Privacy policy

• Your exact location is never stored and never shown to anyone.
• Your licence or certificate is seen only by our review team, and the photos are deleted 30 days after a decision.
• Nobody at Rivaa reads your messages unless a conversation is reported to us.
• We do not sell your data, and there is no advertising in Rivaa.
• You can ask for a copy of your data, or for your account to be deleted, at any time.

Rivaa is a dating app for licensed professionals and Class 12 graduates in Nepal. This policy explains what we collect, why, how long we keep it and what you can do about it. It is written to follow Nepal’s Privacy Act, 2075 (2018). Questions and requests: newrivaadating@gmail.com.

Your account. Your email address, a securely hashed password (we never store the password itself) and your date of birth, to sign you in, to confirm you are 18 or over, and to email you about your account. We record which version of these documents you agreed to, and when.

Your profile. Your name, gender (and your own words for it, if you add them), pronouns, bio, job, education, height, interests and photos. Other members see these once a person on our team has approved them. Your profile text is reviewed before anyone sees it, and every change to it.

Your licence or certificate. A photo of your council licence or Class 12 certificate, a selfie, and your registration number, so a person can confirm you are who you say you are. Only our review team sees them; every time a reviewer opens them, it is logged. The registration number is stored encrypted. We also keep a one-way fingerprint of it, so that one licence can only belong to one account. If you choose, the profession on an approved licence (“Doctor”, “Engineer”) appears on your profile; it is off unless you turn it on.

Your location. When you share it, your position is rounded to about 1 kilometre before it is saved, and the exact point is thrown away. Other members only ever see a rough distance, such as “about 3 km away”, never a place.

Who you want to meet, and what you do in Discover. Your preferences (who you want to see, ages, distance), your likes and passes, and your matches, so we can show you people and tell you when you match.

Your messages. Stored so they can be delivered to the person you are talking to. Our staff cannot browse them. If a conversation is reported, our moderators can see the reported part of it to decide what to do.

Safety records. Reports you make or receive, people you block, and any warnings, suspensions or bans, so we can keep the community safe.

Your devices. For each signed-in device, the browser or app it is and the network address it last used, so you can see where you are signed in and sign out of anything you do not recognise.

Information that can reveal your sexual orientation. The gender you are and the genders you want to meet can reveal your sexual orientation, which the law treats as sensitive. We use it only to match you, and only with the explicit consent you give when you sign up.

Analytics. Only if you allow it when you sign up, and never including messages, your bio, your photos, your location or your contact details. We do not run analytics today; if we start, it will be only for members who said yes.

We do not sell, rent or share your data with advertisers. These companies process it for us, under contract, only to run Rivaa:

• Amazon Web Services hosts Rivaa and stores your data, sends our emails (Amazon SES), and checks uploaded photos for explicit content and for a face (Amazon Rekognition). While Rivaa is being tested, the servers are in Sydney, Australia, which means your data is stored outside Nepal. We will update this policy if that changes.

We will disclose information to authorities only when Nepali law requires it, or when it is needed to protect someone from serious harm.

• Licence and certificate photos and the selfie: deleted 30 days after a decision, so you can ask us to look again. A rejected registration number is deleted with them. An approved one is kept, encrypted, so we can re-check the licence later.
• Photos you upload are checked first; the unchecked originals are deleted within a day.
• Everything else is kept while your account exists.
• When you delete your account, you have 14 days to change your mind. After that, your profile, photos, location, preferences and documents are erased, your matches end, and the text of your messages is removed. We keep two things: safety records (with your personal details removed), so that a reported harm can still be acted on; and a one-way fingerprint of your email address, so that someone who was banned cannot simply sign up again.

All traffic to Rivaa is encrypted. Your data is encrypted where it is stored. Staff access is limited to what each role needs, requires a second factor, and is logged: viewing your licence, opening your account and every moderation decision leave a record of who did it. Our servers have no way to show anyone your exact location, because we do not keep it.

Write to newrivaadating@gmail.com from the email address on your account for any of these, and we will act within 30 days. Doing them yourself in the app is coming; until then, email works for all of them.

• Get a copy of your data — we send you an archive of it.
• Correct it by editing your profile, or by asking us.
• Delete your account. The 14 days to change your mind start from your request.
• Hide yourself by deactivating your account, or with your privacy settings.
• Withdraw a consent at any time. Withdrawing consent to the processing needed for matching means we can no longer match you, so it also means closing your account.
• Complain. Tell us first at newrivaadating@gmail.com and we will reply within 30 days. You may also complain to the authorities in Nepal.

Rivaa is only for people aged 18 or over. If we learn an account belongs to someone younger, we close it.

When this policy changes in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect, and ask you to agree again where the law requires it. The version and date are at the top of this page.