Last updated: August 2026
Nightcap is built to minimize the personal data we collect. You do not need an account to use the core product. However, we do process certain data as described below, some of which constitutes personal data under applicable privacy regulations including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
| Data | Purpose | Lawful basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| IP address (SHA-256 hashed) | Ban enforcement, abuse prevention, rate limiting | Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Session tokens | Session continuity, matchmaking | Legitimate interest |
| Moderation logs (hashed IP, confidence scores, categories) | Content moderation, safety compliance, transparency reporting | Legitimate interest / legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Session analytics (chat counts, mode, country) | Service improvement, abuse pattern detection | Legitimate interest |
| Reports submitted by users | Safety enforcement, compliance with legal obligations | Legitimate interest / legal obligation |
| Payment data (processed by Stripe) | Payment processing for one-time Boosts | Performance of contract |
| Derived age and self-identified gender | Mandatory 18+ enforcement and matchmaking routing. We never store your date of birth — only the age computed from it at the moment you confirm it. | Legal obligation (age verification) / Legitimate interest |
| Device fingerprint (hashed signals from your browser's canvas, WebGL, audio, fonts, and screen configuration) | Recognizing repeat visitors across IP changes, ban-evasion resistance, matchmaking fairness (preventing a small number of identities from dominating the match pool), and identifying high-demand profiles for Boost offers | Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Video frames captured during sessions | Content moderation (see "Automated content moderation" below for retention and access) | Legitimate interest / legal obligation |
| Messages you send to an AI chat companion | Generating the companion's reply, sent to our AI provider (Google Gemini) at the time you send the message. Not stored as a transcript. | Performance of contract / legitimate interest |
| Country / region, derived from request headers supplied by our infrastructure providers (Vercel, Cloudflare) at the network edge | Determining whether the service is available in your location and whether mandatory age verification applies there (see "Regional availability" in the Terms) | Legal obligation / legitimate interest |
Note on device fingerprinting: we compute a fingerprint from passive browser signals on each visit and send only the resulting hash — the raw signals never leave your device and nothing is stored in cookies or localStorage to produce it. Because the hash is stable across sessions, it is pseudonymized personal data under GDPR (similar to hashed IPs) and is used solely for the purposes above, never for advertising or cross-site tracking.
Note on IP hashing:For moderation and ban enforcement, we store only a salted SHA-256 hash of your IP address — not the plaintext address. Because re-identification is theoretically possible with the salt, hashed IPs still constitute pseudonymized personal data under GDPR and we treat them accordingly. The one exception is legally mandated CSAM reporting: your raw IP address may be included, transiently, in a CyberTipline report to NCMEC where the law requires it (see "Law enforcement and legal disclosure" below) — it is not otherwise persisted anywhere in plaintext.
Nightcap uses automated systems to detect prohibited content during your sessions:
When the automated system detects a potential violation, it logs the confidence score, category, and action taken. Depending on severity and repeat history, this can range from an on-screen warning to a temporary access restriction (see the enforcement ladder in our Community Rules). Apparent CSAM is escalated for urgent human review and reported to NCMEC. All automated enforcement decisions can be appealed, except bans tied to CSAM or underage use.
We share data with the following third-party processors:
This schedule is enforced automatically by a daily deletion job, not by policy alone:
We may disclose information to law enforcement when required by law, subpoena, or court order, or when we have a good-faith belief that disclosure is necessary to prevent imminent harm.
We report apparent CSAM to the NCMEC CyberTipline as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A. Where configured, reports are transmitted directly through NCMEC's CyberTipline API; if that transmission cannot complete, the report is queued for prompt manual filing by our team rather than dropped. As part of a CyberTipline report, your raw (non-hashed) IP address may be included transiently, as NCMEC's reporting format requires — this is the one circumstance in which a plaintext IP address leaves our systems.
We derive a coarse country and region from headers our hosting and CDN providers (Vercel, Cloudflare) attach to each request at the network edge — not from a third-party lookup we perform ourselves. We use this only to apply jurisdiction-based legal requirements: keeping the service unavailable in regions we do not currently serve (for example, the UK), and requiring completed 18+ verification before chat access in U.S. states with age-verification statutes. This processing happens on every request regardless of account status, and is separate from — and coarser than — the country field associated with your session data described above.
Under GDPR, CCPA, and similar frameworks, you have the right to:
To exercise these rights, email privacy@nightcap.chat from the browser/device in question so we can compute the same fingerprint hash to locate your records (or provide your current IP address, which we will hash the same way). We will respond within 30 days.
California residents:Under the CCPA, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, request deletion, and opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information. Nightcap does not sell personal information. To the extent that sharing data with our processors constitutes "sharing" under CCPA, you may opt out by emailing privacy@nightcap.chat.
Nightcap does not use tracking cookies. We use browser localStorage to store your session token, age verification status, gender/matching preferences, and active Boost status. These are functional storage items necessary for the service to operate and do not track you across sites.
We may update this Privacy Policy at any time. Material changes will be announced via an in-app banner. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.
Questions? Email privacy@nightcap.chat