• Flagged images: see Section 6.4.

11. Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself in the app (Account settings) or on the website at hanshek.com/delete-account. You can also email [email protected].

When your account is deleted, we delete the personal information and content tied to it, including your posts, comments, and replies. We do not keep backup copies. The only exception is material flagged by our safety checks, which we may keep for up to 90 days (Section 6.4), or longer only under a documented child-safety or legal hold.

12. Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• See the personal information we hold about you
• Correct information that is wrong or incomplete
• Delete your information (with some legal exceptions)
• Object to or limit certain uses
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent
• Receive a copy of your data in a portable form
• Opt out of sale, "sharing," targeted advertising, or certain profiling where the law provides
• Complain to your local data protection authority

12.1 How to make a request

Email [email protected] or use our in-app or on-site contact system. We reply as fast as possible, and within 30 days at most. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request.

We will not treat you differently, limit your account, or offer you a worse service because you used any of these rights.

12.2 Controls you can use yourself

• App Settings > Privacy & Notifications: turn app analytics on or off, change advertising privacy choices where they apply, and manage notifications.
• Settings: agree to, decline, or withdraw AI processing of your posts.
• Your device or browser: reset your advertising ID, limit ad personalization, block cookies, or turn off notifications.
• Google Ads Settings: turn off personalized Google ads.

12.3 California and other U.S. states

Hanshek does not sell personal information for money. Our website and Android app use advertising and analytics partners, which some state laws treat as "sharing" or "targeted advertising." You can use the controls above to opt out.

12.4 EEA and UK users

If you are in the EEA or UK, you have rights under the GDPR or UK GDPR, including the right to complain to your local supervisory authority.

13. Security

We use access controls, secure password hashing, encryption in transit, and other safeguards to protect your information. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

14. Age requirement (18+)

Hanshek is only for people who are at least 18, or the age of legal adulthood where they live if that is higher. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to create an account. If we learn that someone under 18 has given us personal information, we will delete it and close the account. Hanshek is not designed for Google Play Families or child-directed advertising.

15. International transfers

Hanshek is available worldwide, so your information may be stored and processed in countries other than your own. Where the law requires, we use appropriate safeguards for these transfers.

16. Our legal reasons for using information

Where the law requires a legal basis, we rely on one or more of these:

• Contract: to provide the Services you asked for.
• Legitimate interests: to run, secure, improve, personalize, and protect the Services, including non-personalized ads, analytics, and fraud prevention.
• Consent: for optional analytics, personalized ads, non-essential cookies and local storage, sending your posts to our AI provider, and other uses that need your consent.
• Legal obligation: to follow the law and respond to lawful requests.

17. Links to other websites and services

The Services may link to third-party websites, ads, apps, or services. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, so please read their policies before sharing information with them.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our practices, tools, partners, or the law change. We will post the new version here and update the "Last updated" date. Where the law requires, we will also notify you or ask for your consent.

Back to top