Herdle Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 17 October 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Herdle Limited collects, uses, shares and protects your personal information when you use the Herdle app and website, join our waitlist or receive our emails. We follow the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

Capitalised terms, such as Platform and Visible Profile, have the meanings given in our Terms and Conditions.

1. Who We Are

Herdle Limited (“Herdle”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is responsible for your personal information.

Herdle Limited, Auckland, New Zealand
Privacy Officer: hello@herdle.io

2. Information We Collect

Information you give us:
  • Account details: your first and last name, email address, date of birth and gender. If you sign up with an email address, your password is encrypted and stored by our authentication provider, and we can’t see it.
  • Profile details: your photos, bio, interests and location (suburb or town/city).
  • Plans you create, including the plan’s location and any age or gender settings.
  • Your plan applications, the plans you join, and messages you post in plan chats.
  • Reports and blocks you make, and any messages you send us.
  • If you join our waitlist, your first name and email address.

You need to give us your name, email address, date of birth and gender to create an account. Without these, we can’t create your account.

Information collected automatically:
  • Device information, such as your device type, operating system and the identifiers needed to send you push notifications.
  • Location for finding plans: if you allow it, the App uses your device’s location, or a location you choose, to show plans within the distance you set. We use it to run your search and don’t store your precise location.
  • Technical logs, such as IP addresses and the time of requests, kept by our hosting providers for security and troubleshooting.
  • When you visit our website: your IP address, browser type, the pages you visit and how you arrived. If you join our waitlist, we also record your IP address, browser and the page that referred you.
Information from others:
  • If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your name and email address from them. If you choose Apple’s “Hide My Email”, we receive a private relay address instead.
  • If another user reports you, we receive the details of their report.
  • If you join our waitlist, we use an IP lookup service to estimate your general location.

3. Cookies and Website Tracking

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies, including:

  • Google Analytics, which helps us understand how people find and use our website. You can opt out using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
  • Meta Pixel, which lets Meta (Facebook and Instagram) measure our ads and show Herdle ads to people who have visited our website. Meta may combine this with information it already holds about you. You can manage this in your Meta Accounts Centre, under “Your activity off Meta technologies” and “Ad preferences”.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

  • Create and run your account, and operate and improve the Platform
  • Show you plans near you, based on your location and the distance you set
  • Apply hosts’ age and gender settings, so plans are only shown to people who fit
  • Show your Visible Profile to other users, as described in section 5
  • Send push notifications about your activity, such as applications, acceptances and new chat messages, and messages from us, such as warnings about breaches of our Terms
  • Send account emails, such as sign-up confirmation and password resets
  • Send you emails about plans and Herdle news, which may be based on your age, gender, location and interests. You can unsubscribe at any time.
  • Keep Herdle safe, including reviewing reports, investigating breaches of our Terms and CSAE Policy, and preventing misuse
  • Respond to your questions and requests
  • Assess demand for Herdle in different regions, including deciding where to launch next
  • Meet our legal obligations

Authorised Herdle staff can view and export user information, plans and chats where needed for moderation, safety and support.

5. Who Can See or Receive Your Information

Other users:

Other users can see your Visible Profile, which includes your first name, age, gender, photos, bio, interests and town or city. They never see your last name, email address, date of birth or suburb. Your Visible Profile is shown:

  • If you host a plan, to anyone who can see that plan.
  • If you apply to join a plan, to the host of that plan.
  • If you are accepted into a plan, to the host and other accepted participants.

For plans you host, other users see the suburb and town or city before they’re accepted. The full address is shown to accepted participants, or to anyone who can see the plan if you choose to make it public.

Service providers:

We use trusted providers to run Herdle, including for cloud hosting, database and file storage, authentication and sign-in, push notifications, email delivery, address suggestions and maps, stock images, and website hosting, fonts, security and analytics. They process information on our behalf, only to provide their services to us.

Our email provider receives your name, email address, date of birth, gender and location, and may also receive your interests, so we can send you relevant emails.

Authorities:

We may share information with New Zealand Police, the Department of Internal Affairs, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) or other authorities where the law requires or allows it, including to report child sexual abuse and exploitation, to prevent a serious threat to someone’s safety, or to respond to a legal request.

Business changes:

If Herdle is sold, merged or restructured, your information may be transferred to the new owner, who must continue to protect it in line with this Privacy Policy.

We do not sell your personal information.

6. Where Your Information Is Stored

Our main database is hosted in Sydney, Australia. Some of our providers, including Google, process information in the United States and other countries. When your information is held by providers outside New Zealand, we take reasonable steps to make sure it is protected in a way comparable to New Zealand law.

7. Keeping Your Information Secure

We take reasonable steps to protect your information, including:

  • Encrypting information as it travels between your device and our servers
  • Encrypting passwords, which are managed by our authentication provider
  • Limiting access to your information to authorised Herdle staff

No system is completely secure. If a privacy breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner as required by law.

8. How Long We Keep Your Information

  • Your account: we keep your information while your account is active.
  • Deleting your account in the App: your profile, plans and plan history are removed straight away. Messages you posted in plan chats stay in the chat, with your name removed.
  • Deletion requests by email: processed within 30 days.
  • Backups: deleted information may remain in encrypted backups for up to 90 days before being permanently removed.
  • Incomplete sign-ups: if you start signing up but don’t finish, your details are deleted after 30 days.
  • Open reports: if your account is the subject of a report we haven’t reviewed yet, we may keep your information until we’ve reviewed it, even if you delete your account.
  • Reports: after an account is deleted, we may keep reports about it, with the person’s name and email address, for up to 12 months to help prevent repeat misuse.
  • Suspended accounts: we keep information about suspended accounts while it is needed for an investigation or a report to authorities, and review this at least once a year.
  • Waitlist: we keep your details until you ask us to delete them. Unsubscribing stops our emails. To have your details removed, email us.
  • Legal requirements: we may keep some information for longer where the law requires it.

9. Your Rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020, you can:

  • Ask to see the personal information we hold about you
  • Ask us to correct information that is wrong
  • Unsubscribe from our emails at any time, using the link in any email
  • Delete your account in the App, or ask us to delete it by email, subject to section 8
  • Make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz

To make a request, email hello@herdle.io. We’ll respond within 20 working days and may need to confirm your identity first.

If you live outside New Zealand, you may have additional rights under the laws where you live. Contact us and we’ll help.

10. Age Restriction

Herdle is for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we believe an account belongs to someone under 18, we will remove it.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we’ll let you know in the App or by email before they take effect, and update the Effective Date above.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your information, contact our Privacy Officer:

Herdle Limited, Auckland, New Zealand
Email: hello@herdle.io

You can also contact the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz.