Privacy Policy
Last updated: 19 October 2026
Booniverse is a peer-support app for teens and young adults. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, and what you can do about it. We've tried to write it so you can actually read it. If anything here is unclear, email us at [email protected] and we'll explain it properly.
Booniverse is operated by Booniverse Inc., 115 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, USA.
The short version
- You must be 13 or older to use Booniverse, and 18 or older to use BooFriend chats.
- We collect your email, username, birthday, and whatever you choose to write or upload — journals, chats, forum posts, your profile photo.
- Everything you write for other people to see — chats, forum posts, notes, anonymous posts, your bio, and journal entries you share — is sent to automated safety systems run by OpenAI and Google before or shortly after it appears. This is how we keep the app safe. It is not a person reading over your shoulder, but it is a real thing we do and you should know about it. Journal entries you keep private are not checked this way, unless you choose one for a Moon reflection (see section 4).
- Moon reflections are written by OpenAI, from your answers and any journal entry you choose to reflect on.
- We do not sell your data, we do not show you ads, and we do not use your content to train AI models.
- You can delete your account from Profile → About → Delete Account.
1. Who this applies to and how old you have to be
You must be at least 13 to create a Booniverse account. We ask for your birthday during setup and we block accounts that don't meet the minimum age.
If we find out someone under 13 has an account, we delete it and the data associated with it.
BooFriend chats are 18+. If someone in a BooFriend chat mentions an age under 18, if the person they're chatting with reports that they seem to be under 18, or if someone reports a teen-band account as an adult pretending to be a teen, we end any chat and pause BooFriend and private messages on that account until the age question is settled. If the account says its owner is 18 or over, they can settle it themselves with a one-time ID check (see §6). If the account says its owner is under 18, our safety team reviews it — we never ask anyone under 18 to do an ID check. We keep a small record of the pause — why, and when — so our safety team can review it.
People under 18 and adults can't start private contact with each other (notes, anonymous messages, friend requests, adding by Boo ID or QR code) unless they're already friends. If an ID check shows that two friends are on opposite sides of 18, that friendship is removed.
Booniverse is available in the United States only. Our App Store and Google Play listings are limited to US territories, and this policy is written for users in the US. We'll open other countries when we can support them properly, and this policy will change first.
Under-13 is a hard floor, not a territory question: we block those accounts wherever they're created, and delete them and their data if one gets through.
2. What we collect
Things you give us
| What | When |
|---|---|
| Email address | Sign-up |
| Password | Sign-up (stored hashed by Firebase Authentication — we never see it) |
| Google account details | Only if you choose "Sign in with Google" |
| Username, Boo ID, birthday | Account setup |
| Profile photo, avatar, bio | Optional, any time |
| Journals and dream logs | When you write them |
| Moon reflection answers | When you do a reflection |
| BooFriend chat messages | When you chat |
| Forum posts and comments | When you post |
| Notes and anonymous (Mail-Bun) posts | When you send them |
| Reports you file about other users | When you report someone |
| Ratings you give a listener | After a BooFriend chat ends |
| Boo-Logy quiz answers and results | When you take the quiz |
| Volunteer training answers, and the two short written answers you submit at the end of the training (a member of our team reads these before you become a listener) | If you train as a listener |
| Moderation records about you — strikes, suspensions, bans | If you break the rules |
| Age-check record — why BooFriend was paused on your account, and when | Only if BooFriend is paused for an age check |
| ID check outcome — passed or not, the minimum age confirmed (18 or 20), and when; and your birthday, taken from your ID in place of the one you typed | Only if you do a one-time ID check |
Things we collect automatically
- Device and app information — device model, operating system, app version.
- Login sessions — so you can see where your account is signed in. Deleted after 30 days of inactivity.
- Push notification token — so we can send you notifications.
- Country — worked out from your IP address using a service called ipapi.co, and only while your Location Access setting is on. Turning it off clears it.
- Crash reports — if the app crashes, Firebase Crashlytics sends us the technical details. These are linked to your account ID so we can tell whether a crash is affecting one person or everyone.
- Purchase records — if you buy BOO or subscribe to Boo+.
Things we don't collect
We don't collect your precise location, your contacts list, your browsing history outside the app, or anything from your camera or photo library other than the image you deliberately pick as a profile photo.
3. Why we collect it
| Purpose | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Running your account | Sign-in, profile, settings, your BOO balance |
| Making the features work | Journals, chats, forums, reflections, friends |
| Keeping people safe | Automated moderation, reports, blocking, suspensions, detecting messages about self-harm |
| Payments | Verifying purchases and Boo+ subscriptions |
| Support | Answering you when you email us |
| Fixing the app | Crash reports and error diagnostics |
| Legal obligations | Where the law requires us to keep or hand over records |
What we never do with it. We don't sell your information, we don't share it for anyone else's advertising, and we don't use it to target ads at you. There are no advertising or ad-attribution SDKs in the app at all.
4. Automated safety checks — please read this one
Booniverse is a mental-health app used by teenagers. To keep it safe we check content automatically:
- Text you write — chat messages, forum posts, comments and your bio are sent to OpenAI's moderation service to check for abuse, harassment, sexual content, threats and grooming patterns. We also run our own keyword checks.
- Images you upload — profile photos and forum images are scanned by Google Cloud Vision before they are visible to anyone else. A profile photo is held in a private area where nobody can see it, including you, until it passes.
- Moon reflections and journal entries you submit for a reflection are sent to OpenAI (GPT-4o-mini) to generate the reflection you get back. What you write in a Moon session — the journal you choose and your answers — and what the AI writes back are also checked by OpenAI's moderation service and our own keyword list. If something suggests you may be struggling, Moon shows you support options and the AI is told to keep its questions gentle. That check is not recorded: nothing is stored, counted or reported, and nobody at Booniverse is told it happened.
- Anything you write that looks like it's about self-harm or a crisis is logged for our safety team to review, so we can check you're okay and show you crisis resources. This check runs on chat messages, forum comments, shared journal and dream-log entries, your profile bio, and notes and anonymous posts.
- Journal and dream-log entries you keep private are never sent to us or to anyone for this check. Instead, when you save one, your phone itself looks for words that suggest you might be struggling and, if it finds them, shows you support options. That happens entirely on your device: nothing is sent, stored or counted, and we don't know whether it appeared. (If you choose a private entry for a Moon reflection, it is sent to OpenAI and checked as described in the Moon point above.)
What this means in plain terms: if you write something in Booniverse, assume a computer has read it, and that a human on our safety team may read it if the computer flags it or if someone reports you.
We do not use your content to train AI models, and our providers are contractually restricted from doing so.
5. What other people can see
These are enforced by our database rules, so the limits below are real limits, not just what the app chooses to display.
| Content | Who sees it |
|---|---|
Your username masked to its first and last letter (for example A*****r), your avatar, and your Boo+ badge if you choose to show it | Any signed-in Booniverse user |
| Your full username, profile photo, bio, Boo-Logy type and birthday (day and month only) | Your friends — and people you choose to show them to: someone you give your Boo ID or QR code, or someone you send a friend request |
| Your Boo ID | Any signed-in user who searches for it — only while "Find me by Boo ID" is on |
| Your BOO balance and purchases, subscription details, any warnings or suspensions on your account, and your listener-training answers | Only you (and our safety team where needed) — other users cannot read them |
| Journal entry you have shared | Your friends, in their feed and on your BooNiverse. Anyone who visits your BooNiverse sees a star for each of your latest few shared entries, showing the mood label you picked — never what you wrote. If your profile is private, only your friends see these stars |
| Journal entry you have not shared | Only you |
| Forum posts and comments | Everyone |
| BooFriend chat messages | You and the person you're chatting with (plus our safety systems and, if flagged or reported, our safety team) |
| Notes | The person you send them to, and nobody else |
| Anonymous (Mail-Bun) posts | The person you send it to, and their friends — never anyone else — see below |
About anonymous posts
Mail-Bun posts are anonymous to the person who receives them — their content does not carry your name, and the recipient cannot find out who sent it.
They are not anonymous to us. We keep a separate, locked record linking each anonymous post to the account that sent it, so that we can investigate abuse, harassment and safety incidents. If you use an anonymous post to hurt someone, we can identify you, and we will.
About your birthday
Other users see the day and month only — never the year.
Your full date of birth, your email address, your country, your push token and your notification and privacy settings are stored in a private area of your account that only you can read. Other users can't retrieve them, and that's enforced by our database rules — not just by what the app chooses to display.
We use your full date of birth to check you're old enough to be here, to keep BooFriend chats to people 18 and over, to enforce the 20+ requirement for becoming a listener, and to stop people under 18 and adults starting private contact with each other. We never show anyone else whether you're under 18.
6. Who we share it with
We don't sell your personal information. We share it with service providers who help us run Booniverse:
| Provider | What they get | What for |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase | Account data, content, files, notifications, crash reports | Our core infrastructure. Data is stored in the United States |
| OpenAI | Text you write; journal/reflection content | Safety moderation and generating reflections |
| Google Cloud Vision | Images you upload | Scanning for unsafe images |
| Giphy | Your GIF search terms and IP address | GIFs and stickers in chat (restricted to G-rated) |
| ipapi.co | Your IP address | Working out your country |
| Apple / Google Play | Purchase information | Processing in-app purchases |
| RevenueCat | Your account ID and purchase history | Managing subscriptions |
| Google Sign-In | Sign-in identity | Only if you use it |
| Gmail (Google Workspace) | Your email address | Sending you account emails — refunds, and suspension or restoration notices |
| Didit | A photo of your ID and a selfie — only if you do a one-time ID check, which we only ever ask of adults (18+) | Confirming your age: before the listener training, and for an adult lifting a BooFriend age pause. The check opens inside the app in your phone's own secure browser view, so our app never sees the photos. Didit processes and stores them in the European Union (Ireland) and deletes them after one month. We keep whether you passed, and we update the birthday on your account to match your ID. We never keep the ID or the photos |
We may also disclose information where we're legally required to, or where we believe in good faith that it's necessary to prevent serious harm to you or someone else.
Where your information lives. Booniverse Inc. is a US company, the app is offered in the US only, and your information is stored and processed in the United States on Google Cloud and Firebase. The one exception is the one-time ID check: Didit processes and stores the ID photo and selfie in the European Union (Ireland) for the period in §7, then deletes them. Nothing else leaves the US.
7. How long we keep things
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account and profile | While your account is open |
| Journals, reflections, forum posts, notes, anonymous posts | While your account is open |
| BooFriend chat messages | 12 months, then deleted automatically |
| Login sessions | 30 days after last activity |
| Reports, moderation flags and crisis logs | 24 months, then deleted automatically |
| Record linking an anonymous post or anonymous note to its sender | 24 months, then deleted automatically |
| Record that two people have shared a BooFriend chat (only who, and when — no messages; it's what stops the app's random picker matching them with each other again) | 24 months after their latest chat, then deleted automatically; deleted straight away if either account is deleted |
| Listener written-check answers and our review of them | 24 months after your last submission, then deleted automatically |
| Age-check record (if BooFriend was paused on your account) | While your account is open; deleted with it |
| ID check outcome (and the birthday taken from your ID) | While your account is open; deleted with it. The ID photo and selfie are held by Didit in the EU, not by us, and deleted after one month |
| Purchase records | As required by tax and accounting law |
| Crash reports | Per Firebase Crashlytics defaults (90 days) |
Anything kept "while your account is open" is removed when you delete your account, except the safety and purchase records described above.
One more thing survives deletion, and only in a form that can't identify you on its own: if BooFriend was paused on your account for an age check, or you had passed an ID check, we keep a scrambled (hashed) version of your email address with that one fact attached. If an account is later created with the same email, the pause or the verified age is put back on it. This stops someone deleting an account to shed an age check and signing up again with a different birthday. We can't read the email back out of the hash.
8. Your rights and choices
You can:
- See and edit most of your information in the app (Profile → settings).
- Change your username or email once every 90 days.
- Control who sees your journals — share an entry with your friends, or keep it private.
- Turn off push notifications, login alerts, and QR/ID discoverability.
- Make your profile private (Privacy → Private Profile): you won't appear in random visits, and only your friends can send you notes or anonymous posts. People can still find you by Boo ID or QR code to send a friend request, unless you turn those off too. This is enforced by our servers, not just hidden in the app.
- Block any user, and report any user or piece of content.
- Delete your account — Profile → About → Delete Account.
Depending on where you live you may also have the right to request a copy of your data, correct it, ask us to delete it, object to how we use it, or complain to your data protection regulator. Email [email protected] and we'll respond within 30 days.
What deleting your account actually removes. Your profile, journals and dream logs, moon reflections, notes and anonymous posts you received, your contacts and friend connections, your forum notifications and activity, your listener/speaker records, your profile photo and any images you uploaded, and your sign-in itself. Your name and the words of any reply or mention you sent are also removed from other people's forum notifications.
What we redact rather than delete. Forum posts, comments and BooFriend chat messages are removed from you — your name and the content come off them — but the entry itself stays in place, because deleting it outright would tear a hole in someone else's conversation or a live forum thread.
What we keep. Safety records (reports, moderation flags, crisis logs) and purchase records, for the reasons and periods described in section 7. If your account was suspended or banned when you deleted it, we keep a one-way scrambled version of your email address so the ban can't be shed by deleting and signing up again. The same applies if BooFriend was paused on your account for an age check: we keep a scrambled version of your email so the pause carries over to a new account made with it, until we can confirm your age.
9. Security
We use Firebase Authentication, App Check, and default-deny database rules. Your password is hashed and we never see it. Sensitive actions — your BOO balance, purchases, moderation, reports — are enforced on our servers, not in the app, so they can't be faked by a modified client.
No service is perfectly secure. If we discover a breach affecting your personal data we'll notify you and the relevant regulator as required by law.
10. Changes to this policy
If we make a significant change we'll tell you in the app and ask you to accept the updated version before you continue.
11. Contact
Booniverse Inc. 115 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, USA [email protected]
We reply to privacy requests within 30 days.