Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 2026
PenPalConnect is a place where people write letters to each other. That only works if you trust us with your data, so this page explains — in plain language — exactly what we collect, why we collect it, who else sees it, and what you can ask us to do about it. If anything here is unclear, email [email protected] and a human will answer.
1. Who is responsible for your data
PenPalConnect is operated from the Netherlands and is the data controller for the personal data described below.
- Waterpas 19, 8253 LH Dronten, The Netherlands
- Chamber of Commerce (KvK): 86255584
- VAT ID: NL004216201B82
- Email: [email protected]
2. What we collect
Data you give us
- Account data — your name or nickname, email address and a hashed password. We never store your password itself.
- Profile data — country, city, date of birth, gender, languages, interests, what you are looking for in a pen pal, and anything you write in your profile text. You choose how much of this is public: your age and city can each be hidden with one switch.
- Photos — your profile photo and any album photos you upload.
- Letters and messages — the content of the letters you exchange, including postcards, video letters and attachments.
- Verification data — if you choose to earn a Verified badge, the short video you record for that purpose.
- Reports — if you report a member or a letter, we keep the report and the material it concerns.
- Correspondence with us — emails you send to support, appeals against moderation decisions, and our replies.
Data we collect automatically
- Technical data — IP address, browser and device type, and the pages you request. Web server logs are kept briefly for security and abuse prevention.
- Activity data — when you were last active, which we use to show members who are actually around and to tidy away abandoned accounts.
- Analytics — see section 5.
- Advertising — see section 4.
3. Why we use it, and on what legal basis
| What for | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|
| Running your account and delivering your letters | Performance of a contract |
| Showing you relevant pen pals and match scores | Performance of a contract |
| Service email — new letters, connection requests, password resets | Performance of a contract |
| Moderation, photo review, reports, blocking, fraud and abuse prevention | Legitimate interest in a safe community, and legal obligation |
| Protecting members under 18 | Legitimate interest, and legal obligation |
| Showing advertising that keeps the service free | Consent (in the EEA/UK) or legitimate interest for non-personalised ads |
| Understanding which pages are used, in aggregate | Legitimate interest |
| Optional push notifications | Consent |
4. Advertising and cookies
PenPalConnect is free to use and has no subscriptions. The public parts of the site — the home page, the blog, guides and landing pages — carry advertising supplied by Google AdSense, and that advertising is what pays for hosting, moderation and development. There is no advertising inside the signed-in app: your inbox, your letters, discovery and your profile settings carry no ads at all.
Google and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads. In particular, Google uses advertising cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites. You can control this yourself:
- Opt out of personalised Google advertising at Google Ads Settings.
- Opt out of third-party vendor cookies at aboutads.info and youronlinechoices.eu.
- Read how Google uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we ask for your consent before any advertising or personalisation cookie is set, through a consent banner. You can change or withdraw that choice at any time from the banner's settings link. Declining consent does not lock you out of anything — you will simply see non-personalised ads.
Members under 18 are never shown personalised advertising, and the classroom program for schools is kept entirely free of advertising.
Besides advertising cookies, we set a strictly necessary session cookie that keeps you signed in, and a cookie that remembers whether you prefer light or dark mode. Those two cannot be switched off without breaking the site.
5. Analytics
We use a self-hosted Umami instance on our own server to count page views. It is cookieless, stores no personal profile, and never follows you to other websites. We use it to see which guides people read — nothing more.
6. Who else sees your data
We do not sell your personal data, and we never will. We share it only with:
- Other members — whatever you choose to make public on your profile, and the letters you choose to send. Members you have blocked cannot see you at all.
- Google Ireland Ltd. — for advertising on public pages, as described above.
- Our hosting and storage providers — servers in the EU, DigitalOcean Spaces for uploaded photos and video letters, and Cloudflare for TLS and protection against attacks.
- Mailgun (EU region) — to deliver transactional email such as new-letter notifications and password resets.
- Our moderators — a small team who review reported profiles, letters, photos and verification videos.
- Authorities — only when we are legally obliged to, or where it is necessary to prevent serious harm, particularly harm to a child.
7. Where your data is stored
Our servers and file storage are in the European Union. Some processors — notably Google and Cloudflare — may process data outside the EEA; where they do, transfers are covered by the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.
8. How long we keep it
- Your account and profile — until you delete it. Deletion removes your profile, photos and account data.
- Letters — for as long as the conversation exists. If you delete your account, your side of a conversation is removed.
- Photos and video letters — until you delete them or your account.
- Moderation records — reports and the material they concern are kept for a limited period after the case is closed, so that repeat offenders can be recognised, and then deleted.
- Server and security logs — a short rolling window.
- Inactive accounts — profiles that were never completed are tidied away automatically.
9. Your rights
Under the GDPR you can ask us to:
- give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- correct anything that is wrong — most of it you can edit yourself in your profile;
- delete your account and data;
- restrict or object to a particular use, including profiling for advertising;
- hand your data over in a portable format;
- withdraw a consent you gave earlier, at any time.
Email [email protected] and we will answer within 30 days. If you think we have handled your data badly, you can complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) or to the supervisory authority in your own country.
10. Children and young people
You must be at least 13 to create an account. Members under 18 form a strictly separate community: they only see, and can only write to, other members under 18. Adults and minors never appear in each other's discovery, search or messages.
Students who take part through their school sign in with a class code and a PIN, never an email address. Their accounts are a walled garden — invisible to the public community, never shown in search engines, never used for advertising, and visible only to their teacher and their classroom's exchange partner.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child has given us data they should not have, email us and we will remove the account promptly.
11. Security
Traffic is encrypted with TLS. Passwords are hashed. Uploaded photos and video letters live on private storage and are served through short-lived signed links, so a copied URL stops working. Album photos stay locked until you unlock them. No system is perfect — if you spot a vulnerability, please tell us at [email protected] before telling anyone else.
12. Push notifications
If you allow them, we store a browser push subscription so we can tell you a letter has arrived. Turn them off in your settings or in your browser and the subscription is deleted.
13. Changes to this policy
If we change something that matters, we will update the date at the top of this page and — for anything significant — tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect.