Privacy Policy

Who is responsible

The controller of your personal data is Nevolut S.A.R.L.U. (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo), together with its European Union branch Nevolut S.R.L. (Bucharest, Romania) — "Nevolut", "we", "us". For people in the EU, EEA and UK, Nevolut S.R.L. acts as our establishment in the Union and your point of contact for data-protection matters. Reach our privacy team at privacy@tubaar.com.

This Policy covers the Tubaar apps, the tubaar.com website, and related services (the "Service"). Tubaar shares its account system with Ontryst, a separate service run by the same company: one account, one set of credentials. Data that is part of the shared account (identity, phone number, date of birth, security records) is used by both services under each service's policy; activity data stays with the service where it happened unless you choose to publish to both.

The short version

Guests aren't tracked. You can watch without an account; we don't build a profile of what an anonymous visitor watches.
We collect what you give us (account, profile, videos, Echoes, messages), what your use generates (watch history, interactions, device and approximate location), and limited data from others (people who tag or report you, sign-in providers you choose).
We use it to run Tubaar, to recommend videos, creators and Scenes, to keep people safe, to protect teens, and to improve the product.
Public content is public — including to guests and, where you allow it, to Echoes made by others.
Your precise location is never shown to anyone. Videos show at most a city or area, and only if you choose to.
We share data with service providers under contract, and with authorities when the law requires it. We don't sell it.
You can access, download, correct and delete your data; deletion completes 30 days after you request it.

Data we collect

(a) Data you give us

Account: phone number (and/or email address), country code, date of birth, the one-time codes we send you, and — if you choose them — identifiers from Google, Apple or Instagram sign-in.
Profile: name, handle, avatar, bio, city or country, languages, links, and any verification details you submit.
Content you create: videos, Echoes, Stories, live broadcasts, sounds, captions, hashtags, comments, Scene posts, and the metadata attached to them (duration, the Scene, the sound used, whether location sharing is on, who may Echo).
Messages: direct messages, Scene group-chat messages, shared videos and attachments, and message requests.
Drafts stay on your device until you publish them.
Scenes you create or moderate, including their settings and moderation actions.
Support and reports: what you send us when you contact support, report content, or appeal a decision.
Purchases (if offered): confirmation and status from the Apple App Store, Google Play or our payment processor. We never receive your full card number.

(b) Data generated when you use Tubaar

Watch and interaction data: videos you view and for how long, what you skip, love, Echo, save, share, comment on, report or mark "not interested"; creators and Scenes you follow or join; searches.
Device and app data: device model and OS, app version, language, time zone, IP address, crash and performance data, push-notification token, and a device identifier used to count guests and prevent abuse.
Location: approximate location from your IP address; and, if you grant permission, your device's location while you use the app, for the Nearby feed and for the city-level label you can choose to put on a video. We store location at city/area granularity for feeds and do not keep a history of your precise movements.
Camera and microphone are used only while you record in Create or go live, and only with your permission.
Contacts are never uploaded unless you explicitly choose "find friends", in which case we hash phone numbers to match them to members and don't keep the list.

(c) Data from others

Other members may mention you, Echo you, message you, report you, or include you in a video. Reports are kept with the reporter's identity hidden from you.
Sign-in providers share basic identifiers when you use them. Payment providers share transaction status.
Safety partners and law-enforcement requests may result in information being added to an account record.

(d) Guests

If you use Tubaar without an account we process your IP address, device data and a device identifier to serve content, count views, apply rate limits and prevent abuse. We don't link guest viewing to a person or use it to personalise recommendations once you sign up.

(e) Special-category data

Tubaar does not ask for sensitive data such as ethnicity, religion, health or sexual orientation. Your content may reveal such things about you by your choice. The profile shared with Ontryst may hold optional attributes entered there; Tubaar neither displays nor recommends on them.

How we use data, and on what basis

To provide the Service — create your account, show Pulse, deliver Echoes, Scenes, Stories, messages and live, process uploads, keep drafts in sync. Basis: performance of our contract with you.
To personalise Pulse — rank For You, Nearby and Following, suggest creators, Scenes and sounds, based on your interactions, follows, language and approximate location. Basis: contract (personalised feeds are the Service) and legitimate interests; you can reset and tune recommendations at any time.
To keep Tubaar safe — detect and act on violations of the Guidelines, scan uploads and messages for prohibited content including child sexual abuse material, prevent spam, fraud and fake engagement, enforce bans, verify age and apply teen protections. Basis: legitimate interests; legal obligations; substantial public interest for child-safety processing.
To communicate — service messages, security notices, moderation decisions and appeals, and (if you allow it) push notifications about Echoes, comments, followers and Scenes. Basis: contract; consent for non-essential notifications.
To measure and improve — analytics about how features are used, crash reporting, A/B tests of new features, training and evaluating our recommendation and safety models on aggregated or pseudonymised data. Basis: legitimate interests.
To handle payments and creator earnings (if offered), including tax and anti-fraud checks. Basis: contract; legal obligation.
To comply with the law — respond to valid legal requests, keep required records, report child sexual abuse material to the competent authorities. Basis: legal obligation.

We don't use your private messages to personalise recommendations, and we don't use your content to train third-party AI models.

Recommendations and automated processing

Pulse is ordered by automated systems. For You uses signals such as what you watch to the end, love, Echo, share, save, skip or hide; who you follow; Scenes you're in; the sounds you use; your language settings; and your approximate location. Nearby uses your city or chosen radius. Following is chronological and not personalised. Content that breaks the Guidelines, or that's labelled sensitive, is excluded or down-ranked; for members under 18 we also exclude content we classify as mature.

You can see why a video was shown ("Why am I seeing this?"), mark content as not interested, hide a creator or a Scene, set content languages, and reset your recommendations entirely, all from the app.

We also use automated tools alongside human reviewers to detect violations. Automated decisions that significantly affect you — a permanent ban, or a decision with legal effect — are reviewed by a person, and you can always appeal and express your point of view. Some checks run on AI models hosted by our providers (see Section 7); content is sent to obtain a result and is not used to train their models.

Who can see your content

Public accounts: profile, videos, Echoes, sounds, comments and the Scenes you join are visible to anyone, including guests and search engines for content we choose to make indexable.
Followers-only accounts: videos are visible to approved followers; your profile summary remains visible so people can request to follow.
Per-video audience: each video can be public, followers-only or Scene-only, independently of the account default.
Echoes: if you allow Echoes, your video (or part of it) appears inside other members' Echoes, with credit and a link back, to whoever can see those Echoes.
Location: only the city or area you chose to attach to a specific video, never a precise location or a distance to you.
Stories: followers (or the Scene or close-friends list you choose) for 24 hours; viewers can see that you viewed their story.
Live: visible to anyone allowed to see your account while you're live; your viewer count and comments are visible to other viewers.
Messages: participants only. Scene moderators can see Scene chat. We review a message only if it's reported or flagged by automated safety scanning.
Activity: members can see that you followed them, loved or Echoed their video, and your public follower/following lists unless you hide them.

Anything public can be screenshotted, recorded, re-shared or quoted by others on or off Tubaar. Think before you post.

(a) Service providers, under contract, only for the purposes above:

Hosting, storage, video processing and delivery — Amazon Web Services (data centres in Ireland and the United Kingdom).
Live and real-time media — LiveKit, self-hosted on our own infrastructure.
Push notifications — Google Firebase Cloud Messaging, Apple Push Notification service, Expo Application Services.
SMS, email and WhatsApp delivery of codes and notices — Amazon SNS, our own mail infrastructure, and Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform.
Support channels — Meta Platforms (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger) where you choose to contact us there.
Sign-in providers — Google, Apple, Instagram, where you use them.
Safety and support AI — OpenAI, for automated review of uploaded video frames, audio transcripts and text, and for assisted support replies. Content is processed to return a result and is not used to train their models. Some moderation runs on models we host ourselves.
Crash and error monitoring — Sentry (EU-hosted).
Geolocation — ipapi.co (IP → approximate country/city), OpenStreetMap Nominatim (coordinates → place name).
Operational alerting — Slack, for internal system alerts that may include limited identifiers.
Payments (if offered) — Apple App Store, Google Play, Stripe, FlexPay.

The current list is available on request at privacy@tubaar.com.

(b) Other members and the public — as described in Section 6.

(c) Legal, safety and rights protection — we may disclose data when we believe in good faith it's necessary to comply with the law or a valid legal request (see the Law Enforcement Guidelines), to enforce our Terms, to investigate fraud or security issues, to protect the rights, property or safety of anyone, or to report child sexual abuse material to the U.S. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and competent national authorities.

(d) Ontryst — shared account data as described in Section 1.

(e) Business transfers — if Nevolut is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganisation or sale of assets, data may be transferred subject to this Policy.

We do not sell personal data and do not share it with advertisers or data brokers for cross-context behavioural advertising.

International transfers

We operate from the DRC and the EU, and providers operate elsewhere, so your data may be processed outside your country. Where personal data of people in the EU, EEA or UK is transferred to a country without an adequacy decision, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK Addendum) with supplementary measures where needed. Copies are available on request.

How long we keep data

Account and profile: while your account exists, then deleted or anonymised within 30 days of the end of the deletion grace period.
Videos, Echoes, comments: until you delete them or your account. Echoes others made of your video persist as their content, marked "original removed".
Stories: 24 hours publicly; in your private archive until you delete them or turn archiving off.
Live recordings: up to 30 days for safety review unless you save a replay.
Messages: until deleted by a participant or the account is deleted; a copy may remain in the other participant's inbox.
Watch history and interaction signals: up to 12 months, then aggregated.
Approximate location: current city/area only; not stored as a history.
One-time codes: minutes. Sessions: until sign-out or expiry.
Crash logs and security logs: up to 90 days.
Moderation records, strikes and ban records: for as long as needed to enforce the decision and to prevent ban evasion, including limited identifiers after deletion for accounts removed for serious violations or child-safety reasons.
Payment records (if any): as required by tax and accounting law, typically up to 10 years.
Legal holds: where required to establish, exercise or defend legal claims or to comply with a preservation request.

Security

We encrypt data in transit, sign and time-limit access to private media, protect sessions with device-bound keys, limit staff access to what their role requires, log and review access to sensitive systems, and test our defences. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you we'll notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live you may have the right to: access your data and get a copy; correct it; delete it; restrict or object to processing, including to processing based on legitimate interests and to direct marketing; data portability; and to withdraw consent where processing relies on it. You can also lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority — for the EU, the Romanian authority (ANSPDCP) supervises our EU establishment.

Most of this is available in the app: Settings → Account (download your data, pause, delete), Settings → Visibility (account privacy, per-video defaults, location sharing, who can message and Echo you), Settings → Content (reset recommendations, content languages, data saver), Settings → Notifications. Anything else: privacy@tubaar.com. We respond within one month, and we may ask you to verify your identity first.

Teens and children

Tubaar is for people aged 13 and over (or the higher age your country sets for consenting to online services). We don't knowingly collect data from children under 13; if we learn a child has an account, we remove it and delete the data. Parents and guardians who believe a child under 13 is on Tubaar can write to child-safety@tubaar.com.

Members aged 13–17 get a protected experience by default: no personalised advertising ever; accounts are not recommended to adults they don't follow; direct messages from adults they don't follow are blocked; mature content is filtered from their feeds; location sharing on videos is off by default; live broadcasting is unavailable; and data about them is processed only for the purposes strictly needed to provide and protect the Service. Details are in the Child Safety Standards.

Cookies and similar technologies

The tubaar.com website uses only strictly necessary cookies and local storage: to keep your language choice, to remember that you dismissed the "open the app" prompt, and a first-party visitor identifier used to count visits to our own pages. We don't use advertising or third-party analytics cookies on the website. The apps use device storage for your session, drafts and preferences.

Changes to this Policy

We'll update this Policy as Tubaar evolves. For material changes we'll notify you in the app or by email before they take effect and update the date at the top. Earlier versions are available on request.

Contact

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@tubaar.com. Child safety: child-safety@tubaar.com. Post: Nevolut S.R.L., Bucharest, Romania (EU establishment) · Nevolut S.A.R.L.U., Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Legal. Readable.