Privacy Policy

Last updated 2 September 2026

This policy explains what personal information Fancia collects, why we collect it, who we share it with and what control you have over it. We have tried to write it in plain English rather than legal shorthand.

1.Who we are

Fancia is a service for finding events, joining interest groups and meeting people. It is operated by Fancify Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under number 17234196, whose registered office is at Flat 20 Russell Court, Strasburg Road, London, England, SW11 5HZ, trading as Fancia. In this policy "we", "us" and "Fancia" mean that company.

We are the data controller for the personal information described here, which means we are responsible for how it is used, and we are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number 00015213415. If you have any question about your information, email support@fancia.co.uk and a person will read it.

This policy covers the Fancia website at https://fancia.co.uk and the Fancia apps for Android and iOS.

2.The short version

  • You need to give us an email address and a password to have an account. Everything else on your profile is your choice.
  • Fancia is for adults only. You must be at least 18.
  • Your profile, posts and comments are visible to other members. Your email address, date of birth and password never are.
  • We do not sell your personal information, and we do not run advertising or tracking cookies.
  • Your private messages are handled by Stream Chat, a specialist messaging provider, on our behalf.
  • You can delete your account yourself at any time, from the website or either app, without asking us.

3.The information we collect

We collect the following categories of personal information. Where something is optional, leaving it blank does not stop you using Fancia, although some features work better with it.

CategoryWhat this includesRequired?
Account detailsYour email address and a password, which we store only as an irreversible hash. If you sign in with Google instead, we receive your email address, your name and a Google account identifier.Required
Profile detailsYour first and last name, profile photo, short bio, date of birth, gender, the town or area you put as your location, your interests and tags, and any links you add to your profile.Optional, apart from a name
AgeYour date of birth, which we use to check you are over 18 and to show your age to other members if you allow it.Required to use age-restricted features
Content you createPosts, comments, photos and videos you upload, likes you give, and the text of any event booking notes you write.Optional
MessagesThe private messages you send and receive. These are stored and delivered by Stream Chat on our behalf.Optional
Your connectionsFriend requests you send and receive, members you match with through Match, and the interest groups, events and venues you join or help run.Created as you use Fancia
Events and venues you createThe name, description, dates and address of anything you list, including its precise map location, so other members can find it.Only if you list something
Approximate locationThe area you are browsing in, so we can show events near you. On the website and the apps this comes from the location you pick, or from your device if you allow it. We store a general area and a search radius, not a history of where you have been.Optional
Device and notification detailsA push notification token, the type of device you use and a device identifier, so we can send you the notifications you have asked for.Only if you enable notifications
Payment detailsIf you subscribe to Fancia Premium, we keep a record of the subscription, its status and the amount paid. Your card details are handled by the payment provider and never reach our servers.Only if you subscribe
Technical informationInformation needed to keep your session working and to keep the service secure, such as your sign-in tokens and server logs.Required

We do not ask you for information about your health, religion, political opinions, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else that data protection law treats as special category information. Please bear in mind that anything you choose to put in your bio, your posts or your photos is visible to other members, so do not put sensitive details there unless you are happy for them to be seen.

We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking software, and we do not build advertising profiles about you.

4.Why we use your information, and our lawful basis

Data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for each thing we do with your information. Ours are set out below.

What we doWhyLawful basis
Create and run your account, show your profile to other members, and let you post, comment, message, book and join groupsThis is the service you signed up forPerformance of our contract with you
Send you service emails, such as confirming your email address or letting you reset your passwordYou cannot use or recover the account without themPerformance of our contract with you
Suggest events, groups and people through MatchThis is a core part of what Fancia is forPerformance of our contract with you
Send push notifications about matches, messages and eventsYou asked to be told about theseYour consent, which you can withdraw in Settings at any time
Check that you are at least 18Fancia is an adults-only service and we must not let children use itOur legitimate interest in running the service safely, and compliance with our legal obligations
Investigate reports, deal with abuse, and keep the service secureTo protect our members and the serviceOur legitimate interest in keeping Fancia safe
Take payment for Premium and keep accounting recordsTo provide the subscription and to meet our tax obligationsPerformance of our contract with you, and compliance with our legal obligations
Respond to your questions and support requestsTo help youPerformance of our contract with you, and our legitimate interest in supporting members
Send marketing about Fancia, if we ever doTo tell you about the serviceYour consent. We do not send marketing today, and if that changes we will ask first and every message will have an unsubscribe link

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether what we are doing is fair to you and have concluded that it is. You can object to it at any time using the contact details at the end of this policy.

5.Match and how suggestions are made

Match suggests events and people using the interests you have chosen, the events and groups you have joined, the area you are browsing in, and whether other members have liked you. It is an ordered list of suggestions, nothing more. No decision is made about you automatically that has a legal effect or otherwise significantly affects you, and there is no profiling for advertising.

You can turn Match off in Settings. If you do, we stop generating suggestions for you and you stop appearing in other members' suggestions.

6.What other members can see

  • Always visible to other members: your name, profile photo, bio, location label, interests, links, and the posts and comments you make.
  • Visible unless you change it in Settings: your age, your gender, the interest groups you belong to, the events you are going to, and whether you accept friend requests.
  • Never visible to other members: your email address, your password, your exact date of birth, your device details, and anything to do with your payments.

You can set your profile to private in Settings, which limits it to members you are connected with. Public events and venues you create are visible to anyone, including people who are not signed in, because that is the point of listing them.

7.Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing. We do use the following service providers, who process information on our instructions and are not allowed to use it for their own purposes.

ProviderWhat they do for usWhat they receive
Stream Chat (Stream.io)Stores and delivers private messagesYour member identifier, display name and profile photo, and the messages you send and receive
Amazon Web ServicesHosts our servers, database and photo storage, and delivers images through a content networkAll of the information described in this policy is stored on AWS infrastructure
Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging)Delivers push notifications to your deviceYour notification token and the content of the notification
Google (Sign in with Google)Lets you sign in without a Fancia passwordOnly if you use it: your email address, name and Google account identifier
Google Maps PlatformAddress search, maps and turning addresses into map coordinatesThe place you are searching for and the map area you are looking at
StripeTakes subscription payments made through the websiteYour email address and payment details, which you give to Stripe directly
Apple and Google PlayTake subscription payments made inside the iOS and Android appsYour purchase, handled under Apple's and Google's own privacy policies
Our email providerSends account emails such as email confirmation and password resetsYour email address and the content of that email

We will also disclose information if we are legally required to, for example in response to a valid court order or a request from the police, or where we need to in order to protect someone's safety or to establish or defend legal claims. If Fancia is ever sold or reorganised, information may transfer to the new owner, who would remain bound by this policy.

8.Where your information is held

We aim to keep your information within the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. Some of our providers, including Stream Chat and Google, are based in the United States or process information there. Where information leaves the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or on the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, together with checks on the provider's own safeguards.

You can ask us for more detail about the safeguards for a particular provider by emailing support@fancia.co.uk.

9.How long we keep your information

InformationHow long we keep it
Your account and profileFor as long as your account is open
Posts, comments and photosUntil you delete them, or until you delete your account, whichever comes first
Private messagesUntil you delete your account. Deleting a message on your device may not remove it from the other person's device
Email verification codes and password reset codesUntil used, and in any event no more than 24 hours
Payment and subscription records6 years from the end of the tax year they relate to, because HMRC requires it
Records of reports and safety investigationsUp to two years after the matter is closed, so that repeat problems can be recognised
Server logsUp to 90 days

10.Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself, without contacting us. On the website go to Settings and then Account; in the apps go to Settings. You will be asked to confirm, because it cannot be undone.

When you delete your account, straight away and permanently:

  • We overwrite the details that identify you: your email address, your password, your name, your date of birth, your gender, your bio and your location. They cannot be recovered afterwards, including by us.
  • We delete your profile photo from our storage.
  • We delete your chat account and your messages from Stream Chat.
  • We disconnect any Google account you signed in with, and delete any outstanding email verification or password reset codes.
  • We remove your friendships, your Match records and likes, your notification token and device details, and your membership of interest groups and venue teams.
  • You are signed out on the device you delete from, and your profile stops appearing anywhere in Fancia.

Posts and comments you wrote stay on Fancia, because other members have replied to them and removing them would break those conversations. They are no longer connected to you or to your name: they appear as coming from a deleted member and cannot be traced back to you. If you would rather particular posts or comments were removed too, delete them before you delete your account, or email us and we will do it.

We keep a record that an account existed, along with payment records where the law requires it, in a form that no longer identifies you. Deleting your account does not end a subscription bought through Apple or Google; cancel that in the App Store or Google Play, otherwise it will keep renewing.

If you delete your account by mistake, email support@fancia.co.uk within 30 days. We may be able to restore your groups, events and posts, but the details we overwrote are gone for good and you will need to enter them again.

11.Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

  • Be told what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy of it.
  • Have inaccurate information corrected. Most of it you can correct yourself in Settings.
  • Have your information deleted. You can do this yourself by deleting your account.
  • Ask us to restrict how we use your information while a concern is looked into.
  • Object to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests.
  • Receive the information you gave us in a portable, machine-readable form, or ask us to send it to someone else.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on it, such as for push notifications.
  • Not be subject to a decision made purely by a computer that significantly affects you. We do not make such decisions.

To exercise any of these, email support@fancia.co.uk. We will respond within one month. We may need to check who you are first, so that we do not hand your information to somebody else. Exercising your rights is free, and we will tell you if a request is so wide that we need to charge or take longer.

12.Keeping your information safe

  • Everything you send us travels over an encrypted connection, and our databases and photo storage are encrypted at rest.
  • Passwords are stored as a one-way hash, so nobody at Fancia can read yours.
  • Access to member information is limited to the people who need it to run the service.
  • Uploads go to storage using short-lived, single-purpose links.

No service can promise perfect security. If a breach of your information happens and it is likely to put you at risk, we will tell you and the Information Commissioner's Office as the law requires. Please use a password you do not use anywhere else, and tell us straight away if you think somebody else has got into your account.

13.Cookies and similar technologies

We do not use advertising or analytics cookies, so there is no cookie banner to dismiss. We only use storage that is strictly necessary to make the service work:

  • Your sign-in tokens, kept in your browser's local storage so that you stay signed in.
  • Short-lived values used to complete the sign-in process securely.
  • A cookie set by our own sign-in server to remember your session while you sign in.
  • A small cache of your own profile, and of tag and event names, so pages load quickly.

Signing out clears your tokens. You can clear the rest through your browser settings, though doing so will sign you out. Note that maps and images are loaded from Google and from our content network, which will see your IP address as part of delivering them.

14.Under 18s

Fancia is for adults. You must be at least 18 to have an account, and we do not knowingly collect information about children. If we find out that somebody under 18 has an account, we will close it and delete their information.

If you believe a child is using Fancia, please tell us at support@fancia.co.uk and we will deal with it.

15.Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change materially affects you, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. The current version is always on this page.

16.Contacting us, and complaining

For anything to do with your information, email support@fancia.co.uk, or write to Fancify Limited, Flat 20 Russell Court, Strasburg Road, London, England, SW11 5HZ.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information we would like the chance to put it right, but you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at any time. You can reach them at https://ico.org.uk, on 0303 123 1113, or by writing to Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.