1. Who we are
Nowsal is built and run by Trevis Alexander, an independent solo developer based in Sabadell, Barcelona, Spain. Nowsal is not currently operated through a registered company. If that changes, this policy will be updated to name the new controller before the change takes effect.
- Data controller: Trevis Alexander, operating Nowsal as an individual.
- Service and contact address: Passatge de les Moreres, 1, 08207 Sabadell, Barcelona, España.
- Privacy contact: hello@nowsal.com
- Primary supervisory authority: Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD).
Nowsal is a website. nowsal.com is the product; there is no mobile app at this time.
2. What is running today
Nowsal is early, and this section says plainly which parts of the service below are live right now. It is here because a policy that describes a finished product tells a person who joins today very little about what is actually happening to their information.
Live today: creating an account, the 18-or-over and Terms declarations you make at the account door, and a test video call between two people who both have accounts.
Built but not open: the questionnaire, the profile, identity verification, matching, introductions, and the paid Search period. None of these collects anything from you yet. The faith and questionnaire processing described in section 3.4 does not begin until that part of the service opens, and this policy will be in force and current when it does.
Not built: payment. No payment processor is connected and no money can change hands. The processor will be named in section 4 before any purchase is possible.
3. What we collect and why
Nowsal collects only what it needs to create accounts, confirm eligibility, build profiles, provide matching and one-on-one calls, keep members safe, and operate the site. Religious-belief information and biometric information used to identify a person uniquely receive additional protection under Article 9 of the GDPR.
3.1 Account and sign-in
Through Clerk and the sign-in provider you choose, Nowsal may receive your name, email address, your Google or Apple account identifier, session information, and account timestamps.
Purpose: create and secure your account, sign you in, send service messages, and keep account state.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract; legitimate interests in protecting accounts and the service.
3.2 The declarations you make at the account door
When you create an account you make two timestamped declarations: that you are 18 or over, and that you accept the Terms of Service and this policy. Nowsal records each declaration with the version of the document you agreed to.
Purpose: keep under-18 use out of the service before verification exists, and hold an honest record of what you actually agreed to.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract; legitimate interests in operating an adults-only service; legal obligation to demonstrate consent where consent is the basis relied on.
A declaration is a statement you make, not proof. Real age assurance arrives with verification, described next.
3.3 Identity and age verification
Before you can become active for introductions, Nowsal asks you to verify your identity once. You are shown one verification step. Behind it, the provider checks a government-issued identity document, takes a passive liveness selfie, performs a one-to-one comparison between that selfie and the portrait on the document, confirms minimum age, and runs duplicate-identity and fraud checks where its workflow supports them.
There is no guided head-turn or on-screen challenge. A selfie on its own is not identity verification, and Nowsal does not describe it as such: the assurance comes from the document, the liveness signal and the face comparison taken together.
Nowsal's own database is designed to keep the outcome and a provider reference, and nothing else. Nowsal does not store your identity document image, your selfie, liveness media, a biometric template, your document number, your date of birth, your exact age, raw text extracted from the document, the face-comparison result value, or the raw provider payload.
Purpose: confirm you are a real, unique adult before you can be introduced to anyone.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract, and your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) for the biometric step. A separate verification notice is shown before the flow begins and records that consent on its own, apart from the Terms. If the design or the legal basis changes, this policy and that notice are updated before the new processing is used.
Faith and questionnaire information given before verification stays inactive for matching until verification succeeds. A confirmed underage or ineligible result ends activation and triggers deletion of the in-progress onboarding data.
3.4 Faith, tradition and questionnaire responses: special category data
Nowsal serves Christian members. Your faith family is therefore fixed by the service rather than chosen by you, and Nowsal does not ask for it.
Nowsal may collect your Christian tradition, your responses to the CRS-10 (a published academic measure of the centrality of religiosity), your responses to Nowsal's own questions about tradition, relationship direction and the life you want together, and the boundaries you set.
Every response carries three separate permissions, recorded independently: whether Nowsal may process it, whether it may be used for matching, and whether it may be shown to another member. Declining to answer is recorded as a deliberate state, not as a blank.
Purpose: understand the boundaries and the relationship direction you have chosen, build profile information that is safe to show, and produce your curated candidate list.
Legal basis: explicit consent under Articles 6(1)(a) and 9(2)(a).
This consent is recorded separately from your acceptance of the Terms. You can withdraw it at any time. If you do, Nowsal can no longer use that information to match you, and therefore can no longer provide faith-based matching to your account.
Nowsal does not turn your answers into a number. There is no compatibility score, no percentage, and no ranking figure shown to you or to anyone else.
3.5 Profile, matching and connection state
Depending on the features you use, Nowsal may process your profile name, one profile photo, an optional short introduction video, the answers you have permitted to be shown, language, approximate location and timezone where the service needs them, the boundaries you wrote, your membership of a candidate list, call requests, mutual-acceptance state, scheduled-call state, your private after-call answer, block state, and connection state.
Only Nowsal's systems see each person's individual after-call answer. The other member is shown the mutual outcome and nothing more, and nobody is ever told that a particular person declined them.
Profiles and passes. If you choose to show a profile, the people you are introduced to can read a few sentences built from the answers you chose to show. Nothing is said about a question you declined, the choice starts off, and you can change it from your account at any time. You can also pass on someone you are shown. A pass is your private choice not to be shown that person, and they are not told. It is kept until that person changes an answer that was shown to you, and it is deleted when you delete your account and when a test round is reset.
Purpose: provide curated matching, introductions, scheduling, safety separation, and connection state.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract. Where this processing uses or reveals religious belief, the Article 9 consent in section 3.4 continues to apply.
3.6 Calls
Nowsal uses LiveKit Cloud to carry live one-on-one audio and video between two members. Nowsal does not record member-to-member calls. Recording is disabled at the infrastructure level, not merely switched off in the interface.
Technical call information is processed to create the room, connect the two participants, diagnose failures and protect the service.
Nowsal also meters call time per member, counting video and audio separately, on its own servers rather than trusting the browser. Two things depend on that count, and both are stated up front rather than discovered:
- An idle timeout. After roughly ten minutes with no sound from either side, a visible prompt asks whether you are still there; if neither person answers shortly after, the call ends. The prompt and the ending are always shown. Nowsal does not end a call silently.
- A monthly ceiling on total call time, and a smaller one on video specifically. These exist to bound deliberate abuse, and they are set high enough that ordinary courtship does not reach them. Crossing the video allowance changes the next call, which opens as audio; a call already in progress is never interrupted, cut, or quietly reduced in quality. Audio and messaging stay open at all times. If you reach a ceiling and believe that is wrong, you can talk to a person.
Call volume never reaches the matching engine. It never affects ordering, never becomes a reputation, and is never shown to another member.
Purpose: make calls work, diagnose failures, and detect abuse and runaway cost.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract; legitimate interests in security, abuse prevention, and keeping the service financially able to run.
3.7 Messages after a mutual continue
When both people answer yes after a call, messaging and further one-on-one video become available between that pair. Messages and related connection information are processed to provide those features, and for safety and moderation where that is necessary.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract; legitimate interests in safety and abuse prevention.
3.8 Payment
Nowsal has a free path: you can complete onboarding and experience a real introduction before you are asked to pay for anything.
The paid product is a single 30-day Nowsal Search period at €24.99. It does not renew by itself. There is no weekly, three-month or annual term, no day pass, and nothing to buy that improves your position: no better ranking, no extra visibility, no access to a particular person.
When payment becomes available, Nowsal will receive the transaction information needed to sell the Search period, handle refunds and keep accounting records. The payment processor is not yet chosen and is not yet connected; it will be named here before any purchase is possible.
Payment is private product state. It never appears on your profile, never becomes a filter or a ranking input, and is never visible to another member.
Purpose: sell and administer a Search period, handle refunds and disputes, and keep the records the law requires.
Legal basis: performance of the service contract; legal obligation for tax and accounting records.
3.9 Reports, blocks, moderation and safety
If you report or block another member, or if Nowsal investigates abuse, fraud or misuse, Nowsal may process the report, the account identifiers involved, safety history, technical information and the decisions taken.
Purpose: protect members, enforce the Terms, prevent repeated abuse, and respond to credible safety concerns.
Legal basis: legitimate interests in safety, fraud prevention and the integrity of the service; legal obligations where they apply.
3.10 Technical and security information
Nowsal may process your IP address, browser and device information, security and error records, server logs, request timestamps and similar operational information.
Purpose: keep the service running and secure, prevent abuse, diagnose failures and protect the infrastructure.
Legal basis: legitimate interests in operating and securing the service.
3.11 Cookies and local storage
Nowsal uses cookies and similar local storage only where they are strictly necessary: signing you in, keeping your session secure, and remembering basic preferences. These do not require your consent.
Nowsal does not use advertising cookies, and does not currently use any third-party analytics or behavioural tracking. If a non-essential analytics or similar technology is ever introduced, this notice and a consent mechanism will be in place before it runs, and it will be off until you choose otherwise.
4. Providers and sharing
Nowsal does not sell personal data, and does not share faith or matching information with advertisers.
Providers used or planned for the current service:
- Clerk: accounts, sign-in and sessions.
- Google and Apple: sign-in, when you choose that provider.
- Didit: identity, liveness, age and duplicate-identity verification. Stripe Identity is a technical fallback used only when Didit is unavailable for technical reasons; a verification that fails on identity or risk grounds is never retried with a different provider.
- LiveKit Cloud: live one-on-one audio and video.
- Neon: database infrastructure, in an EU region.
- Vercel: hosting and delivery.
- Resend: service email.
- Payment processor: not yet chosen; named here before any purchase is possible.
Providers act under their own terms and, where they process on Nowsal's behalf, under the applicable data-processing agreement.
Nowsal may also disclose information where that is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, protect someone's safety, investigate fraud or abuse, or establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
5. International transfers
Not every provider is limited to the EEA. Clerk in particular may process data in the United States and elsewhere. Clerk states that EEA-to-US transfers may rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework while that remains valid, with Standard Contractual Clauses available where it cannot be relied on. Google, Apple and other providers may also process information internationally under their own arrangements.
Where GDPR transfer rules apply, Nowsal uses the safeguard the relevant provider makes available and the transfer requires, such as an adequacy mechanism or Standard Contractual Clauses.
6. How long things are kept
| Category | Retention |
|---|---|
| Identity document and liveness data held by the verification provider | Set at the provider's current one-month minimum; earlier deletion may be requested where the verification policy allows. |
| Nowsal's verification outcome and provider reference | While needed to keep a verified account active, then deleted or reduced according to the deletion and safety rules below. |
| Tradition, CRS-10 and other questionnaire responses | While the account is active and consent stands; deleted on account deletion, or when a withdrawal of consent requires erasure. |
| Active account and profile data | Until you delete the account, apart from limited records kept for a specific legal, security, fraud-prevention or dispute purpose. |
| Unfinished onboarding | Deleted after 14 consecutive days of onboarding inactivity. The sign-in shell, security records and the minimum consent record may remain; tradition, questionnaire, unfinished profile and media, and anything derived from them are deleted. Returning after that means starting the questionnaire again rather than resuming fragments. |
| Calls | No recordings exist. Limited technical call information and the per-member call totals described in 3.6 are kept for operations, security and abuse detection. |
| Messages, reports and moderation records | While needed to provide an active connection or handle a safety matter, then deleted, except where a specific safety, legal, fraud or dispute purpose requires keeping them. |
| Content after you delete your account | Messages, voice notes, profile media and connection content leave the active service and are purged, with a working target of 30 days from active systems; backups expire on their own schedule. The other person may keep only a neutral closed-conversation marker so their screen still makes sense. |
| Dormant accounts | After 12 consecutive months without you signing in and using the service, Nowsal sends a notice and allows 30 days to return. Without a return, the account goes through ordinary deletion. Background refreshes and automated jobs do not count as activity. |
| Payment and accounting records, once payment exists | For the period Spanish and EU tax and accounting law requires. |
Account deletion is a policy-driven workflow rather than a single database delete: account, profile and media, Article 9 questionnaire data, matching state, messages, verification state, payments, moderation records and security logs each follow their own rule.
Nowsal does not keep unfinished intimate onboarding data indefinitely, and is not a permanent archive of your conversations. If Nowsal later adopts a specific retention period for a post-deletion safety record, that category, purpose and period will be stated here before it is used.
7. Your rights
Depending on the circumstances, the GDPR gives you rights of access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection and portability, and the right to withdraw consent.
For Article 9 faith data you may withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawal does not make earlier lawful processing unlawful, but Nowsal will stop the consent-based processing and handle erasure as required. Because faith-based matching depends on that information, withdrawing means your account can no longer take part in it.
Write to hello@nowsal.com to exercise a right.
You may also complain to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), or to another competent supervisory authority available to you under the GDPR where you live, where you work, or where you believe an infringement took place.
8. Security
Nowsal uses technical and organisational measures appropriate to the current service: encrypted transport, access controls, keeping identity data with the specialist provider rather than in Nowsal's own database, restricted handling of faith data, and security logging. No online service can promise absolute security.
Where the GDPR requires notification of a personal-data breach to a supervisory authority or to affected people, Nowsal will make it.
9. Children
Nowsal is for adults aged 18 and over. A timestamped declaration is required at the account door, and identity and age verification is required before you can be introduced to anyone. A confirmed underage result makes the account ineligible and triggers deletion of the in-progress onboarding data.
10. Changes
Nowsal may update this policy as the service changes. Where a material change affects how identity, biometric, faith, matching or other sensitive information is used, it will be communicated before the new use takes effect where that is required. Each published version carries a date, and the version you agreed to is recorded with your account.
11. Contact
Trevis Alexander · Passatge de les Moreres, 1, 08207 Sabadell, Barcelona, España · hello@nowsal.com