Effective date: June 5, 2026
Last updated: September 21, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Hanshek ("Hanshek," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, stores, and protects personal information when you use hanshek.com, our mobile applications, and related services across supported devices and platforms (collectively, the "Services").

This Policy is intended to apply globally. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights described in the "Your Privacy Rights" section below. If a mobile app version does not include a particular feature or third-party SDK yet, the related disclosure applies when that feature or SDK is enabled in the version you use.

1. Who We Are / Contact Us

Hanshek is the provider of the Services and the controller of personal information processed under this Privacy Policy where applicable law uses that term. The Services are operated by Ghazanfar Ali ("Hanshek").

Privacy contact: [email protected]. You may also contact us through our in-app or in-platform support system.

2. Scope of This Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information we collect through:

• Our website and web app
• Our mobile applications on supported devices and platforms
• Spaces, Space pages, memberships, moderation activity, and content shared within Spaces
• Account registration, login, profile, content, notifications, reporting, and support features
• Advertising, analytics, security, and platform operations where enabled

3. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly, information collected automatically, and information from third parties you choose to use.

3.1 Information You Provide to Us

• Account Information: Email address, username/handle, display name, password in hashed form, date of birth, account settings, and account status.
• Profile Information: Profile description, avatar/profile image, selected country/city or region, and other profile preferences.
• User Content and Activity: Posts, comments, likes, reports, Space descriptions and rules, Space memberships, search terms submitted to the search feature, "Intents," and other content or activity you submit through the Services. Search terms are processed to return results; they are not used as the durable recommendation-event record described below.
• Public Contact Details: Users may voluntarily include email addresses, phone numbers, WhatsApp numbers, or other contact details in posts or profiles. These details may be visible to other users when the user chooses to publish them.
• Support Requests: Information you send when contacting us through email, contact forms, or in-app support.

3.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device and Technical Data: IP address, browser type, device model, operating system, app version, language, crash or diagnostic data, security telemetry, and push notification tokens used to deliver notifications.
• Usage and Recommendation Data: Pages or screens viewed, features used, posts shown or opened, approximate viewing time, likes, comments, saves, hides, "Not interested" feedback, search-result interactions, feed interactions, recommendation responses, ad interactions where ads are enabled, and related event data.
• Location-Related Data: Coarse location signals such as country inferred from IP address and location preferences you choose. We do not require precise GPS location for ordinary use unless a specific feature asks for it.
• Cookies, Local Storage, and Similar Technologies: Authentication cookies, security cookies, analytics technologies, advertising cookies on the website, and mobile identifiers where permitted and enabled.

3.3 Advertising and Analytics Data

On our website, we use Google AdSense to display and measure ads, and Google Analytics and Ahrefs to understand usage and improve the Services. These providers may collect or receive information such as IP address, browser and device information, cookie identifiers, page views, interactions, and approximate location.

In mobile app versions where we enable Google AdMob or the Google Mobile Ads SDK, Google and its advertising partners may collect or receive data such as advertising identifiers, device identifiers, IP address, app interactions, ad views, ad clicks, diagnostic data, crash data, approximate location, and information used for fraud prevention, ad delivery, ad measurement, frequency capping, reporting, and, where permitted, personalized advertising.

On Android, this may include the Google Advertising ID (AAID) where available and permitted. On iOS, this may include the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) only if Apple App Tracking Transparency permission is requested and granted where required. If tracking permission is denied, we will not access the IDFA for tracking.

3.4 Information from Third Parties

• Social Login Providers: If you sign in using Google, Facebook, X/Twitter, Apple, or another supported provider, we may receive profile and account information according to the permissions you grant and the provider's policies.
• Service Providers: We may receive delivery, security, analytics, advertising, moderation, and technical status data from vendors that help us operate the Services.

3.5 Comments and Discussions

When you write a comment or reply, we store the text you submit, the account that submitted it, creation and edit times, and the post and conversation it belongs to. We may also record related activity, such as likes and reports, when you use those features.

Comments and replies are visible to people who can view the related post. We use this information to provide discussions and notifications, prevent spam and abuse, enforce our rules, and support moderation. You may edit or delete your own comments where those options are available. A deleted comment is removed from public view, although a placeholder or underlying record may remain where needed to preserve a reply thread, investigate abuse, maintain security, or meet legal obligations.

Reports may be reviewed by authorized moderators. Moderators may hide, remove, or restore comments and may take action against accounts that violate our Terms or policies.

4. How We Use Information

We use personal information to:

• Create, authenticate, secure, and manage accounts
• Provide, personalize, rank, and localize content and recommendations
• Enable posting, search, profile, reporting, moderation, notification, and support features
• Verify eligibility, including our 18+ requirement
• Detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, abuse, spam, security incidents, and policy violations
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and improve performance, reliability, and safety
• Show, personalize where permitted, measure, limit frequency of, and report advertising on the website and in app versions where ads are enabled
• Comply with law, respond to lawful requests, and enforce our Terms and policies

5. Legal Bases for Processing

Where required by law, we process personal information on one or more of these legal bases:

• Contract: To provide the Services you request.
• Legitimate Interests: To operate, secure, improve, personalize, and protect the Services, and to support non-personalized advertising, analytics, and fraud prevention where allowed.
• Consent: Where required for optional analytics, personalized ads, cookies/local storage, mobile ad tracking, IDFA access, or other consent-based processing.
• Legal Obligation: To comply with applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal processes.

6. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information for money. We may share or disclose information as described below. Some privacy laws define certain advertising or analytics disclosures as "sharing" or "targeted advertising."

• With Other Users: Public profile details and content you choose to post may be visible to others.
• With Service Providers: Hosting, infrastructure, database, security, analytics, email, push notification, customer support, moderation, AI infrastructure, and similar vendors that process information for us.
• With Advertising and Analytics Partners: Google AdSense, Google AdMob/Google Mobile Ads where enabled, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and other authorized advertising or measurement partners to deliver, measure, personalize where permitted, and protect ads and services.
• With Social Login Providers: When you choose third-party sign-in, information flows between Hanshek and the selected provider as needed to authenticate your account.
• For Legal, Safety, and Enforcement Reasons: To comply with law, respond to lawful requests, enforce our terms, investigate misuse, or protect rights, safety, and security.
• Business Transfers: In connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, subject to applicable requirements.

7. Cookies, Advertising Identifiers, and Consent

We use cookies and similar technologies for:

• Strictly Necessary Purposes: Authentication, security, sessions, and core functionality.
• Analytics and Measurement: Usage analysis, performance, diagnostics, and product improvement.
• Preferences: Remembering settings and improving user experience.
• Advertising: Showing, measuring, protecting, and personalizing ads where permitted.

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies or mobile identifiers to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to Hanshek, our apps, or other websites and apps. Google's use of advertising cookies enables Google and its partners to serve ads based on visits to our Services and other sites or apps. Users may opt out of personalized ads through Google Ads Settings at https://adssettings.google.com, browser/device controls, and platform controls where available.

For users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, we will request legally required consent for cookies or local storage and for the collection, sharing, and use of personal data for personalized ads. Where applicable, we may use a Google-certified consent management platform or Google's User Messaging Platform. Users must be able to withdraw or change consent where required by law.

On iOS, if an app version uses tracking for ads or measurement that requires Apple's App Tracking Transparency permission, the app will request permission before accessing the IDFA or tracking across apps and websites owned by other companies. On Android, users can reset or delete the Advertising ID and manage ad personalization in device settings where supported.

8. Mobile App Store and SDK Disclosures

Our Google Play Data Safety section and Apple App Privacy details must match the data collected and shared by the app version submitted to each store, including data collected by third-party SDKs such as Google Mobile Ads, Firebase/Google Analytics, social login SDKs, crash/diagnostic tools, and push notification services. We are responsible for keeping these disclosures accurate when app features or SDKs change.

If a store listing, consent screen, or in-app disclosure describes a data practice differently from this Privacy Policy, we will update the relevant disclosure so users receive clear, accurate, and consistent information.

9. Mobile App Usage Analytics

Where enabled, our Android and iOS mobile applications may use analytics tools such as Google Analytics for Firebase to understand general app usage and improve features, performance, and reliability.

Mobile analytics may include app opens, usage timing, app and device information, coarse location such as country, whether the app is being used by a guest or registered user, and selected feature events. We do not intentionally send your password, full post or comment text, or payment card information as analytics event payloads.

Where optional consent is required, analytics is disabled until you choose to allow it, and you may change your choice through the app's Privacy Choices or device settings where available.

9.1 App Version and Update Telemetry

To measure active app versions and determine update requirements, our mobile applications send a randomly generated app-installation identifier, app version, and platform to Hanshek over an encrypted connection. We store only a cryptographic hash of the installation identifier, retain this telemetry for no more than 90 days, and do not use it as an IMEI, serial number, advertising identifier, or direct account identifier.

10. AI-Assisted Content Processing and Personalization

When you publish a post, its title and body, and any optional short feed-preference text you provide, may be processed by automated or AI-assisted systems to categorize the post, detect policy-relevant attributes, generate embeddings, power search and feed relevance, and support moderation. Search text may also be processed to return results and, where configured, to generate a temporary semantic-search representation. Some processing may be performed locally or by third-party AI/embedding infrastructure providers on our behalf. We do not intentionally send those providers your account password, payment information, or full private account credentials.

To personalize feeds and recommendations, we may use signals such as the posts returned in the first page of a keyword search, posts opened from search or the feed, qualified viewing time, likes, comments, saves, hides, "Not interested" feedback, reports, location preferences, and onboarding preferences. These signals are associated with your account when you are signed in and are combined with post-content representations and derived interest information, such as topic or cluster affinity, intent preferences, location affinity, and recommendation confidence. The system uses these signals to rank and diversify content for you; it is not intended to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you.

11. International Data Transfers

Hanshek is available globally. Your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in countries other than your country of residence. Where required by law, we use appropriate safeguards for cross-border transfers.

12. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, including to provide the Services, maintain security, resolve disputes, and comply with legal obligations.

• Account Data: Retained while your account is active and for a limited period afterward as needed for legal, security, fraud prevention, and dispute purposes.
• User Content: Public content may remain visible until removed by you or us, subject to backups, legal obligations, moderation records, and technical limitations.
• Security and Technical Logs: Retained for limited periods to investigate abuse, maintain reliability, and secure the platform.
• Personalization Signals: Account-linked interaction records used for feed personalization—including search-result signals, opens, dwell, likes, comments, saves, and feedback—are retained for a limited period, generally about 90 days where practical. Derived recommendation profiles and vectors may remain until refreshed, deleted, or de-identified, subject to account-deletion, security, legal, and backup requirements.
• Advertising and Analytics Data: Retained by us and our advertising or analytics partners according to their retention practices, our settings, consent choices, and applicable law.

13. Account Deletion

You may request deletion of your account through account settings, the in-app support system, or by contacting [email protected]. We also provide an account deletion page at /delete-account/.

When your account is deleted, we delete personal information and User Content associated with your account, including your comments and replies. We may retain or de-identify limited information only where permitted or required for security, fraud prevention, legal claims, compliance, backups, or enforcement records.

14. Data Security

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information, including access controls, secure password hashing, and encryption in transit where appropriate. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

15. Children's Privacy and Age Eligibility

Hanshek is intended only for individuals who are at least 18 years old or the age of legal majority in their jurisdiction, whichever is higher. The Services are not directed to children, and we do not knowingly allow users under 18 to create accounts or use the Services.

If we learn that a person under 18 has provided personal information to us, we will take reasonable steps to delete the information and close the account. Hanshek is not designed for Google Play Families or child-directed advertising.

16. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have rights including:

• Access to personal information we hold about you
• Correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
• Deletion of personal information, subject to legal exceptions
• Objection to or restriction of certain processing
• Withdrawal of consent where processing is based on consent
• Data portability where applicable
• Opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising, or certain profiling where applicable
• Complaint to a data protection regulator or supervisory authority where applicable

16.1 How to Exercise Your Rights

To submit a privacy request, contact [email protected] or use our in-app or in-platform contact system. We may take reasonable steps to verify your identity before processing your request.

16.2 California and Other U.S. State Privacy Disclosures

Hanshek does not sell personal information for money. Our website and, where enabled, our mobile apps use advertising and analytics providers, which may involve "sharing," "targeted advertising," or similar concepts under some U.S. state privacy laws. You can use available privacy choices, Google Ads Settings, device ad settings, browser controls, and any in-app consent controls we provide.

16.3 EEA/UK Users

If you are in the EEA or UK, you may have rights under the GDPR or UK GDPR, including the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

16.4 Mobile App Privacy and Notification Choices

Guests and registered users can manage device-level choices in the Hanshek mobile app under App Settings > Privacy & Notifications. Usage Analytics can be enabled or disabled there. Where required by law or platform rules, eligible users can also open Advertising Privacy Choices to change or withdraw their advertising consent.

Mobile notification permission is controlled by the device operating system. Guests may receive occasional boosted-post or general Hanshek notifications when they enable notifications. Registered users may additionally receive activity, moderation, system, and account notifications. Users can turn notifications off in device settings at any time without losing access to the app.

17. Third-Party Links and Services

The Services may contain links to third-party websites, ads, apps, or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties. Please review their policies before providing information to them.

18. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, advertising/analytics providers, SDKs, or Services. We will post the updated version and revise the "Last updated" date above. Where required by law, we will provide additional notice or request consent.