Privacy policy

Gay Rendez-Vous is operated by True Vid Inc., [to complete: postal address of the operator, in Québec].

No privacy contact has been designated by the operator. The required name and contact information remain to be completed. The person in charge of the protection of personal information is [to complete: name of the person in charge of the protection of personal information], [to complete: title of this person (e.g. president, director)]. You may reach this person at [to complete: email address of the person in charge (PRIVACY_OFFICER_EMAIL variable)] or by mail at the address above. All the requests described in the section Your rights are addressed to this person.

Here, by category, is what the site records when you use it.

Your account

Email address, username, gender (required) and date of birth. The date of birth is used to check that you are 18 years old and to calculate the age shown on your profile: other members see your age, never your date of birth. Your password is never kept: we keep only an irreversible fingerprint of it. We also keep the date the account was created, the date your email address was confirmed and the date of your latest activity.

Your choice about promotional emails

The box is optional and unticked by default. If you tick it, we keep your choice and the date on which you made it, as proof of your consent.

Your choice about new-message notices

These email notices are off by default and are turned on from “My account”. If you turn them on, we keep your choice, the date on which you made it and the time of the last notice sent, so that we never send you more than one every 6 hours. The notice only says “You have a new message”: it contains neither the name of the sender nor the text of the message, and each notice contains a link to unsubscribe without signing in.

Your profile

Everything is optional except gender: sexual orientation, tagline, profile text, interests, what you are looking for (types of members, age range, radius in kilometres), city chosen from a list, and postal code. The postal code is not shown to other members. We do not use the geolocation of your device: your location is the city you choose. We also keep your two visibility settings: profile visible or hidden, and invisible mode (not appearing “online”).

Your photos

Every photo is reprocessed by our servers: resized, converted to the WebP format and stripped of its metadata (including the GPS location). We do not keep the original file. We also keep a thumbnail, the caption you add, the album, the dimensions and the size, a fingerprint of the content (to detect duplicates and to refuse the re-upload of a photo removed by moderation), the moderation status (live, not shown or removed) with any note from the moderator, the date the team checked it and, for each album, who has access to it.

Your messages

The text, the date and the participants of each conversation, as well as the read and archive status for each of them.

Adult section (if you activate it)

The date of your express consent. Your adult profile: tagline, profile text, interests, what you are looking for, age range and radius (your gender, your orientation and your city are read from your usual profile, never copied). Your adult albums and photos, processed like your other photos, with in addition, for each photo, the date on which you attested that all the persons visible are adults and have consented to its publication.

Your events

The events you propose (title, dates, category, venue, address, city, link, organizer and description), with their review status and any note from the moderator. Your “I’m going” or “Interested” responses to events.

Your saved contacts

The members you save in “My contacts”, the date, and the private note you add if you wish. This list is visible only to you: nobody is told that they have been saved, and no page shows who has saved you.

Who viewed your profile (if you activate it)

This feature is off by default. It works only between two members who have both activated it: when one of them opens the other’s profile, we record that visit and its date, keeping only the most recent one (there is no history). Nothing is recorded in invisible mode, between members who block each other, or for a hidden profile. If you activate it, we keep the date of your choice as proof of your consent. Turning it off immediately erases all the recorded visits that concern you, made or received.

Winks

When you wink at a member, we keep only who sent it, to whom, in which section (regular or adult), the date, and whether the recipient has seen or hidden it. No text, IP address or device is recorded. The recipient is told inside the site only, never by email. The sender can see whether their wink was seen. Blocking, in either direction, erases the winks between the two members; winks in the adult section stay separate and are visible only to members who have activated it.

Security and use

For each sign-in session: the IP address (when the hosting provider passes it on to the application), the browser and device used (the “user agent”), and the dates of creation, last use and expiry. Your latest activity is used to show “online” to other members. We also keep the members you block, the reports you file (reason, details and, where applicable, a reference to the message, photo or event concerned) and those that target you, as well as the log of moderation decisions (see below).

Preventing abuse

To curb abusive attempts to sign in, sign up or send messages, the IP address is used temporarily in the memory of the server. It is not written to the database for this purpose.

Service emails

We write to you to confirm your address, reset your password, confirm a change of email address, and tell you about a change of password or the deletion of your account.

• We do not collect your religion or your ethnic origin.
• The site is free and does not process any payments: we collect no card number and no banking information.
• We do not ask for identification, for access to your contacts, or for the location of your device.
• We use no analytics tool, no advertising, no tracking pixel and no sign-in through a social network. The pages of the site load nothing from a third-party service.

Your sexual orientation, your photos and your messages are sensitive information. We handle them with the greatest care:

• You decide what you share with us. Orientation and photos are optional. By adding them, you consent to our processing them to operate the site, as described here. You withdraw this consent by deleting them, or by deleting your account.
• Your profile remains invisible until you publish it yourself. A new account appears nowhere until you decide.
• The adult section requires your express consent, given on a separate page by ticking a box that is never ticked in advance. Your age is checked again from your date of birth. You withdraw this consent from My account: your adult profile and photos immediately stop being visible, to everyone, including you, and you may also choose to erase them.
• We do not use them for advertising or profiling, we do not sell them, and we make no decision based solely on automated processing. Photos are reviewed by people.

• creating and managing your account, and recognizing you when you sign in;
• showing your profile to members and letting them find you (by age, gender, orientation, city and distance from the city in your profile);
• delivering your messages;
• publishing the events you propose, once they are approved, and counting the responses;
• ensuring security and moderation: reviewing photos after they are uploaded, handling reports, suspending an account, and preventing harassment, fake profiles and unauthorized access;
• sending you the service emails described above;
• sending you promotional emails, only if you have ticked the box provided for that purpose;
• complying with our legal obligations.

We do not sell or rent your information, and we do not share it with advertisers.

Visitors who are not signed in

They see no profile, no photo and no message: only the home page, the information pages and the list of events. The home page may show the approximate number of members whose profile is visible, by administrative region of Québec (Montréal, Estrie, etc.: each member is counted in the region of the city in their profile), by band (for example “20–49”), only for a region of at least 20 members, never by city and never combined with another criterion, and updated once a month. The total shown is a minimum (“250+”) calculated only from the regions displayed: it cannot be subtracted from the regions to guess the number of members of a smaller region. Profiles are not indexed by search engines.

Other signed-in members

They see your profile only if you have published it and your account is active: username, age, gender, orientation if you have indicated it, tagline, profile text, interests, what you are looking for, city, approximate distance (in whole kilometres) between your city and that of the person searching, and whether you are online or your latest activity (except in invisible mode). Your photos are visible only after approval and according to the setting of each album; you may limit an album to the members to whom you give access.

Members of the adult section

Your adult profile and photos are visible only to members who have also activated the adult section, and only for as long as you have it activated. Other members see no sign that you take part. No visit is recorded in the adult section, and your adult photos are never kept in the browser’s cache.

Everyone, for events

An event you propose is reviewed by the moderation team; if it is approved, it is published on the Events page, visible to everyone, including visitors who are not signed in and search engines. It never shows your username. Your responses to events are visible only to you: others see only the number of responses. The Events page also features events taken from public sources (Ville de Montréal, ministère du Tourisme du Québec, RÉZO): we keep only the facts (title, dates, venue, organizer) and a link to the source, and no information about our members is linked to them.

Members you block

They no longer see your profile or your photos and can no longer write to you. They are not told.

Your correspondents

Your messages are visible only to the people taking part in the conversation. Each of them may report a message that the other person sent them: the moderation team may then read that message (see below).

The moderation team

Moderators and administrators see all photos, including those that are not yet reviewed, removed, in a private album or in the adult section, as well as the reports. A photo kept for the authorities (see below) is visible only to administrators. Administrators also see the list of all profiles and the statistics.

Your messages. The moderation team may read a message only when one of the participants in the conversation reports it, and then only that message: its text, its date and its author, with the reason and the details given by the person who reports it. It does not see the other messages of the conversation and cannot browse your conversations: no moderation screen displays them. A reported message remains readable by the moderation team, even if its author deletes it afterwards, for as long as the report is open. Messages are otherwise stored in the database, to which the people who technically administer the service have access to the extent necessary to operate it, secure it, handle a report or comply with the law.

The authorities

We disclose information to them only if the law requires it (for example, a court order). In particular, federal law requires internet service providers to report child pornography and to keep the related data: if a photo appears to be of this kind, an administrator removes it from everyone’s view, keeps it for 21 days (a period that may be renewed) and reports it.

If you request certification, you send a photo or short video showing your face and a sheet with your username and “Gay Rendez‑Vous”. Each participant in a couple must consent separately. A photo is an alternative to video. Evidence is used only for a human review of your request, without automated facial recognition; this review cannot guarantee detection of every forgery.

Evidence is stored privately, separately from albums. Only currently authorized staff can view it, and each access is logged. It never appears on profiles, in searches or in albums. Videos are re-encoded without their audio track.

The retention period is shown before submission: by default, 30 days from submission. The daily process erases expired files, except during legal preservation. Account deletion also causes their erasure according to the deletion period below. Evidence references, consents and decisions are separate from the file; erased account identifiers are removed from history and the audit log.

Certification applies to the reviewed profile or photo, separately for each mode. Changing the photo or participants invalidates it. The badge expresses the outcome of human review. You can withdraw consent on the Certifications page, which invalidates requests and certifications for that profile. Your access and correction rights also apply to this information.

When you go live, the picture from your camera and the sound from your microphone go from your device to our video server, which passes them on to the members who watch. It is hosted in the same place as the rest of the site. Video and sound are never recorded, by us or by the video server: once the live is over, we hold no copy of it. Members who watch can still take a screenshot, as with anything shown on a device.

What we record

For each live: who started it, in which section, its title, when it started and ended, why it ended and how many watched. The list of members who watched it, with when they arrived and left (viewers do not see who else is watching; the list serves moderation and, if needed, the authorities). The messages written in the chat, with their author and time. The members a host muted or banned from their lives, and bans decided by the moderation team.

Who sees what

The chat is read by every member watching the live, except between members a block separates. The host can remove a message, mute a member for the rest of the live or ban them from their lives. The moderation team can read a live’s chat, remove a message, stop a live and ban a member from Live; these measures are written to the moderation log.

How long

Chat messages are erased 7 days after the live ends. The live itself and the list of viewers are erased 30 days after it ends. If a report that is still open points at the live or one of its messages, they are kept until the report is closed, because what was said and who was watching may matter to the moderation team or to the authorities.

Hosting

The site and its database, including the photo files, are hosted by [to complete: hosting provider of the site and its database], at the following location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The technical logs of the hosting provider (for example the IP address of visits) follow its own practices.

Sending emails

We use the email delivery service Resend. It receives the address of the recipient and the content of the message to send (for example a confirmation link), and it may process this information outside Québec, in particular in the United States.

We use no other provider that would receive information about you. Before communicating information outside Québec, we assess the risks to your privacy, as the law requires.

The site uses only strictly necessary cookies: the first keeps you signed in, and the second is used only to restore a deleted account.

grdv_session

Contains a random identifier, with no information about you, which matches your session recorded on our servers. It is reserved for the site (HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax, and Secure in production), valid for 30 days from your sign-in, and deleted when you sign out.

grdv_restore

Set only when you sign in to an account deleted less than 30 days ago. It contains a random single-use code that confirms the restoration of the account. It is reserved for the restoration pages (HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax, and Secure in production), expires after 15 minutes, and is erased as soon as you restore the account or decline to do so.

There is no analytics cookie, no advertising cookie and no third-party cookie. As these cookies are essential to the operation of the account, the site does not display a cookie consent banner.

What you write in the forum is not like the rest of the site: in public categories, anyone can read it, without an account, and search engines (Google, for example) can keep it for years, even after we delete it. Do not write anything you would not want published.

What is public

The text of your messages, the title of your topics, their date and your username. A visitor never sees your profile photo, your profile, or the photos attached to messages. Two categories (support and health) are reserved for signed-in members: they are neither visible to visitors nor indexed.

What we record

Your messages and attached photos (processed like every photo on the site: resized, metadata removed), the history of your edits (readable by the moderation team only), your likes, the topics you follow and what you have read, the mentions that notify you, and reports. Forum notifications stay on the site: no email is sent.

Deleting

You can edit or delete a message for 24 hours; a photo removed from a message is deleted. After that, write to us. If you delete your account, your messages stay in the discussion but are no longer linked to your username.

Active account

As long as your account exists.

Deactivated account

Nothing is erased: your profile is hidden and you are signed out everywhere. Simply sign in again to get everything back.

Deleted account

Immediately: your profile is no longer visible, your sessions and security links are deleted, and your email address and your username remain reserved. For 30 days you can still change your mind: sign in with your password and confirm the restoration; your profile then remains hidden until you make it visible. After 30 days, the application’s cleanup job can erase the account and everything attached to it: profiles, albums, photos (including the files), blocks, saved contacts, recorded profile visits, events you have proposed and your responses to events, reports you filed or that targeted you, and the messages you sent. These messages also disappear from the conversation of their recipient; those you received remain visible to their authors for as long as their account exists. The only exception: an account for which a photo is kept for the authorities is erased only at the end of that retention period.

Messages you delete

A deleted message disappears from the pages immediately, for you as well as for your correspondent. Its text remains stored for 30 days for moderation (for example, to handle a report), and is then permanently erased. If an open report targets this message, it is kept, even beyond these 30 days, until the report is closed. A message deleted more than 30 days ago can no longer be reported.

Photos you delete

The file is erased immediately. The photo record (dates, dimensions, fingerprint) remains until your account is permanently deleted.

Photos removed by moderation

They are visible only to you and to the moderation team, but the file and its record remain stored until you delete the photo or your account is permanently deleted.

Adult section

When you withdraw your consent, your adult profile and photos are hidden immediately but remain stored, in case you reactivate the section, unless you tick the box to erase them: your text and preferences are then erased, and your adult photos are deleted in the same way as those you delete yourself. In every case, they are erased with your account.

Live videos

The video is never recorded. A live’s chat is erased 7 days after it ends, the live and its list of viewers 30 days after it ends, except while an open report points at them (see “Live videos” above).

Photos kept for the authorities

A photo kept for the authorities cannot be modified or deleted, by you or by the moderation team, for the duration of the retention (21 days, renewable). It then remains removed and hidden.

Events you propose

As long as your account exists, including once the event is past or cancelled (a cancelled or past event is no longer displayed). An approved event remains published until your account is permanently erased, 30 days after its deletion; you may cancel it yourself before then. Your responses to events are kept until you remove them or until your account is erased.

Saved contacts

Until you remove the contact. A block, in either direction, also removes the contact on both sides.

Profile visits

14 days, then eligible for the cleanup job. They are erased immediately if either of the two members turns off the feature.

Winks

180 days, then erased by the daily cleanup job, whether or not they were seen. They are erased immediately by a block, and together with the account when it is permanently deleted.

Sign-in sessions

A member session is valid for up to 30 days; staff sessions expire after 8 hours. Its record, with the IP address and the browser, is deleted when you sign out, when you sign out of all your devices, when you change your password (for your other devices), and when your account is deactivated, suspended or deleted. An expired session that you did not sign out of remains recorded until the account is permanently deleted.

Security links

The email confirmation links (24 hours), the password reset and email change links (1 hour), and the restoration code for a deleted account (15 minutes) are single-use and are kept only as a fingerprint. They are deleted with the account.

Reports

Kept while they are being handled, then deleted together with the account of the member who filed them or of the member they target. A report on a message does not contain the text of the message: it refers to it, and the text remains in the conversation. A report on an event taken from a public source targets no member: it is deleted with the account of the person who filed it.

Moderation log

Each staff decision (suspension, decision on a report or on a photo) is recorded with its date and the note of the moderator. When the accounts concerned are permanently deleted, the link to those accounts disappears, but the event remains. Retention period of the log: [to complete: retention period for the moderation log]

Backups

No backup retention or deletion schedule has been approved by the operator. The period remains to be specified: [to complete: retention period for backups]. If a backup is restored, the erasure process must be run again before the restored service is made available.

To delete your account, open My account.

• Passwords are transformed with argon2id, an algorithm designed for this purpose; we never read them and never send them by email.
• The links sent by email are random, single-use, limited in time and stored as a fingerprint.
• Sessions are recorded on the server side: we can revoke them, and so can you, from My account.
• Exchanges with the site are encrypted (HTTPS) and protected by security headers.
• Photos have no public address: each display checks that the person has the right to see it, and their metadata (GPS included) is removed when they are uploaded.
• Attempts to sign in, to sign up, to send messages and other actions are limited to curb abuse.
• Staff access depends on their role (moderator or administrator), and their moderation decisions are recorded.

No system is infallible: also protect your password, and sign out of shared computers.

You may exercise the rights below at any time. For those that the site does not let you exercise yourself, write to the person in charge (see above): we respond within 30 days. We may verify your identity before acting.

Access

Knowing what information we hold about you. The “Download my data” button of My account (password required) gives you a file that contains your account and settings, your profiles, your albums, the information about your photos, the access you have granted, your blocks, your saved contacts (with your notes), the recorded profile visits (made and received), the winks you sent and received, your adult profile and the date of your consent to the adult section if you have activated it, the events you have proposed and your responses to events, your reports and your conversations.

Portability

This same file is in a structured, commonly used format (JSON): you may keep it or give it to another service. The images themselves are not included; the file explains how to save them.

Rectification

Correct your profile, your email address and your password from the site. To correct your date of birth or your username, write to us.

Withdrawal of consent

Remove a photo or your orientation, hide your profile, withdraw your consent to the adult section, turn off “Visits to my profile” or the new-message notices, deactivate or delete your account. To withdraw your consent to promotional emails, write to us.

Deletion

Delete your account from My account (see the section on retention).

Ceasing dissemination

You may hide your profile or deactivate your account at any time. Profiles are not indexed by search engines.

What the download does not contain. It does not contain information about other people, the reports that target you, or the internal moderation log. You may request access to these from the person in charge, who may however refuse to disclose what would reveal information about another person (for example, the identity of the person who made a report). The conversations included in the file also contain the messages you received: these are the same as those you see on the site.

Complaint. If you believe that one of your requests has not been handled properly, first write to the person in charge. You may also contact the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (the Québec privacy commission): cai.gouv.qc.ca.

The site is reserved for persons 18 years of age and older. We verify age from the date of birth entered when you sign up. If we find that an account belongs to a minor, we close it and delete its data. You may report such an account with the reason “Minor”.

If a privacy incident presents a risk of serious harm, we notify the Commission d’accès à l’information and the persons concerned, as the law requires, and we record the incident in a register.

The date of the last update appears at the top of the page. If we change the way we use your information, we will inform you before the change takes effect, and we will ask for your consent where the law requires it.

For any question about this policy: [to complete: email address of the person in charge (PRIVACY_OFFICER_EMAIL variable)]. For other matters, see the Contact page ([to complete: contact email address (CONTACT_EMAIL variable)]) or the Help page.