Terms of service

1. About us and these terms

Friendo (“we”, “us”) is a private photo and location sharing app for adult friends, owned by Steven Smith and run from the UK at friendo.uk. By creating an account you agree to these terms, our community guidelines and our complaints and reporting procedure, which form part of them. Our privacy notice explains how we use your data. Contact: hello@friendo.uk.

2. Who can use Friendo

• You must be 18 or over. We ask for your date of birth when you join and refuse anyone who tells us they’re under 18. A date of birth is self-declared, so if we have reason to think a user is under 18 we will close the account; please report anyone you think is a child.
• While Friendo is in its invite-only beta, you need a valid invite to join — a member’s invite link or a beta code. Invites are personal; don’t sell or publish them.
• You need an e-mail address you control, and you may have only one account. You must not use Friendo if we have banned you.

3. Your account

You sign in with a one-time code sent to your e-mail address. Keep your e-mail secure and never share a code. You can see and sign out your devices, change your name and username, download your data and delete your account at any time in the app.

4. What you share

• You keep ownership of your photos. You give us permission to store them, make resized copies and show them to the friends you chose, only until they expire, are opened (view once) or you delete them, and for longer only where these terms say so (for example while a report is reviewed, or as the law requires).
• Only share photos you have the right to share, and follow the community guidelines.
• Your location is never shared unless you switch sharing on and choose friends. Friends can screenshot anything they can see — share thoughtfully.

5. How we protect users from illegal content

These are our policies for dealing with illegal content, as the Online Safety Act 2023 requires:

• Terrorism content: it’s banned. Reported content is reviewed as a priority; terrorist content is removed as soon as we become aware of it, the account is banned and we may report it to the police (you can also report terrorist material on GOV.UK).
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) content: it’s banned and reports are handled first. We remove it as soon as we become aware of it, ban the account and report it to the National Crime Agency as the law requires, keeping what the law requires us to keep for that report.
• Other illegal content (including threats, harassment and stalking, intimate image abuse, cyberflashing, encouraging serious self-harm, hate offences, fraud and the sale of illegal items): it’s banned. We review reports, usually within 48 hours, and remove illegal content swiftly once we’re aware of it.
• Keeping exposure short: snaps go only to the friends the sender chose and disappear automatically; there are no public profiles, feeds, search, sharing or group chats that could spread content further.
• Intimate images: if the person shown (or someone acting for them) reports an intimate image shared without consent, it’s hidden immediately and we aim to take it down within 48 hours. See section 3 of our reporting procedure.
• Proactive technology: at present we don’t use automated tools to detect or judge content. Removing hidden data (such as GPS) from photos and checking that uploads really are images are privacy and security features, not content checking. Before we start using any automated detection (for example matching uploads against lists of known child sexual abuse images), we will update these terms.

We apply these terms consistently to everyone.

6. Moderation, suspensions and bans

If you break these terms or the guidelines, we may remove content, send you a warning, suspend your account for 1 to 30 days, or ban it permanently. A ban deletes the account and its content; we keep only a scrambled (hashed) copy of the e-mail address so it can’t join again. You can appeal any decision — even if you’re banned — by e-mail.

7. Complaints

How to complain about content, about us or about a decision, how long it takes and how appeals work is set out in our complaints and reporting procedure.

8. Your right to bring a claim

If we remove or restrict your content, or suspend or ban your account, in breach of these terms, you have the right to bring a claim against us for breach of contract.

9. The service

• Friendo is free and is a beta: things may change or break. We may change, pause or stop features, or the whole service, and will give notice in the app where we reasonably can. If we close the service we’ll delete content and accounts.
• Sign-in codes are sent by e-mail; we can’t guarantee every message arrives.
• The friends map is for fun, not navigation or safety. Positions can be out of date (they only update while the sender has the map open) and approximate positions are deliberately imprecise. Friendo is not an emergency or safety-tracking service — in an emergency call 999. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

10. Leaving

You can delete your account at any time from Me → Delete my account. It happens straight away.

11. Our liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability we can’t legally limit, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud. Otherwise we provide the service with reasonable care and skill, but we’re not responsible for what other users share or do, or for losses we couldn’t reasonably foresee. Your legal rights as a consumer are not affected.

12. Changes and law

We may update these terms; if a change is significant we’ll tell you in the app before it applies. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and you can bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, depending on where you live.