Privacy policy
Draft, under legal review.
Last updated: 6 October 2026
This policy explains what LastLit collects, why, who helps us run it, how long we keep things, and what you can do about it. It covers the LastLit app (iPhone, Android and app.lastlit.com), this website (lastlit.com) and the waitlist.
LastLit is run by [TO CONFIRM: legal name of the company or person], [TO CONFIRM: postal address]. For anything about your data, email support@lastlit.com.
The short version
- You need to be 18 or over to use LastLit.
- We collect what the app needs to work and to keep people safe: your account details, your photos and notes, your votes, your reports and blocks, and your push token.
- We don't sell your data, we don't show ads, and we don't track you for advertising.
- Your photos stay yours. Deleting your account deletes your photos, with one exception for photos a moderator removed (see "How long we keep things").
What we collect, and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Username | It's how other people see you next to your photos and notes. |
| Email address | To sign you in, and to reach you about your account. |
| Date of birth | To check you are 18 or over when you sign up. We store it with your account. |
| Password | To sign you in. We only ever store a scrambled version (a bcrypt hash), never the password itself. |
| Photos and captions | To show your photo to people while it's lit, and to show your past photos to you on your Me screen. Before a photo is stored, our server copies it without its metadata: no location, camera details or other EXIF data. The app also shrinks it to at most 2048 pixels and saves it as a JPEG first. |
| Spotlight notes and links | When your photo holds the spotlight, you can add a note and one link. A moderator reads it before anyone else sees it. |
| Votes (Keep or Fade) and skips | To count each window's result. Nobody else can see how you voted: the owner sees only the totals. We also record which photos the feed has shown you, so you can vote on them and aren't shown the same one twice in a window. That record is deleted when the window ends. |
| Reports and blocks | To review photos people report, and to keep the people you block out of your feed (and you out of theirs). The person you report is never told who reported them. |
| Moderation results | Every photo is checked automatically before anyone sees it. We keep the scores the check returns (for example, how likely a photo is to contain nudity), never the image itself, so we can see why a photo was let through or turned away. |
| Notifications | So your inbox can show what happened to your photos (kept, faded, in the spotlight, notes approved or rejected). |
| Push token | If you allow notifications on your phone, the app sends us a token that lets us send them to that device. You can turn each kind off in Settings, and signing out removes the token for that device. |
| Settings | Your notification choices. |
| Account status | If a moderator suspends or closes your account for breaking our rules, we record that, when, and why, so the decision can be enforced and reviewed. |
| IP address | When you aren't signed in, we use your IP address to limit how many requests can come from one place (rate limiting), which stops abuse. We hold it only in the server's memory for a few minutes. We don't write it to our own logs. Our hosting providers may log it separately (see "Who helps us run LastLit"). |
| Waitlist sign-ups | On the website, you can join the waitlist with your email and a username. We store the email, the username we hold for you, when you agreed and which version of this policy you agreed to, which of the two forms on the page you used, and the campaign tag if you came from one of our links. We use it to hold your username and to tell you when LastLit launches. |
| Website page views | We count page views on lastlit.com with Vercel Web Analytics. It uses no cookies, and we remove the private token from unsubscribe links before a view is counted. |
On your device, the app keeps your sign-in token (in the phone's secure storage, or your browser's local storage on the web) and a few small preferences, such as which results you've already seen. Neither the app nor the website sets cookies.
We don't collect your contacts, your location, or your photo library. When you share a photo you pick it with your phone's own picker, and the app only ever sees the one photo you choose.
Who can see what
- Everyone signed in to LastLit can see your username, your lit photo and its caption, and your approved spotlight note and its link.
- Only you can see your past photos, your live score, your notifications and your settings.
- Nobody else can see how you voted, who you reported, or who you blocked.
- Moderators can see reported photos, spotlight notes waiting for review, the moderation records described above, and waitlist sign-ups (to answer privacy requests and plan the launch).
Who helps us run LastLit
We use these services to run LastLit. They process data only to provide their service to us.
| Service | What it does for us | What it handles |
|---|---|---|
| MongoDB Atlas | Our database | Everything in the table above, apart from the images themselves and website page views |
| Railway | Runs our server (api.lastlit.com) | Every request to the server, including IP addresses |
| Vercel | Hosts this website and the web app | Website visits, page views (Web Analytics), IP addresses |
| Cloudinary | Stores and delivers photos, and checks each new photo automatically | Photos, and the moderation scores |
| Amazon Rekognition (through Cloudinary) | The automatic check for nudity, violence and similar content | Each new photo, as it's checked |
| Expo (with Apple and Google) | Delivers push notifications to your phone | Your push token and the notification's text |
[TO CONFIRM: the regions where each service stores data, and the safeguards for transfers outside the UK or EEA, such as Standard Contractual Clauses.]
We don't send email yet. When we do, it will be through an email provider we'll add to this list first. [TO CONFIRM: email provider.]
How long we keep things
- Your account, and everything in it, until you delete your account. An account we closed for breaking our rules stays closed, with its data, until you ask us to delete it (lastlit.com/delete-account).
- Photos. A photo stays lit for as long as people keep it. When it fades, it stops appearing to anyone else, but we keep it so you can see it on your Me screen. That includes a photo you delete during its window, which counts as faded. A photo is deleted when you delete your account. You can't delete a single faded photo on its own yet. [TO CONFIRM: whether to add deleting single past photos before launch.]
- A photo you delete while it's still being checked is removed completely, image included.
- A photo turned away by the automatic check is deleted straight away. We keep only its moderation scores.
- Photos a moderator removed for breaking our rules are taken out of public view and kept privately for 365 days, for safety and legal reasons (for example, if the police or a court asks for them). After 365 days they are deleted. A removed photo is kept for the full 365 days even if you delete your account during that time. [TO CONFIRM: that 365 days is the right period.]
- Votes, until you delete your account, or until the owner of the photo deletes theirs.
- The record of which photos the feed showed you, until that photo's window ends.
- Notifications, until you delete your account.
- Push delivery receipts, 24 hours.
- Moderation scores and moderators' decisions are kept after an account is deleted, so we can show how a decision was made. They contain no images. [TO CONFIRM: how long to keep them.]
- Waitlist sign-ups, until you unsubscribe (every launch email will have a link), until you delete a LastLit account made with the same email, or until we delete the entry. After launch we hold your username for 30 days so you can claim it. [TO CONFIRM: a date after launch when unclaimed waitlist entries are deleted.]
- Backups and our providers' logs are kept for [TO CONFIRM: backup and log retention periods].
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can:
- See your data. Most of it is in the app: your photos and their timelines on the Me screen, your inbox, your account details and blocked accounts in Settings. For a full copy, email support@lastlit.com.
- Get a copy to take elsewhere. There's no download button yet: email support@lastlit.com and we'll send you a copy. [TO CONFIRM: what the copy includes and its format.]
- Correct it. You can change your password in Settings → Password. To change your username or email address, email support@lastlit.com: you can't edit them in the app yet.
- Delete it. Settings → Delete account (or see lastlit.com/delete-account for every way to do it, including by email if you can't sign in). You'll be asked for your password, and then your account, photos, votes, notes, reports, blocks, notifications, push tokens and any waitlist entry for your email are deleted straight away and permanently. Photos a moderator removed are the one exception (see above).
- Turn notifications off, kind by kind, in Settings, or in your phone's settings.
We'll reply within one month. We may ask you to confirm the request comes from your account's email address, so nobody else can ask for your data.
If you're in the UK or the EEA (GDPR)
We rely on these legal bases:
- To provide LastLit to you (contract): your account, photos, notes, votes, notifications and push tokens.
- Our legitimate interest in keeping LastLit safe and working: the 18+ check, automatic moderation, reports and blocks, rate limiting, keeping removed photos for 365 days, and counting website visits without cookies.
- Your consent: waitlist sign-ups and launch emails. You can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link.
- Legal obligations, where the law requires us to keep or share something.
[TO CONFIRM: these legal bases, and whether we need an EU or UK representative.]
You also have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests, to ask us to restrict processing, and to complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office).
If you're in California (CCPA)
We don't sell or share your personal information, as the CCPA defines those words, and we don't use it for targeted advertising. You have the right to know what we collect and why (this policy), to delete it, and to correct it, as described above. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.
Age
LastLit is for people 18 and over. You confirm your date of birth when you sign up, and we turn away anyone under 18. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we'll delete it. If you think someone under 18 is using LastLit, report their photo with "Someone under 18", or email support@lastlit.com.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, we'll post the new version here and change the date at the top. If you're on the waitlist, we record which version you agreed to. [TO CONFIRM: how we'll tell people about important changes.]