& Privacy Policy

Welcome to &'s Privacy Policy.  In order for you to trust us with your information, it's important that you know what information we collect, why we collect it, how it is used, and your choices regarding the information you share with us. This Privacy Policy applies from April 1, 2022.  EFFECTIVE DATE: April 1, 2022

1. Who We Are

And Connection Inc & 321-12 Bonnycastle Street Toronto, Ontario, M5A 0C8.

2. Where This Privacy Policy Applies

This Privacy Policy applies to all & owned apps, websites, events and other services we operate under the & brand.   .

3. Information We Collect

& stores and collects the information you provide and declare to us to create your profile. We also collect information about your usage of our services, as well as information from third parties, such as service providers, or linked social media accounts.

Information you give us

  • Your phone number and email address
  • Your personal information like your gender identity, date of birth, sexual orientation, etc...
  • Your additional profile information, such as details on your bio, as well as your profile media. To upload certain content, such as your pictures or videos, you then allow us to access your camera or photo album for upload purposes.
  • Your payment service provider, or debit or credit card number or other financial information, when you subscribe to a paid service or make a purchase directly from us (rather than through a platform such as iOS or Android).
  • If or when you contact us and the contents of the messages.
  • If or when you report a user and the contents of the messages.
  • Your geolocation (latitude and longitude). The collection of your geolocation may occur in the background even when you aren’t using the services if the permission you gave us expressly permits it. If you decline permission for us to collect your precise geolocation, we cannot use it, however the app will not function properly for you, as & relies of geolocation for you to find nearby connections. 
  • All chat messages within &, which is necessary for the operation of the services.

Information we receive from others

In addition to the information you provide us directly from using &, we may receive information about you from others, including:

  • Other members that report your behaviour.
  • Social Media information that you use to create your profile, or social media handles that you link to your profile
  • Third Party Advertising Partners may provide us information 

Information collected when you use our services

Your usage of & services provides us data about features you’ve used, how and when you’ve used them, and the device(s) you use to access your profile and & services. See below for more details:

  • Data + Activity Usage: your activity on our services, dates and times, how you use &'s features and functions, ads that you interacted with and your interactions with other members.
  • Device Information: device(s) you use to access our services, app crashes, hardware and software information (IP address, device ID and type), apps settings, and identifiers associated with cookies or other technologies that help identify a device or browser.

4. Identification and Data Collection Technologies

Additionally to your phone number and email, we use SDKs, pixels, web beacons, and cookies to recognize you and/or your device(s).  

5. How We Use Information

We use your information to:

  • maintain your profile and account
  • continually improve &, and improve your experience
  • keep you and your account safe
  • provide you with relevant and useful advertising messages

This also entails us:

  • Helping you connect with other users
  • Preventing, detecting and fighting fraud and other illegal or unauthorized activities
  • Find and address ongoing, suspected or alleged violations of our Terms of Use
  • Retain data related to violations of our Terms of Use to prevent against recurrences
  • Running advertising and marketing campaigns
  • To ensure and comply legal compliance, and assist law enforcement when required

To process your information as described in this Privacy Policy, we rely on the following legal bases:

Provide our service to you:

we process your information, as listed above, to perform the contract that you have with us of connecting you with others via &.

Legitimate interests:

we process your information, as listed above, based on our the legitimate interest of user behaviour and usage to continuously improve our offerings, to provide you with the best experience we can. Based on our learnings and understandings of what we think may interest you, we may suggest certain products, services, offerings, and relevant advertising messages. We process to help keep & members safe, and we process necessary data to assist law enforcement when required, to enforce our rights, and to to defend ourselves in the event of a legal action.

Comply with applicable laws and regulations:

we process your information, as listed above, when it is required or necessary to comply with laws and regulations, and to provide our evidence of compliance when required by law. The statutory data we retain is only meant to provide valid access requests from law enforcement.

Consent:

you choose to consent to our processing of all information you provide on your profile, as well your geolocation, in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You may withdraw your consent at any time by changing you

setting or by removing your profile content, or deleting your profile. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at the address provided at the end of this Privacy Policy.

6. How We Share Information

&'s mainly shares your information with other members in order to help you make meaningful connections! We may also sometimes share some members’ information with service providers and our operating partners. In some cases, we may need to share member information with legal authorities. Here are more details about how your information may be shared with others:

With other members

Your public profile information is shared with other members when you voluntarily disclose information on the service. & allows users to hide any and all of your profile information, and to unlock your profile information with your connections.  

With our service providers and partners

Our third parties help us operate, maintain, and improve our services. We also may share information with partners for advertising. All of our partners must agree to strict confidentiality obligations.

With law enforcement / when required by law

We may disclose your information if necessary to comply with a law.  

To enforce legal rights

We may disclose your information if 

  • disclosure would mitigate our liability in an actual or threatened lawsuit
  • necessary to protect our legal rights and legal rights of our members, business partners or other interested parties
  • required to enforce our agreements with you
  • required to investigate, prevent, or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing

7. Cross-Border Data Transfers

Sharing of information listed above in Section 6 involves cross-border data transfers in Canada and the United States of America.

For other countries whose data protection laws have been deemed adequate by the European Commission, we use standard contract clauses:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/standard-contractual-clauses-scc_en

8. How Long We Retain Your Information

We will keep your personal information only for as long as we need for legitimate business purposes, and as permitted by applicable law.

We are required to keep limited information by law, as laid out below:

  • Transaction data is kept for 10 years, to comply with tax and accounting legal requirements
  • Credit card information is kept for one year (the duration that users may challenge the transaction and “traffic data” / logs), to comply with legal data retention obligations. 
  • Records of consents members give us is kept for 5 years, to evidence our compliance with applicable law. We maintain limited information on the basis of our legitimate interest, as laid out below:
  • customer care and report records and supporting data is kept for 5 years, to support our customer care decisions, enforce our rights and enable us to defend ourselves in the event of a claim
  • past accounts and subscriptions information is kept for 3 years after the closure of your last account, which is used for financial forecasting and reporting, 
  • profile data is kept for 1 year in anticipation of potential litigation, for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
  • profile data of members who were banned is kept for as long as necessary to ensure the safety and vital interests of our members.
  • We maintain information on the basis of our legitimate interest:

  • where there is an outstanding or potential issue, claim or dispute which is requiring us to keep information until resolved.

9. Children's Privacy

& is a service for individuals 18 years of age or older. Our services do not permit individuals who are under 18 years of age.  

10. Privacy Policy Changes

This policy may change over time. We will notify you to review before any changes take effect .

11. How to Contact Us

If you need to contact us about this Privacy Policy, you may email or mail us:

Email: here By post: admin@andconnection.live And Connection Inc & 321-12 Bonnycastle Street Toronto, Ontario, M5A 0C8

& Cookie Policy

No, this page isn't about when we give away free delicious cookies, but if we did it would be on December 4th for international cookie day!

Cookies are used to help & remember information about your site visits, the details you share, and help make it easier for your future visits.

About cookies

Cookies are stored in your web browser or your device’s memory. They are a small piece of text sent to your browser by a website you visit. The details in a cookie usually contains the site URL from where the cookie originated, the time when the cookie expires, and a randomly generated unique number or similar identifier. A cookie also may contain information about your device, which is mainly your browsing history.

What cookies we use

We use first-party cookies, which are placed on your device directly by us, to help us adapt our website to your browser’s language preferences and to better understand your use of our website. 

We also use SDKs and Pixels

SDKs (software development kits) are small pieces of code included in apps, which function like cookies. Pixels are tiny files that contain a unique identifier that allow us to know when someone has visited our service, and allow us to understand where traffic to our sites comes from. 

What are these Cookies, SDKs and Pixels (codes) used for?

These codes are primarily used to remember your preferences, recognize you when you visit our sites or recognize you in our app(s), and to measure the success of our advertising. 

When you use our services, some or all of the following types of codes may be set on your device(s)

  • Basic Essential Codes: required for us to provide you our services (log in, preferences, and detect suspicious activity).
  • Analytics: to help us learn how our services are being used so that we may improve our services for you.
  • Advertising Pixels: to help us understand where our advertising traffic is coming from, and prevent us from serving you the same ad continuously, and our ad performance.

How can you control these?

Cookies are primarily used in web browsers, you may limit them by using private browsing modes, deleting your cookie history, or using an ad blocker.  SDKs permissions usually require you to opt-in and acknowledge the software development kit permissions. You may edit or control these permissions within your device settings. 

Browser and devices controls

For web browsers, in your browser settings you may control or reject cookies, and some browsers and sites alert you when a cookie is placed on your browser.

For mobile devices, you may be able to reset device identifiers or opt-out from having identifiers collected or processed by using the appropriate setting on your mobile device. 

How to contact us? If you have questions about this Cookie Policy, you can contact us via: Email: admin@andconnection.live By post: And Connection Inc & 321-12 Bonnycastle Street Toronto, Ontario, M5A 0C8

& Community Guidelines

Welcome to &!

& is designed to be the world's best tool for personal connections, however we can't make that possible without you! & is an inclusive and safe environment. If you do not believe in inclusivity and equality, please do not join our community. We expect you to be respectful, considerate and abide by our community guidelines both on and offline. We want everyone to find their '&', which is why we've created &. Please don't make decisions or actions that prevent us from helping you find your &! Below is a list of our community policies. If you violate any of these policies, you may be banned from &. Your offline behavior may also lead to termination and ban of your & account. We encourage you to report any behavior that violates our policies.

& does not allow:

Public Profile Nudity 

We understand and respect sexuality, however nobody wants to see vulgar public profile images as they're connecting with new people. We don't want members dropping their phones in shock because you showed your private parts in your profile pictures. If you do want to send or share private images, you may do so in your private media album, or send them in messages directly.  

Harassment

& is a safe environment. Do not engage nor encourage others to engage in any targeted abuse or harassment against any user. Stalking, threats, bullying, intimidation, or any other form of harassment is not tolerated. 

Violence and Physical Harm

Violent, graphic, or gory content on & if not allowed. Violence of any sort, including threatening or promoting terrorism, physical assault, coercion, and any acts of violence, including suicide or self-harm, is strictly prohibited. 

Hate Speech + Discrimination 

& is a safe environment. All races, gender idenities, sexual orientations, beliefs, ideologies, and walks of life are celebrated here. 

Racism, bigotry, hatred, homophobia, or violence against individuals or groups based on factors like (but not limited to) race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, disability, gender, age, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity is not allowed.

Any content or messages that promote, advocates for, or condones discrimination should be reported, and we will deal with it accordingly.  

Private Information

Never send money or share financial information. Protect your personal information. Protect your personal information. Do not share social security numbers, passports, passwords, financial information. Unless you feel comfortable, do not share contact information, such as phone numbers, email addresses, or home/work address.

Spam + Scamming

Spamming and scamming is prohibited. Do not lie, do not create fake profiles, do not abuse the & environment with lies or scam. Do not ask for money, and do not direct users to websites.

& has a zero-tolerance policy scam. Anyone attempting to get other users’ private information for fraudulent or illegal activity will be banned. 

If you are caught sharing your financial account information, or requesting money from other users, you may be banned from &.

Promotion or Solicitation

Soliciting on & is prohibited. If you want to promote to & users, you may inquire about paid advertising, but please do not match with someone just to try to sell them something.

If the purpose of your profile is to advertise your event or business, non-profit, political campaign, contest, or to conduct research, we may delete your account.  

Prostitution and Trafficking

Any promotion of commercial sexual services, human trafficking or other non-consensual sexual acts is strictly prohibited. 

Impersonation

& is a safe environment, and it is safe for you to be yourself here. As others are being themselves, we expect you to be yourself too.

Impersonating, or misrepresenting any person or entity is not allowed. Don’t pretend to be someone else.

Minors

Everyone must be 18 years of age or older to use &.  If you include pictures of children or minors in your profile, you must also be in the photo. If you see a profile that depicts a minor in a sexual or suggestive way, or includes an unaccompanied minor, please report the profile immediately.

Copyright and Trademark Infringement

Only post pictures of your work, or photos you are allowed to use from the owner. Do not post any work without permission that is copyrighted or trademarked by others.

Account Dormancy

We may delete your account for inactivity if you don’t log in to your account for 2 years.