Dialin Privacy Policy

Draft — under legal review. Bracketed items are still being decided.

Last updated: October 22, 2026

Dialin ("Dialin", "we", "us") is operated by DIAL IN LLC, a Delaware limited liability company doing business as Dialin, [MAILING ADDRESS]. This policy explains what we collect when you use dialin.io, the Dialin apps and the Dialin browser extension (together, "Dialin"), why, who we share it with, and the choices you have. Questions: seekers@dialin.io.

1. The short version

• Dialin is a place to keep what you notice: photos, videos, sounds, places and how they make you feel ("dials"). You choose who sees each thing, from "only you" to public.
• We use AI to understand what you add. Your uploads are sent to our AI provider (Anthropic) for that purpose.
• We do not sell your personal information, and we don't run third-party advertising or analytics trackers.
• Some features are optional and off until you turn them on: face grouping, head tracking, connecting Google accounts, and using your own AI keys.
• We publish anonymous, aggregated patterns (for example "people near here rate coffee shops as cozy") only when at least 5 different people contribute to the same group. You can opt out.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

• Account: email address, password (stored as a secure hash by our authentication provider), display name, username. You can use Dialin as a guest before creating an account. A guest still gets an account record, so the guest's work can be saved later.
• Profile (optional): photo or video avatar, bio, location text, date of birth, links to your social profiles, and settings such as parental controls.
• Contact card (optional): email, phone, address, website and socials, each with a show/hide switch. "Facts" you choose to add, such as profession or a main location. Facts are shown only to your mutual contacts, and a main location is only ever shared approximately (blurred by about 130 m).
• Sensitive information you choose to store (optional): Dialin has spaces where you can store medical information (for example allergies, medications, insurance member number, emergency contact) and identity documents (for example passport, driver's licence, visa, the last 4 digits of an SSN), including scans and records for household members. You can also state a political leaning and an ethnicity on your profile or card. All of these are optional. They are visible only to you unless you share them. We do not use them for advertising.
• Your content: photos, videos, audio and voice notes, documents, 3D/360 media, websites you save, code bundles, spaces, comments, messages, dial readings and ratings, offers, check-ins and wants.
• Payments: if you buy storage or support Dialin, Stripe processes the payment. We receive and keep a customer reference, the amount and your email. We never see or store your card number.
• Messages to us: emails to seekers@dialin.io, bug reports (including the screenshot of the screen you're reporting and the page's recent errors), and waitlist sign-ups.

Information collected as you use Dialin

• Location:
  • When you add a photo, we read the GPS position stored inside it. If there is none and you've allowed location access, we use your device's location.
  • These coordinates are stored privately, visible only to you.
  • Before a photo or video leaves your device, we remove the location data embedded in the file itself. The location we read is kept privately as described above, never inside the stored file.
  • Some features use your location only while you use them: nearby offers and places, the map, and asking the butler "where am I". During a live offer, your position is updated about every 15 seconds while the offer is on screen.
  • Searches for offers can be stored with the area you searched from.
• Usage:
  • Pages viewed (counted with a cookieless, privacy-preserving method: we don't store your IP for this; we count visitors with a daily-rotating one-way hash).
  • Time spent online per day.
  • Which items you viewed and for how long.
  • Data you streamed.
  • Device type.
  • Up to 8 IP addresses per day associated with your account, used for security, abuse prevention and helping you with support. IP addresses are erased after 90 days.
• Errors: if the app crashes, we record the error, the page, the app version, your browser type and your account ID so we can fix it.
• Faces (only if you turn on face grouping):
  • Faces are detected on your device.
  • We store a numeric description of each face (not a photo), so photos of the same person can be grouped for you.
  • This may include people who are not Dialin users and appear in your photos.
  • You can switch it off and delete this data at any time in Settings → Privacy.
• Head tracking (only if you turn it on): your camera feed is processed on your device to move the 3D view. Nothing from the camera is sent to us.

3. How we use it

• To run Dialin: store and show your content, sync it across devices, deliver messages, process payments.
• To understand your content with AI: see section 4.
• To build your taste profile and the shared "dials". Your readings contribute, without your name, to the average feeling people report for a place or thing. You can turn this pooling off (Settings → Privacy).
• To show you offers from businesses near you that match your tastes. Businesses see aggregate counts. If you redeem an offer, the business sees your display name, username and trust level.
• To keep Dialin safe: prevent abuse, enforce our Terms, investigate bugs.
• To communicate with you: account emails, replies to support, and (if you join) the waitlist.
• We do not sell personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use your content to train third-party AI models.

4. AI processing

• Every item you add is analyzed by Anthropic's Claude. That includes the image or a preview, its filename and details. The analysis suggests dials, tags and descriptions. This happens for private items too.
• Anthropic processes this data on our behalf and, under its commercial terms, does not use it to train its models.
• The butler (the assistant you talk to) sends what you say or photograph to Anthropic to answer you. Some butler features work before you sign in.
• Finding the exact product (only when you ask): when you tap "Find exactly what it is" on something you added, its photo is sent to Google Lens through SerpAPI to find matching products and prices. Google gets a link that works for ten minutes, nothing else about you. Dish names are matched against a restaurant's public menu, and other diners' public photos of those dishes may be looked up by name.
• Your own AI keys (optional): if you add your own Anthropic, Google Gemini or OpenAI key, your requests go from your device directly to that provider under your agreement with them. Google's free Gemini tier may use requests to improve Google's models; we show this before you connect. Your key is encrypted in your browser with a passphrase only you know.
• Voice input: dictation uses your browser's speech recognition. In some browsers (for example Chrome) audio is sent to the browser maker (Google) to be transcribed.

5. Connected accounts (optional)

• If you connect Google, we request read-only access to Gmail, Calendar and/or Drive. You choose which.
• This lets the butler answer questions about your mail, events and files when you ask.
• Access tokens are stored encrypted. Content is fetched only when you ask and is not stored by us beyond answering.
• Disconnect any time in the butler's connections, or at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
• Dialin's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
• Local files: if you let the butler read a folder on your computer, files are read on your device. Only the excerpts needed to answer you are sent to the AI provider.

6. Who can see what

• Each space and item has a visibility setting: Only you / Hidden / Restricted, Friends, Trusted, Public, Broadcast.
• Public and Broadcast content can be seen by anyone, including people who aren't signed in. Putting an item in a public space makes that item public.
• Share links let anyone with the link open what you shared, even private items, until the link expires. You choose the expiry and whether downloads are allowed.
• Files follow the same rules as what they belong to. A photo, video or document is delivered only to people allowed to see its item, space, message or record — identity and medical documents only ever to you. Profile pictures, contact-card photos and offer images can be opened by anyone who has their link.
• Vanish hides your entire world from others without deleting it.
• The Commons (theuniversal.io):
  • We publish anonymous statistics about what people notice and how it feels, grouped by area (about 2 km), category and week.
  • A group is published only if at least 5 different people contributed. Values are rounded into bands and released with a random delay.
  • Hidden, deleted and explicit content, private groups and people who opted out are excluded.
  • Only items you've shared with at least your friends count. Items set to "Only you", "Hidden" or "Restricted" are never included.
  • You can opt out in Settings → Privacy.

7. Service providers we share data with

We share personal data only with providers that help us run Dialin, under contracts that limit their use to providing their service to us:

We may also disclose information if required by law, to protect the safety of people, or as part of a merger or acquisition (we'll tell you first).

8. Cookies and storage on your device

• We don't use advertising or third-party analytics cookies.
• We use:
  • a short-lived cookie (up to 1 hour) that lets your browser stream your own media;
  • a cookie that remembers a sidebar setting;
  • your browser's local storage and IndexedDB to keep you signed in, remember preferences and cache your data so Dialin loads fast and works offline.
• Embedded third-party media may set its own cookies.

9. How long we keep it

• Your content and account: until you delete them.
• Deleted items and spaces can be restored for 30 days; after that they are permanently removed.
• Account deletion: when you delete your account (Settings → Privacy), we delete it immediately, including your content, messages, readings and uploaded files. Dials you created that others use, and payment records we must keep for tax purposes, remain without your name.
• Backups: we keep daily backups for 7 days, so deleted data is gone from them within 7 days.
• Usage and security logs: IP addresses are erased after 90 days; daily usage totals are kept while your account exists.
• Guest accounts that never saved anything are removed after 30 days.

10. Your choices and rights

• Access and export: download a copy of your data at any time from Settings → Data or Settings → Privacy, or email us.
• Correct: edit your profile and content at any time.
• Delete: delete items, spaces or your account in Settings, or email us. See section 9.
• Opt out: of the Commons and taste pooling (Settings → Privacy), face grouping, connected accounts and emails.
• Depending on where you live (for example the EU/UK under GDPR, or California under the CCPA/CPRA), you may also have rights to object, restrict processing, data portability, and to appeal or complain to a regulator. We don't sell or "share" personal information as those laws define it.
• If you're in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, DIAL IN LLC is the controller of your personal data. Our legal bases are:
  • contract — to provide Dialin to you (your account, content, messages, payments);
  • legitimate interests — keeping Dialin secure, preventing abuse, fixing bugs, and the anonymous aggregate statistics described in section 6, which you can opt out of;
  • consent — face grouping, connected Google accounts, precise location, and sensitive information you choose to store; you can withdraw consent at any time in Settings without affecting what happened before;
  • legal obligation — keeping payment records. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. We have not yet appointed a representative in the EU or UK under GDPR Article 27. Until we do, people in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland can reach us directly at seekers@dialin.io, and we answer within 30 days.
• Biometric data (for example under Illinois, Texas and Washington law): Face grouping is off by default and requires your explicit opt-in. We use face data only to group your photos for you, never sell it, and delete it as soon as you turn the feature off or delete your account.
• To exercise a right, email seekers@dialin.io. We'll respond within 30 days (45 where a law allows that time and we tell you why).

11. Children and families

• Dialin is for people aged 13 and older. We ask for your date of birth when you create an account and don't allow accounts for anyone younger. Users under 18 should use Dialin with a parent or guardian.
• Dialin offers parental controls and guardian accounts: a guardian can lock content ratings and approve contacts with a PIN.
• Explicit content is hidden from accounts under 18 and from parent-locked accounts.
• We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email us and we will delete it.

12. Security

• Data is encrypted in transit.
• Access to your data is controlled per item and space by database rules.
• Secrets such as connected-account tokens are encrypted.
• The encrypted safe (a preview for invited testers) is locked on your device with keys we never have, so we cannot read what's sealed in it.
• No system is perfectly secure. Use a strong password, and tell us at seekers@dialin.io if you find a vulnerability.

13. International transfers

Dialin is run from the United States and our providers process data primarily in the United States. When personal data from the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland is transferred there, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK and Swiss equivalents) in our providers' data processing agreements, or on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified.

14. Changes

If we make material changes we'll tell you in the app or by email before they take effect.

15. Contact

DIAL IN LLC · [MAILING ADDRESS] · seekers@dialin.io