BEEP Privacy Policy
Effective date: 7 August 2026 Last updated: 27 September 2026
BEEP is a location-based social app: you see beeps, events and people near you, and they can see you. This policy explains exactly what that means for your data.
It is written to be read. If anything here is unclear, ask us at beepcircle@gmail.com and we will answer plainly.
In this policy "BEEP", "we" and "us" mean BEETOWN, D-6/001, Nahur Village Road, Mulund West, Mumbai 400080, India.
The short version
| We never sell your data. | No data brokers, no advertising networks, no cross-app tracking. |
| We do not track you across other apps or websites. | BEEP contains no advertising or analytics SDKs. |
| Other people never see your exact location. | They see a rough distance band — "within 500 m", "0.5–2 km", "nearby" — never coordinates. |
| Anything you post is different. | A beep, event or check-in publishes the place you posted it, publicly, to people nearby. That is the point of the app, so post accordingly. |
| You can disappear at any time. | Ghost mode hides you from people nearby immediately. |
| You can delete everything, or just some of it. | Delete a beep or a reply, or end a connection, whenever you like. Account deletion is in the app and removes the rest on the schedule below. |
| Under-18s are kept separate. | 13–17 and 18+ never see each other anywhere in BEEP. |
What we collect, and why
Account
- A phone number or an email address, to create and secure your account. If you sign in with a phone number we send you a one-time code by SMS; we keep the number so you can sign in again, and so we can send you future codes. If you sign in with an email address, the password is handled by Amazon Cognito and we never see or store it.
- An account identifier that links your activity together.
Profile
- Handle, display name, optional bio, optional profile photo. These are visible to other users.
- Date of birth. Used once, to check you are old enough for BEEP and to place you in an age group. Your date of birth is never shown to anyone.
- Optional details you choose during sign-up: gender, job title, degree, home town, the town you are in now, and up to five interests. Every one of these is optional and you can leave them blank. Gender is used for your own profile and is not shown to other people. The rest, and your towns as city names only, appear on your profile.
Location
- Your device's location, while the app is open, to show what is around you and to attach a place to anything you post. BEEP never requests background location and does not track you when the app is closed.
- See How location actually works below — it is the most important section of this policy.
Things you create
Beeps (text and photos), echoes of other people's beeps, replies, reactions, direct messages, group and room messages, stories (photos that disappear after 24 hours) and who has viewed yours, events you host, RSVPs, swarms (short-lived gatherings), echo messages cached at a place, places you add, check-ins and any note attached to them, pinned places, a temporary "vibe" status, and reports you file.
Pinned places are the one thing here that nobody else can see. A pin names a place you go to — which is precise enough to identify where you are in a way BEEP otherwise deliberately avoids — so pins are used only on your own screens and are never shown to another user.
Scheduled check-ins are the opposite: you are choosing to tell people where you will be. Other people in your area see the place name, the time window, your note, and roughly how far away you are — never your exact position. Check-ins are available on 18+ accounts only, and turning on ghost mode hides them from everyone.
Camera (the Lens)
The Lens view shows beeps floating over your camera's live image. Frames are displayed on your screen only — nothing from your camera is recorded, stored, or sent anywhere, and the camera is only active while the Lens is open.
Your connections
Who you are connected to, who has a pending request, and who you have blocked. Blocks are applied in both directions and are not revealed to the person blocked.
Close Friends is a private, one-directional list you pick from your own connections, used to narrow who a beep is addressed to. It is yours alone: the people on it are never told, being removed is never announced, and no screen shows anyone else how long yours is or whether they are on it.
Device and technical data
- A push notification token, if you enable notifications, so we can deliver them.
- Technical logs produced when your app talks to our servers. These can include your IP address, timestamps and which feature was called. They are used to keep the service running and to investigate abuse and faults.
We do not collect your contacts, your photo library beyond the images you choose to upload, your browsing history, health data, or financial data.
How location actually works
This is the part that matters most, so it is spelled out precisely.
Who a post reaches is your choice; where it was posted is not private either way. Every beep is addressed to everyone nearby, to your connections, or to your Close Friends — but in all three cases the people who can see it can see the place you posted from. Choosing a narrower audience narrows who sees it, not what it says about where you were.
When you post, you publish a place. A beep, an event or a check-in is pinned to the coordinates you were at when you posted it, and is visible to anyone nearby (in your age group, who has not blocked you and whom you have not blocked). Treat posting like standing somewhere and calling out.
A scheduled check-in publishes a place and a time, but not a position. When you say you will be somewhere, people nearby see the place name you typed, the window, and the same coarse band described below — not your coordinates and not a distance in metres. Check-ins are 18+ only, expire on their own, and are hidden entirely while ghost mode is on.
When you are simply present, you do not publish a place. So that people can find each other, your device sends your current location to our servers while the app is open. Other users are never given those coordinates. They are shown only a coarse band:
- within 500 m
- 0.5–2 km
- nearby (out to your search radius)
Results within a band are shuffled, so repeated checks cannot be used to narrow down where you are. Distances are calculated on our servers; the app never receives another person's position.
You can switch presence off. Ghost mode removes you from people-nearby straight away. It is on by default for users aged 13–17.
Presence expires by itself. If you stop using BEEP, your stored presence is deleted automatically within 24 hours. Scheduled check-ins are deleted automatically once their window closes.
Pinned places are never published. BEEP stores the coordinates of a place you pin so it can tell whether other things are near it, but a pin — its name and its position — is only ever used on your own screens.
Two features share more — only ever by explicit, mutual choice:
- Meet in the middle. If you propose meeting a connection and they accept, BEEP computes an approximate midpoint (rounded to roughly 110 m) between you and shows it, with nearby places, to both of you. Accepting necessarily gives each side a rough idea of the other's area — that is the feature, and it only happens between connected users after both act.
- Walk sharing (18+ only). You can share your exact live position with one connection for a fixed time (up to 60 minutes), for example while walking home. This is the single place BEEP ever shares precise coordinates. It is off unless you start it, shows persistently while active, can be stopped by either side, ends automatically, and the location pings themselves are relayed live and never stored.
Who can see what
| What | Who sees it |
|---|---|
| Handle, display name, bio, photo | Anyone in your age group who is not blocked |
| Beeps, events, venues, replies, reactions | Whoever you addressed them to, nearby and in your age group: everyone, your connections, or your Close Friends |
| Who is on your Close Friends list | Only you. Nobody is told they are on it, or that they have been taken off it, and its size is never shown to anyone else. |
| Your rough distance | People nearby, as a band only, unless ghost mode is on |
| Direct messages | Only you and the person you are messaging |
| Group messages | Everyone in that group |
| Room messages | Everyone in that room |
| Stories | Your connections, in your age group, for 24 hours |
| Who viewed your story | Only you |
| Check-in at a place | People at the same place, in your age group |
| Scheduled check-in | People nearby in your age group — place and window, band only |
| Job title, degree, towns, interests | Anyone in your age group who is not blocked |
| Pinned places | Nobody. Used only on your own screens. |
| Phone number, email address, date of birth, gender, exact location | Nobody. Never shown to other users. |
Our moderators can review content that is reported to us, and account information where necessary to act on a report.
Who we share data with
We do not sell your data or share it for advertising. We use these providers to run BEEP, and they may only process data on our instructions:
| Provider | What it handles |
|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services (United States) | Accounts and sign-in, our API, messages, uploaded images, image delivery, push delivery, service logs |
| MongoDB Atlas (United States, on AWS) | Profiles, beeps, events, places, presence, connections, reports |
| Amazon Rekognition | Automated check of uploaded images for prohibited content, before they become visible |
| Mapbox | Drawing the map; receives location and device data under Mapbox's privacy policy |
| Apple | App distribution, and push delivery on iOS |
| App distribution on Android, and push delivery on Android through Firebase Cloud Messaging, which receives your device's push token and each notification's text |
We may also disclose data if we are legally required to, or where necessary to protect someone's safety.
How long we keep things
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Presence (your current position) | Deleted automatically within 24 hours |
| Vibe status | Expires after 2 hours |
| Check-ins at a place | Expire automatically after 4 hours |
| Scheduled check-ins | Deleted automatically when their window closes (12 hours at most) |
| One-time SMS sign-in codes | Deleted once used, or after 5 minutes |
| Stories | Deleted automatically after 24 hours |
| Swarms | End after at most 2 hours; cleaned up within a day |
| Walk-sharing location pings | Never stored — relayed live only; the session record clears at its end time |
| Meet-in-the-middle proposals | Expire after 24 hours |
| Echo messages | Expire when their timer ends (7 days at most) |
| Beeps | Shown in the nearby feed and on the map for 48 hours, and on your profile after that. Kept until you delete the beep or your account |
| Replies and reactions | Until you delete them or your account, or the beep they are on is deleted |
| Uploaded originals before processing | Deleted after 7 days |
| Pinned places | Until you remove them or delete your account |
| Connections and connection requests | Until either of you ends the connection or withdraws or declines the request, either of you blocks the other, or either account is deleted |
| Profile, messages, and events you host | Until you delete your account. A message cannot be deleted on its own, and cancelling an event ends it without deleting it |
| Reports and moderation records | Kept after account deletion where needed to enforce our rules and keep people safe |
| Technical logs | Short-term, for operating the service and investigating abuse |
When you delete your account, your profile is removed from BEEP immediately and your handle is released. Remaining personal data is purged within 30 days, except where we must keep something for safety or legal reasons.
Your choices
- Ghost mode — hide from people nearby at any time (Profile → Visibility). It also hides any check-in you have scheduled.
- Cancel a check-in — Places → Yours. It disappears for everyone at once.
- Remove a pin — Places → Yours.
- Delete a beep or a reply — open the beep and tap the bin. See Deleting some of your data for what goes with it.
- End a connection — open their profile and tap Disconnect. They are not notified.
- Block — stop someone seeing you or contacting you, in both directions.
- Report — flag a person, a post or a message for moderation. Reporting a message sends its text to our moderators along with your report.
- Location permission — revoke it in your device settings; BEEP's location features stop working, the rest of the app continues.
- Notifications — turn them off in your device settings, or sign out.
- Delete your account — Profile → Delete account. It is permanent. You can also ask us to do it; see Deleting your account below.
Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to access, correct, export or restrict use of your data, to object to processing, and to complain to a data protection authority. Write to beepcircle@gmail.com and we will respond within the time your law requires.
Deleting some of your data
You can delete these without deleting your account. Each is deleted straight away, not on a schedule.
- A beep. Open it and tap the bin. The beep is deleted together with its photo (the original upload too), its replies and reactions, its notifications in the app, and every echo of it, because an echo carries your words. If someone had reported the beep, their report keeps a copy of its text for our moderators (see How long we keep things).
- An echo you made. Open it and tap the bin. Your echo is deleted with its replies and reactions. The beep you echoed stays.
- A reply. Open the beep and tap the bin beside your reply. The reply is deleted, and so is the notification that quoted it.
- A reaction. Tap it again.
- A connection. Open their profile and tap Disconnect. To take back a request you sent, tap Request sent · Withdraw; to turn one down, tap ✕ under Requests on the Search tab. Nobody is notified. The connection or request is deleted, you each come off the other's Close Friends, a meet-in-the-middle proposal still waiting for an answer is dropped, and a walk being shared between you stops. Your messages with each other stay readable to both of you, but the conversation takes no new messages unless you connect again.
- A pinned place or a scheduled check-in. Places → Yours.
- Your presence. Ghost mode deletes it at once.
Messages, and events you host, cannot be deleted one at a time: they stay until you delete your account. For everything else, see How long we keep things.
Deleting your account
In the app: Profile → Delete account. It takes effect at once and cannot be undone.
Without the app: email beepcircle@gmail.com from the email address on your BEEP account, or tell us your handle and the phone number the account uses. We confirm that the account is yours, then delete it within 30 days.
Either way, your profile disappears from BEEP immediately and your handle is released. Remaining personal data is purged within 30 days, except reports and moderation records we must keep to enforce our rules and keep people safe (see How long we keep things).
Under-18s
You must be at least 13 to use BEEP. We ask for your date of birth at sign-up and refuse accounts below that age. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13; if we learn we have, we delete the account.
If you are under 18, Indian law treats you as a child. Your parent or guardian must permit your use of BEEP and accepts these terms and this policy with you. If you are a parent or guardian and want your child's account removed, write to us and we will delete it.
For users aged 13–17:
- They and adult users are completely separated. Each is invisible to the other in people-nearby, search, profiles, events, swarms, echo messages, rooms and messaging. Neither can contact the other.
- Ghost mode is on by default, so a younger user is not visible in people-nearby until they choose to be.
- Walk sharing is not available to under-18 accounts.
- Scheduled check-ins are not available to under-18 accounts. Saying in advance where you will be is a sharper disclosure than being somewhere now, so it is held to the same 18+ line as walk sharing.
Security
Data is encrypted in transit. Passwords are managed by Amazon Cognito and are never visible to us. Access to production systems is restricted. Uploaded images are screened automatically for prohibited content before anyone can see them. No service is perfectly secure, and we will tell you promptly if a breach affects your data.
Where your data is processed
BEEP runs in the United States (AWS us-east-1). If you use BEEP from
elsewhere, your data is transferred to and processed in the United States.
Our website
whynotbeep.com has no cookies, tracking scripts or advertising trackers. It is served by Amazon Web Services, which keeps standard request logs: the page asked for, when, your IP address and your browser type. We use those logs only to count visits in aggregate, such as how many people visited on a day and which sites sent them. We never build a profile of you from them.
If you join the launch waitlist there, we store the email address you give us
and the time you signed up, in AWS us-east-1. We use it only to confirm
your sign-up and to email you when BEEP launches. The waitlist is for people
aged 18 and over. We delete the list once the launch email has gone out, and
we will remove you sooner if you ask at beepcircle@gmail.com.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that meaningfully affects you, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.
Contact
BEETOWN, D-6/001, Nahur Village Road, Mulund West, Mumbai 400080, India — beepcircle@gmail.com
Grievance officer
Under India's Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, complaints about content, or about how we handle your data, can go to our grievance officer:
Abhishek Samant — beepcircle@gmail.com
You can also complain from inside the app: Profile → Contact us or raise a complaint → Formal complaint. We acknowledge every complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days.