Privacy Policy
Dusty · operated by DUSTY LLC · effective 7 September 2026
Dusty introduces you to one person a day around one picture. This policy explains what we collect, who can see it, how long we keep it, and how to take it back. It is written to be read, not to be survived.
The short version
We never ask Apple for your email address, and we do not have one.
We do not know your location. We know which city you picked from a list.
There is no analytics, no tracking, and no advertising in this app. None. We have not installed a single tool that measures what you do.
We never sell or share your information for advertising.
You can delete your account, and everything of yours, from inside the app.
What we collect
When you sign in
Dusty uses Sign in with Apple and nothing else. Apple gives us your name and an anonymous identifier for your account. We ask Apple for your name only — the app does not request your email address, so we never receive one and cannot contact you by email.
Your name is shortened to a first name and a family initial ("Ada K."). That shortened form is the only version stored.
Your age
Dusty is for adults. We use Apple's Declared Age Range service, which tells us only whether you fall in an adult age range. We never receive your date of birth. We record the date we checked and which assurance method Apple used, so we can show that the check happened.
What you write and choose
Three sentences — The short lines you write about yourself. Words about pictures — The one or two words you pick for each of three artworks during setup. Dislikes — Chosen from a fixed list. Your city — Chosen from a list of US metropolitan areas. This is not GPS. We collect no coordinates, and the app never asks for location access. Photographs — Up to two. The first must be taken inside the app rather than chosen from your library. Messages — Everything you write in a conversation.
From your device
Time zone, because a Dusty day ends at your local midnight.
A notification token, if you allow notifications. It identifies the installation, not you, and it is never shown to another person.
Whether you declined camera access, so the app stops asking.
If you report someone
We receive the reason you chose, anything you typed, and the conversation it happened in. This is described in the app before you send it.
What we do not collect
No email address. No phone number. No location or coordinates. No contacts. No date of birth. No gender, orientation or ethnicity — Dusty never asks. No advertising identifier. No analytics of any kind: we do not measure taps, screens, sessions, retention or anything else, because no such tool is installed in the app.
Who can see what
The person you are matched with
While a conversation is live, they can see your name, your three sentences, your city and your photographs — and nothing else.
Nobody else
Your dislikes, the words you chose during setup, your time zone, your notification token and your age record are visible to you and to us, and to no other user. This is enforced by the database's own rules rather than by the design of the screens.
Holding
A conversation continues only if both people hold to keep it. If you hold and the other person does not, they are never told. Not at the time, not afterwards, not in any notification. The record of your own hold is stored where only you can read it.
Reporting
Somebody you report is never told that you reported them, at the time or later. Reports are readable only by us.
How long we keep things
Conversations — Kept. A conversation belongs to both people in it, so we do not delete one person's side — deleting your account leaves the other person able to read what you both wrote. We do not delete conversations on a schedule. The record of a match — Kept: who it was between, how long it lasted, and whether it was kept. This is retained because US law can require us to notify people after an account is banned for fraud. Reports — Kept, along with the conversation reported, so that deleting an account cannot erase a report about it. Your profile and setup answers — Until you delete your account, and then immediately.
Deleting your account
This is the only way anything is deleted. Dusty does not delete conversations on a timer, and there is no expiry after which what you wrote disappears on its own.
In the app: you → delete everything. It asks once, and then it is not reversible.
What goes: your name, your three sentences, your city, your setup answers, both photographs, your notification token, your age record, and your sign-in account.
What stays, and why: the conversations you were part of remain readable by the other person, with your name attached to an account that no longer exists. Those conversations were theirs as well as yours, and deleting your side would take away theirs. Any report about you also survives, so that deleting an account cannot be a way out of having been reported.
If you come back afterwards, you are a new person to Dusty, with no history.
Who else is involved
Google (Firebase) — Hosts the database, the photographs, and the code that makes matches and sends notifications. Also verifies that requests come from a genuine copy of the app. Apple — Sign in with Apple; delivery of notifications; the app-genuineness check; the adult age-range signal.
Neither is permitted to use your information for their own purposes. There are no advertising, analytics or data-broker companies involved, because there are none in the app.
Dusty sometimes shows a piece of writing to read between conversations. Opening it leaves the app and goes to your browser; nothing about you is attached to the link.
Where your information is held
In the United States. Dusty is available only in the United States.
Your rights
You can see everything about you inside the app: your sentences and photographs under you, and every conversation you have had under you → archive. You can delete all of it from the same screen.
If you live in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia or another state with a privacy law, you have rights to know what we hold, to have it deleted, to correct it, and not to be discriminated against for exercising them. The delete button does this immediately; for anything else, write to chris@dustyapp.com.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. There is nothing to opt out of.
Children
Dusty is for people aged 18 and over. We check age at sign-up using Apple's age-range signal and refuse anyone we cannot confirm is an adult. If you believe a minor is using Dusty, report them in the app — that report suspends the account before anybody reads it.
Security
Access to your information is enforced by rules on the database itself, not only by what the app chooses to show. Your private information is readable by your own account and by no other user, and that remains true regardless of any change to the app.
No service can promise it will never be breached. If one affects you, we will tell you.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects you, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect.
Contact
DUSTY LLC
266 Old Poverty Road
Southbury, CT 06488
chris@dustyapp.com