Privacy Policy
Extro is a place to answer personal questions honestly and see how others answered. That only works if you can trust it with what you share, so privacy is built into how Extro works, not added on.
Who we are
Extro is operated from Massachusetts, in the United States. Contact: support@extro.site.
The short version
- Other people see your first name and last initial on public posts, and nothing about you on anonymous posts. There are no profiles, followers or messages.
- We keep what you post and what you do in Extro, so your feed can be yours. We don't keep your email (unless you give it so Eli can write back to your feedback), phone number, password, contacts, photos or location.
- Your words stay on Extro's own servers. We don't sell your information, show ads, or use outside analytics or outside AI.
- Delete your account and everything you wrote or did is erased.
What other people see
On a public question or answer, others see your first name and the first letter of your last name (for example, "Maya R."), and the colour of your monogram ring. On an anonymous question or answer, they see nothing about you. Nothing about you can be tapped, browsed or searched. The answers to a question are shown only to people who have answered it, and to whoever asked it.
What we collect
- Your account: when you sign in with Apple, Apple tells us a stable identifier for you; we store it only as a scrambled, keyed version (a hash), never as it came. We also keep the first and last name you give, and the year you were born (never the full date, and never shown to anyone). To be able to cancel your Sign in with Apple link when you delete your account, we keep the token Apple provides for that, encrypted.
- What you post: your questions and answers, whether they're public or anonymous, and any note you add to a report.
- What you do in Extro: which cards you see and for how long, which you open, answer, save or report, which answers you read, and when. We record these as events with numbers and identifiers, never with your words.
- Your country: when you post, your device's internet address is used for a moment to tell which country you're in, using a database stored on our own servers. The address itself is never stored; only the country is kept on the post, and it is never shown about you.
- Feedback you send to Eli: your message, and your email only if you choose to give it so Eli can write back. With your name, it's linked to your account and erased with it. Sent anonymously, it isn't linked to your account at all, so it stays after you delete your account unless you ask us to erase it. Only the founder reads it.
We don't collect your email address (unless you give it with feedback), phone number, password, contacts, photos, precise location, or advertising identifiers.
How Extro comes to know you
Your feed is chosen for you from what you ask, answer and save, and from your own words. To understand what people share, Extro runs its own software on its own servers, including an open-source language model that reads each answer in light of its question. It reads only: it never writes anything anyone sees. What it understands is kept only as numbers (for example, how strongly an answer expresses an emotion), never as a written summary of you. This includes your anonymous posts: they are anonymous to other people, not to the software that chooses your feed. This understanding is used only for your own feed and to help questions reach people whose lives can meet them; it is never shown to anyone, never sold, and erased with your account.
Who else handles your information
No one outside Extro reads your words. A few companies provide the infrastructure Extro runs on, under their own privacy and security terms:
- Railway hosts Extro's servers and database.
- Cloudflare provides Extro's domain name service and stores our encrypted backups.
- Apple provides Sign in with Apple and app distribution.
- Expo delivers app updates to your device (it sees technical information about the update request, such as your app version, not your posts).
Encrypted backups of the database are stored with Cloudflare; they're encrypted with our own key before they leave our servers, so Cloudflare can't read them. Backups are kept for 30 days.
We don't sell or rent your information, we don't show ads, and we don't use outside analytics, advertising or AI services.
What others can do with what you share
Answers you post are seen by other people. We can't control what they do with what they see, for example taking a screenshot. Don't post anything that would identify you or someone else if you wouldn't want it shared.
Reports and safety
You can report a question or answer. Reporting hides everything from that person from you, including their anonymous posts, and they are never told who reported them. Reports are reviewed by Extro's founder. Only in that review can the author of a reported anonymous post be looked up, and every lookup is recorded. Posts are checked automatically against a short list of words and phrases that aren't allowed and against links; if a post mentions self-harm, Extro shows you crisis resources. Nothing else about your posts is screened.
Keeping and deleting
If you delete a question or an answer, it disappears for everyone; we keep it in our records, unseen, so reports can still be reviewed. If you delete your account (Settings → Delete account), everything you wrote or did is erased for real, including those records, your questions and everyone's answers to them, and the numbers Extro derived about you. We also cancel your Sign in with Apple link. Deleted information clears from our backups within 30 days. The only exception is information we're legally required to keep (see "When the law requires it").
When the law requires it
We disclose information only when the law requires it (a valid subpoena, court order or warrant), when we're required to report something (for example, child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children), or when we believe in good faith it's needed to prevent imminent death or serious harm. We hold very little: no email, phone number, password or IP address. Information we're legally required to keep is kept separately, unseen, only as long as required, even if you delete your account.
Age
Extro is for people 18 and over. We ask for your date of birth when you sign up, keep only the year, and don't allow anyone under 18 to continue. Extro isn't for anyone under 18, and we don't knowingly collect information from them. If we learn someone under 18 has an account, we delete it. If you believe a minor is using Extro, email support@extro.site.
Security
All traffic to Extro is encrypted (HTTPS). The database is reachable only by Extro's own servers. The software that reads posts runs with outside internet access switched off. Secrets are kept in our hosting configuration, never in code. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't guarantee that information won't be accessed, disclosed or lost.
Your choices and rights
You can change your name (twice), delete any post, and delete your account at any time in the app. To ask about or get a copy of the information we hold about you, or for anything else about your privacy, email support@extro.site. Depending on where you live, you may have further rights under local law, and we'll honour them. Depending on where you live (for example California, Virginia, Colorado or Connecticut), you may have the right to know what we hold, to get a copy, to correct it, to delete it, and to opt out of its sale or use for targeted advertising (we don't sell it or use it for advertising). We'll respond within the time the law requires and won't treat you differently for asking.
Do Not Track
We don't track you across other apps or websites, so we don't respond to Do Not Track signals differently.
Where information is kept
Extro's servers are in the United States.
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update it here and tell you in the app before significant changes take effect.