Privacy
Version 2026-10-08. This page is a draft under review and will be confirmed before anyone outside our first test group joins.
The company that runs Mootstead will be named here, as the controller of your information, before anyone outside our first test group joins. Until then, write to hello@mootstead.com.
What we keep, and why
- The name you choose
- Shown only to people you have been witnessed with. Needed to run your account (contract).
- Your devices
- A public key for each phone or browser you use, and when it was added or last opened. This is how Mootstead knows a device is yours. We never hold the private key (contract, and our legitimate interest in keeping accounts secure).
- Your Moments
- Who you were witnessed with and the day it happened, with the signed record of the exchange beneath it. A Moment is shared by everyone in it (contract).
- Your age check result
- That you passed, which provider checked, their reference and the date. We do not receive or keep your photo, your ID document or your date of birth (legal obligation under the Online Safety Act 2023).
- Plans in a Circle, and photos
- What you write or add, shown only to the people in that Circle or Moment. Photos are checked before anyone else sees them (contract; legal obligation for the safety checks).
- Your recovery email, if you give one
- Used only to get you back in if you lose your phone (contract).
- Reports and complaints
- What you tell us and what we did about it (legal obligation; legitimate interest in keeping people safe).
- Security events
- That a device was added, removed or refused, and when. Never where from (legitimate interest in security).
- Daily counts
- How many Moments were made or declined today, as numbers with no person attached, and that you opened Mootstead on a given day, so we can tell whether it is useful (legitimate interest).
What we never collect
Your location. Mootstead never asks your browser where you are, keeps no map, and does not store network addresses with your account. A Moment records who and when, not where. We cannot promise that nobody could ever guess a place from other things they know, so we keep as little as we can.
Who else sees it
Only the people you have been witnessed with see your name and your Moments. Nothing on Mootstead is public. These companies process information for us and nothing else: the age-check provider (only during your check), our hosting provider, our storage provider for photos and backups, our email provider (only if you give a recovery address) and, for photos, the services that check them for illegal material. We will list them by name here before anyone outside our first test group joins.
How long
Your account and Moments last until you remove them. Withdrawing from a Moment takes you out of it for everyone at once. Removing your account deletes it at once from the live service; backups are overwritten within 35 days. Daily marks and security events go after 13 months. Reports and their outcomes are kept for 3 years, because the law may require them.
Your rights
You can see, correct, download or delete what we hold about you, object to some uses of it, and complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). Most of this you can do yourself on the You page. For anything else, write to hello@mootstead.com.
Decisions made by machines
A photo may be held back automatically while a person checks it. No decision with a legal or similarly serious effect on you is made by a machine alone; you can ask a person to look again on the Safety page.