Otter Curiosity Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible for your data

Otter Curiosity (好奇海獺) is operated by its developer, an individual who is named as the seller on its App Store page and as the developer on its Google Play page, and who decides how your personal data is used. Contact: thejourneyofotters@gmail.com. This policy is given under Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act and the UK General Data Protection Regulation, and applies to the Otter apps and websites. Read it with our Terms of Service. If the English and Chinese versions differ, the Chinese version prevails.

2. The short version

Other otters see your nickname and what you choose to write, never your email. We collect what it takes to run conversations, keep them safe, and process payments. We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use your content to train AI models. We do not collect your precise location, contacts, birthday or gender.

3. What we collect

Visitors to shared-question pages: we read the browser type and language to display the page and do not store them.

4. Why we use it

• To create and run your account, match you with questions and people, and deliver messages (performing our contract with you).
• To translate content between Chinese and English, and to provide the features you ask for (wording suggestions, fact-check, drafting a post from a link, drafting a poll reason from your own words).
• To keep Otter safe: content review before publishing, reports, blocking, investigating abuse, checking that requests come from the genuine app, and enforcing our Terms.
• To process purchases and subscriptions, and run the shell economy.
• To send push notifications about your chats, and service emails (welcome, account deletion, replies to your messages).
• To understand how Otter is used and improve it.
• To show ads to free accounts, with the consent choices described in section 7.
• To meet legal obligations and defend legal claims.

We do not use your personal data for automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you. Content review only decides whether a post, poll, profile or first reply is published; you can ask us to look at a decision again.

We do not use your content to train AI models, and the AI providers below process it under business terms that do not allow them to train their models on it.

Legal bases (UK and EU law). We use your data to perform our contract with you (your account, chats and purchases); for our legitimate interest in keeping Otter safe and working (content review, reports, the record kept after an account is deleted, security and analytics); with your consent where the law requires it (personalised ads); and to meet our legal obligations.

Sensitive subjects. Otter is for talking about ideas, so what you write may reveal your political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, health or sex life. You choose whether to write about them. We process that content only to deliver, translate and review your posts and conversations as described above, never to profile you or to target ads. Where the law requires a separate condition for this, we rely on your explicit consent, given when you choose to write it and agree to this policy, and, for a question you share by link, on your having made it public. You can delete it at any time.

5. Who can see your data

Other otters see your nickname, self-introduction, sign-up date, last-seen date, and the posts and polls you have live. The otter you talk to sees your messages, and photos only after you both turn on image sharing. Notifications on their phone may show your nickname and message text.

Anyone with a link you share sees that question, never your nickname.

Service providers process data for us under their own security commitments:

Authorities, when the law requires it, or when needed to protect someone's life or safety.

A successor, if the Service is transferred to a company that continues it; we will tell you first.

6. International transfers

The main database is in Taiwan. Some providers above process data in the United States, the European Union and elsewhere. We use providers that apply recognised safeguards, and we transfer only what each one needs. For transfers from the UK we rely on UK adequacy regulations, or the UK addendum to the providers' standard contractual clauses.

7. Ads and analytics choices

Free accounts may see ads from Google AdMob. Where the law requires consent, the app asks first and you can change your choice in the app. On iPhone we do not ask to track you across other companies' apps. Subscribers see no ads.

8. How long we keep data

Deleting a chatroom removes it from your own list. The other otter keeps the conversation but can no longer reply, and the chatroom is deleted once you have both deleted it.

9. Deleting your account

When you delete your account, we delete your account, profile, self-introduction, drafts, posts, polls, poll replies, device tokens and chat photos. Messages you sent stay visible to the otter you were talking to, shown as from an otter who has left, because the conversation is theirs too. So does the copy of your post or poll that the chatroom began from, until the chatroom itself is deleted. Backups are cleared on their normal cycle.

What we keep after you leave, and why. So that an otter cannot say something harmful and then escape a report by deleting their account, we keep a sealed record of your account ID, email address and nickname, and when you joined and left, for 12 months after you delete your account. Nobody using Otter can see it; we use it only to deal with reports and legal requests, then delete it. If you have been reported, the photos you sent are kept for 12 months from the report for the same reason. Reports and purchase records are kept for the periods in section 8.

You can also ask without the app: email thejourneyofotters@gmail.com from your account's email address with the subject "Delete my account", and we will delete it within 30 days. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription; cancel it in your App Store or Google Play settings.

10. Your rights

You can object. Where we use your data for our legitimate interests (section 4), you can object at any time, and we will stop unless we have compelling grounds to continue, such as dealing with a report. Where we rely on your consent, such as for personalised ads, you can withdraw it at any time; this does not affect what we did before you withdrew it.

Under Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act you may ask to: see your data; get a copy; correct or complete it; stop us collecting, processing or using it; and delete it. Under UK and EU data protection law you also have the right to object, to restrict processing and to data portability, and you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or the data protection authority where you live. Email us from your account's address; we reply within 30 days. We may need to keep some data where the law requires it, and we will say so. If you do not give us your email, you cannot create an account; everything else is optional.

11. Security

We use the security of Google's infrastructure, sign-in for every account, and access rules on our database. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

12. Age

Otter is for people 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18; if we learn of it, we delete the account. Parents or guardians can contact us.

13. Changes

We will post updates here and show material changes in the app at least 14 days before they take effect.

14. Contact

thejourneyofotters@gmail.com